Groundhog Day...And I Don't Mean The Movie

Unfortunately for Punxsutawney Phil, the official prognosticator of weather, there's a disturbance in the cosmos perched on the horizon waiting to swoop in and take over. A challenger set to usurp his throne.

Every year on February 2nd a furry rodent of the groundhog variety named Punxsutawney Phil sticks his head out of his burrow in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to do his annual weather forecast. In the United States and Canada, this is celebrated as Groundhog Day. If Phil sees his shadow, it will frighten him and he'll return to his burrow signaling six more weeks of winter. If he doesn't see his shadow, he'll emerge and winter will soon be over.

At least, that's what the tradition claims.

The earliest American written reference to a groundhog day was 1841 in Pennsylvania's Berks County (Pennsylvania Dutch) referring to it as the German celebration called Candlemas day where a groundhog seeing its shadow was a weather indication. Since the first official celebration of Groundhog Day in Pennsylvania in 1886, crowds as large as 40,000 people have gathered in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, for the annual celebration. And in recent years it's been covered live on television. Quite an accolade for the little ol' groundhog.

The groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, is a member of the squirrel family. The current Punxsutawney Phil weighs fifteen pounds and lives in a climate controlled home in the Punxsutawney library. On Gobbler's Knob, Phil is placed in a heated burrow underneath a simulated tree stump on a stage before being pulled out at 7:25AM to make his annual prediction.

Quite removed from the concept of the groundhog waking from hibernation and sticking his head out of his burrow in the wild. :)

Phil's forecasting accuracy isn't all that great. He's only been correct 39% of the time. Between 1887 and 2009 he's seen his shadow ninety-eight times (hmm…I wonder how many of those times could be attributed to the television lights), has not seen his shadow fifteen times, and on nine occasions there was no record of what happened.


News Flash: Punxsutawney Phil, the "Official" groundhog of Groundhog Day, has a challenger for chief weather prognosticator. And just who is this brash interloper?

It's a bullfrog named Snohomish Slew. Punxsutawney Phil might have more than a hundred years of experience on Snohomish Slew, but the bullfrog is a full three days earlier with his forecast. Thanks to the Snohomish, Washington, Chamber of Commerce, Slew was guest of honor at a GroundFrog Day Celebration on Saturday, January 30.

Unlike Phil, when Slew sees his shadow it calls for eight more weeks of "foggy, soggy weather" rather than Phil's six more weeks of winter. However, Snohomish folklore dictates that whoever rubs the tummy of a frog on GroundFrog Day will be rewarded with eight weeks of good luck.

Is it time for a change? Do you think Snohomish Slew has a chance of stealing Punxsutawney Phil's place in the weather forecasting world?

Vampires And Other Immortals Part 2 of 2

Meet Turritopsis nutriculaas, a form of jellyfish that is the world's only known immortal creature.

Before we talk about fictional immortals, here's a bit of information about the above photograph. Scientists have recognized Turritopsis nutriculaas as the only known animal that is capable of rejuvenating itself, thus sustaining life over and over again. In other words—being immortal.

Jellyfish usually die after propagating, but according to the London Times, Turritopsis reverts to a sexually immature stage after reaching adulthood and is capable of rejuvenating itself. It is the only known animal capable of reverting to its juvenile polyp state. In theory, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, making it potentially immortal.

The creature is only 4-5mm in diameter and is found in warm tropical waters but is believed to be spreading across the world as ships discharge their ballast water in ports.

And now on to the other type of immortal—the characters in our myths, literature and movies/television. AOL posted a list of the top ten immortal characters as compiled by LiveScience. This is a cross-section sampling from various forms of storytelling.

10. Peter Pan: The famous boy who never grows up (or grows old) and prefers to live on the magical isle of Neverland.

9. Dracula: If you're desperate to live forever, you could try getting bitten by Dracula or any of the other well-known vampires. Of course, you'd have to give up Italian food which is loaded with garlic. :)

8. Lazarus Long: A character in many of Robert Heinlein's science fiction novels. Lazarus lives to be over 2,000 years old, travels to distant planets, and travels through time.

7. Nicolas Flamel: J.K. Rowling based Harry Potter's Flamel character (good friend to Hogwart's headmaster) on a real-life French 15th Century alchemist who legend claims successfully created the Philosopher's Stone, a mythical elixir that turns lead into gold and grants eternal life.

