Today Is... 📆

GregRedd · May 5, 2021, 5:32am

It is Wednesday, 5 May 2021
(W18 | D125 | 240 rem)

Most people love some form of cartoon, whether it’s political cartoons, cartoon superheros or the strips in the newspaper that let you forget about the rest of the (not always good) news for a little while. So today, celebrate Cartoonists’ Day, in honour of the people who create your favorite cartoons.

The National Cartoonist Society started the day in 1999. The date honours the day the very first colour newspaper cartoon was published, 5 May, 1895.

The single-panel cartoon was Hogan’s Alley by Richard Outcault. The newspaper was the New York Sunday World. And the main character was The Yellow Kid (“real” name Mickey Dugan).

The Yellow Kid was a bare-foot boy with a shaved head. He wore a yellow, hand-me-down nightshirt and his thoughts were printed on that shirt. The character had appeared in previous black-and-white cartoons.

Much like in advertising today, the popular cartoon character quickly appeared on billboards, postcards, cigarette packs and other products. Today of course we still have cartoons selling products, along with promoting education, shaping public opinion and more.

The Yellow Kid was an archetype of the world, rather than a character in and of itself. Outcault recounted that as he walked the slums of the city on his rounds, he would discover the kid walking out of houses, or sitting and hanging about on doorsteps. The archetypical “kid” was always warm and sunny, friendly, generous, and free of malice and selfishness. How amazing that Richard saw all the good in the world in the worst parts of it, perhaps that’s a lesson in and of itself.

The longest-running newspaper cartoon in history, to date, is called The Katzenjammer Kids, which debuted in 1897 in the American Humorist, and has changed little over the hands of three different cartoonists. The original cartoonist of the comic, Rudolph Dirks, was one of the first to regularly indicate dialogue through speech balloons; speech balloons were standardized as the form in which cartoonists indicated dialogue by the early 1900s, and are still being used today.

Today, many cartoons are recognized not only in the printed media of the comics section, but on television and the internet as well.

One of the first film cartoons was released for viewing in 1908, and is considered to be Fantasmagorie, a hand-drawn animation by French cartoonist Émile Cohl. The cartoon, only one minute and twenty seconds in length, consists of a stick figure man running into and morphing into other objects. The short animated cartoon was derived from 700 hand-drawn illustrations. Cohl would go on to be referred to as the “father of the animated cartoon.”

Not all cartoonists aim to make you laugh but also use the media as a source of discussion. With the rise of the popular political cartoon, cartoonists now use comics and illustration as a form of political discourse. The political cartoon is an illustration, often with a caricature, to convey commentary on current events or politics. Instead of finding these on the funny pages of a newspaper, they are often found in the editorial pages of a newspaper or journal.

For many years, cartoons were viewed as low-brow in comparison to other forms of art, but the work of cartoonists is important and underappreciated. The art form has grown in popularity with a younger generation that seeks to utilize both art and culture in their media expression.

So, while the day really aims to celebrate the creators of our favourite cartoons, the cartoonists, who and what are some of your favourite cartoons and comics?

Take as many panels as you need to have a well drawn Wednesday, my dudes!

murfle · May 5, 2021, 6:39am

I hope you all like my cartoon.

Wyvern · May 5, 2021, 6:55am

13+Cookie 38+Kill+You 40+Ninja 29+Black+Widow

My all time favourite series

oltman · May 5, 2021, 4:47pm

I simply love Bill Watterson, and purely for Calvin and Hobbes!

GregRedd · May 5, 2021, 7:12pm

For me Robb, Dave, Kris and Matt (Cyanide & Happiness), Gary Larson (The Far Side), Scott Adams (Dilbert), and locally Stephen Francis and Rico (Madam & Eve).

https://explosm.net/

Homepage | Dilbert by Scott Adams

https://twitter.com/madamevecartoon

GregRedd · May 6, 2021, 5:56am

Good morning!

It is Thursday, 6 May 2021
(W18 | D126 | 239 rem)

Today is: International No Diet Day

International No Diet Day (INDD) is an annual celebration of body acceptance, including fat acceptance and body shape diversity. The first International No Diet Day was celebrated in the UK in 1992.

