SUNDAY FUNNIES: AUTUMN'S CELEBRITY SHINY NEW YEAR!

"Oh the weather outside is frightful..."

Hello Everybody!
Autumn the Puppy here with not only my first post of the new year, but also my first batch of celebrity quotes for 2015 too.
So this time, I'm going to have the celebrities comment on the new year and as usual, my comments are in italics.
Ready?

Winfrey, circa 2011

"Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right!"
Oprah Winfrey
Other than forgetting where I buried some of my bones, I thought I had a pretty good 2014 overall.

Gaiman, circa 2007

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something."
Author Neil Gaiman
I agree with the sentiment, and this year I resolve to make better notes on where I plan to hide my bones before I bury them.

O'Hara

"I know I'm lazy. But I made myself a New Year's Resolution that I would write myself something really special. Which means I have 'til December, right?"
Catherine O'Hara
Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?
Of course, until the weather improves, I can't go outside and look for my missing bones anyway.

The bard

"Come gentlemen. I hope we shall drink down all unkindness."
William Shakespeare
"I never worry about being driven to

Fields, circa 1919

drink. I just worry about being driven home."
W.C. Fields
Well, as long as the water in my water dish is fresh and clean, I'll certainly drink to both thoughts! Happiness in the new year and designated drivers.

Tennyson

"Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier'."
Alfred Lord Tennyson
I sure hope so, because we can all use some happiness in our lives.

And on that note, have a great week everybody and please be back here next weekend for more Sunday Funnies!--AtP.

All images courtesy of Wikipedia via either public domain use,

their Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License,

or their GNU Free Documentation License.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW: JANUARY 4-10, 2015

JANUARY 16th MARKS THE 20th ANNIVERSARY

 OF STAR TREK: VOYAGER.

AMONGST EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD THIS PAST WEEK...

*SUBARU IS RECALLING OVER 190,000 VEHICLES FOR BRAKE LINE RUST ISSUES.
*Maithripala Sirisena has been elected President of Sri Lanka.
*Lebanon is enforcing tougher immigration restrictions along its border with Syria because of the civil war within that country.
*Cuba has started releasing American political prisoners as part of renewed negotiations with the United States.
*Russia has decided that transgender and transsexual people should be denied drivers' licenses on the grounds they are mentally unfit.
*Oxford University is testing a new anti-Ebola vaccine.
*Dunkin Donuts will be operating stores in China by 2035.
*Tombs dating back to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty have been discovered in China.

TERRIBLE TERRORISTS TRAGEDIES...
*Boko Haram terrorists attacked the town of Baga, Nigeria without warning or provocation. The death count is unconfirmed at this time, for the survivors fled the area and have yet to return. The Nigerian Army has vowed to recapture the town.
*An attack on the offices of French magazine Charlie Hebdo has left several members of the staff (including Cabu, Elsa Cayat, Charb, Philippe Honoré, Bernard Maris, Tignous, and Georges Wolinski) dead. Authorities are close to capturing the final suspects in the matter.
*Bombs seem to have been the weapon du jour this past week, with many hidden devices or suicide bombers going on a killing spree.

WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...

*POLITICALLY...
*The 114th session of Congress officially began with the Republican dominated legislature re-electing John Boehner as Speaker of the House of Representatives and naming Mitch McConnell Senate Majority Leader.
*Other than swearing in ceremonies and celebrations, nothing got done Tuesday, but some Republican Congressmen are allegedly taking credit for the currently positive economic situation in the United States, despite their party's actual track record for the past 14 years.
The House has since proposed...
*changing who could contribute what to Social Security,
*further restructuring of the tax regulations to only benefit "the 1%",
*six different measures to regulate women's health choices!;
*and authorized construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, despite ecological concerns and the limited long term job growth that would occur after the construction is completed. The Senate has yet to formally address the latter.
*Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has proposed an idea to make the first two years of community/junior college free to qualifying students, which is already meeting heavy opposition considering Republicans passed measures protecting the banks from students defaulting on educational loans during their last session.
*The Obama administration has fined Honda Motors $70 million US Dollars for failing to report deaths and injury complaints from 2003-2014.
*President Barack Obama's annual State of the Union address is scheduled for January 20th.
*ELSEWHERE...
*Cuba has started releasing American political prisoners as part of renewed negotiations with the United States.
*The state of Massachusetts opened a time capsule left by founding fathers Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. Buried sometime after the conclusion of the American Revolution, the box contained coins and papers from that era.
*Meanwhile, Boston will be bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
*Randy Johnson, Craig Biggio, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz are the 2015 inductees of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.
*Actor Rod Taylor (the original versions of The Time Machine and 101 Dalmatians, The Birds, Inglorious Basterds) has taken his last bow on life's stage.