6. Tithonus: When Greek goddess Eos asks Zeus to grant her mortal lover, Tithonus, eternal life, she forgets to also ask for eternal youth. Tithonus lives forever, but he grows old and frail, and begs for death.

5. Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde created this character who remains young and handsome while his portrait ages. He becomes corrupt, but his crimes and true age show only in the face of the painting which grows progressively more monstrous and withered.

4. Highlander: In the 1986 movie, Connor MacLeod is a member of the immortals, a mysterious race who die only when they are beheaded. The immortals must battle each other until only one is left to claim The Prize: the gift of immortality.

3. Grail Knight: A knight of the First Crusade. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade he is given the task of guarding the Holy Grail, a crucible that grants eternal life to any who drink from it.

2. Methuselah: He's the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, becoming a father at the age of 187 and living to be 969 years old.

1. Arwen: A half-elven maiden in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings who renounces eternal life to marry her mortal sweetheart. She lives to be 2,901 years old.

Do you have a favorite immortal character among the many?

VAMPIRES AND OTHER IMMORTALS--Part 1 of 2

Vampires are big business these days, their most recent surge of popularity due to the Twilight series books and movies. Of course, vampires have never really been out of style. They were popularized in literature by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, DRACULA, but stories of vampires go back many centuries before that.

Where did the concept of vampires come from? The answer to that question exists somewhere in the space separating science and superstition. Some sources claim the stories of vampires began with the Romanian prince Vlad Tepes who lived 1431 – 1476 and fought for independence against the Ottoman Empire. His methods of dealing with his enemies included slowly impaling them on stakes, drawing and quartering, and burning them alive. It all seems very brutal and sadistic by today's standards, but not all that uncommon for those times. The same methods were used by the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition and by other rulers and powerful leaders during the Middle Ages to torture and kill their enemies.

Bram Stoker is said to have patterned some of his Dracula character after Vlad Tepes as the birth of the modern fictional vampire. However, the roots of real vampires have very different origins. Stories of vampires are a worldwide phenomenon with localized versions of vampires coming from almost all cultures. Before science progressed to the point where it could explain weather patterns and germ theory, any bad event that did not have an obvious cause could be blamed on a vampire. The mythical creature was an easy answer to the age old question of why bad things happened to good people.

Superstitious villagers took their belief that something had cursed the bad things and put it together with their fear of the dead and came to the conclusion that recently buried people who had risen from the dead to do evil deeds were responsible. They dug up graves and were surprised by the way the corpses looked. Not understanding the process of decomposition, they assumed bodies immediately turned to skeletons.

Even with the original concept of vampires causing events now explainable by science being long gone, the cultural phenomenon of vampires continue to fascinate the world. And it isn't just the macabre and horror stories that draw on the vampire character. We have several examples of vampires being used as objects of humor. Certainly Al Lewis' Grandpa character on the old MUNSTERS television series. We have comedy movies such as LOVE AT FIRST BITE and Mel Brooks' 1995 film DRACULA, DEAD AND LOVING IT.

Even children have been caught up in the commercialism of the vampire world. There's General Mills' Count Chocula breakfast cereal, marketed to children. And not even the long running award-winning children's television series SESAME STREET was able to ignore the vampire allure. One of their popular Muppet characters is The Count, complete with black Dracula style cape and fangs.

Vampire movies have been around since the days of silent films with the 1922 classic, Nosferatu. What are your favorite vampire movies?

Next week (Sunday, January 24) I'm going to post Part 2 of Vampires And Other Immortals with a Top Ten list of immortals from myths, literature and movies.

DEJA VU Releases This Week!

THIS FRIDAY IS THE DAY!

Friday, January 15, 2010, is the release date for DÉJÀ VU by Samantha Gentry, available from the Crimson Rose line of mystery romantic suspense at The Wild Rose Press. It's available in both ebook and print. http://www.thewildrosepress.com/


BLURB: When Alexandra Caldwell is hired by a reclusive author to research the thirty-year-old disappearance of a big name newspaper tycoon and his wife, she wasn't sure what she would discover. As she embarks on this project, she finds herself in the middle of a series of frightening events and an unexpected attraction to Gable Talbot, the current owner of Skull Island where the disappearances occurred...a man with a magnetic sex appeal and a past as mysterious as the case she's researching. Will she be able to do the job she was hired for, or has she stumbled too close to the truth?