This day is also dedicated to promoting a healthy life style with a focus on health at any size and in raising awareness of the potential dangers of, and the unlikelihood of success of, dieting; the Institute of Medicine summarises: “those who complete weight loss programs lose approximately 10 percent of their body weight only to regain two-thirds within a year and almost all of it within five years.”

No Diet Day was created by Mary Evans Young in 1992. Young is the director of the British group “Diet Breakers”.

After personally experiencing anorexia nervosa, she worked to help people appreciate themselves for what they are, and to appreciate the body they have. Young developed her understanding both through her own experiences of being bullied at school for being fat and by speaking with women who attended the management courses she ran. She relates in her book, Diet Breaking: Having It All Without Having to Diet, how during one of these courses in 1991 she became irritated with the coffee break conversation about whether or not the women were going to eat a biscuit - “Oh, I’ll just have one”, “I shouldn’t really”, “Oh, all right then”. Young asked the group “What do you think would happen if you spent as much time and energy on your careers as you do on diets?”

In May 1992, Young introduced the first No Diet Day.

It was a small affair to be celebrated by a dozen women with a picnic in Hyde Park, London. Ages ranged from twenty-one to seventy-six and they all wore stickers saying: Ditch That Diet. It rained, and so Mary Evans Young held the picnic in her home. Since then, groups in other countries around the globe have started to celebrate No Diet Day, especially in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Israel, Denmark, Sweden and Brazil.

In celebrating No Diet Day, participants aim to:

Question the idea of one “right” body shape.
Raise awareness of weight discrimination, size bias, and fat phobia.
Declare a single day free from diets and obsessions about body weight.
Present the facts about the diet industry, emphasizing the inefficacy of commercial diets.
Honour the victims of eating disorders and weight-loss surgery.
Help end weight discrimination, sizism and fat phobia.

Eat healthy, be happy, love the body you have, and have a great Thursday!

Beo · May 6, 2021, 7:53am

I’ve already had Vida Bomba and Dirty Chai with two slices of their banana bread smeared with butter.

GregRedd · May 7, 2021, 4:27am

Good morning!

It is Friday, 7 May 2021
(W18 | D127 | 238 rem)

Today is: Cosmopolitan Day

Cosmopolitans are probably one of the most famous cocktails out there, where people can go out at night and enjoy and fun night dancing, laughing, and singing in clubs. If you love cosmos, then you’ll love Cosmopolitan Day. This drink has been making the rounds for a while, and it highlights the 90’s as one of the best drinks of its time.

Although the day itself is coined by freelancer writer, Jace Shoemaker-Galloway, who writes about non-traditional holidays, the history of the Cosmo itself is very murky.

According to Vinepair.com, the first tracked origins of the cosmo go back to the late nineteenth century, where a cocktail known as the Daisy emerged as a drink with a recipe that called for spirit, sweetener and citrus.

Although this isn’t exactly a cosmo, a more direct line for its origins comes from 1968, when Ocean Spray wanted to advertise cranberry juice to adults. They named the drink “The Harpoon” and it called for an ounce of vodka, an ounce of cranberry, and a squeeze of lime, which was close to the Cosmo recipe but missed the Cointreau and/or Triple Sec.

Although legends differ that the Cosmo came from the gay subculture of Miami Beach, Florida and Provincetown, Massachusetts, the formal invention of the drink is credited to a bartender named Toby Cecchini, who made the drink while working at the famous Odeon in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood in 1987.

It’s popularity spread into celebrity culture, where it ended up in The Rainbow Room, where Madonna is pictured drinking it at a Grammy after-party. However, it was brought into mainstream culture by the famous Tv Show Sex and the City, where it appeared multiple times throughout the show, creating a cultural impact on the U.S.

Better known as the “Cosmo,” the drink is a combination of vodka, triple sec, lime juice, and cranberry juice. Many variations and twists exist though, and mixologists often create signature Cosmopolitans for their establishments.

Be suave and sexy and oh so cosmopolitan, and have an awesome Friday!

murfle · May 7, 2021, 7:17am

Love a good Cosmo

GregRedd · May 8, 2021, 6:47am

Good morning!

It is Saturday, 8 May 2021
(W18 | D128 | 237 rem)

Today is: World Donkey Day

World Donkey Day is a show of respect for one of the most enduring and respectable animals in the Equidae family.

