THE MORON’S ALMANAC © 1999, JustMorons.com
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Almost as reliable as the Farmer’s Almanac®, but without all that crap about farming.
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*** Volume 2, Number 1 ***
*** Sunday, April 11 through Saturday, April 17 ***
April 16 will be a New Moon, as the IRS will be taking the Moon’s last quarter on April 15.
--- MORONIC TRIVIA ---
(Answer below)
What did Lee De Forest show a paying audience for the first time in New York’s Rialto Theatre on April 15, 1923?
--- DAM IT ---
It was a lovely April, but a certain beautiful young woman with a strong resemblance to Kate Winslet had a heavy heart, as she was betrothed to a rich and cruel young man who didn’t love her. Then she met a boyishly handsome young ruffian, a dead ringer for Leonardo Dicaprio, who loved her for who she really was. His sentiments echoed those in her own soul, that had gone too long unanswered; his smile brought warm joy into her blooming young heart, which had withered too long from neglect; his touch sent shivers down her spine, which had always consisted of numerous vertebrae. They fell in love abruptly and completely. Sadly, the sea broke through the dikes, and they were drowned along with 100,000 other less interesting people on April 17, 1421, in Dort, the Netherlands. (On April 15, 1912, the unsinkable Titanic sank, drowning 1,523 of her 2200 passengers and crew. On April 16, 1951, the British submarine Affray sunk in the English channel, drowning 75. Moral: avoid water.)
Meanwhile, on April 17, 1961, the Kennedy administration’s secret plan to cripple Castro by inundating Havana with thousands of wild boars backfired, as the nervous beasts leaped from their cargo ships and drowned just a few hundred yards from shore, resulting in "The Bay of Pigs."
In another military operation gone awry, Constantinople fell to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade on April 12, 1204. These Crusaders were supposed to have gone and chopped up the nasty Saracens (infidel bastards) in Egypt and the Holy Land, but they got lost and wound up in Constantinople, where they decided they might as well chop up the Orthodox powers of that city, since they worshipped eastern symbols of Christian worship instead of western symbols of Christian worship, and were therefore infidel bastards themselves and required chopping up.
On April 12, 1861, the first shots of the American Civil War (aka the War of Northern Aggression) rang out at an attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Four years and two days later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by southerner John Wilkes Booth while watching Our American Cousin at the Ford Theatre. He died the following day. Moral: avoid theatre.
On April 17, 1941, the entire Yugoslav army and government surrendered in Belgrade to Germany.
---THIS WEEK’S VITAL MORONIC INFO---
April 11 is the Anniversary of the Battle of Rivas in Costa Rica
On April 12, Pulitzer Prize winners will be announced (did you buy your ticket?)
April 12 is Songkron Day in Thailand
April 12 is Mike Ditka Day in Chicago
April 13 is National Day in Chad
April 14 is Youth Day in Angola
April 15 is Joe de Diego’s Birthday in Puerto Rico
April 15 is Recollection of the Deceased Day in Georgia
April 16 is Qana Memorial Day in Lebanon
April 16 is Queen Margrethe’s Birthday in Denmark
April 17 is Independence Day in Syria
April 17 is FAO Day in Iraq
April 17 is Territorial Flag Day in American Samoa
April 17 is Arafa in Afghanistan
--- THIS WEEK IN HISTORY ---
On April 11, 1876, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was established by a group of men tired of the niggling grammarians who'd founded the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elk.
On April 11, 1979, Evil Ugandan Bastard Idi Amin was overthrown.
On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union launched Yuri Gargarin into space, making him the first man ever to have left the earth. The first rocket was launched not long after.
On April 13, 1598, the Edict of Nantes established tolerance for Huguenots in France. The Huguenots were the band of merry sailors that served as Jason’s crew on the Hugo, and the French had persecuted them because they were carrying Golden Fleas.
On April 14, 1986, Simone de Beauvoir died. The very next day, six years earlier, her lifelong lover and fellow insufferable French intellectual Jean-Paul Sartre died. Their thoughts and writings have made an indelible mark on the twentieth century, so be sure to see the online edition of the almanac for a link to the book that describes every kinky detail of their six year menage-a-trois with a young college student.
On April 17, 1521, the Diet of Worms excommunicated Martin Luther (see previous almanacs for an in-depth discussion if the digestion problems Luther experienced as a result of that ill-chosen Diet).
--- BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK ---
April 11: Oleg Cassini (1913), Joel Grey (1932)
April 12: Lionel Hampton (1908), Tiny Tim (1930), David Letterman (1947), David Cassidy (1950), Shannon Doherty (1971)
April 13: Thomas Jefferson (1743), Samuel Beckett (1906), Eudora Welty (1909), Tony Dow (1945)
April 14: John Gielgud (1904), Pete Rose (1941), Julie Christie (1941)
April 15: Leonardo da Vinci (1452), Henry James (1843), Bessie Smith (1894), Emma Thompson (1959)
April 16: Wilbur Wright (1867), Charlie Chaplin (1889), Edie Adams (1929), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1947)
April 17: Isak Dinesen (1884), Nikita Khrushchev (1894), Harry Reasoner (1923)
--- WORD OF THE WEEK ---
This week’s word is contempt, meaning contempt. It comes to us from two Latinate roots: "Con," a prefix meaning against, opposed to, irritated by, allergic to, disappointed in, etc. "Tempt" is from the Latin "tempus," meaning thyme. Given the popularity of Italian cooking in Rome, "contempt" ("contempus," or "thyme-hater") became a colloquialism for an impossible to please disposition, i.e. someone who was going to ask if you used real cold-pressed olive oil or that cheap stuff.
Trivia solution: (f) The first sound films.
--- THE MORONIC FINANCIER ---
It’s not so hard to get rich, just follow three simple steps. One: get a good job, and make a lot of money. Two: be sure to invest that money in places where it’ll earn lots and lots of interest. Three: marry someone even richer than you. Now you’re really rich!
--- WEATHER ALMANAC ---
I feel the ice is slowly melting. It feels like years since it’s been clear. Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. And I say it’s all right.
--- THIS WEEK’S FARMING TIP ---
Once again you’ll notice there’s no weekly farming tip. Weekly farming tips appear in the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is not the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is the Moron’s Almanac. Please try not to get us mixed up again: it confuses us and embarasses the farmers. Thanks.
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