As president for much of the 1950s, it was by Dwight Eisenhower’s direct order (Presidential Directive A47-B39, to be exact) that It be left to Beaver.
Nobody was sure what “It” was, but families nationwide revised their wills to make sure they left It to Beaver. Cash, cars, mansions, speedboats–It all got left to Beaver.
Oh, at first it was fun for Beaver. He was only six years old, so he couldn’t drive all the Rolls Royces and Mercedes being left for him. But he would play for hours in a ball room filled with solid-gold Rolexes instead of balls. And he would play Army Men with marble statues from the Renaissance.
Eventually, people resented Beaver for all his It. He had to go into hiding, and changed his nickname to Mitt.
And that’s everything you need to know about Dwight Eisenhower.
Apollo X: Another Damn Space Thing
Apollo X was the mission BEFORE the historic moon landing. Oh, the crew of Apollo X wanted to land on the moon, but sadly, the “moon” soundstage in Utah wasn’t finished yet. The black space backdrop hadn’t been painted yet, and the truck full of grey dust had broken down 100 miles away, just outside of Provo.
So, what else could the crew of Apollo X do? They stayed at the local Motel 6, hanging out in their rooms and watching “Hogan’s Heroes” and “Nanny & the Professor.” They may have also watched porno films, but they showed up on the bill as just “Movie: $19.99,” so we may never know.
So, after a few days they “splashed down” in the Motel 6 pool and drove home. To this day, everybody keeps asking lunar module pilot Gene Cernan what it was like to be the first man to push G-5 on the Motel 6 vending machine (Twizzlers).
The Industrial Revolution: A History Thing
In the 19th century in the United Kingdom, a major revolution was about to change everything for pretty much everybody, except maybe that one village idiot in Trentshire-on-Melvin. This would be come to known as the Industrial Revolution, or iRev for short. Major changes were on the horizon in agriculture, manufacturing and even Pokemon.
The introduction of steam power led to a startling rise in machine-based manufacturing–the cotton gin, the spinning jenny, and the castrating linda all led to the loss of millions of fingers annually, but a huge rise in the standard of living for millions of people worldwide. There were also unbelievable leaps in transporting goods to market including the steamship, the steam locomotive and the coal-powered pogo stick.
All of these advances came at a price–major cities like London were inundated with smog, water pollution and small, waifish children saying, “Please sir, may I have some more?” Working conditions were unsafe for millions of workers. Iron was often smelted over deep, deep pool filled with piranha and man-eating giant octopi, while steel mills randomly dropped poisonous rattlesnakes and black widow spiders on their workers, just for fun.
Disalmanac: The Book!
We can now announce that Perigee (a division of Penguin) will publish a Dislamanac book sometime in early 2013. It will run 336 pages, have 150 illustrations, and each copy will come with a live chicken. So make space on your bookshelf and in your backyard NOW.
Thanks to all of you who have supported and followed Disalmanac–we could not have done this without you!
Jellyfish: Nature’s Jellyfish
Jellyfish live in the sea, and come in a variety of delicious flavors: grape, strawberry, um… grape. OK, grape and strawberry are about it, really.
But, either way, grape or strawberry, both kinds of jellyfish are delicious on a peanut butter sandwich! Here’s what you do: Go down to the beach with two slices of bread, one of them slathered in peanut butter. Now, wade into the ocean up to your knees and start looking for jellyfish. When you see one, try to capture it between the two slices of bread. You’ll have to work fast! Those jellyfish are crafty little buggers!
And but so once you capture a jellyfish between your two slices of bread, go ahead and take a big chomp–the grape or strawberry flavor is ALWAYS better when the jellyfish is fresh out of the water. Savor that delicious grape or strawberry flavor, because it’s poison and it’s the last thing you’ll ever eat. And if the grape or strawberry jelly in the jellyfish doesn’t kill you, the fact that it’s stinging your tongue hundreds of times with a hideously evil neurotoxin that will kill you slowly and painfully ought to do the trick.
Yum. Jellyfish.
The Battle of Lexington & Concord, in 1775, was the first battle in the Revolutionary War. Of course, before the battle could start, King George had to cut a ceremonial ribbon with his ceremonial scissors. And then, the winner of season three of “Colonial Idol” sang the national anthem. And then the armies of all the nations marched into the stadium, and Benjamin Franklin jogged in and lit the torch. And then there was the coin toss; the British won the coin toss and for some reason, elected to kick rather than receive, which is now considered a major military blunder.
Anyway, by this time, it had started raining, so a rain delay was declared and the grounds crew rolled out enormous tarps. And then there was the sausage race, and by this time, it was getting dark so they re-scheduled the battle for sometime in 1787. And by the time 1787 rolled around, the war was already over so they just canceled the whole damn thing.
And this is why the Battle of Lexington & Concord is considered one of the greatest battles in history.
Oxygen: Another Element-y Thing
Life on Earth depends on oxygen: all animals need to breathe oxygen. But why oxygen, and not, say, nitrogen or cesium?
The fact is, oxygen shelled out BIG bucks to become Earth’s official gas. That kind of sponsorship deal does NOT come cheap–oxygen reportedly paid upward of two million bucks for a longterm, all-inclusive deal. Under the terms of the contract, all life on Earth MUST breathe oxygen–if you’re found breathing other gases, you could go to jail. Also, you are NOT allowed to download bootleg oxygen from the Internet–they have that shit copyrighted, Slappy. But, there are benefits, like oxygen’s super-cool ads during the Super Bowl every year–last year’s included Tom Hanks and a talking dog. SO funny! Of course, if you didn’t find it funny, you could also be arrested. Oxygen’s contract with the Earth is REALLY strict.
So, even though gases like nitrogen are more healthful, and gases like helium are funnier, and gases like hydrogen have a delicious, bacon-y flavor, we are stuck with breathing oxygen until at least the year 3515. Oxygen: it’s the real thing!
