History

At first it wasn’t really international, hell it wasn’t even national and the date had nothing to do with the current date Pirate Day is held on but it was a start. To be a festival day they needed a date and choosing June 6th is a big no-no (go to wikipedia to see what happened). Mark came up with September 19th cause well there is nothing on that day anyway, except for his ex-wives birthday but we can all forgive him for that.

7 Years passed and the International Talk Like A Pirate Day, was more of a Friends-of-ours Talk Like A Pirate Day, things would probably have continued indefinitely on that low-key note until John, Mark and Brian were little old pirates in the Home for Retired Sea Dogs. They had a national holiday that almost nobody knew about.

Except for one happy accident. One day in early 2002, John chanced upon Dave Barry’s e-mail address. As the entire universe knows, Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist and the author of somewhere between four and 6,000 books and the second funniest man in the universe.

The first e-mail introduced them, and told him about their great idea — Talk Like a Pirate Day. Then they offered him the only thing we had, the chance to be official national spokesman for the event.

Then within a day they got a reply from Dave himself.

It’s a great idea, he said, (actually “very excellent” were his exact words, in case you’re keeping score.) But then he asked the fatal question.
“Have you guys actually DONE anything about this? Or are you counting on me to carry the ball here?”

Very perceptive of him. The way they answered would be crucial in bringing Barry aboard. So they decided on the truth, with a lot of ass kissing thrown in.

“Well, we’ve talked like pirates every Sept. 19, and we’ve encouraged our several friends to,” John wrote in reply. And Mark put it in perspective when he wrote, “We are dinghy-sized-talk-like-a-pirate kinda guys, but you, Dave … you are like a frigate-huge-sized-talk-like-a-pirate kinda guy.”

In early September, John got a phone call from the feature editor at the local paper, someone he had worked with for several years before leaving the newspaper business. She sounded confused.

“John, I was editing this week’s Dave Barry column and it’s about … Is this you?”

It was. The nationally syndicated columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning writer of “distinguished commentary” (the Pulitzer committee’s description, not his own) became convinced of the great potential of such a holiday. Or maybe he had run out of fresh column ideas and didn’t want to do another one on toilet training his infant daughter. Either way, he had written the column.

And hell broke loose.

Present

At the moment Talk Like A Pirate Day truly is an International festival with people from around the world participating in a tradition where your English skills don’t matter that much as long as you sound like a pirate.

Just use your imagination on the 19th of September

And you can participate too, it’s very simple and the official website for International Talk Like A Pirate Day has a lot of information for you to start with: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

Current predicted path and energy levels of the tsunami following the earthquake in Japan. Poor Hawaii deadmid in it’s path, hope they will not be hit that hard and that there is a good early warning out.

This afternoon, local time, a big 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit the east side of Japan causing a massive tsunami. For a brief few hours I was in high panic as my girlfriend lives not too far from where the big tsunamis were.

Sendai looks like a Michael Bay movie, hope all my friends and their families are save.

Here is a link to NHK World live ustream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/foxtokimekitonight

Update:

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/ News in English

In my search I found the following video of people just doing awesome feats based on a physical level.

Take a look for yourself and hope you are doing something awesome today as well.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0Cazxj_yc

International Women’s Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women’s Day is marked on the 8th of March every year. It is a major day of global celebration of women. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women’s economic, political and social achievements.

Started as a Socialist political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries, primarily Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet bloc. In many regions, the day lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love for women in a way somewhat similar to a mixture of Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day. In other regions, however, the original political and human rights theme designated by the United Nations runs strong, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner.

I’ve been brought up with the believe that on this day you should always show the people around you how much respect you have for them as without them your own life would be a bit, if not a whole lot, more difficult.

To my colleagues that found a rose on their table and a link to this page: with this flower I want to say thank you for all the work you have done and I hope that you will get all the respect you deserve, not just today but every day for the rest of your long life.

- Draz

No one’s perfect, but everyone can be awesome.

