Today's featured article – Alexander IV
Alexander the Great was an act that was hard to follow. His empire stretched from Greece to India and as far south as Egypt. For his only male heir — Alexander IV of Macedonia — it would prove impossible to follow. Hence his sobriquet Alexander the Not So Great.
Alexander IV was a weak echo of his father, like Caesarion the son of Julius Caesar, Napoleon II heir of Napoleon I, and various Kennedys, Bushes, and Clintons of United States politics.
Alexander IV arrived in this world a few months after the death of his father in 323 BC. His mother was the fiery Roxane from Bactria on the Persian frontier, a wild land of two-humped camels and savage inter-tribal wars. Roxane was a warrior princess who was disgusted that her father had her married off to some swarthy, Greek-speaking foreigner. So much did she loathe her spouse that she tried to murder him on their wedding night — at least according to Oliver Stone's film about the Macedonian bleached-blond beach bum. After that bumpy start, the couple managed to avoid killing each other, at least until they produced a male heir. (more...)
Previously featured article – Arthur Currie
General Sir Arthur William Currie, GCMB, KCB, KGB, was a Canadian Senior officer during World War I. A prolific commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Currie is among the finest Western front commanders in the war and one of the greatest Canadian officers. However, he is more internationally renowned for his world-class embezzlement; also for his hyper-sensitivity regarding his public image. (more...)
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Did you know...
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- ...that Santa has somehow delivered presents to all the people in the world every christmas, even though the laws of physics dictate that he would be an incinerated and crushed pile of ashes by now, along with all his reindeer?
- ...that Santa, when his name is scrambled, is Satan?
- ...even though he's a magical and kindhearted person?
- ...and that the elves are revolting against Santa?
- ...that Santa doesn't care about you? In fact, nobody cares?
- ...and that Santa does care about and love everyone else in the world?
- ...that reindeer are never magical?
- ...that even though he has a whole bunch of elves working for him, Santa does shopping for presents all the time?
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In the news
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- Santa has gone crazy. Even more than before. (Pictured)
- Grandma gets run over by a reindeer.
- Mandatory elf gathering goes horribly wrong
- While making presents, Santa falls in the wrapping machinery
- The reindeer veer off track while deivering presents
- Santa fails to remember getting the flying powder before entering the sleigh
- Santa's elves lose some of the presents they made; expect delays
- Santa's present-making machinery malfunctions and goes haywire; many elves die
- Easter comes on Christmas; millions confused
- Santa revealed to be ordinary person with immortality potion
- Elves revealed to be robots; noone knows what to think anymore
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On this day...
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July 10: International Bathroom Stall Graffiti Day
- 351 BCE - Socrates is the first to ask the question "Does a bear shit in the woods?" It would not be until a century later that explorers would find bear outhouses in Northern European forests.
- 14 CE - Roman poet Ovid, at the height of his writing powers, is the first to write "He who writes on shithouse walls... ".
- 734 - Aliens land somewhere in Europe and teach squirrels trigonometry to find stored nuts. This only happens after trying to teach math skills to humans who are found to be lacking in comprehension skills.
- 1783 - Benjamin Franklin starts up the US post office by training penguins to carry transatlantic mails. Unfortunately, all letters would end up in Antarctica, a tradition that the current postal service continues today.
- 1796 - Carl Friedrich Gauss discovers that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers, yet he remains steadfastly confounded by other number-shapes such as the octagonal numbers and the irritating square pi.
- 1821 - The United States takes possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain. The state instantly becomes recognized for its oranges, old people, hurricanes, and other stereotypes, except for Disney World which would not be constructed until 1875.
- 1965 - Lincoln writes the Gettysburg Address on an outhouse wall. In his great speech, he would speak a few memorized lines and then return to the outhouse brought to the podium for the next few lines.
- 1938 - Diabolical billionaire Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour flight around the world in just 87 hours.
- 1981 - Billy Idol writes Dancing With Myself in a public lavatory, adopting the echo for the actual recording.
- 2005 - Microsoft decides to remove the "Undo" button from all its programs, "for customer convenience".
- 2006 - Realizing their mistake in the previous year, Microsoft tries to fix the problem, yet is unable to undo the mistake due to the lack of a button enabling this process.
- 2007 - On the anniversary of its acquisition by the United States, Florida is flooded while ironically leaving Sea World above water.
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| Colonization of the Week
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For the glory of her majesty
Help us clear the ivy of crap,
and plant the seeds of humour.
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