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Saturday Open Thread/Happy Birthday Lars!

| Saturday, 31st of July 2010 at 04:00:12 AM

Dear Lars, I had such a lovely post planned…then I asked Turbo a question in passing and his one-word response?  ”Norwegian”.

So, out went Hugo Alfven; in came Edvard Grieg.  Here’s your new cake:

And here’s what I trashed:

Share and Enjoy:
July 31st, 2010 | Category: birthdays, Open Thread

41 comments to Saturday Open Thread/Happy Birthday Lars!

  • Lars Walker
    July 31, 2010 at 5:42 AM · Reply

    Bork! Bork! Bork!

    Thank you.

  • Scott M.
    July 31, 2010 at 6:06 AM · Reply

    Have yourself a big tankard of mead,Lars…or two!

  • Scott M.
    July 31, 2010 at 6:12 AM · Reply

    Cool…I just had Google translate this page to Norwegian!

  • Mike
    July 31, 2010 at 6:29 AM · Reply

    It’s Lars Week at Threedonia! Happy Birthday!

  • Matt Helm
    July 31, 2010 at 6:34 AM · Reply

    Skål, Lars. Here’s the Birthday song as only Vikings can sing it.

  • Scott M.
    July 31, 2010 at 6:42 AM · Reply

    Old Norwegian automobile slogan: ” Is There A Fjord In Your Future?”

  • Eric
    July 31, 2010 at 7:00 AM · Reply

    Happy Birthday, Lars! May your pillaging include a whole village today — oh, hell, you’ve got a Saturday birthday, make it the whole weekend. Burning the birthday boy’s choice.

  • Tracy
    July 31, 2010 at 7:10 AM · Reply

    Happy birthday to my favorite grumpy viking! I hope it’s filled with dragonflies, butterflies, and colored Christmas lights!

  • The College Widow
    July 31, 2010 at 7:24 AM · Reply

    Thanks for being the only person I know named Lars. Everyone should know at least one person named Lars and you might be the only one for many of us.

    Happy birthday, Lars!

  • Scott M.
    July 31, 2010 at 8:14 AM · Reply

    One of the famous TV characters we never saw…Lars Lindstrom,”Mary Tyler Moore”.

  • Stephanie
    July 31, 2010 at 9:16 AM · Reply

    I got some good Kjottkakkaer and lefse going, and um if you want I’ll work on the lute fisk. But there is Torsk, and smoked salmon. I left the cake to Wanks!
    Happy birthday Lars!

  • JimmyC
    July 31, 2010 at 10:05 AM · Reply

    Happy birthday, Lars. I’ll drink a large mug of mead with a glass of aquavit chaser in your honor.

  • Magnus Caseus Formatis
    July 31, 2010 at 11:01 AM · Reply

    Happy Birthday, Lars!

  • Tink in Cali
    July 31, 2010 at 12:06 PM · Reply

    That cake is awesome, who gets the horn?
    Happy Birthday, Lars!

    Be your friend’s
    true friend.
    Return gift for gift.
    Repay laughter
    with laughter again
    but betrayal with treachery.

    - The Havamal

  • Mighty Skip
    July 31, 2010 at 12:47 PM · Reply

    Have a good birthday Lars.

  • RES
    July 31, 2010 at 3:41 PM · Reply

    Lars – you were born??? Smart move on your part, and I bet it made your mum happy. Here’s some Birth day trivia, a listing of less significant events of this date:

