Audio Round: Themes from TV Shows

1. Entertainment Tonight
2. Charlie's Angels
3. Taxi
4. Smallville
5. Unsolved Mysteries
6. Doogie Howser
7. Scrubs
8. Battlestar Gallactica

Again... links coming.. really...

Spam Spam Spam Spam

• The epicenter of the Spam universe is Austin, Minnesota, home of a spam factory and a remarkable museum dedicated to the town’s most famous product. Spam has such a worldwide following that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia—to whom Rastafarians would dedicate many a song—once toured the plant.

• Hormel invented Spam in 1937 and still makes it today. At first, the product had a less-than-charismatic name: “Hormel Spiced Ham.”

• If you think there’s just one flavor of Spam, you’re missing out on a world of flavor. There is also hickory-smoked Spam, hot and spicy Spam, garlic Spam, and—for the dieting Spam-lovers among us —“light” Spam. There’s even a collector’s edition Spam Golden Honey Grail.

• Hormel sponsors an annual recipe contest called the “Great American Spam Championship,” with cooks developing new recipes for this product. Some of the 2006 winners state by state: philly cheesesteak spamwich with garlic mayo (California), a-spam-agus risotto (Alabama), and a “romantic country salad for two” with pecan-crusted spam and sweet-and-sour dressing (Tennessee). Extra points, it seems, are given for creative puns.

• Speaking of puns, author Tamar Myers has developed a series of punny murder-mysteries that feature recipes (The Crepes of Wrath, Between a Wok and a Hard Place, The Hand that Rocks the Ladle). The 2005 installment in her series: Play It Again, Spam.

• In South Korea, Spam is considered an appropriate gift for a guest to give a host or vice versa—which beats the hell out of trying to choose a bottle of wine, doesn’t it? In fact, Costco carries a Spam gift pack that will make a perfect holiday gift.

• Hawaii consumes about 7 million cans of Spam per year, which comes out to 5 or 6 cans for every man, woman and child. That’s a lot of sodium and gelatinous fat, which in turn is thought to contribute to Hawaii’s obesity problem. One very popular snack item is the Spam musubi, as shown on the front of this collector’s Spam can…

• It’s a traditional Japanese rice ball with a slice of Spam on top, wrapped in a belt of seaweed to keep that sodium-laden delicacy safely attached – a SEAtbelt, if you will.

• Since 1997, Hormel has sponsored the Waikiki Spam Jam, where it crowns a Mr. or Miss Spam! The 2006 Mr. Spam, a Mr. Wade Balidoy, won a PlayStation and a year’s supply of a certain canned meat product.

• Spam is so popular in some communities that it’s infiltrated big chain restaurants. The McDonald’s breakfast platter in Hawaii includes Spam. In San Francisco’s Japan Town, Denny’s serves a breakfast combo with Spam, two eggs, steamed rice, and kimchee. You can also substitute Vienna sausages for the Spam – or probably negotiate with the waitress to have both.

Go Go Rock Bottom!

Dad's Buying the Beer (260 points)
John McCain Border Geography Class (233)
Gold Metal Smog (222)
Bad Horses (217)
Books, Geography and Sports or We Will Key Your Scion (213)
Racing Presidents
Jason's Hair... um????
The Equal Opportunity Pimpin' Gangsta Drive-Bys From the Hood
Just the Three Of Us / Number 16 Bus Shelter (Tie)
We're Here For the Wings
Polo da Dawns
Flaming Bag of Poop and the Human Response
Nick and the Ladies
A Game I Like to Call Just Tip Your Servers
Bobby and Annie

Question of the Week / 100th Post!

Here is your question of the week:

(Lyrically Speaking) The Beatles had twenty U.S. number one hits, but what Beatles song has the word “twenty” in its first line?


Also,starting sometime in August, trivia at Rock Bottom will be moving to Tuesdays due to Football. The only thing that will interrupt Tuesday night trivia is the occasional beer tapping festivities that are done every several months. I'll let you know when the date change happens.

Even More Wine Lingo

Appellation - where the grapes were grown and the wine produced. The appellation is especially important in French wines that are known by place names and rarely list grape varieties.

Cru - French term denoting a vineyard or estate of exceptional merit. The concept of cru is especially important for Burgundy and Champagne, where the best vineyards are labeled premier cru and grand cru.

Cuvée - blend; a wine labeled “cuvée” is a blend of many different base wines, which may themselves be blends.

Meritage - marketing term developed to describe California Cabernet Sauvignon blends that are modeled after the great reds of Bordeaux.

