Miraclo Miles

2009: Day 181 Though the victory would be fleeting -- they would fall to the Spanish empire the following year -- the people of Tenochtitlan managed to expel the thieving, brutally proselytizing conquistadors from their island city on Lake Texcoco on this date in 1520. One hundred fifty years ago (1859) Charles Blondin , a French acrobat, crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Charles J. Guiteau , assassin of President James Garfield, was hanged in Washington, D.C. this day in 1882. Curiously, professional wrestlers Man Mountain Dean and Ed "Strangler" Lewis were both born on this date in 1891. In 1905, Albert Einstein publishes On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies , reconciling Maxwell's equations with the existing laws of mechanics via two postulates, quietly introducing the world to what would come to be known as special relativity . One hundred one years ago (1908) a blast estimated to most likely have been between 10 and 15 megatons occurred in the air over the...

2009: Day 180 Alas and alack, the Globe Theatre burned to the ground on this date in 1613. Little Eva - who went from babysitter to pop star when Carole King and Gerry Goffin wrote "The Loco-Motion" for her and Don Kirshner liked the recording enough to release it - would have turned 66 today. Speaking of loco-motion, here comes the crazy train! Gary Busey turns 65 today. One of the many largely forgettable talents who ascended to fame in the 1980s -- Richard Lewis , turns 62 today. Illustrator and storyteller Don Rosa celebrates his 58th birthday today. I wonder if Scrooge McDuck's gotten him anything? Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter turns 52 today... as does actress Maria Conchita Alonso . Someone I'd forgotten about -- Samantha Smith , a young political activist who at the age of 10 wrote to newly risen Soviet Leader Yuri Andropov, found herself invited to visit the Soviet Union, and became an internationally-known goodwill ambassador. I'd also forgotten...

The Celebri-Death Express Goes Kaboom This past week we saw Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson all die, and today we find that pitchman Billy Mays - who was 50, the same as Wacko Jacko - was found dead at home in Tampa. So, aside from proximity of obituaries, Billy and Michael are both in the "untimely death" category, while Billy and Ed both shared the gift to shill. I'll leave it to someone else to see a good linkage between Billy and Farrah. However, if there's a swimsuit poster of Billy out there, don't feel a need to share the image with me. Well, come to think of it, Farrah was only 62 and so would fall into that same "untimely death" category were it not for the fact that we knew about the cancer. I realize it's all a matter of media currency, but Mays is really the only one of the four I'm likely to miss. Age and health issues had relegated McMahon and Fawcett to the nostalgia & Sad, But True celebrity remembrance piles...

2009: Day 179 It's right on the tip of your tongue, I know... Today was Pierre Paul Broca 's birthday back in 1824. Are you not amused? Why, this must be the 171st (1838) anniversary of Victoria's ascension to the throne of the United Kingdom. Today in 1894, Labor Day became an official U.S. holiday. Composer of more than 900 songs and 40 musicals, composer Richard Rodgers was born today in 1902. Uh-oh, Franz! In 1914 the Archduke & duchess of Austria are assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, kicking over the first domino of what would become World War I... and five years later, to the day, the Treaty of Versailles is signed in Paris, formally ending the war... which included horrifically unendurable reparation payments from Germany, which helped set the stage for the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, leading to World War II. Turning 83 today is Mel Brooks , born Melvin Kaminsky on this date in 1926. Whether it's as Arnold or Mr. Miyagi, you likely know Noriyu...

2009: Day 178 Gas on high! Eighty nine years ago (1923) the first aerial refeuling was performed, using two Airco DH-48 biplanes of the U.S. Army Air Service. Please pause to remember Captain Kangaroo today, as Bob Keshan was born on this date in 1927. "Let me finish!" and "giant sucking sound" soundbyte fans should note that Henry Ross "The Boss" Perot turns 79 today. Disney's voice of Alice ( Alice In Wonderland ) and Wendy ( Peter Pan ) turns 71 today, along with voice actress Kathryn Beaumont , or course. Fans of Newhart should remember to eye the maid with suspicion if her shoes are worth more than one makes in a week; Julia "Stephanie Vanderkellen" Duffy turns 58 today. Also, remember to raise a pint in birthday greetings to Mary McAleese , the eight and current President of Ireland, who is also celebrating a 58th birthday. It's Booster Gold's daddy's birthday! Writer/artist Dan Jurgens turns 50 today. Barnabus! 43 yea...

2009: Day 177 Ye olde amber alert! On this day in 1284 the Pied Piper of legend led 130 children out of Hamelin, Germany. The piper must be paid! On this date in 1870 Christmas became a federal holiday in the United States. Score one for occidentals vs. inscrutability -- American writer Pearl S. Buck was born on this date in 1892. Peter Lorre (1904) would have turned 105 today. Do you belong to a credit union ? FDR signed them into law on this date back in 1934. Shirly Jackson's The Lottery appeared for the first time on this date, published in The New Yorker , followed by a summer of mostly hate mail from readers. Comics writer and editor Tom DeFalco turns 59 today! Canadian actor/comedian Mark McKinney - mainly known for being one of The Kids in the Hall - turns 50 today. Three-time Tour de France cyclist Greg LeMond (1961) turns 48 today. This day in 1963, John F. Kennedy unwittingly declared himself to be a donut to a crowd of Germans. (Okay, okay, it's a joke.) ...

