May Day celebrations of yesteryear.
posted on May 1, 2008 - View this thread

I know a man who once went to Sioux City, not one of the world’s leading destinations, precisely because he had never been there before. More than a decade later he still talks about the experience, from the Sergeant Floyd obelisk to the dog track of North Sioux and the meat packing plant converted to a shopping mall. The same impulse explains a non-specialist’s reading a history of Byzantine iconography or a survey of Australian wildlife. Both offer a break in daily life and an enlargement of our sense of wonder and possibility. That awareness can provide a sense of transcendence, and connection, or even the spark of divine discontent that leads people to change their lives.

Reading as Vacation, an essay by J. D. Smith and Subway Reader, pictures of people who read while using public transportation.
posted on Apr 6, 2008 - View this thread

In a coincidence that happens less than once in a millennium, over half the world is celebrating a holiday. It is Good Friday; the Jewish festival of Purim, where getting drunk is often an obligation; the Persian new year of Narouz; Eid Milad an Nabi which the birth of the Prophet celebrated by some Sunnis; and Small Holi for Hindus, among many others.
posted on Mar 21, 2008 - View this thread

What do we call the period of cleaning that we carry out in the spring? That's right, Discardia! This five-year-old holiday started yesterday and lasts till April 5th. Via Lifehacker, who open the festivities with 10 ways to declutter your digital life.
posted on Mar 20, 2008 - View this thread

Time to kill while waiting for Santa to arrive/dinner to digest/family to leave? Well, here's a Very Special Holiday Episode fpp just for you. God bless us, every one.
posted on Dec 24, 2007 - View this thread

Send messages to friends with fun, bureaucratic fill-in forms! Bureau of Communication has funny faux-bureaucratic forms that you can send to your friends. Whether you need to communicate a problem, send an invitation to an event, or simply apologize for a transgression, our easy-to-use forms will ensure that your message is clearly conveyed.
posted on Dec 21, 2007 - View this thread

It has now been several years since Jacquie Lawson, an English artist living in the picturesque village of Lurgashall in Southern England, created an animated Christmas card in 2000. The e-card, featuring her dog, Chudleigh, her cats, and her 15th-century cottage, was sent to a few friends for their amusement. Those friends sent the e-card to others, and within weeks Jacquie was inundated with requests from all over the world to design more e-cards.
posted on Dec 20, 2007 - View this thread

The Prepaid Healthcare Visa® Gift Card, for that special someone without insurance on your holiday list. Rejoice! Terry Gilliam's dystopian future is now! [via]
posted on Dec 19, 2007 - View this thread

If you're looking for a good prank this holiday season, why not have someone living in Europe send cryptic, bizarre postcards to your friends. Bidding has commenced.
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

tacky christmas yards dot com is exactly what it sounds like. [via]
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

An FPP for your holiday listening pleasure. Ha ha ha.
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

30 Years of LucasFilm Christmas Cards (I triple-dog dare ya!)
posted on Dec 15, 2007 - View this thread

Santastic I, II, and now III, holiday mash-ups, alternate treatments and bootleg remixes.
Previously
posted on Dec 5, 2007 - View this thread

Park your carcass in front of the TV for the next six weeks. Here is the upcoming broadcast schedule for every show that has even the tiniest connection to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
posted on Nov 21, 2007 - View this thread

Last Wednesday, residents of the Ulyanovsk province of Russia took the day off work in celebration of their newest holiday, Sex Day.
posted on Sep 18, 2007 - View this thread

Blog Against Theocracy --a blogswarm dedicated to the separation of church and state, ... Easter Weekend, April 6-8, 2007. Also see the non-profit joint venture between The Interfaith Alliance Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, First Freedom First.
posted on Apr 6, 2007 - View this thread

Today is National Gorilla Suit Day. That is all.
posted on Jan 31, 2007 - View this thread

Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas - a Harvey Danger song for all those who keep the wheels turning. (YouTube alert)
posted on Dec 24, 2006 - View this thread

It's all about the tree. (YouTube)
posted on Dec 16, 2006 - View this thread

Santa'd: Flickr's new holiday Easter egg.
posted on Dec 13, 2006 - View this thread

Avoid office party lawsuits: buy insurance and distribute the rules in advance; don't let them drink; no flirting; bring a recording device; no religious stuff; don't dance with staff members.

