Panic Day
Have you ever wondered how the dinosaurs felt?
Now’s your chance: It’s Panic Day! (Doesn’t it feel like every day is Panic Day right now?)
PS: Save a little anxiety for International Panic Day on June 18th!
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National Proofreading Day
Why wood ewe knead a proofreader wen yew halve spellcheck?
Spell checkers ken ketch mistakes if there are obvious wons. It docent make sense too higher sum one fro that.
Then again, you’ll never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Happy National Proofreading Day!
National Frozen Food Day
Today is National Frozen Food Day, which honors the pioneering work of Clarence Birdseye. While living in Canada, he learned from the Inuit how to fish through a hole in the ice. He noticed that the day’s catch froze almost instantly, tasted fresh, and didn’t turn to mush like conventional slow-frozen foods when thawed. Convinced he had discovered something revolutionary, he developed a freezing machine and patented it in 1927.
It took time for the world to catch up. Railroads used ice for its refrigeration “reefer” cars and wouldn’t accept responsibility for possible spoilage. Markets had no freezers to store the fish. Although home refrigerators were available, separate compartments with room for more than a few ice cube trays wouldn’t be introduced until 1940. Birdseye ran out of money, sold his company to Postum Cereals (now Post Consumer Brands), and took a job there.
With the company’s financial resources, Birdseye began the painstaking process of convincing the public what a boon frozen food could be to busy mothers and families. In March 1930, he placed display freezers into several stores in Springfield, MA, stocking them with 27 different foods from haddock to spinach.
Fifty-four years later, Senate Joint Resolution 193 requested that Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States of America, officially designate March 6th as Frozen Food Day. Proclamation 5157 reads, in part:
…The international frozen food industry started in the United States. Frozen vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish were first packaged and offered to consumers in 1930, contributing greatly to the convenience of life and freeing consumers permanently from the cycle of limited seasonal availability of many foods.
Between 1935 and 1940, frozen foods became available to the public on a large scale. During World War II, ration point values posted in stores and carried in newspapers focused public attention on frozen food. Frozen food became a part of the space age when Apollo XII astronauts took frozen meals on board. Seventy-two frozen food items were stored on the Skylab for a five hundred-day supply of meals for the crew…
Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim March 6, 1984, as Frozen Food Day, and I call upon the American people to observe such day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and eighth.
Ronald Reagan
TV dinner in the Reagan White House
Happy National Frozen Food Day!
National Pass Gas Day
Today is National Pass Gas Day. Hot on the tail, if you will, of National Bean Day comes this celebration of all things flatulent. A 1995 study — yes, there have been studies — estimates that we pass gas 13.6 times a day. (Perhaps the remaining 0.4 refers to those that were smelt yet not dealt?)
Farts: What are they good for? For one thing, they relieve pressure in our colon at various stages of digestion. Stretching of the intestinal walls can cause bloating, discomfort, and constipation.
Did you know that the rumbling or gurgling sound caused by the movement of gas in the intestines is called borborygmus [bawr-buh–rig-muh s]? Drumlike swelling of the abdomen due to air or gas in the intestine or peritoneal cavity is called meteorism or tympanites [tim-puh–nahy-teez].
A 2011 study found that while a rapid increase in bean intake may cause some flatulence, it will normalize over time.
A performer named Mr. Methane bills himself as the world’s only professional flatulist. He was inspired by 19th-century French vaudevillian Le Pétomane (the fart maniac). In 2009, Mr. M auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent and farted The Blue Danube in Simon Cowell’s general direction. The YouTube video has over 64 million views. He was invited to perform at the 2013 World Fart Championships in Finland. (At 47, he was too old to compete.)
In 1982, a psychiatric journal published the case study of a 33-year-old woman with “obsessive flatulence ruminations” who was treated with the “paradoxical instructions to intensify flatus emissions.” This helped cure the woman, a respiratory therapist, but we’re guessing her patients’ breathing problems intensified during her treatment period.
Now, to the heart of the matter. Fart jokes are perennial, delighting both young and old. Check out George Carlin’s stand-up routine about farting in public.
If you’re left wanting more, have some fun with the Ultimate Fart Soundboard. We would never suggest you pass gas, but somehow, we know you will. Have a happy National Pass Gas Day!