Friday: Hili dialogue

November 30, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s the last day of the month: November 30, 2018, and I can eat again! Right now I’m nomming two pieces of toast with butter and the world’s best jam: Wilkin & Sons Tiptree “Little Scarlet” Strawberry Preserves. After that I’ll tuck into a huge latte.  It’s National Mousse Day, which is National Mouse day for cats. It’s also Regina Mundi Day, celebrating a South African church that was important in the anti-apartheid movement.

Another scanty day in history. On November 30, 1803, the Spanish officially gave the Louisiana Territory to the French who, just 20 days later, sold the same land to the U.S. as the “Louisiana Territory”. The French price to America was a pittance: 828,000 square miles for just sixty-eight million francs ($15 million at the time)—just $18 per square mile.

On this day in 1872, the world’s first international soccer game took place between Scotland and England. It was played at Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow and ended in a 0-0 draw.  On November 30, 1936, the famous Crystal Palace in London was destroyed by a fire that started in the women’s cloakroom.  On this day in 1947, according to Wikipedia, “Civil War in Mandatory Palestine begins, leading up to the creation of the state of Israel.”  Who knows how things would have turned out if the territory had been Optional Palestine?

Here’s a strange tale of a human struck by an extraterrestrial object. Again from Wikipedia, on November 30, 1954, “In Sylacauga, Alabama, United States, the Hodges meteorite crashes through a roof and hits a woman taking an afternoon nap; this is the only documented case in the Western Hemisphere of a human being hit by a rock from space. The 34-year-old woman was badly bruised on one side of her body, but was able to walk.”

Here’s the meteorite, the hole and the victim, Ann Hodges (all from National Geographic‘s story):

Mrs. Hodges, mayor, police chief examine hole caused by a meteorite that struck mrs. Hodges in Sylacauga. University of Alabama Museum of Natural History

From story: Moody Jacobs shows a giant bruise on the side and hip of his patient, Ann Hodges, in 1954, after she was struck by a meteorite. PHOTOGRAPH BY JAY LEVITON, TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES

Finally, on this day in 1982, Michael Jackson released the album Thriller, which remains the best-selling album in history. My favorite song on that album is “Human Nature.” Here’s Jackson performing it “live” (not sure if there’s any lip-synching) at Wembley in 1988:

Notables born on this day include Andrea Palladio (1508), Philip Sidney (1554), Jonathan Swift (1667), Mark Twain (1835), Winston Churchill (1874), Gordon Parks (1912), Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (1918), Dick Clark (1929), Abbie Hoffman (1936), and David Mamet (1947). Mamet is the only one still alive.

Those who died on November 30 include Oscar Wilde (1900), Zeppo Marx (1979; real name Herbert Manfred Marx), Tiny Tim (1996), and Jim Nabors (last year).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili wants a portrait of herself:

Hili: Print it out, please.
A: What?
Hili: What do you mean “what”? Me, when I’m washing myself while sitting on the printer.
In Polish:
Hili: Proszę to wydrukować.
Ja: Co?
Hili: Jak to co? Mnie jak myję się na drukarce.

Reader Nilou reports that the Central Park Mandarin duck is taking breaks in, of all places, New Jersey! He’s slumming!

Three tweets found by reader Tom from this collection. The first one is way creepy:

Rat + slice of bread = Kangaroo rat:

Remember the roadrunner?

https://twitter.com/OkigboXL/status/1065354215097335808

Tweets from Grania. This one she calls “Grim but amazing footage”:

Cat vs. ostriches (cat loses):

Look at that shock wave! Mt. Tavurvur is in Papua New Guinea.

Tweets from Matthew. The first one is amazing:

I believe this adorable creature is a sugar glider:

https://twitter.com/xxlfunny1/status/1067483234798321664

Why do these obese cavies do this?

Even if a cat did write this, it’s right!

 

 

29 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  2. First had wilkin and sons preserves on business trip to u.k. In the 80s and have continued to enjoy this treat whenever i come across them here in the u.s. to this day. Thanks for the memory prod.

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    1. …I mean, I’ve never met anyone who thought their dog was a genius. Mostly they concede that their dog is pretty thick. Sometimes they throw a towel over it to demonstrate the fact, and we watch as said dog struggles for upwards of a minute to extricate itself.