Have a safe holiday.
posted on Dec 4, 2006 - View this thread

Jessica Simpson's latest single (YouTube link) came on as I was flicking around the teevee, and I was immediately struck by how much it sounded like 'Holiday' by Madonna. Stealing from yourself is one thing, but admitting to stealing from someone else is quite another. Isn't it?
posted on Aug 16, 2006 - View this thread

Is Cinco De Mayo For Sale By the Alcohol Industry? In the 1960s, Chicano activists in Colorado promoted a boycott of Coors beer in response to employment discrimination against Latinos at Coors breweries. Coors had two problems. They had to fix their image with Latino consumers, and they had to figure out some way to get college students to drink more beer in May. The solution: start sponsoring Cinco de Mayo! Thus, even though Mexicans in Mexico celebrate their independence day on September 15th and 16th, Mexican-Americans are more likely to celebrate the May 5th anniversary of the Battle of the Puebla, which is not even commemorated with a national holiday in Mexico. In fact, the Battle of the Puebla was a skirmish in the Pastry War, a French intervention in Mexico that began because a French chef demanded several thousand pesos to compensate him for Mexican military officers looting his pastry supply.
posted on May 5, 2006 - View this thread

Mission Accomplished? Then why is there even more outrage? Last year, celebration and theatre dominated the day.. This year it's different. This is also the 120th anniversary of the Haymarket Riots resulting in four anarchists being hanged. Interestingly enough, the riots happened because of workers rights being unfair. Is this a case of history repeating itself?
posted on May 1, 2006 - View this thread

Some badass eggs for this easter done in the Ukranian style called pysanky. More from last year and the year before. [via mefi projects]
posted on Apr 16, 2006 - View this thread

Celebrate the most underappreciated holiday of the year! February 1st is St. Brigid's Day or Imbolc or Candlemas. St. Brigid of Ireland, the woman who some make a good case that she should be the Patron Saint of Ireland before Patrick. Others say she was the pre-Christian fertility or fire goddess of the Celts and that the Catholic Church co-opted her day as they did with many pagan pre-Christian holidays. Whether one celebrates Candlemas as a Catholic holy day or as a one of the Pagan cross-quarter days, it is also the Festival of Lights. Regardless, I have loved February 1st and 2nd since college as Groundhog Day is the most whimsical holiday of the year, thankfully it does not have a 2 month retail buying season building up to it. Tomorrow, I shall take a photo to Puxsutawney Phil to St. Brigid's Well in Kildare to celebrate properly.
posted on Feb 1, 2006 - View this thread

Of all the Christmas cards I received this year from political action committees, this one from the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep & Bear arms best summed up the holiday spirit to me.
posted on Dec 29, 2005 - View this thread

A Wine For The Rest of Us...... Today is December 23, so have yourself a Merrry Little Festivus! It's too late to buy a Festivus Pole, but you can still send a card or take the quiz.
posted on Dec 23, 2005 - View this thread

Santastic: Holiday boots for your stockings. Mash-ups of decades of Christmas records just in time for the holidays. The quality varies throughout, but it makes for some fun manic listening if you've grown tired of the same perennial chestnuts. Merry Christmash to all, and to all a boot night.
posted on Dec 3, 2005 - View this thread

Thanksgiving Dinner Buzzword Bingo helps make tonight's dinner with family a little more palatable. Print out cards for you and your other cool relative (spouse, sibling) and check off a box every time one of these situations happens. First to get 5 in a row wins. Remember to shout "Bingo!" at the table.
posted on Nov 24, 2005 - View this thread

Today is "Talk Like a Pirate" Day. Yarr! Do yer part, landlubbers, by translating yer favorite webpage into pirate-speak. Yarr!
posted on Sep 19, 2005 - View this thread

? , !, & @ .
posted on Aug 22, 2005 - View this thread

Happy Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) Day • "PRD was created by the sex-positive group of redheaded friends, the Drunken Redheaded Sluts, as a hilarious way to denounce the 'bum rap' that self-gratification got Paul Reubens, while honoring the man’s erotic curiosity and zany character." The celebration will start with a pub crawl, followed by a Pornographic After-Party to benefit the The Center for Sex and Culture, and climax with a Midnight Mass with Peaches Christ (NSFW).
posted on Jul 23, 2005 - View this thread

Happy Dingus Day! The little known day-after-Easter holiday originally celebrated in Poland involves men dumping water on women and women chasing men around with sticks or pussywillows.
posted on Mar 28, 2005 - View this thread

