Cool trivia!
OOP: There is audio of that. For me the most chilling part is that astronauts were renown for their calm no matter the situation. So when you hear them yelling about the fire in abject terror … like I said, chilling.
IP: Approximately 0.5% of feed-lot cattle die from tainted or moldy hay. That’s 1 out of every 200.
The song “Tainted Love” was originally recorded by American R&B singer Gloria Jones in 1964. It wasn’t originally a hit, though it became an underground hit in the 1970s “Northern Soul” club scene in England.
In 1981, British group Soft Cell recorded a cover version of the song, as part of a medley with the Supremes’ hit “Where Did Our Love Go;” their version was a top 10 hit in numerous countries.
Actress Gloria Stuart, a UC Berkeley alumna, was born in 1910 and began acting in 1927. Her career spanned over 70 years and she made her feature film debut in Street of Women (1932). In 1997 she was cast as 101-year-old Rose Calvert in James Cameron’s drama Titanic (1997), which earned her international notoriety, as well as numerous accolades, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress; which as of 2021, she remains the oldest nominee for the category.
She died in 2010 at the age of 100.
There are several in the lower 48, the best-known of which is probably the Northwest Angle Ice Road, running 37 miles across Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota. It’s also probably the world’s most expensive toll road, as there is a charge of $250 per vehicle for a round-trip passage to offset the estimated $1500 per mile expense for plowing and other upkeep during the roughly three months the road is open.
You can also drive your vehicle out onto ice roads on many lakes and rivers in northern states like Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or the Dakotas to go ice fishing in the winter.
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In play:
Both actresses who played Rose Calvert in James Cameron’s Titanic were nominated for Academy Awards. Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress as young Rose, and Gloria Stuart earned a nod for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of aged Rose.
Unfortunately, neither of them won, losing out to Helen Hunt (in As Good As It Gets) and Kim Basinger (for her role in L.A. Confidential) respectively.
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From the Facebook page for the Northwest Angle Guest Ice Road:
“Thanks to all the interested people asking about an ice road for this winter 2022-2023. The past ice roads from Springsteel to NWA have been a great lifeline for the Angle, but now that the border is reopened the time and expense of that road can’t be justified. There won’t be an ice road this year. As always the ice road from Jerry’s to all the island resorts will be open. Thanks again for all the past support and we hope to see you this winter!”
In play —
Kim Basinger is the first Academy Award winner to have posed naked for Playboy magazine. She was on the cover of Playboy’s February 1983 issue, and then in 1997 she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in L.A. Confidential.
NSFW:
The first issue of Playboy appeared in December of 1953. Marilyn Monroe appeared on both the cover and inside as the featured “Sweetheart of the Month.” Monroe didn’t actually pose for the magazine, as Hugh Hefner purchased the nude photograph from the John Baumgarth Calendar Company.
No big deal … nowadays, it seems like anybody with a pair of boobs, regardless of gender or age, is posting nudes (or nearly nudes) all over social media sites.
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Confidential was a magazine published quarterly from December 1952 to August 1953 and then bi-monthly until it ceased publication in 1978. It was founded by Robert Harrison and is considered a pioneer in scandal, gossip, and exposé journalism.
(in other words, it was a fore-runner to People, Us, TMZ, Entertainment Weekly, and all the rest)
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George Harrison’s song My Sweet Lord was too similar to The Chiffon’s He’s So Fine. Harrison was negotiating a royalties deal but his former manager Allen Klein bought the He’s So Fine publisher Bright Tunes and sued Harrison instead of negotiating.
The judge presiding over the 1976 “My Sweet Lord” plagiarism case was the Hon. Richard Owen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, appointed to the bench just three years earlier by President Richard M. Nixon. Judge Owen was, per Wiki, “a classical musician and composer of operas in his spare time,” and ultimately found that George Harrison “subconsciously” copied the original Chiffon hit.
