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09 Jun 2011 16:49

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Music: Today would have been Les Paul’s 96th birthday

  • Happy electric guitar day, everyone! Les Paul, the musical legend centrally responsible for developing the electric guitar, as well as a range of musical innovations (he also pioneered multi-track recording), was born today in 1915. Paul led a long and industrious life; and still regularly performed into his 90s, ultimately passing away in 2009 from pneumonia complications. In honor of Paul’s birthday, Google has a pretty cool logo variant up that lets you strum some guitar chords, definitely worth a look if you have a few idle moments. A tidbit about the man’s commitment: he shattered his right arm in a car crash, and had the doctors pin his elbow at a 90-degree angle so he could continue to play, even though he’d lost all movement at his elbow. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Feb 2011 13:13

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World: Another year, another absurdly lavish party for Kim Jong-Il

  • yay birthday For Kim Jong-Il, that is. The “1984”-esque ruler was feted with figure skating, an elaborate festival, and blossoming “Kimjongilia” flowers, which are seeded to bloom on his birthday every year. Of course, North Korea is one of the world’s foremost users of concentration camps, so perhaps the party lacked spontaneity.
  • boo birthday In one of the rare South Korean rituals of open antagonism to the North, balloons were released into the sky, drifting into North Korea bearing anti-Kim Jong-Il messages, and information about the uprising in Egypt. But with a society literally focused entirely around reverence of the Dear Leader, Hosni Mubarak never had it so good. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Aug 2010 10:05

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U.S.: Obama turns 49 today, and he plans to keep it low-key

He’s gonna hang with some buddies in Chicago, and according to Robert Gibbs, “I think he is looking forward to spending the night in his house for a change.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Feb 2010 10:30

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Tech: Happy 20th birthday Photoshop! We’ve used you before, we think

  • Yay Photoshop! No single app has brought graphic design into a mainstream light better than Photoshop, which is a great reason to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Strangely enough, this timeline doesn’t mention anything about that slow transition to supporting Intel Macs. Must’ve forgot that. Either way, heck yeah! Happy birthday Photoshop! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Jan 2010 11:12

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About: ShortFormBlog turns one! Anybody want some cake or something?

  • Julius can now eat solid food! Today, ShortFormBlog celebrates its first birthday, and boy are we excited. A lot has happened in the last year, and boy, we’d love to tell you about it. Our crazy idea of making a blog focused on numbers, quotes and other short stuff has been nothing if a lot of statistics. So here’s a few:
  • 6,098 posts, including this one have been put on the site in the last year
  • 268k people have found their way onto the SFB site in the last year; neat
  • this is our most popular post of all time. People love Transformers, kids!
  • So, what’s next? Well, we’re gonna keep doing what we do best. Blogging and keeping you jerks informed. After a year of doing this, we’ve gotten pretty good, and are always trying new things. That’s our plan for 2010.
  • Any ideas? As you might know, we’re totally open to cool ideas, so send us some! We’re all ears, especially if the ideas are good and can extend our mission of giving the news in as short of a space as possible. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 8 Comments • Permalink

02 Sep 2009 23:58

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Tech: Lordy lordy, look who’s turning 40! Happy birthday internet!

Internet Birthday Cake
  • You’re the best series of tubes ever! September 2, 2009 marks a major milestone in technology, communication, spam, pornography, copyright flaunting and insurance that shut-ins will have something to do. On this day, the internet turned on. To commemorate, we totally ganked a random 40th birthday cake from Flickr. It’s only the Web’s nature, guys. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Aug 2009 09:37

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World: Happy Birthday: Fidel Castro managed to live another year

  • 83 years old; get that man a cigar and a communist nation source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

04 Aug 2009 12:31

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U.S.: Hey, Barack Obama: Happy 48th birthday from the birther movement

  • The movement as it stands Currently, the birther movement is frustrating politicians on both sides of the aisle, although the White House has simply avoided it. Republicans are struggling to avoid it at town hall meetings, and Democrats are simply angry about it. But perhaps the iconic moment of the movement is this interview on MSNBC, where Orly Taitz shouts a lot and the MSNBC anchors shout back. In our opinion, it makes everyone involved look incredibly bad.
  • O RLY: The Orly Taitz shoutfest
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Feb 2009 09:55

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World: Robert Mugabe: Partying while there’s a cholera epidemic

  • $250,000 was raised for a birthday bash today in honor of the Zimbabwean president’s big 8-5. Probably not in Zimbabwean dollars.
  • 100 beasts will be killed for the feast, all while prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai is actually handling the cholera crisis. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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