16 February 25

Five random trivia for 16 February, to go along with this randomly chosen Veggie Tales tie!

1. In 600, Pope Gregory I decreed saying "God bless you" is the correct response to a sneeze.

2. In 1890, my grandfather Frank Albert Kleppinger was one day old.

3. In 1923, Howard Carter opened the inner burial chamber of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb and found the famous sarcophagus.

4. In 1925, the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association of America was formed. 

5. In 1937, DuPont Corporation patented nylon, developed by employee Wallace Carothers.

16 August 22

Today's tie was chosen by our son (-by-inclusion) David Haskins, to celebrate his birthday! He says that he and our nephew (-by-inclusion) Jamison have been laughing a lot with the singing vegetables in VeggieTales®. So here's "Silly Songs with Larry" again!

8 July 22

 Today is the birthday (in 1966) of Mike Nawrocki, co-creator of the VeggieTales® cartoon series. Nawrocki was the voice of Larry the Cucumber! So my tie celebrates the wonderful segments of Silly Songs with Larry, such as "Oh, Where is My Hairbrush?," "The Water Buffalo Song," "The Song of the Cebu," and "His Cheeseburger."

16 June 21

Today is the birthday (in 1966) of Phil Vischer, one of the creators of VeggieTales®! Sing some Silly Songs with Larry -- like "The Water Buffalo Song"!

25 June 19

Today is Cucumber Day on the French Republican Calendar! In France, from 1793-1805, it was 7 Messidor, Concombre. The Republican revolutionaries redesigned the yearly calendar to avoid religious and mythological references, to standardize on 10-day "metric" sequences, and to celebrate the values of agrarian life. My "Silly Songs with Larry" tie celebrates the segments of Veggie Tales® videos where Larry the Cucumber comes out to sing a silly song, such as The Water Buffalo Song (the very first Silly Song!).

29 November 18

It's a good day to sing Silly Songs with Larry!

14 August 17

Happy Birthday, Gary Larson! The creator of The Far Side cartoons was born on this date in 1950. I have no official Far Side tie, but I think my "Silly Songs with Larry" VeggieTales® tie, covered with singing vegetables, matches the absurdity of Larson's humor. Several Far Side cartoons feature characters named Larry, such as this one. You can view more Far Side comics here.

16 June 16

In honor of Phil Vischer's birthday today (1966), I think we should all join in singing a VeggieTales® Silly Song, like "Oh Where Is My Hairbrush"? (Unlike Larry the Cucumber I have a good reason to use one.)

16 June 15

Phil Vischer, co-creator of Veggie Tales®, was born on this date in 1966. My tie features "Silly Songs with Larry" -- which was "the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a Silly Song." Fans will happily recall songs about hairbrushes, water buffaloes, dancing cucumbers, and pirates (who don't do anything).

8 May 14

Happy Birthday, Marisa Eileen Yerace! She is my favorite graduating senior at Madison Central High School. She told me to wear a Veggie Tales® tie today because "you just can't go wrong with Bible-teaching vegetables."

25 June 12

Larry the Cucumber, from VeggieTales®, is helping me celebrate Cucumber Day (June 25). The French Republican Calendar, in official use in France from 1793 to 1805, associated each day of the year with a crop or plant, a farm animal or a farm tool. Today's tie is titled "Silly Songs with Larry," honoring "the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song."

15 December 10

Today is my nephew Jack's twelfth birthday, and I asked him to select a tie for me to wear today. He chose Silly Songs with Larry!

14 September 10

As I posted last year, September 14, 1752, marked the eleven-day adjustment to the calendar in England and the American colonies, finalizing the shift from the "Julian" to the "Gregorian" calendars. The loss of eleven days overnight (skipping from September "2" to September "14") was actually the last of several steps:

"In 1750, an Act of Parliament finally resolved the adoption of the Gregorian calendar for England and its colonies, thereby streamlining the calendar system in Europe entirely. England’s adjustment, though, was more confusing than the original Julian to Gregorian change over. In 1752, England had to greatly modify its calendar in the following ways:

• December 31, 1750 was followed by January 1, 1750 seemingly going back in time. January 1 was also set as New Years Day with this calendar.
• March 24, 1750 was followed by March 25, 1751 to match up with the rest of Europe’s current year.
• December 31, 1751 was followed by January 1, 1752
• Finally, September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752, taking eleven days from the month.

The result was a streamlined, consistent calendar for all of Europe and the colonies in the New World. However, today’s historians are left with the interesting notation of two years for dates in the years preceding 1752. What may be confused by some as an uncertainty in dates is actually a compensation for England’s slow response to the transition from the Julian to Gregorian calendars." (from The Calendar Change of 1752 on Suite101.com)

The arithmetic may work out, but the conceptual difficulty of having two separate periods of time designated as January 1-March 24, 1750 is insurmountable to me in 2010. I am also wondering how the "day-counters" who seek to establish precise times for events in Revelation, or correlations with the Mayan calendar, deal with these issues.

Definitely time to sing some Silly Songs.

16 June 10

Phil Vischer, one of the creators of Veggie Tales®, was born on this date in 1966.

17 February 10

On this date in 2004, Cingular Wireless agreed to pay nearly $41 billion in cash to buy AT&T Wireless Services. A few years later, the "new AT&T" bought Cingular Wireless and renamed it AT&T Wireless. The complicated name changing is documented nicely at Wikipedia. Definitely time for some "Silly Songs with Larry."









(The tie belongs to my son Jonathan and I borrowed it today without asking his permission. So go sing a silly song.)