Throughout history, it has served the world as both a mount and a beast of burden in some of the most challenging terrains and forbidding climates, and has done so with pride and endurance. It’s unsurprising that these beasts’ success is due in part to their stubborn nature, and World Donkey Day honours them for this along with their other, perhaps more laudable, traits.

Two subspecies of the donkey, the Somalian and the Nubian, were bred together to produce what we think of as the modern Donkey. Available evidence points to the Donkey having been working alongside humanity since 4000 BCE, most likely in Nubia, as a more versatile and resilient pack animal than the ox they were presently using.

Since then they have been bred and transplanted all over the world as cultures moved, and the world expanded, and can now be found just about everywhere.

They’re also the progenitors of the sterile mule, a cross-breeding of horse and donkey that results in a breed with the strengths of both. Sadly mules are almost entirely sterile, and the exceptions so rare that no breeding stock of pure mules has ever been able to be achieved, in part due to there having yet to be recorded a case of a breedable mule stallion.

Strangely, there have been cases where female mules have birthed what are, for all appearances, pure horses when bred with a horse.

Without the help of donkeys, it is hard to imagine that the modern world could ever have come into existence. These hardy pack animals provided civilization with the motive energy needed to generate wealth, well before the advent of steam power or electricity. For that reason, many people consider donkeys just as fundamental to our society as writing, pottery, and metallurgy.

World Donkey Day is all about celebrating their stoic spirit and individual charm. These creatures aren’t afraid of a hard day’s work. In fact, they more or less invented the concept.

Donkeys pull carts, operate mills, and carry cargo for miles and miles, well after other species would have given up. For that reason, they have a special place in our hearts. They’re willing to put in the effort (for no pay) all to serve us – their grateful human masters.

World Donkey Day is the brainchild of Raziq Ark, a scientist whose interests primarily concern desert animals. Around ten years ago, he noticed that nobody was celebrating the humble donkey for its efforts in helping people all over the world improve their quality of life. In recognition of all this hard work, he set up a Facebook group, chronicling the trials and tribulations of the species all over the world. Eventually, the idea to set up a World Donkey Day emerged in 2018, and we’ve been celebrating it ever since.

Donkeys have played an essential part in human history. Ark says that they are a “precious genetic resource and a great gift of nature.” You can’t get higher praise than that!

Today is World Donkey Day, and what better way to celebrate them than to share a few of the things that make these intelligent, curious animals who they are?

If you challenge a donkey to a memory game, chances are you’ll lose. These gentle animals are able to remember places they’ve been to before and recognise donkey pals they haven’t seen for 25 years.
Donkeys are safety-conscious. If they fear a situation might be dangerous, they do their very best to stay away from it. This is often mistaken for stubbornness when, really, they’re just careful and cautious.
Like humans and our fellow primates, donkeys love to clean and groom each other. These herd animals are all about looking good.
They are nothing if not hygienic and refuse to drink water if they deem it too dirty.
Donkeys like to be in dry, warm places. Their natural habitats are deserts and savannahs.
If someone they love is moved or taken away from them, they become extremely upset. They’re social animals who get lonely when they’re by themselves because of the deep bonds they form with their friends and family.
The world is home to over 44 million donkeys, and they come in all shapes and sizes – there are over 186 breeds of donkey!
Donkeys have big ears so they can hear each other from long distances. They communicate by braying, grunting, squealing, whiffling, snorting, and even growling.
In their desert homes, they dig their hooves into the ground to access water, in turn providing birds, chipmunks, and other small animals with life-saving hydration.
Right now, millions of donkeys are being exploited or killed around the world, but you can help stop this! Choose to avoid products and tourist traps they’re harmed for – and take action for them by calling for change.

Now don’t be an smart ass - go out and have yourself a fantastic Saturday!

SIGSTART · May 8, 2021, 8:58am

Everyone knows donkeys are an ogre’s best friend!

GregRedd · May 9, 2021, 5:55am

Good morning!

It is Sunday, 9 May 2021
(W18 | D129 | 236 rem)

Today is: Lost Sock Memorial Day

There are few mysteries in life that are as perplexing as the mystery of the missing sock. No matter how hard you try to keep pairs of socks together, invariably one of them ventures out into the netherworld never to be found again.