Reserve - should be used by a winemaker only to designate his best product, but you’ll see the term slapped on the labels of cheap, mass-produced wines.

Vintage - denotes the year the grapes were harvested and the wine made. Most wines state a vintage year on the label, but there are also nonvintage (NV) wines, which are blends of wines from several years.
Tasting terms

The following words are used to describe how wine tastes.

Acidity - the tartness of a wine. A wine can be described as crisp or soft, depending on the amount of acidity. High-acidity wines might be described as crisp or racy, while those with low acidity are called soft, and wines too little acidity are often described as flat. In addition to balancing and enlivening wine’s flavor, acidity is a key element in successful food-and-wine pairing. Generally, the most food-friendly wines have moderate alcohol balanced by crisp acidity.

Balance - the harmony (or lack thereof) among all the elements in a wine. A balanced wine is a seamless progression of fruit, acids, alcohol, and tannins, with nothing too prominent.

Body - how weighty a wine feels in the mouth. Wines that feel heavy and rich are full-bodied (the word “big” is often used to describe these types of wines). Feathery wines with little weight are light-bodied. Medium-bodied wines fall in between.

Complexity - the aromas and flavors in a wine and how they interact with each other. The more layers of flavor and aroma, the more complex the wine and the higher its quality.

Finish - a wine’s aftertaste, be it fruit, acidity, oak, or tannins. Generally, the longer the flavor lasts after you swallow, the better quality the wine. However, there are also bad wines with regrettably long finishes.

Legs - the trickles of wine that run down the inside of a glass after you swirl it. The legs are clues to how much alcohol or residual sugar the wine contains; thicker, slower legs indicate a wine with more alcohol or residual sugar.

Sweetness - refers to the presence or lack of sugar in wine. Wines range from bone dry, with no residual sugar, all the way to dessert sweet in style. Off-dry wines have just a hint of sweetness. Most table wines are dry to off-dry.

Tannins - come from the skins, seeds, and stems of the grapes and also from the barrels, are usually found in red wine. Tannins taste bitter and make your palate feel fuzzy, velvety, puckery, or even dry if there’s a good deal of tannin. Wines high in tannins are often described as firm or chewy, and those without a lot of tannins are called soft or supple.

Mean Popitipop

The mean center of U.S. population is determined by the United States Census Bureau after tabulating the results of each census. The Bureau defines it to be:

"the point at which an imaginary, flat, weightless, and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if weights of identical value were placed on it so that each weight represented the location of one person on the date of the census."

During the 20th century, the mean center of population has shifted 324 miles (521 km) west and 101 miles (163 km) south. The southerly movement was much stronger during the second half of the century; 79 miles (127 km) of the 101 miles (163 km) happened between 1950 and 2000.

The following counties included the mean center of U.S. population since 1790:
* 1790: Kent County, Maryland
* 1800: Howard County, Maryland
* 1810: Loudoun County, Virginia
* 1820: Hardy County, Virginia (now in W. Virginia)
* 1830: Grant County, Virginia (now in W. Virginia)
* 1840: Upshur County, Virginia (now in W. Virginia)
* 1850: Wirt County, Virginia (now in W. Virginia)
* 1860: Pike County, Ohio
* 1870: Highland County, Ohio
* 1880: Boone County, Kentucky
* 1890: Decatur County, Indiana
* 1900: Bartholomew County, Indiana
* 1910: Monroe County, Indiana
* 1920: Owen County, Indiana
* 1930: Greene County, Indiana
* 1940: Sullivan County, Indiana
* 1950: Clay County, Illinois
* 1960: Clinton County, Illinois
* 1970: St. Clair County, Illinois
* 1980: Jefferson County, Missouri
* 1990: Crawford County, Missouri
* 2000: Phelps County, Missouri

Although the mean population centers between 1820 and 1860 were located in what is present day West Virginia, at the time they were located in Virginia (with West Virginia not having split from Virginia until 1862).

Recently, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity in Massachusetts declared that the world's Christian Center of Gravity was located in Timbuktu, Mali. According to their definition of Center of Gravity, half of all Christians live west of Timbuktu and half live south of Timbuktu. Presumably they had chosen the International Date Line to differentiate eastern from western people.

More information at Wiki

No Covers? No Way!!