***

I'm not sure exactly where the idea for this book came from, but it was an idea that had been floating around in the back of my mind for a while before I started putting a specific storyline together. The concept of using a privately owned island as the setting for a mystery appealed to me. Isolated location, the island's owner having a hidden past, and unexplained happenings that throw the characters together leaving them surrounded by life threatening danger. Since I'm particularly fond of the Pacific Northwest and have spent a lot of time there, I decided to locate my fictional private island in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state. And this, of course, required a research trip. :)

Next I needed to devise a situation that would provide a logical and valid reason for my heroine to be on the private island owned by my hero. When I finally came up with a premise that I liked, I started working on the details of the storyline and then the writing of the manuscript.

I liked working out the mystery elements. Does the heroine have an ulterior motive for being on the island other than what she told the hero? A hero who doesn't have a past, does that make him a dangerous man hiding behind a false identity? Is the heroine in danger from him? And the mystery of the island itself, exactly what happened all those years ago and why is a thirty year old event suddenly creating a danger for today?

And after I formulated the questions, I had to come up with logical answers.

DÉJÀ VU was a fun book to write. I end up really agonizing over some of them. I'm working on a romantic suspense mystery right now that's not going as smoothly as I'd like. Others seem to flow with very few problems. Too bad they can't all flow that easily. :)

***

There are several excerpts from DÉJÀ VU on my website as well as excerpts and reviews for my other books. Stop by and take a look. http://www.samanthagentry.com/ And while you're there, be sure to enter my trivia contest.

Then check out my guest blog at The Romance Studio's main blog on Friday, January 15th. I'm talking some more about writing DÉJÀ VU. http://theromancestudio.blogspot.com/

Weirdest News Stories of 2009

We may be facing shortages of fossil fuel, clean drinking water, jobs, and a definite big time shortage of world peace, but there's one thing we still have in abundance—weird news stories. I'm going to ignore those big headline grabbing stories involving people desperately seeking their fifteen minutes of fame and concentrate on the stories that didn't make every television newscast, newspaper headline (both real newspaper and tabloid), and magazine.


1. Driving Furniture While Intoxicated. A man in Ohio equipped his bar stool with a lawnmover engine, downed fifteen beers, then went zipping down a public street on his motorized bar stool at 38 miles per hour. Not to be outdone, a man in Minnesota was arrested when he plowed his motorized recliner into a parked car. And finally, a woman in Wisconsin drank seven or eight brandy and cokes, then called 911 to report herself driving drunk. The police pulled her over, gave her a breathalyzer test, and concluded she was right.

2. Busted Justice. When British retailer Marks & Spencer started charging more for bras size DD and larger, a British woman used her Facebook group with 17,000 members to bring Marks & Spencer to their knees and they dropped the additional increase in their price.

3. Moonwalk Like An Ancient Egyptian. Following the death of Michael Jackson, crowds gathered at Chicago's Field Museum because they thought they could see Jackson's face in a 3000 year old statuette.

4. Antisocial Media. A teen in Staten Island, NY, walking down a sidewalk while texting, fell into an open manhole. Within hours of being rescued she was tweeting about it. In a Sao Paulo, Brazil, prison the inmates began smuggling in cell phones by carrier pigeon.

5. Urine Luck. A strange save the Earth campaign. A Brazilian environmental group is encouraging everyone to save water by peeing in the shower, claiming it would save 1000 gallons of water annually.

6. Horsing Around. One interspecies romp is bad enough, but get caught twice and you are in really big time trouble as a 50 year old man found out who was sentenced to three years in prison and banned from ever going near a stable again.

7. Unbelievably Fertile. For years an Arkansas woman and her husband had been trying to conceive without any luck. Then it happened not just once, but twice. She somehow managed to conceive a second child while still pregnant with her first. The phenomenon, known as superfetation, is so rare that doctors know of only ten other cases.

8. This Is Your Brain On Drugs. A 20 year old Pennsylvania man was caught by the sheriff using an extra-large homemade bong to "mellow out his cat." The sheriff said he knew it wasn't the first time it had happened, it was just the first time someone had been caught.