What is The International Day of Awesomeness?

The International Day of Awesomeness is a celebration of awesomeness. People are awesome every day, frequently don’t realize it, and their feats of awesomeness are rarely recognized. We aim to fix that, with a special day to both perform and celebrate feats of awesomeness!

How Can I Celebrate The International Day of Awesomeness?

The easiest way to celebrate The International Day of Awesomeness is to be awesome. You could organize a group of your friends to perform feats of awesomness with. You could write a blog entry about someone you think epitomizes the ideals of awesomeness. As we get closer to the day, we’ll have more concrete tips for things you can do to celebrate this very important (but fun, fun, fun – we can’t stress that enough – The International Day of Awesomeness should be fun and not taken too seriously).

History of The International Day of Awesomeness?

This is mostly the fault of Kevin Lawver.On August 6th, 2007, Freddie Maneiro suggested that we have a celebration of Kevins awesomeness (it’s been a running joke on this project). Kevin being amused by this decided to post on his twitter, here. That started a very funny, very un-serious conversation among his friends about just what this holiday would entail. And well, here we are.

The International Day of Awesomness occurs every year on March 10th. Why? Because that’s Chuck Norris’ birthday. No offense to Mr. Norris, but this isn’t really a salute to Chuck Norris, the man. This is a tribute to the awesomeness of the the myth of Chuck Norris (see the Wikipedia entry). The International Day of Awesomeness is also strongly inspired by The Show with Ze Frank. Ze’s year-long internship in the League of Awesomeness is something special, and if you didn’t experience while it was going on, you should go back and watch the shows. Ze and his audience frequently performed feats of awesomeness, which could be used as inspiration for your own feats.

Dan Lurie came up with the original tag line (“Because everyone needs an excuse to be awesome”), and Kevins son, Max, came up with the new one. A bunch of people endorsed the date.

Narayanan Krishnan was born in Madurai (1981), Tamil Nadu. He was an award-winning chef with Taj Hotels, Bangalore and was short-listed for an elite job in Switzerland. During a visit to his family, before heading to Europe, he said,

“I saw a very old man, literally eating his own human waste out of hunger. I went to the nearby hotel and asked them what was available. They had idli, which I bought and gave to the old man. Believe me, I had never seen a person eating so fast, ever. As he ate the food, his eyes were filled with tears. Those were the tears of happiness”

It was this experience that changed his course in life and that of many others in his city. From a rising star chef to a social worker caring for those who are abandoned by society.

Krishnan founded his nonprofit Akshaya Trust in 2003. Every day, he wakes up at 4 a.m., cooks a simple hot meal and then, along with his team, loads it in a van and travels about 125 miles (201 km) feeding the homeless and mentally-disabled in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. He serves breakfast, lunch and dinner to 400 indigent and elderly people in Madurai.

He carries a comb, scissors and razor and is trained in eight haircut styles that, along with a fresh shave, provide extra dignity to those he serves. He is one of the Top 10 in “CNN heroes 2010″ list.

We all of have our own lives and our own believes, but it is when you put those away even for just a small moment and help out your fellow human being, that you can call yourself a hero. Please visit the H.E.L.P. organisations website to learn more about Krishnan and his goals – http://www.akshayatrust.org/

Lets start of with: Pete Eckert

Pete Eckert is a visual artist, taking the most amazing pictures with his trusty camera. But Pete wasn’t always into photography before he used to do sculpting and industrial design with great plans to go to Yale and study architecture, but that all changed when doctors diagnosed him with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).

Retinitis pigmentosa is a disease that gradually makes you lose your sight until the point you are completely blind. Like any man Pete needed some time to handle this matter but in the end he came out a better man by taking photographs of how he now sees the world.

| Artists Wanted | In Focus : Pete Eckert from Artists Wanted on Vimeo.

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All images and videos are copyrighted to Pete Eckert, please pay respect and don’t just steal. Pete Eckert

So which pokemon are you??