A. Baby Got Back – Sir Mix a lot
B. When the Going Gets Tough – Billy Ocean
C. Ghostbusters – Ray Parker JR
D. On My Own – Patti Labelle/Michael McDonald
E. Breath Stop – Q-Tip
F. Genius of Love – Tom Tom Club
G. How Soon is Now – The Smiths
H. Walk on the Ocean – Toad
I. Can't Fight This Feeling – REO Speedwagon
J. Idiot Boyfriend – Jimmy Fallon

...links coming soon...

JR's Scores

Buff and Blue Balls (325 points)
Joey's Boyz (311)
Dorothy's Dead Mother (309)
Racing Presidents (301)
Obvi Were Phenom and Your Just Jeal (219)
Major
New Orleans
Lindsay's Uncut Cock and Balls

na, na, na, na, Batman!

So The Dark Knight is kicking @ss and taking names at the box office. In hour, lets have some trivia about the campy TV series that started it all...

* The Batmobile was a customized 1955 Lincoln Futura, which had been used in the film It Started with a Kiss (1959).

* The Batcave set was built on the exact spot where the Skull Island Gate was located in the original King Kong (1933).

* The show aired from January 12, 1966 to March 14, 1968 on ABC for 120 episodes. It was one of few TV series to be seen on 2 different nights a week: 7:30 Wednesdays AND Thursdays. The episodes were generally two-parters: Wednesday's episode was a cliffhanger, resolved in Thursday's episode.

* Some of the 1966-7 episodes paired super criminals with one another, following in the pattern of the theatrically released version of the series, Batman (1966), which featured The Catwoman, The Joker, The Riddler and The Penguin.

* When playing The Joker, Cesar Romero painted over his mustache rather than shave it off.

* Burgess Meredith's role as The Penguin was one of the more popular guest roles, so much so that the producers actually had a script ready for him whenever he was in Los Angeles.

* The Shakespeare bust used to slide open the bookcase and expose the batpoles had an electric switch that couldn't open the bookcase but it did turn on a light behind the set to signal the crew to slide it open.
* In all the scenes of the villains' hideouts, the camera filmed at an angle, almost "crooked" (the shot is known as "canted"). This was because all the villains were also crooked.

* Aunt Harriet was written into the series to counter the rumors that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson were gay. The producers felt that a female aunt would "round out" Wayne Manor.

* A Total of 352 "Holy" words were used by Robin from "Holy Agility" to "Holy Zorro".

* The National Safety Council brought up the safety issue in the Batmobile. They wanted to know why the Batmobile was not fitted with seat belts. The producers answered that question by having Batman and Robin "buckling up" before they tore out of the Batcave.

* Each main villain had their own theme music.

* Anne Baxter appeared as two different villians. The first one was the female magician Zelda, but her more famous appearance was as Egghead's paramour Olga, Queen of the Cossacks.

* When the series premiered, Alfred had been "killed off" a few years earlier in the comic book series. However, when the producers announced that they intended to make Alfred a regular character, he was brought back to life in the comic book as well.

* 84 different word overlays were used during the fight scenes from "Bam" to "Kapow".

* The first show to hold two spots in the weekly Neilsen ratings every week, a feat not duplicated until "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (1999/I) over 30 years later.

* The Riddler was just a minor and forgettable villain in the comics. This series is responsible for turning him into one of the most popular villains in Batman's rogues gallery.

* This was one of the "in" shows to appear on if you were a big name in Hollywood, and many top names guested on the show, including many who didn't do much TV otherwise. Those performers who weren't cast as guest villains could frequently be seen popping their heads out of windows to exchange a few words with Batman and Robin when the latter would be climbing up a building wall.

* Of all the villains portrayed on the television series, Mr. Freeze had the most actors portraying him: George Sanders, Otto Preminger and Eli Wallach. Catwoman had three actresses as well -- Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and Lee Meriwether (in the movie version).

* Batman creator Bob Kane noted that this series saved the Batman comic series from cancellation when the show revived the character's popularity. Despite this, most comic fans despised this series for stereotyping superheroes and comics as campy nonsense.

Rock Bottom Champions... Minds in the Gutter!

Uncle Rabbit's Lap (330 points)
Boner Marrow Transplant (304)
I Hope I Didn't Get Salmonella from the Nachos (263)
Drink the Beer (260)
Tina Turner Overdrive and the Derby Destruction (248)
Vern Troyer Videograpy
Beer Today Gone Tomorrow
Triple Entry's Beginner’s Bag
Chris Blast - Shockingly in the middle ages
Jorts
Powder Worthy
Hermaphrodite Barbie: Comes in Her Own Box
Admiral Akbar and the Traps
Fingerbang / Team Charles We Miss You (Tie)
Team Green
Captain Fun Returns

Rock Bottom Event

This Thursday at Rock Bottom there is an event to help out one of the waiters whose family is going through some tough medical issues.

