~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
January 13, 2014
★~ Today’s Quote: “When a ball dreams, it dreams it’s a frisbee.” ― Stancil Johnson
★~Rubber Ducky Day:
(Map of Where 29,000 Rubber Duckies Made Landfall After Falling off a Cargo Ship in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean)
Rubber ducks have been around since the rise of the rubber industry in the late 1800s, but no one knows their exact origin. Though rubber duckies are typically a domesticated species, they can often be found in the wild owing to a Pacific storm in 1992 that set over 29,000 duckies free from a cargo ship. For months after the storm, the rubber duckies made their way to the shores of Indonesia, Australia, and South America. Some even entered into the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia and became trapped in the Arctic ice. Indeed, to the rubber ducky, the world’s just one big bath tub.
★~ ★~ Peach Melba Day:
Peach Melba it’s a refreshingly simple pairing of peaches and ice cream topped with Melba sauce. Created by the noted French chef Auguste Escoffier, this dessert is fit for a queen — or at least a diva, like Dame Nellie Melba , the Australian opera singer for whom it was created. While Melba was performing in London, Escoffier created the dish in her honor, serving the peach-topped vanilla ice cream in an ornate ice-carved swan and topping the dessert with spun sugar. He later adapted it for the Carlton Hotel in 1900 by creating a new “Melba” sauce, consisting of pureed red currant jelly, raspberries, sugar and cornstarch.
★~ Today in History:
♥~ 1863 – Thomas Crapper pioneered the one-piece pedestal flushing toilet. He is also said to have pioneered the self raising seat for said toilet, which worked on a system of counter weights that left men free to concentrate on the job at hand.
♥~ 1957 – The Wham-O Company developed the first plastic Frisbee. The most popular theory as to how this flying disc came to be dates back to the 1920s when Yale students invented a game of catch by tossing around metal pie tins from the Frisbee Baking Company in nearby Bridgeport, Connecticut. They would frequently shout “Frisbieeeee” to warn passersby of the oncoming pie plate. Building inspector Fred Morrison puttered with and refined a plastic flying disc that he sold to WHAM-O (for $1 million) in 1955. The disc was introduced to the consumer market in 1957 as the Pluto Platter (the name inspired by the U.S. obsession with UFOs). Wham-O changed the name to Frisbee in 1958, upon hearing the Yale pie-tin story. (Mattel now owns the rights to Frisbee, which has become an American icon.)
♥~ 1962 – Chubby Checker went back to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The Twist’. The song first went to No.1 in Sept 1960 and became the only record in American chart history to top the charts on two separate occasions.
♥~ 1973 – Carly Simon’s No Secrets was the #1 album in the U.S. for the first of five weeks
★~Born Today:
♥~ 1961 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus Emmy Award-winning actress: Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine; Saturday Night Live, Hannah and Her Sisters, North, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 1962,
♥~ 1966 – Patrick Dempsey actor: Fast Times, The Right to Remain Silent, Loverboy, Meatballs, Grey’s Anatomy
★~ Good to Know:
In honor of Mr. Crappers invention lets talk about Japanese Toilets.
Toilets hold a special place for the Japanese. They are pinnacles of high technology, personal comfort and even national pride. According to a government survey, more than 70 percent of Japanese households have a high-tech toilet, commonly called a Washlet after the brand name of the major manufacturer TOTO.
Features include:
A sensor figures out whether you’re going to need the seat up or down and motorizes it into the appropriate position. After you leave, it automatically places the seat in the down position if it was up.
The seat is warmed before you sit down.
The toilet has an SD card, pre-loaded with Bach, Chopin and Mendelsohn. Once you show up to take care of business, a sensor activates the tunes, either to relax you or to prevent houseguests in your thin-walled Japanese apartment from hearing anything other than Bach, Chopin or Mendelsohn. In many of the women’s public restrooms a box plays fake flushing sounds to cover up the noise of bodily functions.
The toilets are equipped with nozzles that squirt warm water to shower one’s behind, followed by being dried by warm air. The is controlled by using a remote control device.
Public restrooms, especially those frequented by foreigners, often have directions on the wall that look like technical manuals for the switch plates that can have more than 20 buttons. For those in danger of spacing out in their comfort zone, signs warn, “Please don’t drop your cellphone in the toilet.”
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My teens winter formal….
Look Grandmarcie! I’m dancing!
Merry Monday!
I learned a lot from your Japanese toilet post today. Who would have known you needed a degree to use the loo in Japan? Gee whiz. When I was in China I was in the rest room at the airport and there were two definite types of toilets. I let a lady go in front of me happily as I wanted the “American” version rather than the squat kind. I do like my comfort, after all.
Cole rocked the velvet jacket and he looks so adorable–date is pretty cute, too!
I think the toilets are pretty comfortable but also more than a little intimidating. I can see a lot potential for things to go wrong…and more than likely in my case there would be a story to tell and for the first time ever I would “go viral.”
Funny picturing 29,000 rubber duckies floating in the waters!
when you need a manual in order to use the bathroom…
what a dashing couple! looked like a lot of fun was had. busting a move there i see!
carly simon remains a favorite.
enjoy your warm morning!
Thanks I thought they made a nice couple, too!
It all starts with a high potty, you know!
It was warm yesterday-45 high! and the week before 47 below.
Morno,
Interesting information about Japan. However I rather read sports illustrated than an instruction manual in the bathroom.
Look like your boy has a lot of moves.
Have a good one.
I’m sure there is a selection of reading material. Perhaps, a few to many moves 😀
What can I say? Those Japanese toilets sound complicated! But I rather like the idea of the music and the warm seat — and I suspect one would have to get used to being squirted and dried off, ha!
Love Cole’s velvet jacket. Of course he dances — he’s a Pisces, remember, and Pisces rules the feet! Be sure to tell him he’ll never be lonely if he can dance (I always told Domer, another Pisces, the same thing!)
Debbie I love….”he’ll never be lonely if he can dance.” I will pass that along.
I wonder if you can have a twitter and fb added on to your toilet?
Cole very cool moves! You and your date look amazing!
TTFN
MJ
I think it was the velvet smoking jacket …..