    Events

    * 30 BC – Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian’s forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.
    * 781 – The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781).
    * 904 – Thessalonica falls to the Arabs, who destroy the city.
    * 1200 – Attempted usurpation of John Komnenos the Fat.
    * 1423 – Hundred Years’ War: Battle of Cravant – the French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
    * 1492 – The Jews are expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree takes effect.
    * 1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
    * 1588 – The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.
    * 1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
    * 1777 – The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Marquis de Lafayette “be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States.”
    * 1790 – First U.S. patent is issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
    * 1856 – Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.
    * 1895 – The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) is founded by Basque nationalist leader Sabino Arana.
    * 1919 – German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution, which comes into force on August 14.
    * 1930 – The radio mystery program The Shadow is aired for the first time.
    * 1932 – The NSDAP wins more than 38% of the vote in German elections.
    * 1936 – The International Olympic Committee announces that the 1940 Summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo. However, the games are given back to the IOC after the Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out, and are eventually cancelled altogether because of World War II.
    * 1938 – Archaeologists discover engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius in Persepolis.
    * 1940 – A doodlebug train in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio collides with a multi-car freight train heading in the opposite direction, killing 43 people.
    * 1941 – Holocaust: under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.”
    * 1945 – Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.
    * 1945 – John K. Giles attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison.
    * 1948 – At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
    * 1951 – Japan Airlines is established.
    * 1954 – First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.
    * 1959 – The Basque separatist organisation ETA is founded.
    * 1961 – At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning because of rain.
    * 1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
    * 1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.
    * 1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
    * 1972 – Northeast Airlines flies its last flight before being integrated into Delta Air Lines the next day.
    * 1972 – Operation Motorman: British troops move into the no-go areas of Belfast and Derry, Northern Ireland. End of Free Derry.
    * 1973 – A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.
    * 1976 – Viking program: Viking 1 – NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo.
    * 1981 – A 42 day-long strike of Major League Baseball ends.
    * 1987 – A rare, class F4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.
    * 1991 – The United States and Soviet Union both sign the Start I Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the first to reduce (with verification) both countries’ stockpiles.
    * 1991 – The Medininkai Massacre in Lithuania. Soviet OMON attacks Lithuanian customs post in Medininkai, killing 7 officers and severely wounding one other.
    * 1992 – A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into a mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.
    * 1992 – Georgia joins the United Nations.
    * 1999 – Discovery Program: Lunar Prospector – NASA intentionally crashes the spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon’s surface.
    * 2002 – Hebrew University of Jerusalem is attacked when a bomb explodes in a cafeteria, killing 9.
    * 2007 – Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.

    Births

    * 1143 – Emperor Nijo of Japan (d. 1165)
    * 1527 – Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1576)
    * 1704 – Gabriel Cramer, Swiss mathematician (d. 1752)
    * 1718 – John Canton, English physicist (d. 1772)
    * 1800 – Friedrich Wöhler, German chemist and founder of organic chemistry (d. 1882)
    * 1803 – John Ericsson, Swedish inventor and engineer (d. 1889)
    * 1816 – George Henry Thomas, American general (d. 1870)
    * 1837 – William Quantrill, American Civil War rebel guerrilla leader (d. 1865)
    * 1867 – Sebastian S. Kresge, American merchant and philanthropist (d. 1966)
    * 1883 – Fred Quimby, American film producer (d. 1965)
    * 1886 – Salvatore Maranzano, Sicilian-born American organized crime figure (d. 1931)
    * 1892 – Herbert W. Armstrong, American evangelist, author and publisher (d. 1986)
    * 1892 – Joseph Charbonneau, French-Canadian Roman Catholic archbishop (d. 1959)
    * 1894 – Fred Keenor, Welsh footballer (d. 1972)
    * 1904 – Brett Halliday, American writer (d. 1977)
    * 1911 – George Liberace, American musician (d. 1983)
    * 1912 – Milton Friedman, American economist, Nobel laureate (d. 2006)
    * 1916 – Bill Todman, American game show producer (d. 1979)
    * 1918 – Paul D. Boyer, American chemist, Nobel Prize Laureate
    * 1919 – Curt Gowdy, American sports announcer (d. 2006)
    * 1921 – Peter Benenson, British founder of Amnesty International (d. 2005)
    * 1921 – Donald Malarkey, American World War II hero
    * 1923 – Ahmet Ertegün, Turkish-born record company executive (d. 2006)
    * 1923 – Jimmy Evert, American tennis coach and father of Chris Evert
    * 1929 – Lynne Reid Banks, British author
    * 1930 – Oleg Popov, Russian clown
    * 1932 – Ted Cassidy, American actor (d. 1979)
    * 1932 – John Searle, American philosopher
    * 1936 – Vic Davalillo, Venezuelan baseball player
    * 1939 – France Nuyen, French actress
    * 1943 – William Bennett, 3rd United States Secretary of Education
    * 1943 – Lobo, American singer and songwriter
    * 1943 – Sab Shimono, Japanese-American actor
    * 1944 – Geraldine Chaplin, American actress
    * 1944 – Jonathan Dimbleby, British journalist and television presenter
    * 1944 – Robert C. Merton, American mathematician
    * 1945 – Gary Lewis, American vocalist (Gary Lewis & the Playboys)
    * 1945 – William Weld, 68th Governor of Massachusetts
    * 1946 – Bob Welch, American musician
    * 1951 – Evonne Goolagong, Australian tennis player
    * 1951 – Barry Van Dyke, American actor
    * 1952 – Helmuts Balderis, Latvian hockey player
    * 1953 – Jimmy Cook, former South African cricketer
    * 1954 – Derek Smith, Canadian ice hockey player
    * 1956 – Deval Patrick, American politician, 71st governor of Massachusetts
    * 1957 – Dirk Blocker, American actor
    * 1958 – Bill Berry, American musician (R.E.M.)
    * 1958 – Mark Cuban, American businessman and basketball team owner
    * 1962 – Wesley Snipes, American actor
    * 1963 – Brian Skrudland, Canadian ice hockey player
    * 1963 – Norman Cook, British musician (The Housemartins, Freak Power, Beats International, Fatboy Slim)
    * 1964 – Jim Corr, Irish singer and musician (The Corrs)
    * 1965 – John Laurinaitis, American professional wrestler
    * 1965 – J. K. Rowling, British writer
    * 1966 – Dean Cain, American actor
    * 1969 – David Cash, American professional wrestler
    * 1973 – Nathan Brown, Australian rugby league player
    * 1975 – Poesy Liang, Founder of Helping Angels
    * 1975 – Andrew Hall, Former South African cricketer
    * 1978 – Will Champion, English musician (Coldplay)
    * 1979 – Per Krøldrup, Danish footballer
    * 1979 – Jade Kwan, Hong Kong singer
    * 1980 – Mils Muliaina, New Zealand rugby union player
    * 1980 – Mikko Hirvonen, Finnish Rally Driver
    * 1981 – Eric Lively, American actor
    * 1981 – Matthew Sanders, American singer (Avenged Sevenfold)
    * 1982 – Blessing Mahwire, Zimbabwean cricketer
    * 1985 – Rémy Di Gregorio, French cyclist
    * 1986 – Evgeni Malkin, Russian ice hockey player
    * 1990 – Olga Galchenko, Russian juggler