Purchase a wrist band for $8 and get $2 beers all night. There aren't any beer specials on Thursday normally, so this makes it great night for folks to come out.

Question of the Week

(Famous Lasts) This singer and red headed movie star was the final live guest on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson—ending her time with Johnny by singing the song “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).

Not So Many JRs Scores

Andy: Dick in a Can (281 points)
Mark (279)
Joey's Boyz (Sans Joey) (245)
Buff and Blue Balls (243)
Nicks BenWahl Balls (152)
Chubby Yummy
The Reason Alan Did Not Show Up

White & Nerdy

More than you need to know about the Weird Al White & Nerdy Video:

* White & Nerdy" is the second single from "Weird Al" Yankovic's album Straight Outta Lynwood, released on September 26, 2006.
* Parodies the song "Ridin'" by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone.
* Chamillionaire himself put "White & Nerdy" on his official MySpace page, and commented that he enjoys the parody.
* The song became Yankovic's first career Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, its peak being #9 and beating his previous #12 peak for 1984's "Eat It".

References in the Song:
* In the video, "Weird Al" refuses a 40 and sticks to his Earl Grey tea, a drink that Captain Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation commonly drinks.
* In the video for Ridin', Chamillionaire is seen rapping in an empty street at night. On the pavement behind him, his personal logo is outlined in burning road flares. In the night scenes for Yankovic's video the same red-colored flares are in the shape of Pac-Man.
* When Yankovic is rapping in front of Donny Osmond, the Schrödinger equation for a hydrogen atom can be seen in the background. However, it is incorrect in that ħ2 is replaced by a h2. This scene parodies shots of the original song's video, which featured Chamillionaire rapping in front of his own name, with Krayzie Bone doing some moves.
* Al's character in the song indicates that he graduated first in his class at MIT (in reality, MIT does not actually give students a class rank).
* Yankovic refers to M.C. Escher as being his "favorite MC".
* When in his library, Al is seen reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which is also the book he is seen holding in his READ poster.
* Above and to the left of Yankovic's computer is a large poster of the Periodic Table of Chemical elements.
* Yankovic created his "pimped-out" MySpace page for the filming.[9] "White & Nerdy"'s top eight MySpace friends are Bill Gates, Napoleon Dynamite, Mr. Peabody, Albert Einstein, Screech, Frodo, Pee Wee Herman and Tom.
* When Al raps "Yo, I know π to a thousand places..." a background displays the value of π to about 515 digits.
* A scene shows him playing Minesweeper on a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X. The logged-in user is listed as "whitenerdy."
* When Al sings that he even has his name on his underwear, someone pulls a wedgie on him, exposing the name "Alfred" on the waistband, "Weird Al"'s given name.
* The scene for the line, "I ain't got a gat, but I got a soldering gun" refers to his use of a soldering iron for electronic assembly or repair, rather than a firearm.
* While Yankovic is in the store browsing for X-Men comic books, he is wearing a shirt that reads "Carl Sagan is my homeboy".
* The Wikipedia article Yankovic vandalizes (by typing "YOU SUCK!" in large Impact type) is the article about Atlantic Records, referring to the company refusing permission for Yankovic to include "You're Pitiful", a parody of James Blunt's song "You're Beautiful", on Straight Outta Lynwood.
* The word "dog" is said at the same point in both "Ridin'" and this song; however, rather than in the original song, where it was "dawg" — slang for "friend" — Al's character is referring to his pet dog.
* Yankovic parodies the Star Wars kid and is seen purchasing a bootleg VHS recording of The Star Wars Holiday Special toward the end of the video.
* On the trash container in the back alley is a Lambda-graffiti, which is the logo of the pc-game Half-Life. Lambda Lambda Lambda was the nerds' fraternity in the film Revenge of the Nerds.
* Chamillionaire flashes a gang sign; Yankovic flashes the Vulcan salute sign from Star Trek.
* In the scene where Weird Al talks about how he can recite Monty Python and the Holy Grail, he is wearing a tee-shirt which has "Monty Python" written across the front.

For all your Weird Al needs (you know you have them), see the Weird Al Wiki (yes, he has his own).