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      1. And how does taking a blanket off demonstrate intelligence? When in all of their evolutionary history have canids needed to perform such a thing? I’ve never bought that this “test” proves anything about intelligence. It reminds me of studies that “proved” how stupid tortoises are because they were so slow at finding their way through a maze with a food reward at the end, until a much more intelligent scientist noticed the temperature at which the tortoises were being forced to perform the task. When warmed up, if I recall correctly, they out-performed or equaled rats in the same situations.

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        1. I don’t think my friend getting slightly pissed, throwing a cloth over their dog and filming it with their iPhone actually constitutes a rigorous scientific experiment, so I wouldn’t claim it as ‘proof’ of anything.

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    1. The guinea pigs (cavies) are jumping over the area between the rugs because the hardwood floors are slippery. When I had pet rabbits, they walked on carpeting as much as possible, because their fur-covered paws could not get a good grip on bare floors. Rabbits have broken their backs running on bare floors, bacause they couldn’t stop themselves before running into something or they lost their balance when hopping.
      The guinea pigs are being smart, not dumb or OCD.

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      1. That makes sense. Also, the size of the gap between the carpets isn’t that big, so they can hop it quite easily, but the step down from the the carpet to the floor – and then up from the floor to the carpet – is relatively large, given how short their tiny little legs are.

        To us it’s nothing, but to them they have to climb half the height of their legs. It’s probably more efficient in terms of energy just to hop the gap rather than step down then step back up again.

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  6. Less than 50 years after the Louisiana purchase we received another gift, stealing Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada from Mexico for approx. $18 million. Who says war is not profitable.

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    2. Just for curiosity sake I found an inflation calculator suggesting that 18e6 dollars in 1860* would be the equivalent of a little over half a billion dollars today, about the cost of an average football stadium. A steal indeed.

      *I know the purchase was in 1849, after the war, but the calculator I found only went back to 1860.

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    3. I’ve often wondered, did the Spanish or the French ever ask the people inhabiting those lands if they accepted the sale? Did they ever receive any part of the purchase price for what was, after all, their land?

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  7. “Holy Smokin’ Toledo!”

    Hey, hey, watch your language! This is a family website.

    Thought for a second there I was listening to a Thirties newsreel. Or Danny Thomas on “Make Room for Daddy.”

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  8. What is it with all these doctors complaining about guns? Why don’t they mind their own business?

    In a completely unrelated matter, Dr. Tamara O’Neal, murdered Nov 19 at Mercy Hospital in Chicago, will be buried this morning in LaPorte, IN. Funerals were already held for CPO Samuel Jimenez and pharmacist Dayna Less who were also murdered in the same incident. All three murdered by a guy with a legal weapon for which he had a concealed carry permit.

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    1. Perhaps once we return to the murder rates of the frontier towns back in the 1800’s we will change our minds on allowing, hell, encouraging people to walk around armed at all times. Or maybe not. Maybe we will go the route of lawless regions like much of Libya or Afghanistan, where instead of police and sheriffs, warlords with armed militias will keep the “peace”.

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  9. The mandarin duck and the wood duck are a pair of species we see in North America. They seem to me to be absurdly ornate. It’s as if they are trying to outdo other ducks…and each other. To get a look at them is always a thrill. Is there a case to be made for Prum’s runaway selection? They’d be pretty darn attractive with just half the ornaments.

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  10. It is also Frank N Meyer’s birthday. A USDA Plant Explorer (just look at his pic!!), Meyer traveled in China collecting botanical specimens that included samples that proved that the Chestnut Blight fungus, Cryphonectria parasitica, was endemic there, thus proving its origin, and also brought the lemon that bears his name back from there.

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    1. My bad – the Eagles album is actually called “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)”. It took the No. 1 slot in August 2018, and is apparently rated 38x platinum.

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  15. If Jackson was lip-synching that, he did an excellent job. I’d bet 60-40 he wasn’t lip-synching.

    Just listened to a little of the tune off the album and his voice is noticeably brighter on the album. This pushes me to 90-10 he wasn’t lip-synching.

    Reply

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