~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
November 19, 2013

★~ Today’s Quote: “If you ever drop your keys into a pool of lava, forget about them, cuz man, they’re gone.” – Jack Handey

★~ World Toilet Day:

Water Aid: World Toilet Day from Indy8 on Vimeo.

World Toilet Day number one (and number two) mission is to raise awareness about the troubling fact that over 2.5 billion people lack access to a toilet. That leads to disease and death. Around 1.5 million deaths each year, nearly one in five, are caused by diarrhea. It is the second leading cause of death among children under the age of five in the world.

The WaterAid mission is to “bring clean water and sanitation to everyone, everywhere by 2030″. You can learn more on their web site at www.wateraid.org.

★~ Carbonated Beverages with Caffeine Day:

These energizing elixirs owe their original popularity to the health and medical fields.

As far back as ancient Rome, people sang the praises of naturally carbonated water for its curative powers. By the end of the 18th century scientists had unraveled the mystery of carbonation, and were able to make carbonated water by infusing in carbon dioxide. Soon after, flavoring was added, and soda was born. In the late 1800s, caffeine was added, and the rest is history.

Burberry Bulldog

Old-Fashioned Coffee Soda

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1959 – Rocky and His Friends TV Premier: This popular cartoon featured the adventures of a talking squirrel, Rocky (Rocket J. Squirrel), and his friend Bull-winkle, a flaky moose. In 1961 the show was renamed “The Bullwinkle Show,” but the cast of characters remained the same.

♥~ 1959 – The last Edsel rolled off the assembly line. Ford Motor Company stopped production after two years and a total of 110,847 cars.

♥~ 1961 – A year after Chubby Checker reached the #1 spot with The Twist, the singer appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show to sing the song again.The Twist became the first record to reach #1 a second time around — on January 13, 1962.

♥~ 1965 –Kellogg introduced a new pastry called “Pop Tarts.”

♥~ 1969 – Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made the second U.S. landing on the moon.

♥~ 1990 –The pop duo Milli Vanilli was stripped of its Grammy Award after it was revealed that neither performer sang on the group’s records.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1933 – Larry King (Zeiger) radio/TV talk-show host: Larry King Live

♥~ 1936 – Dick Cavett, Talk show host

♥~ 1942 –Calvin Klein fashion designer

♥~ 1960 –Allison Janney Emmy Award-winning Supporting Actress: The West Wing

♥~ 1961 – Meg Ryan (Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra) actress: When a Man Loves a Woman, When Harry Met Sally, D.O.A., Sleepless in Seattle, Flesh and Bone, Top Gun, One of the Boys, Addicted to Love, City of Angels, You’ve Got Mail

♥~ 1962 – Jodie (Alicia Christian) Foster Academy Award-winning actress: The Accused [1988], Silence of the Lambs [1991]; Mayberry R.F.D., Taxi Driver, Napoleon and Samantha,Sommersby, Paper Moon, Maverick; director: Little Man Tate, Home for the Holidays

♥~ 1997 – The world’s first surviving septuplets were born by Cesarean section to Bobbi McCaughey of Carlisle, Iowa. Four boys (Kenneth, Brandon, Nathan and Joel) and three girls (Alexis, Natalie and Kelsey). The seven newcomers joined a family that already included one daughter, Mikayla. The infants ranged in weight from 2 pounds, 5 ounces to 3 pounds, 4 ounces and were born over a period of six minutes. The father was Kenny McCaughey, a billing clerk at a car dealership.

★~ Good to Know:

♥~ Soda is big business; the combined revenues of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo alone topped 100 billion last year, a staggering feat when you consider the price point of a soft drink is only a buck or two.

♥~ Coca-Cola has 3,500 different soft drinks in its international arsenal; if you were to try one every day, it would take 9 years to sample them all (by which time there would surely be more).

♥~ Exotic sodas  worldwide, particularly in Japan, which seems to have an affinity for novel beverages include: yogurt, green tea, octopus, wasabi, kimchi, cheese, cucumber, and eel, amongst others.

♥~ 7-Up and Lithium: Lithium citrate is a mood stabilizing drug used to treat depression and bipolar disorders, sold under trade names Litarex and Demalit. Today it requires a prescription, but years ago it was a common ingredient in many medicated beverages, including “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon Soda”. Today, we know it as 7UP (it is interesting to note that no one really knows where that name came from). It contained lithium until 1948.

♥~ Dr. Pepper: One of the greatest culinary mysteries of all time, the 23 ingredients that comprise Dr. Pepper have been speculated upon for decades. One of the ugly rumors spread about the soda is that it contains prune juice. While this is not in fact one of the components, the others are up for debate, but most probably include cola, vanilla, cherry, orange, caramel, and lemon amongst others. On the company’s FAQ website, the question of flavor is answered rather cryptically: “Dr. Pepper is a unique blend of 23 flavors. The exact formula for Dr. Pepper? That’s top secret proprietary stuff.”

♥~ Passover Coke: During the weeklong Jewish festival of Passover, which celebrates the exodus from slavery in Egypt, Jews are forbidden from the consumption of leavened bread (chamtez grains). Ashkenazic Jews (those from Eastern Europe) are also forbidden from eating corn, beans, and rice during this time (Sephardic Jews are allowed). Because Coca-Cola is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (at least in the U.S.), it is not considered kosher. However,kosher Coke is produced in March and April to coincide with the Passover season. It is sweetened with pure cane sugar, and can be identified by a yellow cap. Many non-Jews also enjoy the subtle change in flavor, and during the short period of time it is available, it is heavily stockpiled.

♥~ Variable-Price Coke Machines: In the late nineties, Coca-Cola  instaled vending machines whose price was dependent on the temperature. That is, as the mercury rose, a the price of a soda would become exponentially higher, raised via a computerized temperature sensor within the machine. The proposal was a public relations nightmare; people hailed it as a perfect example of price gouging and corporate greed, and Coca-Cola backpedaled quickly

♥~ Pepsi Points : Another short-sighted promotion took place in 1996, when Pepsi unveiled its points program. The premise was simple; buying Pepsi products would earn you a number of points which could be redeemed for merchandise like t-shirts and hats. When they released a commercial to unveil the concept; they included a tongue-in-cheek climax which featured a Harrier military jump jet, available for 7 million points. That would be more Pepsi than you could drink in 50 lifetimes, but business student John Leonard noticed a loophole: you could purchase Pepsi points from the company for 10 cents apiece. At this price, the $33.8 million Harrier jet could be had for the bargain basement price of $700,000. He gathered a group of investors and turned over a check for his jet. Pepsi refused, and the case was brought to court. In 1999, it was settled when a judge ruled that “no reasonable” person could have expected the prize.

♥~ Diet Soda Cocktails: Recent research conducted by Northern Kentucky University indicates that drinking cocktails made with diet soda versus regular can get you 18% drunker. Participants in the study were given equal amounts of vodka, some mixed with Squirt (an unfortunately named citrus soda), and some mixed with diet Squirt. After 40 minutes, those who had consumed the diet cocktails registered much higher blood alcohol concentrations. The science here is really quite simple: the body views the sugar present in regular soda as food, and thus slows the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream. This study is especially important to women, who are more likely to order diet cocktails, and whose bodies react to the potency in alcohol more than mens’.

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Have a terrific Tuesday!

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