Musician Ray Parker Jr. wrote and performed the theme song to the 1984 comedy film, Ghostbusters; Parker was then sued for plagiarism by musician Huey Lewis, due to the similarity of the song to the Huey Lewis and the News hit, “I Want a New Drug.” The lawsuit was settled out of court; the settlement included a confidentiality agreement for the parties involved.
In 2001, after Lewis again asserted, during an interview, that Parker had stolen the song, Parker sued Lewis for breaching the agreement, and is alleged to have won a significant settlement from it.
In a 2004 interview for Premiere magazine, the Ghostbusters filmmakers acknowledged that they had used “I Want a New Drug” as a temporary music track in many of the film’s scenes. Further, they acknowledged that they had approached Huey Lewis and the News to write and perform the movie theme (the band declined the offer), and that they had then given Parker footage from the film, with Lewis’s song inserted in it, to aid Parker in his writing.
Weird Al Yankovic wrote and performed “I Want a New Duck”, a parody of Huey Lewis and the News’s hit “I Want a New Drug.” Yankovic says he went to a public library for a week in order to educate himself on the nature of ducks.
In another bit of satire, Yankovic appeared with Lewis in a Funny or Die skit that re-enacted to scene from American Psycho, where Lewis (as Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman) kills Yankovic (Jared Leto’s Paul Allen) with an axe, screaming “Try parodying one of my songs now, you stupid bastard!”
Former baseball center fielder Darren Lewis, known as “D Lew”, played for 7 teams in his 12 year career (1990-2002). He played for the San Francisco Giants when Dusty Baker was the manager. Baker named his own son after him.
In the 2002 World Series little Darren Baker was only 3 years old at the time. He was used to retrieving bats used by Giants hitters, and many people thought it was cute seeing the little boy run to home plate after a hit, and run back to the dugout carrying the bat.
In game 5 with the World Series tied 2-2, in the bottom of the 7th inning at San Francisco’s Pac Bell Park and the score 8-4 for San Francisco, the Giants had baserunners David Bell on second and JT Snow on third with one out. The Anaheim Angels’ pitcher Ben Weber was on the mound with Giants’ center fielder Kenny Lofton at bat. On a 2-1 pitch Lofton ripped a line drive off of the right center field wall.
JT Snow and David Bell ran home to score, but little 3-year old Darren Baker had gone to home plate to retrieve Lofton’s bat, not realizing there could be a play at the plate, with possible collisions.
As he crossed home plate with David Bell right behind him, JT Snow simultaneously touched the plate and reached back to grab little Darren Baker by the jacket with one hand and picked him up and carried him to safety. Disaster, and possible injury, was averted.
MLB also dodged a bullet that night. The updated guidelines – unofficially dubbed “the Darren Baker rule” – now state that batboys must be at least 14 to serve in the role.
Here is the pitch where that happened. You’ll want to watch the replays until seeing Angels pitcher Ben Weber walking off the field right after the play. Weber was replaced by Scott Shields —
Centerfield is the third studio album by John Fogerty. It was released in 1985, ten years after his eponymous album and thirteen years after Mardi Gras, the last studio album of Creedence Clearwater Revival (Fogerty’s previous band). The album reached number one on US Billboard 200 charts, and was certified double-platinum on sales of two million records. “Centerfield” is also track seven (track 2, on the album B-side) of the record, and released as the B-side single of “Rock and Roll Girls.” The song has become popular to baseball fans, often played on stadium sound systems across the country.
New Orleans was established in 1718, and by the 1730s, Mardi Gras was celebrated throughout the city. The first Mardi Gras parade, however, was not held until February 24, 1857.
By law, all float riders in a parade must wear masks.
(Aside: You may be able to drive to places in Canada’s North. But don’t expect your smartphone to work much outside of bigger cities.)
Thanks. Definitely, I won’t expect that. I’ll rely on its GPS primarily, and will have offline maps on my phone as a backup, and have paper maps as a last resort. That would be my plan.
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Dental floss wasn’t a widely used product until 1815, when Levi Spear Parmly, a dentist from New Orleans, invented a thin, waxen silk thread to help his patients clean between their teeth.