2009: Day 176 It's too late to make peace, white eye! 133 years ago (1876) was the Battle of the Little Big Horn , and the death (among many) of General George Armstrong Custer. One hundred six years ago today (1903) Eric Arthur Blair - best known by his nom de plume , George Orwell - was born. Don't go into room 101! Here's to you, Mrs Robinson! Well, that's the character I always think of whenever June Lockhart is mentioned. Born in 1925, she turns 84 today. Character actor George Murdock turns 79 today. Sir Peter Tomas Blake , British pop artist best known as the creator of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album sleeve, was born today in 1932. Hopefully Carly Simon 's not too vain to deal with her 64th birthday today. The Diary of Anne Frank was published this day in 1947. The same day, believe it or not, Jimmy "JJ" Walker was born. How can JJ be 62?! Judge Sonia Sotomayor turns 55 today, having been born in 1954. Wish a happy bir...

2009: Day 175 Six hundred thirty five years ago (1374) the streets of Aachen, Germany might have looked like a mad music video thanks to an outbreak of St. John's Dance . Hallucinations, twitching and jumping until they collapsed from exhaustion -- and the kids things raves are something new. Interestingly, the closest modern medicine's come to explaining it is ergot poisoning, though that doesn't account for the dancing mania element. Cosmic ray discoverer Victor Francis Hess manifested this day in 1883, unwittingly enabling the creation of the Fantastic Four decades later. Pablo Picasso 's first public exhibition opened today in 1901. Crime/mystery writer Lawrence Block (1938) turns 71 today. Somewhat more spectacularly, a meteorite estimated to be approximately 450 tons exploded roughly 12 miles over Chicora, Pennsylvania . The Yardbirds' guitarist Jeff Beck (1944) turns 65 today. Economist, writer and commentator Robert Reich entered the world's ledg...

Ed Dead I suspect you've heard by now that Ed McMahon has died . Upon seeing the news, though, I thought I'd go back behind the scenes at Fark, to the TotalFark area, to see what headline attempts had been made. See, when Fark members see something to link to they submit it with a tagline or two and hope it gets greenlit so that it becomes the official Fark link for the story. When it's something of reasonably broad interest, as you may suspect, the site's hit with dozens of submissions. The official one chosen by Fark: "Ed McMahon dies at 86. He is survived as Cash4Gold pitchman by MC Hammer" Below are the ones posted earlier that didn't make it, with the earliest being the most to-the-point and respectful, essentially killing their chances of being chosen. As you can guess, most of these were submitted at essentially the same time and many of them had the same ideas in mind. There were more, even a couple hours later as others found out and tried to sh...

2009: Day 174 On June 23, 1888, Frederick Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States at a major political (Republican) convention. Sex and gender researcher (hey, there's a t-shirt slogan...) Alfred Charles Kinsey was born today in 1894. Mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist Alan Turing was born today back in 1912. In several ways it's a shame he died as young as he did - in 1954 - decades before his technical innovations started to come down to the level of mainstream society and in a time when his homosexuality was not only considered to make him a security risk (because it was illegal) but was also classified as a mental illness. You are a number, not a free man! The first SAT exam was administered 86 years ago (1926) today. Take it from the top! Choreographer and director Bob Fosse debuted on this day in 1927. On this day in 1942, Germany's latest air weapon, the Focke-Wulf FW190 , fell int...

2009: Day 173 Mitre over mind or matter : One hundred seventy six years ago (1633) the Holy Office in Rome forced Galileo Galilei to recant his idea that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe... not that either is strictly true... Stick 'em up! John Dillinger was born 106 years ago (1903) today. Three years later (1906), director Billy Wilder came on the scene. On this date in 1920 voice actor Paul Frees was born. It's unlikely you've never heard his work unless you're very young and/or eschew much mass media. Among his many credits were the voices of Boris Badenov and Inspector Fenwick, Morocco Mole, Squiddly Diddly, the Burgermeister Meisterburger, all of the characters except the titular one in the U.S. version of The Adventures of Tintin , John Lennon and George Harrison in the 1965 Beatles television cartoon series, Ben "the Thing: Grimm & Uatu, the Watcher in the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoons, and a great many narration and over-dubb...

Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 Closing notes & a Look Forward Work and other matters had been keeping me busy and feeling drained, so I let Wizard World take care of itself aside from buying tickets. So it was that I didn't know until we were heading in on Saturday and met up with another guy headed in for the show - a comics fan and aspiring artist for whom this was to be the first comics convention - that there was something else going on this weekend. I'd noted almost as soon as we stepped on the convention floor -- not long after seeing the McCain clearance signs -- that neither Marvel nor DC had official booth/table space on the convention floor. Even in the leanest times they've had at least an area with a few tables for fans to meet up with some of the creators and to pick up free buttons, mini-posters and fliers for current and upcoming events, and to take a look through black and white rough copies of upcoming issues of various series they're hoping to int...

Wizard World Philadelphia: Day Two ...and, for me, the end of the event for 2009. As with the past four or five years, Friday and Saturday proved to be enough for me. As I noted to Eric, were I to be away for a convention weekend - where there's just the one trip out and the return trip home, and I'm staying in a hotel at or near the convention, then I'd go all three days. Commuting back and forth each day, though, and not having to carry everything I've brought and bought through the day... by Saturday night I've had enough. Sure, Sunday holds better opportunities for deals -- providing it's not something that's sold out during the peak -- and a somewhat quieter environment, especially when compared to Saturday, but I've already spent enough in more than one sense. Going back in on Sunday would leave me worn out and passionately courting buyer's remorse. Despite the capping tone above, this is just going to be another dumping ground post. A little...