Santa Santa Santa Santa It's Friday, it's Flash, it's Christmas Eve, so....
posted on Dec 24, 2004 - View this thread

Tis the Season -- a new short story from China Mieville, just in time for the Holidays™ ... Don't get me wrong. I haven't got shares in YuleCo™, and I can't afford a one-day end-user licence, so I couldn't have a legal party. I'd briefly considered buying from one of the budget competitors like XmasTym, or a spinoff from a non-specialist like Coca-Crissmas, but the idea of doing it on the cheap was just depressing...
posted on Dec 23, 2004 - View this thread

Grey Holiday Puppet. Festive Friday Flash Fun
posted on Dec 17, 2004 - View this thread

The War on Christmas. "What we are witnessing here are hate crimes against Christianity." Angered by perceived attacks on the Christ part of Christmas, Christians are taking a page from GWB and staging pre-emptive cultural strikes around the country. Or are they? Is this effort a bigger attack against Judaism and the rest of the nonbelievers/scapegoats, an honest attempt by Christians to "save" the holiday, or a media-manufactured controversy? (Air out your holiday spirit, but save your own personal grievances for December 23.)
posted on Dec 16, 2004 - View this thread

Remember this New Year's: Bottle rockets should be fired off from bottles, not your drunken friend's ass (Not really safe for work, but amusing enough to enjoy the stupidity of others).
posted on Dec 15, 2004 - View this thread

Every holiday seaon, some little web outfit puts together a really cool flash app. Make-a-Flake is that app. Here's my stab at a pirate themed snowflake (note the anchors, which was an accident).
posted on Dec 9, 2004 - View this thread

Santa, apparantly, brings the mosh like noone else.
posted on Dec 8, 2004 - View this thread

Santas Gone Wild Imagine a flashmob. Now imagine a flashmob that is nothing but Santas. Once a year, for 10 years now, a bunch of crazies dress up like Santa Claus, frolic around major cities (like NYC, good text summary of what SantaCon is all about to be found here) and cause merry mischief.
posted on Dec 7, 2004 - View this thread

It's that time of year again. I don't think Pearl Harbor Day is that important to most people anymore, but it was always an important part of December in my family.
posted on Dec 7, 2004 - View this thread

The Ten Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time. From An Algonquin Round Table Christmas to Noam Chomsky: Deconstructing Christmas, these are the worst Christmas specials ever. I'd pay good money to see the Ayn Rand one for real.
posted on Dec 4, 2004 - View this thread

Today is National Coming Out Day which aims to raise awareness of the kinda screwed up laws we have about having The Gay™ in America. Did you know that in 36 out of our 50 states, if you tell your boss you're gay and you get fired over it, it's totally legal? One person has proposed that this day also be Gay for Pay Day, to protest the payment of income taxes to a government that doesn't protect their right to be and is actively trying to forbid their own marriages.
posted on Oct 11, 2004 - View this thread

Today is world celebrate Scottishness day. View the complete history of Englands missed penalty kicks and the Scottish national liberation armys website whilst having a wee dram with tunes played on Scotlands national instrument , the midi player lilting in the background.
posted on Jun 24, 2004 - View this thread

Juneteenth is today, celebrating the emancipation of all slaves in Texas, on June 19th, 1865, 2 1/2 years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. With its lighthearted name and tragicomic origins, Juneteenth appeals to many Americans by celebrating the end of slavery without dwelling on its legacy. Juneteenth, celebrators say, is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday without the grieving. It's become a widely celebrated holiday among African-Americans (but not even known by many whites), and Fourteen states have made it official--is it time for it to go national? Find an event in your state or country
posted on Jun 19, 2004 - View this thread

Regularly-updated listing of today's April Fools jokes on the web. Add 'em if you've got 'em.
posted on Apr 1, 2004 - View this thread

Mistletunes - your one-stop resource for those half-remembered Rock 'n' Roll Christmas songs of today and yesteryear. I'm partial to the novelty tunes of the '50's and '60's myself (as well a bit of punk), but you can also check out the lists of Hanukkah Hits, Surfin' Christmas, and keep up with the latest Christmas releases.
posted on Dec 15, 2003 - View this thread

This is frankly not one of the best films ever made. "Realizing that sequels are often fraught with peril, the producers of Barney Cam secured starring roles from the President, the First Lady, many senior White House officials and a yet-to-be-named surprise cameo appearance."
posted on Dec 13, 2003 - View this thread