Lost Sock Memorial Day. It is time to say “good-bye” to all of the single socks, the ones where their mates have been lost to the unknown. Where do all the missing socks go? Is there a washing machine heaven? This is a question people have been trying to solve for many years.

An answer may never be found to this problem, and life will go on. How sad to have lost such a close-knit friend!

Of course inventors have attempted the prevention of such separation anxiety. Alas, if they had succeeded, mismatched socks wouldn’t be popular today. And, we wouldn’t be pausing to remember them every 9th of May.

Lost Sock Memorial Day is a day to honour all those disappeared socks.

Lost Sock Memorial Day reminds you that it’s time to move on. Let go of those lost socks. Clean out all of your left behind socks. Some ways to celebrate this unusual holiday include:

making sock puppets
turn them into dust rags
chose to never wear matched socks again
turn them into chew toys for pets
make wrist warmers
make sock monkeys
fill them with beans and use them for your corn hole game
fill with rice and make a door stop
open up both ends of a long sock and make a plastic bag holder
Throw out all the single leftover socks
Use the leftover socks as cleaning cloths
Have a minute of silence for all the socks you have lost

What are some creative ways to use old socks? Share your ideas and say your final goodbyes to your lost socks.

Try not to get lost yourself today, call your mom to wish her happy Mother’s Day if you can, and have a wonderful Sunday!

*Today is also *

Mother’s Day

Celebrated on various dates around the world, but traditionally, by a majority of countries that do observe the day, on the second Sunday of May.

Mother’s Day is a celebration honouring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in the months of March or May.

The modern holiday began in the US at the initiative of Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century, who organized the first Mother’s Day service of worship and celebration at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, which serves as the International Mother’s Day Shrine today.

GregRedd · May 10, 2021, 4:37am

Good morning!

It is Monday, 10 May 2021
(W19 | D130 | 235 rem)

Today is: Mother Ocean Day

Today is the day to pay homage to our planet’s 5 oceans, and a time to respect this vital and wonderous force of nature.

For many of us, the sea is a mysterious entity and it is hard to deny the allure of the deep unknown. It is the setting of the incredible documentaries that we watch on TV, and discoveries we believe that only the likes of David Attenborough truly understand. For others, the ocean holds fond memories of warm summer days and holidays away, and the seas set the scene of our favourite pirate and mermaid tales, that many of us enjoyed as children.

Mother Ocean Day is relatively a new celebration, as it was introduced for the first time in 2013. It is a concept thought up by the South Florida Kayak Fishing Club that has since sought the approval of the City of Miami to declare this a day official.

The point, of course, is to take a day to celebrate the beauty and wonder of the ocean, and it is no surprise that inhabitants of Florida were the ones to come forward with this idea, as Florida is famous for particularly gorgeous white sand beaches and clear, aquamarine waters.

The ocean is not purely there for us to swim in and enjoy. It is critical for the survival of our plant, and it has been taken for granted for too long now! There are five oceans that make up our planet – the Antarctic or the Southern Ocean, as well as the Arctic, Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Did you know that these five oceans cover around 70 percent of the Earth?

Moreover, did you know that the ocean is responsible for producing more than half of the world’s oxygen? If that was not enough, it also absorbs 50 times more carbon dioxide when compared with our atmosphere.

The ocean is also responsible for helping with the regulation of the Earth’s climate, with the vast coverage of the ocean able to transport heat from the equator to the South and North poles. This will regulate the weather patterns as well as the climate.

And, of course, we cannot mention the ocean without speaking about the life that calls it home! This includes everything from the sea turtles in the Pacific to the manatees in the Atlantic ocean.

The ocean, however beautiful we remember or market it, unfortunately houses an ugly truth. It is no secret that for many years the seas have been continuously polluted with harmful chemicals as well as residential and industrial waste.

Even though the ocean covers more than 70% of our planet, the mindset of ‘out of sight out of mind’ has grown and has left our once clean oceans in extremely dire straits. Slowly but surely though, we have been opening our eyes to the damage that has been caused.

Throughout the past few years we have been educated on the effects of carbon emissions, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the vast amounts of non-biodegradable plastics invading the home of all aquatic creatures. These acts are having a devastating impact on the food chain from plants and the smallest of plankton right through to the largest animal on the planet, the blue whale.