Weird Al Videos = Awesome

a. The Brady Bunch (Safety Dance – Men Without Hats)
b. Ebay (I Want It That Way – Backstreet Boys)
c. SPAM (Stand – REM)
d. White and Nerdy (Ridin' (Chamillionaire))
e. It's All About the Pentiums (All About The Benjis – Puff)
f. StarWars (American Pie – Don McClean)
g. MMMM MMMM MMM (Crash Test Dummies)
h. Amish Paradise (Gangsta Paradise – Coolio)
i. Bedrock (Under the Bridge – Red Hot Chilli Peppers)
j. Hey Ricky - (Hey Mickey – Tony Basil)

Random Trivia Wednesday: Beer

Beer is the world's oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage. Some of the earliest known writings refer to the production and distribution of beer.

The most common starch source for beer is malted barley. Still, wheat, corn, and rice are also widely used, usually in conjunction with barley. The starch source is mashed, steeped in water while enzymes in the malt break down the starch molecules, producing a sugary liquid known as wort, which is then flavoued with hops, which acts as a natural preservative. Other ingredients such as herbs or fruit may be added. Yeast is then used to cause fermentation, which produces alcohol and other waste products from anaerobic respiration of the yeast as it consumes the sugars. The process of beer production is a branch of zymurgy called brewing. Alcoholic beverages fermented from non-starch sources such as grape juice (wine) or honey (mead), as well as distilled beverages, are not classified as beer

Beer is one of the world's oldest beverages, possibly dating back to the 6th millennium BC, and is recorded in the written history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The earliest Sumerian writings contain references to beer. A prayer to the goddess Ninkasi known as "The Hymn to Ninkasi" serves as both a prayer as well as a method of remembering the recipe for beer in a culture with few literate people.

The earliest known chemical evidence of beer dates to circa 3500–3100 BC from the site of Godin Tepe in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. As almost any substance containing carbohydrates, mainly sugar or starch, can naturally undergo fermentation, it is likely that beer-like beverages were independently invented among various cultures throughout the world. The invention of bread and beer has been argued to be responsible for humanity's ability to develop technology and build civilization.

Need more? See wiki!

Whoooooole Bunch Of Teams' Scores

A Team You Can Still Believe In (300 Points)
Lemon Party (282)
Now She's F'ing Matt Damon (277)
Going For Last Place (275)
The Sparkling Rainbow Sparkling Unicorn Stickers (253)
Gutterball
Speed Nutz
Liberty International
Don't Kick My Balls
Points! We Don't Need No Stinking Points
Jesse Jackson's Nuts / Clone Wars: Brangelina Spawns Twins (Tie)
Drink The Beer
The Pre-existing Dooties
Neil and Emily Are Engaged... Still
Bad Pig
Powder Worthy
Jesse Helms is Stuck at O'hare on the Way to Hell
Face Up Ass Down

Question of the Week

(Current Events) Senator John McCain's birthplace raised some questions about his constitutional eligibility to run for president. Where was he born in 1936?

Diana and Time Magazine

Diana, the late Princess of Wales has been featured on the cover of People more often than any other person.

She has also been featured on Time an awful lot. (All images from the Time archive.):

1, 2, 3 - Cover Songs

1. S.O.S. (Rhianna) -– The Last Shadow Puppets
2. Violet Hill (Coldplay) – The Kooks
3. Take On Me (A-Ha) – RAC featuring Karl King
4. Every Breath You Take (Police) – Frankmusik
5. I Kissed a Girl (Katy Perry) – Max Vernon
6. Our Lips are Sealed (The Go-gos) – We Are Soldiers, We Have Guns
7. Enter the Sandman (Metallica) – Richard Cheese
8. Little Boxes (Malvina Reynolds) – Jenny Lewis

JR's Best

Long Horns and Thundercats (329 points)
Joeys Boyz (289)
Buff and Blueballs (269)
The Ones Mom Warned You About (254)
Turbottoms (243)
JL Spears Afterbirth Has a Recording Contract
It's What We Do
Cloris Leachman
Team Chomp / Bobby's 36 Inch Waist (Tie)
Team Ramrod
Jason's Pool Boyz Need Players

Random Trivia Wednesday: The Golden Girls

1. The idea came from a visit to an elderly aunt. The aunt’s neighbor was also her best friend, and he was amused at how they constantly bickered with one another, but yet they always remained pals.

2. When casting the show, Lee Grant was first offered the role of Dorothy, but she refused to play a woman old enough to have grandchildren. Even though the original production notes describing Dorothy listed her as “a Bea Arthur type,” it took some time before the producers got the bright idea of actually offering the part to actress Beatrice Arthur.

