Hey! You kids! Get off my clean floor!

[robling_t]

The half-year total for Media Consumption of 2007 comes out to 73 books and 31 films, which is apparently more than most people's whole-year goal and probably a good indication that I've been slacking off about the getting-out-of-the-house-more thing. But at least I'm keeping on top of the Learning New Things Every Day Initiative, and since I'm done scrubbing all the floors I can uncover at the moment (Mum's room needs some special attention, as in renting a backhoe to find the floor), I'll take this moment to update through yesterday, so I can clear stuff out of the mental RAM and make room for more:

• New Thing Learned for 23 June: Britain has opera-singing cellphone salesmen, we get a guy who can break things with his butt. Can I defect? [Source: America's Got Talent.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 24 June: Shakespeare invented assassination, or at least coined the word, as the usage in MacBeth is its first known appearance in English. [Source: Inventing English : a portable history of the language, Seth Lerer.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 25 June: A director once saw fit to cast Richard Burton and Rex Harrison as a gay couple, with results that are exactly as "...WTF?" as you're picturing. So much for ever being able to watch Cleopatra with a straight face... [Source: Turner Classic Movies.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 26 June: The circuit-breaker marked "guestroom" also controls the outlet we've got the telly plugged into and the light in the entry hall, for some reason. [Source: switching things off as a precaution during floodwater cleanup.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 27 June: The lead vocalist of Swing Out Sister is female, which surprised me nearly as much as discovering Jimmy Somerville wasn't. Altos confuse me. [Source: VH1 Classic.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 28 June: Cellulose gum is an ingredient in Twinkies and rocket fuel. [Source: Nightline.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 29 June: The part of Marilyn Munster was recast 14 episodes into the show's run, and nobody noticed. Incidentally, the reason the son of a Frankenstein and a Dracula can end up being a werewolf is that Grandpa Munster had the vampiric ability to turn into a wolf, just so we're all clear on that one. [Source: Biography channel.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 30 June: Caterpillars produce a surprising amount of poop. [Source: prisoner-of-war captured munching on one of our tomato plants.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 1 July: Styrofoam can be made in any color required, as evidenced by the big black chunk of it in the shape of the inside of our front bumper that was left lying in the street by the Midnight Sideswiper. [Source: a color-coordinated car accident.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 2 July: The local Starbucks closes at 9 on weeknights, which is embarrassing when it's your knitting group that's closed the place down. [Source: manager of same.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 3 July: The reason Charles Guiteau was a disappointed office-seeker is that James Garfield had embarked upon an ambitious program to curb the patronage excesses of his immediate predecessors in the office. I've just lost all but three or four of you, haven't I. [Source: History Channel, "the Presidents".]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 4 July: "Royalties" were originally a percentage that the monarch claimed out of assets owned by the Crown but under development by private parties, as in Spain's exploitation of the New World: "It's my [gold mine/country/manuscript], but you have my permission to exploit it for commercial gain so long as I get a cut". [Source: Empire, James Laxer.]
  
  
• New Thing Learned for 5 July: The Olympic torch relay was first instituted for the Berlin games of 1936, which is kind of creepy if you think about it too hard. [Source: Nazi games : the Olympics of 1936, David Clay Large.]
  

None of which has actually advanced my day's goal of getting the July WCKG newsletter done before the next meeting, unfortunately. {goes to rummage around in email pile, whimpering at the size of the job ahead}