★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
December 4, 2012

★~ Today’s Quote:  Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we’ll be seeing six or seven. W.C. FIELDS

★~ Santa List Day:

Today is the day Santa Claus finalizes the list of Good and Bad kids, and all of the candidates have been thoroughly vetted.

Naughty kids: The deadline is here, and if you made the naughty list, you’re going to be beaten with sticks and kidnapped by der Weinachtsmann’s helper. (That’s Santa Claus, but everything sounds scarier in German, right?)

Nice kids: Lots of presents are coming your way,  in addition to not being whipped and taken from your homes in the middle of the night.

Now, allow me to share a little-known Christmas hack… there are 21 days before the naughty and nice review process begins again on December 26th. This gives you three weeks where your actions are virtually consequence-free.! But, let’s keep this between grown-ups, shall we?

★~ Brown Shoes Day:

It’s hard to tell what will happen if you wear black or (gulp!) RED shoes today, but it seems the fashion police will be out in full force. Snazzy loafers or chocolaty tones will save you, just be sure your belt matches.

★~ Dice Day:

Dice are the oldest gaming implements known to man they were used in wagering long before long before Vegas was a twinkle in a hotel magnate’s eye. An archeological dig once yielded dice that were 5,000 years old, proving that even the ancients liked to gamble. Do you think they went to Caesar’s Palace? In ancient times the throw of a dice was not just considered to be luck, the outcome was believed to be controlled by the gods, and casting dice was a way of dividing inheritances, choosing rulers and as a method of prediction. The Roman goddess, Fortuna, daughter of Zeus (known to gamblers as Lady Luck), was believed to determine the outcome of a throw.

Before standard cubical dice became common, ancient peoples would use fruit stones, sets of flat sticks, sea shells, nut shells and pebbles to get random results for games.   Below are the directions for a game of dice.

The goal of the game is to get to 10,000 points.
Each player rolls 5 dice.
If you roll a 5, it counts for 500 points.
If you roll a 1, it counts for 100 points. I
If you don’t roll a 5 or a 1, you lose your turn.
If you roll 3-of-a-kind, it will count for the number × 100.
If you roll 4-of-a-kind, double the number;
5-of-a-kind, double the number.
If you roll a straight 12345 or 23456, you earn 1,500 points.
Once someone reaches 10,000 points, he or she has to make every die count; once that is done, everyone else has a chance to beat the person’s score.

★~ National Cookie Day:

The English word “cookie” is derived from the Dutch word “koekje,” which means little cake? Dutch bakers used to test oven temperatures on small amounts of batter so that they would not waste the entire cake mix if the temperature wasn’t right. It was not long before they discovered that these tiny pieces of cooked batter were actually quite tasty!

I love cookies of all kinds, as long as they are made from real butter, real chocolate, real sugar, and when possible nuts. In fact, I made chocolate chip cookies just yesterday. Here is the recipe for the cute little cookie up above along with 19 other Christmas cookie recipes..  Click for more fascinating cookie facts

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1791 – The first edition of the British newspaper The Observer was published. It’s the oldest Sunday paper in the world. Exactly 90 years after The Observer was first published, came the first edition of the Los Angeles Times, published on this day in 1881.

♥~ 1867 – The National Grange of Husbandry was founded. The organization of farmers was known, typically, as the Grange. The group contributed to agriculture and served as a focus for rural social life in America.

♥~ 1945 – Fifty-one countries belonged to the United Nations when it started in 1945, and on this date in ’45, Senators in Washington voted to let the United States join the U.N.  The U.S. had stayed out of the previous international organization, the League of Nations, which was championed by President Woodrow Wilson after the first World War. On December 4th, 1918, Wilson boarded a ship to travel to the peace talks at Versailles, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to travel to Europe.

♥~ 1965 – The United States launched the Gemini 7 spacecraft. Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Commander James A. Lovell, Jr. were aboard. Their primary mission was to prove that humans could live in weightlessness for 14 days, a space endurance record that stood until 1970.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1858 – Chester Greenwood inventor: ear muffs; died Jul 5, 1937

♥~ 1875 –  Rainer Maria Rilke, poet made a career by seducing a series of rich noblewomen who would support him while he wrote his books. One princess let him live for a while in her Castle Duino near Trieste, a medieval castle with fortified walls and an ancient square tower. Rilke’s room had a view of the gulf of Trieste, which he loved. In a letter from his room he wrote, “I am looking out into the empty sea-space, directly into the universe, you might say.”

♥~ 1949 – Jeff Bridges actor: White Squall, Wild Bill, Blown Away, The Vanishing, American Heart, The Fisher King, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Starman, Against All Odds, The Last Picture Show, The Company She Keeps, Fearless, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Sea Hunt; songwriter; son of actor Lloyd Bridges; brother of actor Beau Bridges

♥~ 1951 – Patricia Wettig Emmy Award-winning actress: thirty something, Stephen King’s The Langoliers, City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold, City Slickers

♥~ 1964 – Marisa Tomei Academy Award-winning actress: My Cousin Vinny [1993]; Chaplin, Oscar, The Paper, Untamed Heart, A Different World, The Flamingo Kid,As the World Turns

★~ Did You Know:

If you’ve every ordered from Amazon, you know that they have great free shipping options from Super Saver to Amazon Prime and you can get almost anything shipped to you within 2 says. Have you ever wondered what Amazon’s limit is for weights?

Based on their, guidelines, the heaviest thing with there premium shipping option is a six-foot-tall fire safe. The Cannon Save CO543 Commander Series Premium 90 Minute Fire Safe will hold 36 guns, has 13 locking bolts and costs 3,066.21. It weighs 1,472 pounds.

The bad news is you won’t have it time for Christmas. The estimated shipping time is 4-6 weeks.

Good to know don’t you think?

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Hope everyone has a terrific Tuesday. It’s a tropical paradise today in Chicago–minus the palm trees. The high is suppose to be about 60 degree or so. It is, however, cloudy and damp so if the temp drops snow may be in our future. What’s the weather like in your neck of the woods?

Odd Loves Company!