Birthday Meme
Strange word isn’t it. Apparently it’s pronounced Meem in the UK, Mem in the US but I prefer a different pronunciation as in this particular case, it’s all about Me Me.
What is a Meme? Well it’s kind of a chain letter thing but with blogging posts. One person does it, somebody else copies it and it works its way round the blogoshpere. Anyway, this one’s been doing the rounds as evidenced on Stephen Lang’s blog. The idea is you look up your birthday on Wikipedia and post 3 events, 2 births, 1 death and 1 holiday that happened on the same day.
These are mine:
Events
- 1835 - The Republic of Texas captures San Antonio.
- 1892 - The football clubs Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End merge to form Newcastle United F.C.
- 1977 - Kermit Washington of the Los Angeles Lakers punches Rudy Tomjanovich of the Houston Rockets. The punch nearly kills Tomjanovich and leads to major rule changes in the National Basketball Association.
Well I’m delighted to know I’m associated with such earth shattering events.
Births
- 1909 - Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor (d. 2000)
- 1934 - Dame Judi Dench, British actress
There you go. Class, sheer class. I always knew I was born for greatness. (Please overlook the inclusion of Donny Osmond in the same list, obviously a misprint.)
Death
- 1165 - King Malcolm IV of Scotland
Alas poor Malcolm, I knew him…………….. not well.
Holiday
- Scandinavia (specifically Sweden): Anna’s Day. Recognizes everyone named Anna, and marks the day to start the preparation process of the lutefisk to be consumed on Christmas Eve.
Hey!!! Unfair to people not named Anna. How very odd. Does every day become a holiday for each name? What happens if there are more than 365 names? Do two people get the same day or do they have a law about what you can be called? Does your second name count? Is there name discrimination? These questions need to be answered.
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: April 27th, 2007 at 2:02 pm →
I pronounce it Meem in the US, but then again, I may have it wrong by US standards of pronounciation — not that we have standards
Jaybee responds:
Posted: April 27th, 2007 at 2:33 pm →
I think we should all agree to call it Me Me. It’s a flipping stupid word anyway.
Wikipedia Birthday Meme, Plus - Beast-Blog.com responds:
Posted: April 27th, 2007 at 4:34 pm →
[…] for doing the meme thing, but with so many around me partaking in this one — Stephen, Jack, Gill — I decided to be a lemming today and leap off the cliff with the others. In this meme I have […]
Dan responds:
Posted: April 27th, 2007 at 5:15 pm →
“Meme” was first used by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, as a variation of the term memetics. The common usage now we see on the web is slightly at odds with Dawkins’ use of the word, which was intended to convey the evolution of culture through units of information rather than replication.
Meh.
Jaybee responds:
Posted: April 27th, 2007 at 5:57 pm →
Gosh, thanks for that Dan. I shall commit it to memory. I’m sure it’ll come in handy next time I partake of a pub quiz.
Helena Boylen responds:
Posted: April 29th, 2007 at 1:42 pm →
Wasn’t that a musical… “You’re looking swell - Meme!”
(I’ll get me coat)
Jaybee responds:
Posted: April 29th, 2007 at 3:26 pm →
Actually I thought memetics was something you took to make yourself sick.