A Special Day

Today is a very special day indeed!

FIRST

Today is Cinco de Mayo which is Mexico's celebration over the French. I think every country outside of Europe has an "independence" type day and most of those are celebrating victories over either the English or the French. Anyways, quick history lesson for the morning so you can sound smart in front of your friends today.

In 1862, French soldiers marched onto Mexico City well armed and were going to seize the capital to continue the period known as "The French Intervention in Mexico". General Zaragoza and his 4500 soldiers intervened and prevented the French from getting to Mexico City. The French Emperor then sent 30,000 more soldiers who this time succeeded in defeating the Mexico army by 1864 and making Archduke Maximillian of Austria the new "Emperor of Mexico". But using Zaragoza's effort as inspiration, the Mexican rebels used weapons from the US Military (now that the US civil war was "over") to fight back and by 1867, they had ousted the French from their capital. This paved the way for the next 150 years of people selling things in the streets asking "you like? How much" and dreams of jumping the fence into America where they can march for illegal immigrant's rights.

SECOND

Today is Buddha's Birthday! Happy Birthday Buddha! I'll have to get him a party hat at home tonight. It is traditionally celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month in the Chinese Calendar. Which is today in 2006. In Japan, his birthday is this upcoming Monday so it's like having a 4 day birthday! How cool would that be? Everyone should have a 4 day birthday celebration every year! For the record, it is estimated that Buddha would have been 2569 years old today.

FINALLY

This weekend marks a new record for me! It will be an entire 6 MONTHS with the amazing and incredibly beautiful Miss Hazel. Can you believe it? She's not tired of me yet so here's to hoping for another 6 months at least together. We are celebrating by Hazel working and I am working on my flowers and some other things around the houses. BTW, I called and my flowers that I ordered are "on a boat from Holland". It's nice to know in a world where we outsource our jobs to China and India in hopes of saving money, we are now outsourcing our plant work to Holland. I still think that's cool to say my flowers are coming from Holland. Works for me.

Song of the Day - I got a couple of emails reminding me that my version of Prince's Kiss was much much better and more entertaining than Paris's performance the other night on AI. So I am still in a Prince mode today and some of my favorites are Purple Rain (did they ever play that for me at Drew's wedding? There's a large hole in my memory from that night), Raspberry Beret (the kind you find in a secondhand store), and of course the ever popular.... PU**Y CONTROL!!! Mom, you probably have never heard that Prince song.

Video of the Day - Next in the series of introducing characters for The Da Vinci Codemovie: Sir Leigh Teabag. At least when I read the book, I see the name as "Tea-bag"... it's funnier that way.

Webpage of the Day - Post office has new "Forever" stamp. Buy them now at 39 cents and no matter what they go up to in the future, you can use this stamp. Not a bad idea to stock up on them and you'll never buy stamps again. I use about 3 per month on my 1 bill I still mail in, and 2 cards I send per month on average. Yes, I'm a guy and I send cards to people. Deal with it.