~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
August 9, 2013

★~ Today’s Quote: “Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read.”  ― Mark Twain

★~ National Book Lovers Day:

Book Lovers Day encourages us to kick back and relax with a great book. From shaded spots under arching trees to being tucked up warm in bed, there’s no better way to celebrate Book Lovers Day than to while the hours away lost in a book.

In need of new literary temptation? Take a detour and pop into your nearest bookshop and buy a new book; just that ‘new ink and dry, creamy paper-y’ smell is enough to keep you browsing for an hour or so. Even better, find a second-hand bookshop, where years of history, dust and memories are impregnated in the pages and on the shelves – you might find a rare gem.

And when you have finished your book :  Release it Into the Wild!

What books are you lovin’ these days?

★~ National Polka Day:

Some may be inclined to poke fun at the polka, but don’t knock it till you try it. Grab the accordion and put on those dancin’ shoes –

The polka is a snappy dance that originated in Bohemia in the 1800s. Some believe a peasant girl named Anna Slezak actually “invented” the dance in 1834. The dance quickly spread to ballrooms around the world and the rest, as they say, is history. Did you know that the Polka is the  official dance of Wisconsin?

So let’s crank up the tunes, roll out the barrel, and party down polka style.

★~Rice Pudding:

Almost every region of the world has its own take on rice pudding. Some versions are sweet while others are savory, and some are thick while others are thin. In the United States, most people serve their rice pudding sweetened with a sprinkle of nutmeg and raisins.  Rice pudding recipe from Happy Herbivore 

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1944 – Smokey Bear, an advertising character by the U.S. Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council, made his debut on a poster promoting forest-fire prevention. Remember, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

♥~ 1975 – New Orleans, Louisiana was celebrating– and it wasn’t even Mardi Gras time. The Superdome was opened as the hometown Saints met the Houston Oilers in an exhibition football game. The Oilers won handily, 31-7, in what was described as “a very lackluster” game. The Superdome cost $163 million to construct .

♥~ 1999 – 14-year-old Ryan Tripp of Beaver, Utah, finished mowing the lawn at the Hawaii state Capitol and announced his retirement. He had mowed the lawns at all 50 state capitols, except Alaska where the capitol had no lawn, so he mowed at the governor’s house.

♥ ~ 2005 – NY radio station WQHT Hot 97 was fined a whopping $240,000 (£134,480) for running an on-air contest where young women were encouraged to slap each other silly to win cash and other prizes. The money went to a domestic awareness charity.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1593 – Isaac (Isaak) Walton author:  A long, long time ago — several centuries, to be exact — Isaac Walton (often spelled Isaak Walton) was born in Stafford, England. It was 1593 and his parents had no idea that they were going to raise a fishing expert, and a knighted one, at that.

When Isaac was growing up he spent a lot of time studying the art of fishing. By the time he was seventy years old, he had written the masterwork on angling, titled, The Compleat Angler. Sir Isaac Walton was pretty clear about the fact that no matter how many years you’ve spent fishing, you’ll never quite get it right, even if you read his book. He said, “Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics, that it can never be fully learned.” Gone fishing.

♥~ 1944 – Sam Elliott actor: Gettysburg, Lonesome Dove, Mask, Tombstone, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, TVs Mission Impossible

♥~ 1957 – Melanie Griffith actress: Working Girl, Night Moves, Smile, A Stranger Among Us, Born Yesterday, Mulholland Falls, Lolita [1997], Crazy in Alabama; actress Tippi Hedren’s daughter

★~ Good to Know: 

♥~ Liber is the Latin word for book, which comes from the Romans, who used the thin layer found between the bark and the wood (the liber) before parchment came along. The English word for book is derived from the Danish word “bog,” which means birch tree. That makes sense because early writers in Denmark wrote on birch bark.

♥~ In 1939 an author named Ernest Vincent wrote a 50,000 word novel called Gadsby. The only thing unusual about the novel is that there is not a single letter ‘e’ in the whole thing.

♥~ The bestselling commercial author of all time is Agatha Christie. Since 1920 her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language, and another billion in more than 45 other languages. She is outsold only by the Bible and William Shakespeare.

♥~An original copy of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales sold for a record 7.4 million (in US dollars) at Christies in London in 1998.

♥~Snooki is a New York Times best-selling author.

♥~The Library of Congress (Washington DC) contains 28 million books and has more than 500 miles of shelving. It would take you eight hours to pass every single book, if you were driving in a car at 70 mph. I’d hate to be the one in charge of dusting.

♥~ A rare first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland sold for 1.5 million at auction in New York. This makes it the most valuable children’s book ever sold. It was Carroll’s own working copy, so that probably contributed to the inflated price.

♥~And speaking of Shakespeare, can you imagine John Wayne reciting Shakespeare? Well, he did and even won a Shakespeare contest.

♥~  In the United States,  we buy 57 books per second. It would take a shelf 78 miles long to hold all of one day’s books.

♥~  Leo Tolstoy wife had to copy his manuscript War and Piece by hand seven times.

♥~ Americans buy approximately five million books a day. 125 new titles are published every day.

♥~The first published book ever written on a typewriter was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Mark Twain used a Remington in 1875.

♥~ It took Noah Webster 36 years to write his first dictionary.

♥~Jonathan Swift wrote the classic book, Gulliver’s Travels. He wrote about two moons circling Mars, describing their size and speed of orbit. He did this one hundred years before they were described by astronomers.

♥~ The man who wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, A. Conan Doyle, was an ophthalmologist. Because in his time specialty medical practices were hard to build and didn’t pay well, he had to take up writing to make ends meet.

♥~For the last 12 years of his life, Casanova was a librarian.

♥~The Very Hungry Caterpillar was almost called A Week With Willi Worm.

♥~According to a recent survey, the worst parent in fiction is the mom of the ten little monkeys jumping on the bed.

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Cole learned about an $11,0000 coffee making system called Clover at a Starbucks store the other day and FINALLY had his first cup of brewed Clover coffee last night. He sent me a picture of the coffee and said it was the “best coffee ever. ” Sheesh, if he had “the best coffee ever” at the age of 17….what’s left to look forward too?

Intrigued? Here is a little more about the “best coffee ever.”

[youtube]http://youtu.be/ntbVGGMu_Ac[/youtube]

I’m off to enjoy a Krueger brewed cuppa on the patio.  I will add  “hype” by pouring in some cream and adding sugar.

Hope everyone has a fabulous Friday! Any exciting plans for the weekend?

Odd Loves Company!

♥