~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
July 8th

★~  Today’s Quote:  The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself ~ Anna Quindlen

★~ Savor the Comic, Unplug the Drama (SCUD) Day:

Save the drama for your mama, because today we are going to let life tickle our funny bones. We are going to stop acting out Shakespeare and turn the dial to Saturday Night Live or a Seinfeld rerun. Life is absurd and funny almost every step of the way; our mission is to find the humor and let go of the drama. Today we are invited to lighten up and give our inner diva a much-needed rest.

★~ Video Game Day:

Way before video games involved car theft, covert ops, and a planet full of zombies, there was Computer Space, the very first commercial coin-operated video game. Created in 1971, game play consisted of controlling a spaceship as it zoomed through space, and shooting at stuff that appeared up ahead. It was a simpler time. Celebrate this holiday by popping in your favorite video game and playing until you get thumb cramps. Yep—Pac-Man is still hanging out and munching fruit.

★~ Chocolate Almond Day:

Oh Almond Joy! Today we celebrate the kinship between chocolate and almonds. Almonds add a satisfying crunch to chocolate and provide a nutty, buttery flavor. A Hershey bar with almonds is my all-time favorite candy bar. To make your own almond chocolate, gently melt your favorite type of chocolate in a double boiler, then lay it out on a wax-papered tray to cool. Immediately drop in the desired bits of almonds and let it cool until firm. Or, if you’re feeling particularly ambitious, make your own Almond Joy Chocolate Bark…or you could just stop by the store and buy a Hershey bar with almonds (my favorite) or an Almond Joy to munch and celebrate Chocolate with Almond Day.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1865 – Charles E. Barnes of Lowell, MA patented the machine gun

♥~ 1969: A patent was issued for the game “Twister.”

♥~ 1977-  A copy of Marvel Comics #1 sold at a New York City convention of comic book collectors for $7,500. Sha­zam!

♥~ 2000 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire generated record-breaking sales. The fourth book in the Potter series quickly sold all 3.8 million first- edition copies and publisher Scholastic Inc. was ‘forced’ to quickly print two million additional copies.

♥~ 2009 – Australian residents of rural Bundanoon, hoping to protect the earth and their wallets, voted to ban the sale of bottled water, the first community in the country to make the move. Environmentalist Jon Dee said, “Huge amounts of resources are used to extract, bottle and transport that bottled water, and much of the package ends up as litter or landfill.” And he said he believed Bundanoon to be the first town in the world to ban bottled water entirely.

★~ Born Today:

♥~ 1926 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross psychiatrist, author: On Death and Dying [she wrote more than 20 books dealing with phenomenon of dying]; died Aug 24, 2004

♥~ 1951 – Anjelica Huston Academy Award-winning actress: Prizzi’s Honor [1985]; The Witches, The Grifters, The Addams Family

♥~ 1952  –  Anna Quindlen, Writer: Her most recent novel, Every Last One (2010), came out a few months ago and made the New York Times best-seller list

♥~ 1961 – Toby Keith (Covel) songwriter, singer: Should’ve Been a Cowboy, When We Were in Love, I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying, How Do You Like Me Now?, You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This, I’m Just Talkin’ About Tonight, I Wanna Talk About Me, My List, Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue [The Angry American], Who’s Your Daddy?, Beer for My Horses, I Love This Bar; actor: Broken Bridges; also raises quarter horses; restaurant chain owner: I Love This Bar & Grill

★~ Did You Know: 

♥~ The average game player is 33 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

♥~ Sixty-nine percent of American heads of households play computer and video games.

♥~ Mario is all time best selling (222 million) video game franchise followed by Pokemon (193 million) and Tetris (125 million).

♥~ Pac-Man was designed by Toru Iwatani for appealing to women, because Pac-Man is always eating like women do. (Oh Really?)

♥~ Thirty-eight percent of all game players are women.

♥~ The best score record of all times for  Pac-Man is 3,333,360 points.

♥~ It took the movie industry about 100 years to develop to maturity, but it only took video games 35 years, from the first baby steps of Pong (1972) to the virtual realism of Halo 3 (2007) (and of course, they’re still growing)

♥~ Surgeons who grew up playing video games make 37 percent fewer mistakes.

★~  Today’s Giggle: 

After someone stole my brown-bag lunch at work, I complained about it to my wife, who offered to make me something wonderful the next day. But as I pulled into the plant’s parking lot, I noticed a guy clearly down on his luck, so I gave him my lunch. I didn’t know there was a note from my wife in the bag: “I know who you are, and I know where you live!”

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Do you play video games?  Like video games? Keep up to date on new releases and read game informer cover to cover? Do you think the creator of Pac Man was calling women fat?  If you have a morno moment—let up know your video game thoughts. Odd Loves Company!

Happy Friday!
♥
Kb
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