9. Excuses, Excuses. A Belgian teen claimed she fell asleep in a tattoo artist's chair and woke up with fifty-six stars tattooed on her face. The artist claimed she was a willing client. Days later she admitted she didn't want to tell her parents the truth.

10. Nude Coffee Kerfuffle. A 29 year old man was busted in his own home for drinking his morning coffee in the nude. It seems the two women and a 7 year old boy spotted him sipping his coffee au naturel while they cut through his yard on the way to a park. A jury convicted him of indecent exposure, but the judge did not fine or sentence him. He's vowing to appeal the conviction.

11. Google Worship. SEO…Search Engine Optimization…is a fancy way of saying sell yourself in any way possible to rank high in an internet search. This became an obsession in 2009 with not only media companies and retailers, but also municipalities. The French coastal town of Eu announced that it was considering changing its name because people searching for the vacation town on the Web are instead inundated with information on the European Community, also known as the EU.

12. Moo-ving Research. Farmers have been trying to get their cows to produce more milk for a long time. Scientists at England's Newcastle University gave us a solution—talk to the animals. The researchers found that cows with names produced one to two pints of milk more per day than cows that weren't given names.


And that's a dozen of the weirdest news stories from 2009. Do any of you have weird news stories that have come to your attention during the last year?

New Year's Resolutions You'll Be Able To Keep...and other stuff like fruitcake and hangovers

New Year's resolutions have basically become an annual joke. Every January 1 we make resolutions for the upcoming year and if we're lucky, they remain valid for the rest of the month.

So, this year how about making some resolutions you'll actually be able to keep during 2010? Here's a list of several such resolutions. I hope you accept these suggestions in the spirit of humor in which they are offered. If I've offended anyone, I apologize in advance. Following the resolutions, I've added some miscellaneous information relevant to the season.

1. Gain Weight. Let's face it, you already have a start on this one with all the holiday meals, candy, beverages, and snacks.

2. Go Deeper Into Debt. You probably have a head start on this one, too, from holiday gift shopping. After all, even buying new things for yourself…well, it was probably stuff you needed and with all the great sales this year who could resist?

3. Spend More Money. This goes hand-in-hand with the second item on the list. Spend it now while you're still physically able to get out to do it.

4. Don't Get A Better Job. Since having any job is better than not having one, be happy with status quo.

5. Whatever Shape You're In Is Fine. Seriously…round is a perfectly acceptable shape.

6. Don't Go Back To School. Look at your current life and time schedule. Now add a part time college schedule to that plus the cost of tuition (probably the same amount as that new 60-inch HDTV home theater with Dolby Surround Sound you bought in item two on the list) and the cost of expensive college textbooks. Hmmm…a fine bottle of rare vintage wine or a bottle of aged single malt scotch vs. Concepts of Economics Vol. 1.

7. Drink More Alcohol. Open that fine bottle of wine or scotch and watch your new HDTV.

8. Smoke Like A Chimney. When someone chastises you for putting smoke out there, ask them if they've traded in their gas-guzzling car for a bicycle.

9. Stay At Home. If, however, you prefer to find toilet paper that's hard enough to scrape paint, really weird television, and even weirder food…then travel out of the country.

And last but not least…

10. Don't Volunteer!


And now for something completely different (with apologies to Monty Python for stealing…uh, I mean borrowing…their catch phrase).

As a follow up to Christmas, a few words about that much maligned holiday treat, the butt of so many jokes, that humble yet seemingly inedible concoction—fruitcake.

Food historians theorize that fruitcake (any cake in which dried fruits and nuts try to coexist with cake batter) is older than Moses. Ancient Egyptians entombed fruitcake and Romans carried it into battle, probably for the same reason. Fruitcake was built to last and it did, well into medieval times.

It was in the 18th century that fruitcake achieved its current status. At that time nut-harvesting farmers encased fruits and nuts in a cakelike substance to save for the next harvest as a sort of good luck charm.

And thus the problem. Any cake that is not meant to be eaten doesn't deserve to be classified as food.

Our love/hate relationship with fruitcake began in the early 20th century when the first mail-order fruitcakes became fashionable gifts. It ended up as a mass-produced product using barely recognizable fruits and packed into cans as heavy as barbell weights.

