Friday, April 14, 2006

A Rarity in the World...An Original Meme

The interweb-o-net-o-sphere being what it is, it is filled with multiple "memes." Most of them are bland, what are your favorite book/favorite movie type affairs and not so much a viral idea that spreads across the world from one mind to another. I should know, I have attempted to ask such things of our LARGE body of readers (yes, that was sarcasm) in an attempt to measure my ability to infect the minds of the world. This is, naturally, step one of my plan to rule the world.

But questionaire type memes aside, I can think of a couple of events on the interweb-o-net-o-sphere that live up to Professor Dawkin's idea:

1) The Dancing Baby that appeared on Ally McBeal.

2) South Park. Come On! You remember the X-mas special on the internet.

3) The spread of Dungeons and Dragons when it was an obscure box set.

Actually, I can think of a lot more, but most of them aren't of the "chain letter" sort. Though chain letters are in and of themselves a kind of meme.


Needless to say, while reading the blog of an employee of Green Ronin Publications (a wonderful gaming company) I came across the following "blog post meme." By blog post meme, I mean an idea that should be included as a post on each and every blog out there. What is this blog post meme? The Birthday Meme. Thanks to Nikchick for the introduction to the idea.

Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three events, three births, three deaths, and up to three observances or holidays on your birthday in your journal.


I know it's not my birthday today, but you can figure out what my birthday is by the following:

Events
1877 - Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana).
1815 - War of 1812: In the Battle of New Orleans Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
2006 - A magnitude 6.9 earthquake epicentered just off the Greek island of Kythira hits much of the country and is felt throughout the entire eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Births
1824 - Wilkie Collins, British novelist (d. 1889)
1935 - Elvis Presley, American singer and guitarist (d. 1977)
1944 - Terry Brooks American writer

Deaths
1324 - Marco Polo, Italian explorer (b. 1254)
1825 - Eli Whitney, American inventor (b. 1765)
1642 - Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist (b. 1564)
(Since I included Galileo's death, I ought mention it is 1942 - Stephen Hawking, English physicist and author's birthday as well).

Observances
Commonwealth Day is celebrated in Northern Mariana Islands.

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