3. Bea Arthur (Dorothy) was actually a year older than the actress who portrayed her mother on the show.

4. When Rue McClanahan and Betty White were first hired for the series, it was with the intent of Betty playing man-hungry Blanche, and Rue the naïve Rose. However, both actresses felt that those roles were too similar to characters they’d recently played: Rue’s Vivian on Maude and Betty’s Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. They asked the producers if they could switch roles, and after the first table reading it was agreed that the change was a brilliant idea.

5. The pilot episode featured a flamboyantly gay cook named Coco (played by Charles Levin) who worked for the Girls. By the time the series was picked up, though, his part had been eliminated for two reasons: the writers noted that in many of the proposed future scripts the main interaction between the women occurred in the kitchen while preparing and eating food, and a separate cook would distract from that camaraderie and the character of Sophia had originally been planned as an occasional guest star, but Estelle Getty had tested so strongly with preview audiences that the producers quickly made Sophia a regular character and chief chef which made Coco superfluous.

6. A 2005 study by Simmons Market Research determined that more gays and lesbians watched The Golden Girls than the general population in any given week. The show did touch on homosexuality a few times: Blanche’s brother came out as gay in one episode and Dorothy’s college friend was a lesbian.

7. Estelle Getty was 47 years old before she first appeared on stage, so it was no wonder that she felt intimidated by her veteran co-workers. Since Sophia was a last-minute addition as a regular character, who would’ve thought that she would ultimately become the most popular Golden Girl? Part of her charm was the stroke that had damaged the part of her brain that censored her speech, which allowed the writers to give her some classic cutting lines.

8. As time went on, Estelle had some odd medical problems that ultimately led to a misdiagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease. Unfortunately, the medications she was given in error further exacerbated the problem. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that she was finally diagnosed as suffering from Lewy Body Dementia.

9. A large part of the Golden Girls’ appeal was that they were all women over age 50 who were still actively working, volunteering in the community, and even dating and having sex. They showed the world that menopause didn’t automatically equal resigning oneself to knitting afghans and baking cookies.

Enjoy some class quotes at IMDB

Rock Bottom Winners

Tina Turner Overdrive and the Consumption of the Super Burger Dog (314 points)
Kit Kitteredge! Jason Looks Foxy Tonight (311)
Drink the Beer (308)
A-Rod's F'ing Madonna but I'm F'ing Matt Damon (300)
Jesse Helms Flies Coach to Hell (235)
The Racing Presidents
Emily and Neil Got Engaged
Screw You Guys I'm Going Homo
FARC New Hostage Strategy: Kidnap David Copperfield
Here for the Beer
Dutch Helms Disease
Outnumbered but Sporton' Blackberries
Charm City Stompers
The Basement Crew
Team Turtle

Question of the Week

(TV) What are the first two words of every Friends episode title but the first and last one?

JR's Winners (Only a Little Late)

Joey's Boyz (329 points)
Buff and Blue Balls (298)
Longhorns and Thundercats (262)
Must Be This Tall to Ride (216)
Typical Black People (213)
I Still Wish it Was 8 O'clock
Jason's Pool Boys Return
Boned on the Fourth of July
James Woods
Vaginaless Monologues
DNJ2Day

Written on the 4th of July

In the United States, Independence Day (aka the Fourth of July) is a federal holiday commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Congress approved the wording of the Declaration on July 4 and then sent it to the printer.

Observance
- In 1776, John Adams declared, "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."
- In 1777, thirteen guns were fired, once at morning and again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island.
-Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews, and fireworks. Ships were decked with red, white, and blue bunting.
-In 1778, General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute.
-In 1779, July 4 fell on a Sunday. The holiday was celebrated on Monday, July 5.
-In 1781, the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration.
-In 1783, Moravians in Salem, North Carolina, held the first celebration of July 4 in the country with a challenging music program assembled by Johann Friedrich Peter. This work was titled "The Psalm of Joy".
-In 1791 was the first recorded use of the name "Independence Day".
-In 1870, the U.S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees.
-In 1941, Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday. The residents of Vicksburg, Mississippi, celebrated Independence Day for the first time since July 4, 1863, when the Siege of Vicksburg ended with a Union victory during the American Civil War.

Customs
-Major displays are held in New York on the East River, in Chicago on Lake Michigan, Boston on the Charles River, in St. Louis on the Mississippi River, and on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. During the annual Windsor-Detroit International Freedom Festival, Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario host one of the world's largest fireworks displays, over the Detroit River, to celebrate both American Independence Day and Canada Day.

Learn all about the Declaration and more at Wiki