The most shocking of revelations and the one causing many to act is the substantial growth of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Sadly, this is the biggest of the five major ‘garbage patches’ in the ocean.

The vortex of plastic particles has recently been exposed by scientists of the Ocean Cleanup Foundation to be 16 times larger than previously thought. An educated estimate of 80,000 tonnes of waste (around 1.8 trillion particles of all sizes) are floating in this area alone and researchers found that 99% of this waste was made of plastic.

The sheer size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is distressing: it is twice the size of Texas, up to 9 feet deep, and within it can be found more than 6 times more plastic than plankton, the main diet of sea animals.

Do your bit to help take care of our oceans, and have a good Monday!

DarthMol · May 10, 2021, 10:10am

Take a journey into the Deep Blue…
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GregRedd · May 11, 2021, 5:11am

Good morning!

It is Tuesday, 11 May 2021
(W19 | D131 | 234 rem)

Today is:

Eat What You Want Day

Observed annually on May 11th, Eat What You Want Day sets diets aside for a day of indulgence. It’s about having one day a year of eating with no regrets. Whether you love donuts or fast food, today is your day to gratify without feeling guilty.

Hotdogs, greasy hamburgers, french fries, potato chips, cake, cookies, sweets, and ice cream are just a few of the things you can enjoy today without remorse. Decadent food is definitely on the menu today.

However, the saying, “everything in moderation” applies to this holiday quite aptly. It’s a “don’t stress about your diet for one day” day, not an “eat everything in sight and then eat some more” day.

Many people spend time stressing over their diet, and what they should or shouldn’t eat, mainly because today’s world is filled with magazine covers sporting perfectly toned, perfectly tanned models that constantly make us feel inadequate.

The various health food fads that seem to come and go every few weeks definitely don’t help, either—as it turns out, a gluten-free diet is not particularly good for anyone who isn’t actually allergic to gluten, juice cleanses deprive us of the protein and fat our bodies need to function properly, and taking too many vitamin supplements just makes our urine expensive when our bodies flush the excess.

Eat What You Want Day was created by Thomas and Ruth Roy to help people break away from the frustrating health and diet trends of our times, if for only one day, and just let go and enjoy life a little.

Most nutritionists seem to agree that giving yourself a break every now and again can actually be good for us, and that forcing ourselves to eat only low-calorie, tasteless foods for prolonged periods of time is likely to cause us to suddenly gorge on everything in sight when our determination wears off.

There are a number of different ways you can make this day fun! Why not switch the typical meals around? You can have dinner for breakfast, and breakfast for dinner! After all, who doesn’t love tucking into Chinese leftovers the morning after? Or, if you want to have breakfast for dinner, why not put together a fluffy stack of pancakes with some maple syrup and bacon for dinner? After all, no rules apply on Eat What You Want Day, so you may as well switch things up a little bit!

If you have got children, why not allow them to be in charge for once? Most of the time, parents are in charge of what’s for dinner. If we weren’t, children would probably never see a vegetable in their life! But, for this one day, why don’t you let your children decide what’s on the menu? You may end up with a random concoction of delicious treats, but it will certainly be a lot of fun, and it will get them interested in cooking as well, which is always a good thing.

Another way to make Eat What You Want Day fun is to break your typical routine. For example, if you usually take a packed lunch to work, why not gather your colleagues and enjoy lunch together at a local restaurant? Of course, your children won’t be able to ditch their school lunches and dine out, but you can still make their packed lunches exciting. Look for fun ways to make their lunches, for example, you can cut their food up into different shapes and add some edible glitter to the mix to keep things exciting.

However you decide to enjoy the day, do it in moderation, do it safely, and have an awesome Tuesday!

Beo · May 11, 2021, 5:29am

Quid pro quo, provided you can afford it.

murfle · May 11, 2021, 6:47am

So soon after no diet day…

SIGSTART · May 11, 2021, 7:30am

Yeah I feel like these extra cheat days were instituted by people with very restrictive diets who were feeling the burn as the middle of the year approached

DarthMol · May 11, 2021, 8:21am

So every other day, just without the guilt

aldyr · May 11, 2021, 12:04pm

I ate what i wanted to yesterday, am going to eat what i want now, and will probably do the same tomorrow.

I mean, shouldn’t this be the norm?