Random Factoids and Tidbits about each day that will eventually converge to divulge the meaning of life.
AUGUST 4th - The Bee Driver
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On this day in 1994, a truck transporting 24 million honeybees overturned on a highway in New York near Tarrytown. Seeing a tractor-trailer upend on the highway would be scary enough, but can you imagine seeing millions of bees start to swarm out of the wreckage? That’s probably one of the worst things in a truck that can overturn. I can think of worse though. Like nuclear waste for instance. Though I’m hopeful that we don’t transport nuclear waste in eighteen wheelers driven by some guy who finds it necessary to cut down his name just so he can add a really great truck-driving handle like “One-Trip Trav” or “Big-Rig Rand.” I wouldn’t feel too safe knowing there was an interstate network of trucks driving around with radioactive material that could possibly be driven by a guy more focused on trying not to spill his breakfast burrito on his Dungarees than obeying the rules of the road. Not to talk trash about truck drivers. They have a tough job, and that stuff has to get where it’s going some kind of way until we find a way to teleport items, and I’m sure most of them do a heck of a job. But unfortunately, it only takes ones little miscalculation, and suddenly there are millions of bees stinging innocent commuters and the highway is transformed into one massive scene from Tommy Boy, except for real. However, if we combined the incidents (bees and nuclear radioactive waste) we might be on to something. Let’s just say that we did live in a country that was foolish enough to transport radioactive nuclear waste in trucks. And let’s just say that a down-on-his-luck truck driver somewhat similar to Lincoln Hawk in Over the Top (minus the whole arm wrestling thing) has taken one last job transporting honeybees for a nice, old bee farmer named Sal Sisto. Well Bee Driving Lincoln Hawk gets run off the road by One-Trip Trav who veered out of his lane when the contents of his breakfast burrito spill and burn his lap. Of course One-Trip Trav is driving a truck full nuclear waste. There is a big wreck, One-Trip Trav is killed instantly (or so we think), and the contents of the trucks intermingle creating 24 million suped-up bees that sting Bee-Driving Lincoln Hawk multiple times transforming him into a super-human mutant with the bee-like powers to fly, produce honey, and spell. Boom. Call Michael Bay. The origin story of The Bee Driver. Or Super Bee. Or Mind Your Beesness. I don’t know. But let’s make this movie happen.
On this day in 1911, somebody working at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa was missing. The previous day, a Monday--meaning the museum was closed to the public, Vincenzo Peruggia, a maintenance worker, brazenly walked out of the Louvre with what would eventually become the most famous painting in the world. Vincenzo basically sat on the painting for two years until he was caught trying to “return” it to his homeland of Italy in a misguided demonstration of Italian patriotism. The theft itself is quite interesting, mostly because of the lack of planning and preparation that went into it, but equally intriguing is the part it played in making the Mona Lisa so famous. Many historians feel that the painting reached new heights because it was stolen. It kind of makes sense in that whole “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone" kind of way. Not that I would suggest staging a kidnapping to allow your significant other to realize how much he/she loves you, because that’s jus
On this day in 1617, the idea of the one-way street was supposedly introduced in London in the alleys near the River Thames. I’m not sure why London was on the cutting edge of traffic direction, though Albemarle Street, which is acknowledged as the first one-way street, was designated as such because the scientific lectures given there in the early 1800s were so popular. Why wouldn't they be? I can’t really imagine why a one-way street in 1617 would be necessary, but then I can’t really imagine what London in 1617 was like at all. I’m fresh out of people to interview too. Unless the Highlander is real. Just as well. Interviews take a long time. And the person inevitably goes off on tangents. Look, I’m sure the story of how you “accidentally” ingested psychedelic mushrooms while trekking across the Pacific Northwest in your hippie days and met your first wife, Wind Lover, is an incredible story, but I merely asked if you were currently married. It’s a yes or no question. Without the
On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wonderi
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