Quote
"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."
Robert Louis Stevenson
Joke
Dad, did you get a haircut?" "No, I got them all cut!
Fun Fact
There's no such thing as "pear cider."
"Wait," you're probably thinking, "I had pear cider last week." Actually, "cider" is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented apples, and only apples. Alcoholic beverages can be made from pears, but that drink is known as "perry." The drink was popular in England for centuries but fell out of favor during the second half of the twentieth century. That turned around in the 1990s when the drink was rebranded as pear cider.
Reading Fact
In a while, fair play, all of a sudden, night owl and star-crossed lovers are all phrases Shakespeare is thought to have introduced to the English language.
The Bard was also known to love the prefix un–, having created or given meaning to over 300 words that begin with it, such as unaware, uncomfortable, unreal, and undress.
History Fact
A Chernobyl firefighter was exposed to so much radiation, it changed his eye color.
Vladimir Pravik was one of the first firefighters to reach Reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26th, 1986.
His job there was to contain the flames spewing from the building.
During his shift dousing the highly-radioactive flames of the burning reactor core, he was exposed to a shockingly lethal dose of radiation.
It was so deadly that it changed his eye color from brown to blue.
Like the majority of the first responders to the Chernobyl disaster, Vladimir died 15 days later from severe radiation poisoning.
Movie/TV Trivia
One cast member of The Exorcist later turned out to be a serial killer
As if The Exorcist wasn’t creepy enough, you might be interested to know that there was a convicted serial killer working on the set of the film. Paul Bateson actually plays an X-Ray technician in the scene where Regan is undergoing a carotid angiography procedure.
He was working as a technician at the New York University Medical Center when the Exorcist producers rolled up to shoot the scene and asked Bateson to appear in front of the camera.
Six years after the movie was released, Bateson was convicted of killing film critic Addison Verrell. We’ll spare you the gruesome details, but he then confessed to killing a number of other gay men in the 1970s after he was caught boasting to fellow prisoners about the location of the bodies.
Bateson left a grisly legacy which has only added to the conspiracy theory that The Exorcist was cursed from the very beginning.
Movie/TV Quote
“You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”
On the Waterfront, 1954
Conversation Starter
What food looks disgusting but tastes delicious?
Writing Prompt
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