    Deaths

    * 1556 – Ignatius Loyola, Spanish priest and founder of the Jesuits (b. 1491)
    * 1653 – Thomas Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (b. 1576)
    * 1726 – Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (b. 1695)
    * 1784 – Denis Diderot, French philosopher and encylopedist (b. 1713)
    * 1875 – Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States (b. 1808)
    * 1886 – Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer (b. 1811)
    * 1917 – Francis Ledwidge, Irish poet (b. 1881)
    * 1917 – Hedd Wyn, Welsh poet (b. 1887)
    * 1943 – Hedley Verity, English Test cricketer (b. 1905)
    * 1944 – Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French pilot and writer (b. 1900)
    * 1953 – Robert Taft, U.S. Senator from Ohio and Presidential candidate (b. 1889)
    * 1973 – Azumafuji Kin’ichi, Japanese sumo wrestler (the 40th Yokozuna) and professional wrestler (b. 1921)
    * 1981 – General Omar Torrijos of Panama (b. 1929).
    * 1990 – Albert Leduc, French Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1902)
    * 1993 – King Baudouin I of Belgium (b. 1930)
    * 2001 – Poul Anderson, American author (b. 1926)
    * 2001 – Friedrich Franz, Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (b. 1910)
    * 2003 – Guido Crepax, Italian comics artist (b. 1933)
    * 2004 – Virginia Grey, American actress (b. 1917)
    * 2004 – Laura Betti, Italian actress (b. 1927)
    * 2006 – Paul Eells, American sportscaster (b. 1935)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_31

  • Lars Walker
    July 31, 2010 at 4:52 PM · Reply

    It particularly irks me that this is J.K. Rowling’s birthday. Not only does that make it impossible for me to ever be the most famous person born on July 31, it even makes it impossible for me to be the most famous FANTASY WRITER born on July 31. ‘Tain’t fair.

    In other new, thanks to all of you.

  • Marilyn W
    August 1, 2010 at 5:13 PM · Reply

    Wow! Suitably impressive “happy birthday” missives! Perhaps you might approach JK Rowling’s agent/publisher? No reason YOUR work can’t be as popular! All in the marketing? hmmmm

    • Mike
      August 1, 2010 at 6:28 PM · Reply

      Marilyn’s got a point, Lars. Get yourself on welfare, stat.

      • Lars Walker
        August 2, 2010 at 6:51 AM · Reply

        You may have a point. Welfare seems like the only growth industry we’ve got these days.

        • RES
          August 2, 2010 at 9:58 AM · Reply

          It is only a matter of time before the current (mal)Administration declares that anything a person is paid to do for two years is essentially a job. Thereupon all people collecting “unemployment” will be reclassified as “federal government employees”, provided government-funded health insurance and charged union dues.

          The benefits are meagre, the advancement opportunities non-existent, but the job security terrific!!!

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