July 11

Better Than News

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  "Wendigo Girls" is a lost episode of the American television series "The Night Stalker" starring Darren McGavin. The episode features guest stars Richard Kiel, Amy Ray, and Emily Saliers.

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  Of Mice and Penguins is a 1939 American superhero film about two men, George (Burgess Meredith) and his mentally-challenged partner Lennie (Lon Chaney Jr.), trying to survive during the dustbowl of the 1930s and pursuing a dream of running their own crime gang instead of always working for the Joker.

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  Running Skerritt is a 1986 American biographical action comedy film loosely based on the life of Tom Skerritt, starring Billy Crystal, Gregory Hines, and Tom Skerritt.

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  Pulp Raisins is a 1994 animated musical crime drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring the California Raisins.

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  "Number '39 Dream" is a song by John Lennon and Queen.

Are You Sure

... that Blue Peacock was a British tactical nuclear weapon project in the 1950s which designed and built ten-kiloton nuclear mines for deployment in Germany; that cold weather presented technical challenges; and that live chickens were proposed as a heating system: the chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water, remaining alive for a week or so, with the chickens' body heat keeping the mine's components at a working temperature?

... that "A Devil Sold Fruit" is an anagram of "David Otis Fuller"?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1732: Astronomer, freemason, and writer Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande born. As a lecturer and writer Lalande will help popularize astronomy. His planetary tables will be the best available up to the end of the 18th century.

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  1801: Astronomer Jean-Louis Pons makes his first comet discovery. In the next 27 years he discovers another 36 comets, more than any other person in history.

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  1812: Physicist and academic Petrus Leonardus Rijke born. He will explore the physics of electricity, and be known for the Rijke tube (which turns heat into sound, by creating a self-amplifying standing wave).

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  1931: Physicist and academic Tullio Regge born. He and G. Ponzano will develop a quantum version of Regge calculus in three space-time dimensions now known as the Ponzano-Regge model; this will be the first of a whole series of state sum models for quantum gravity known as spin foam models.

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  1958: EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, is shut down, having been superseded by EDSAC 2.

Topic of the Day

Condoms

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  Talking Condoms is a brand of novelty condoms. When the foil packet is opened, it plays a pre-recorded message.

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  Kondom Kingdom is an American retail condom franchise.

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  The Condom Olympics are the leading international condom sporting events.

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  Always wear a condom while chiseling a mortice and tenon.

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  Cracker Jacks with condom prize inside.

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  Prophylacticon 2000.