For more news at any time, either scroll down to our IN OTHER NEWS feature at the bottom of your screen or visit any other reputable news source.

THE PUZZLE CORNER: JANUARY 10, 2015

FUN FACT
Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them!

FAMOUS FIRSTS
The beginning to the first line to a famous book is given below.
Do you know the title and author?

"The office of the university president looked like the front parlor of a successful Victorian..."

COMMON BONDS
The items within each subset below have something in common.
Do you know what it is?

01. {Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Junior}
02. {Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood}

We'll reveal all next weekend.
For now, let's open up THE ANSWERS BOX and reveal the results from the January 3, 2015 Puzzle Corner.

TRIVIA TIME

In the days before cable television, running a vacuum cleaner near a television set would interfere with the reception of the television signal.

REBUS
Something familiar is represented by the image below. Do you know what it is?

Acceptable answers include "No time like the present" and "Live for today."

SUNDAY FUNNIES: HERE COMES RHYMING WAXY!

Hello Everybody, and welcome to the first Sunday Funnies of 2015!
Santa Claus brought me a whole bunch of new joke books for Christmas!
Or are these reprints of previous joke books?
Anyway, let's kick off the new year with something special.
The answer to every jokes rhymes!
Ready?

What do you call a play starring pack animals?
A llama drama!
See how this works? Let's move on, because if you have to explain a joke, then it isn't funny.

What do you call a nervous snake?
A hyper viper.

What do you call an angry snake?
A madder adder.

What animal guarantees message delivery within its own lifetime?
Snail mail.

What's the most popular attraction at the forest health spa?
The fauna sauna.

What do you call a marten story?
A sable fable.

What would you call my personal vehicle?
A dragon wagon.

What would you call my public transportation?

Also an old TV reference

Waxy's taxis.

Here's one for Autumn the Puppy, who will be back next weekend.
What do you call a royal dog?
A regal beagle!

And finally...
What language do Australian dogs speak?
Dingo lingo.

As I said, Autumn the Puppy will be here next time.

Until then, have a great week and please be back here next weekend for more Sunday Funnies.--wd.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW: DECEMBER 28, 2014-JANUARY 3, 2015

THE BURJ KHALIFA IN DUBAI CELBRATES ITS FIFTH ANNIVERSARY AS THE WORLD'S TALLEST BUILDING JANUARY 4th.

Welcome to the first Week In Review of 2015!

AMONGST EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD THIS PAST WEEK...
*Although the cause of the crash is still unknown, 3 bodies have been found near Borneo in relation to Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, which disappeared from radar December 28 on its way to Singapore.
*A woman from Sierra Leone is the United Kingdom's first Ebola sufferer as the virus continues.
*The Italian Coast Guard has rescued a cargo ship with almost 1000 victims of human trafficking on board.
*The United States has applied more sanctions against North Korea because of the infamous computer hacking of Sony Studios, and events stemming from that incident.
*Palestine is now a member of the International Criminal Court.
*Lithuania has officially adopted the Euro as its national currency, making it the 19th member of the Eurozone.

IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS...
*A general public election is to be held in Greece after the country's parliament failed for a third time to elect a new President.

*Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has announced his impending retirement.

*Gambia President Yahya Jammeh is still in office after a failed coup attempt.

