"This place is a prison, these people aren't my friends..."

Hello everyone, I hope you had a great yesterday and that you got to sleep in this morning. I again had to wake up at 6 am to call my boss and find out once again that they didnt need me after all... I want to either scream or go back to bed, and I can't make up my mind, so I'm writing this email instead.

Happy Eat What You Want Day and Twilight Zone Day.
Your Words of the Day are:

heteroclite (HET-uhr-uh-klyt)
adjective:
1. Deviating from the ordinary rule; eccentric.
2. (In grammar) Irregularly inflected.
noun:
1. A person who is unconventional; a maverick.
2. A word that is irregularly formed.

diapason (dye-uh-PAY-zun)
1 a) a burst of harmonious sound b) the principal
foundation stop of an organ c) (i) the entire
compass of musical tones (ii) range, scope
2 a) tuning fork b) a standard of pitch

hackneyed (HAK-need) adjective:
: lacking in freshness or originality

high-street, adjective:
Of, relating to, or characteristic of a high street (esp. as the principal shopping street of a town) or the shops typically found there, the goods sold in them, etc. Hence: designed for, directed at, or readily available to the general public; popular, mainstream.

conflagration \kon-fluh-GRAY-shuhn\, noun:
1. A large and destructive fire; a general burning.
2. Something like a conflagration; conflict; war.

Irish Word Of The Day:
cara (KAH-ruh) noun: friend
Usage: Cara is seen regularly in the opening line of letters (including letters to the editor, etc., that are otherwise in English)
-Z, a chara = Dear Z (uh XAH-ruh; x = guttural in loch)
-(literally, "Z, o friend")
History: Cara is derived from the Old Irish verb root "car-", to love, and originally meant "(one who) loves". It may come from the Indo-European root *ka- (to like, desire), which would make it a distant relative of such words as "caress", "charity" and "whore".

So I was reading this book the other day and I realized that I like it a lot. If you're into that wacky British humour, check out some Terry Pratchett books. I reccomend: Mort, Good Omens (start with this one, for sure!), Colour of Magic (read this second, if you make it past Good Omens!), The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, and any others you can find. He's got a lot, shouldnt be too hard to miss if you're looking. He's possibly the funniest man on the planet (I'd say he ties with Dave Barry and he is a little funnier than Jack Candy) His use of imagery is astounding, seriously. If you read one of Terry Pratchett's books, tell me and I'll send out a prize for that too.

Happy Birthday to:
Johann Gottfried Seyfert,1731
Chang & Eng Bunker, 1811 (tell me what they're famous for, and you win the prize!)
Charles Warren Fairbanks, 1852 (tell me who he worked with for a prize!)
Mr Reyskens, 1878 (this dude was the oldest man in the Netherlands in all of recorded history! so old that they forgot his first name, evidently)
Irving Berlin, 1888
Margaret Rutherford, 1892
Martha Graham, 1894 (choreographer for Appalachian Spring, born in Alleghany, PA)
Clare Grundman, 1913 (Kentucky 1800, anyone remember that one?)
Eric Burdon, 1941 (singer for the Animals)
Mark Herndon, 1955 (drummer for Alabama)

Happy Deathday to:
Matteo Ricci, 1610 (tell me what he did for a prize)
Joseph Kerckhoff, 1772
John Heart, 1779 (he signed the Declaration of Independance, yet no one has ever heard of him. try telling me thats fair)
John Herschel, 1871 (hes on my Stud List)
Karl Schwarzschild, 1916 (anyone recognize this name? think Feghoot)
Edward H Thompson, 1935 (Mayan archaeologist)
John D Rockefeller Jr, 1960
Bob Marley, 1981
Carlos Herrera, 1922 (inventor of the margarita)
Leonard Friedman, 1994

Things that happened today in history:
Constantinople (Byzantium) becomes capital of Roman Empire, 330 (heehee! the word Constantinople always reminds me of that great song by They Might Be Giants on their album Flood, called Istanbul. They Might Be Giants is the band that I took yesterday's subject line from. My dad won that one, congratulations!)
Emperor Frederik I Barbarossa & 100,000 crusaders depart Regensburg, 1189
1st US hospital founded (Pennsylvania Hospital), 1751
1st US fire insurance policy issued (Philadelphia), 1752
Waltz introduced into English ballrooms, 1812 (as one commentator commented, "Most observers consider it disgusting & immoral. No wonder it caught on!")
Henri Desgrange establishes 1st bicycle-world record (35.325 km), 1893 (even I could beat that one)
Einstein's Theory of General Relativity presented, 1916
Pulitzer Prize awarded to Robert Frost, 1924 (tell me where he was from for a prize!)
1st Polaroid camera sold $89.95 (NYC), 1949 (tell me who invented it! oh wait, I talked about him earlier this week...)
Siam renames itself Thailand, 1949
Bangladesh windstorm kills 17,000, 1965
Richard Harris releases "MacArthur Park", 1968 (hehe... this song is almost as messed up as "Lola")
Stanley Cup: Montreal Canadiens sweep St Louis Blues in 4 games, 1968
1st heart-lung transplant take place (Baltimore), 1987
Kenya announces worldwide ban on ivory to preserve its elephant herds, 1989
"Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult," released in France, 1994 (I don't know if anyone cares, I just provide what I find)

So um, just out of curiosity, how many of you are actually still reading? I was just thinking that maybe everyone stops reading somewhere up near the top, and nobody really finishes...

Today's Quotes:

A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself because he can't help himself.
Henry Morgan

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.
Leo Rosten (1908 - )

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930)

Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.
Yogi Berra (1925 - ) (this guy's a genius)

Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.
John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)

He who can does, He who cannot, teaches.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) (I personally disagree with this one, but it does explain the overwhelming number of incompetent teachers in public schools. I think I only liked about 10% of my teachers, but that's okay, none of them knew me or cared what I thought anyway.)

Depend not on fortune, but on conduct.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to get leisure.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790) (name the book this was published in)

Thats all for today, dont forget to claim your prizes, tie your shoelaces and eat your crusts. Hey, speaking of eating crusts, does anyone remember on Bill Nye the Science Guy, when they'd have that pointless little black and white film clips of "Ritchie, Eat Your Crusts" and then something cool would happen like an earthquake or an attack by giant ants, and then his mom says "Ritchie, you should have eaten your crusts"... ok now I'm really done. Also, I've fixed a few things on my website, particularly the Stud List. so now if you check out http://myweb.cableone.net/djhar7/Fricative2.htm and go down to the bottom, you can submit new names to The List and there is also a section for feedback on the site in general. If I can get a lot of people to visit, then I can take the next few steps in conquering the world...
Peace out, Brian