And another something different…the dreaded hangover.

While celebrating the arrival of the New Year, there's one thing you should keep in mind—the darker the liquor, the bigger the hangover. According to a new study that compares the after effects of drinking bourbon vs. vodka, what sounds like an old wives' tale is true…to a point.

Brownish colored spirits such as whiskey and rum contain greater amounts of congeners than clear liquors such as vodka and gin. And what are congeners, you might ask? They are substances that occur naturally or are added to alcohol during the production and aging process, many of which are toxic. They contribute to the alcohol's color, odor, and taste. They also interfere with cell function, and I'm NOT talking about your mobile phone. :) And they viciously punish your head and tummy the next morning. According to the study, bourbon is aged in oak barrels and has thirty-seven times as many congeners as vodka, which is heavily filtered to remove impurities.

Drinking in the study was relatively moderate compared to some New Year's Eve binges. The average blood-alcohol content of the survey participants was 0.1 percent, somewhere between 0.09 ("mildly intoxicated" and considered legally over the limit in most states), and 0.15 ("visibly drunk" and definitely on your way to jail). The study's findings may not translate to your holiday party.

The bottom line, however, is that congeners are not the primary culprit in the dreaded hangover. The credit goes to the alcohol itself

Wishing everyone a happy AND SAFE New Year's Eve and a marvelous New Year. May 2010 bring you happiness and health.

And Peace On Earth for everyone.

Ancient Roots Of The Christmas Celebration

Early Europeans celebrated light in the darkest days of winter. They rejoiced during the winter solstice, when the worst of the winter was behind them and they could look forward to extended hours of sunlight.

In Scandinavia, the Norse celebrated Yule from the Winter Solstice on December 21 through January. In recognition of the return of the sun, fathers and sons would bring home large logs and set them on fire. The people would feast until the log burned out which could be as long as twelve days.

In Germany, people honored the pagan god Odin during the mid-winter holiday. Germans were terrified of Odin. They believed he made night flights through the sky to observe his people and then decide who would prosper or perish.

In Rome, where winters weren't as harsh as in the far north, Saturnalia was celebrated beginning the week before winter solstice and continuing for a full month. It was a hedonistic time with lots of food and drink. For that month the social order was turned upside down with slaves becoming masters and peasants in charge of the city. Business and schools were closed so everyone could join in.

Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed Juvenalia, a feast honoring the children of Rome. In addition, on December 25 members of the upper classes celebrated the birthday of Mithras, the god of the unconquerable sun.

It wasn't until the fourth century that Christian church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. The Puritans denied the legitimacy of the celebration, pointing out that the Bible does not mention a date for his birth. Pope Julius I chose December 25. The common belief is that the church chose the date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. By the end of the eighth century, the celebration of Christmas had spread all the way to Scandinavia.

By the Middle Ages, Christianity had mostly replaced pagan religion. Christmas was celebrated by attending church then celebrating in a drunken carnival type of atmosphere similar to today's Mardi Gras celebration.

In the early seventeenth century, a wave of religious reform changed the way Christmas was celebrated in Europe. In 1645, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces gained control in England and vowed to do away with decadence. As part of their agenda, they cancelled Christmas. When Charles II regained the throne, he restored the holiday.

The pilgrims who came to America in 1620 were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. In fact, from 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston. In contrast, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all in the Jamestown settlement.

Some Christmas facts:

Each year 30-35 million real Christmas trees are sold in the United States.

Christmas wasn't a holiday in early America until June 26, 1870, when Congress declared it a federal holiday.

The first eggnog made in the United States was in 1607 in the Jamestown settlement.

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was created by Robert L. May in 1939 as part of an advertising campaign to help lure customers into the Montgomery Ward department store.

The first tinsel decoration was made from real silver and originally used to reflect light from candles placed on Christmas trees (in the days before electric lights replaced candles). Tinsel came into popularity in 1610 in Germany. Silver was hammered out and cut into thin strips to hang on the tree. Real silver tarnished, so the tinsel rarely lasted more than one season. Silver tinsel was used until the early 1900s and was seen as a status symbol. Today's tinsel is made of PVC. Due to its environmentally unfriendly nature, it has mostly gone out of style.

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season.

And most of all . . . Peace On Earth.