THE LATEST IN THE WAR ON TERROR...
*The American military has pulled all of its combat forces out of Afghanistan, leaving a peace keeping mission behind.
*The Boko Haram organization attacked a Cameroon village without warning or known reason, leaving over 30 dead. A retaliatory airstrike by the Cameroon government has been declared successful.
*Iraqi forces have reclaimed Dhuluiya (near Baghdad) from ISIS/ISIL terrorists.

PASSING PARADE...
*Donna Douglas (The Beverly Hillbillies, Frankie and Johnny) has taken her last bow on life's stage.
*Mario Cuomo (Governor of New York from 1983-1994) is no longer with us.
*Country music legend "Little" Jimmy Dickens has left us.
*Luise Rainer (The Good Earth, The Great Ziegfeld) has passed away.

WITHIN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...
*The American military has pulled all of its combat forces out of Afghanistan, leaving a peace keeping mission behind.
*The United States has applied more sanctions against North Korea because of the infamous computer hacking of Sony Studios, and events stemming from that incident.
*Sporadic incidents of civil unrest continue over some police instances of excessive force.
*The fast food chain Chick-fil-a warns that its computer systems may have been hacked, exposing the data of recent credit card users.

Because of our loyal readership, The Free Choice E-zine closed the month of December 2014 with 2,793 page views and completed the year with over 5000 more page views when compared to our 2013 end of year records.




For more news at any time, either scroll down to our IN OTHER NEWS feature at the bottom of your screen or visit any other reputable news source.

THE PUZZLE CORNER:JANUARY 3, 2015

FUN FACT
The lollipop was named after a famous race horse of the early 1900s: Lolly Pop.

Welcome to the very first Puzzle Corner of the new year!
We're excited about all the enigmas to come, and hope you are to, so let's get right to it.

TRIVIA TIME



REBUS
Something familiar is represented in the image below. Do you know what it is?








We'll reveal all next weekend, but for now, let's finish up 2014 by opening THE ANSWERS BOX on the December 27, 2014 Puzzle Corner.

TRIVIA TIME
What Christmas story, between movies and television, has been filmed the most to date?
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, with over 200 adaptations (so far) between the two mediums.

THE LETTER SHUFFLE
How many new words can you spell out of the letters in the phrase NEW YEAR?
NOTE: Those two individual words cannot be part of your answer since they are part of the phrase.

A, an, any, are, aye

Ear, earn, ewe, eye

Nay, nee, near

Ran, raw, ray, renew

War, ware, warn, way, wean, wear, weary, were, wren

Yarn, yaw, yawn, yea, yearn

More than the 30 words above might be possible.

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2015

Hello and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome to the first day of 2015.

Will this be the year of hover boards and self-lacing sneakers, according to Back to the Future 2?

The Free Choice E-zine will definitely be celebrating both its 1400^th AND 1500^th posts before year's end, just based on the strength of our regular features: The Puzzle Corner and The Week In Review (news) on Saturdays, along with comedy in The Sunday Funnies.

Today, France celebrates its 70^th anniversary of joining the United Nations while Lithuania officially starts using the Euro as their national currency.

The 126^th Rose Parade featured “Inspiring Stories” with Louis Zamperini; former Olympian and World War 2 prisoner/veteran, serving posthumously as Grand Marshall. Also riding in the parade will be Joan Williams, who was supposed to be Miss Crown City in the 1958 Rose Parade, but her appearance was canceled because she was “black passing as white”.

Yeah, that makes less sense today than it did then.

January 4^th the Burj Khalifa in Dubai will celebrate its fifth anniversary as the world's tallest building.

Meanwhile, the Republican dominated Congress will be starting a new session later this month. Considering they have already made over 50 attempts to repeal The Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obama Care; have sued, attempted censure and impeachment proceedings against President Barack Obama, and forced a government shutdown; one wonders what the least productive Congress a sitting President has ever been stuck with won't accomplish next.

The end of the month will also celebrate the 70^th anniversary of a major event in World War 2 on January 27^th, while the 170^th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven first being published is January 29^th.

Further down the calendar, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is expected to reach Ceres sometime in April, while their New Horizons probe should reach Pluto sometime in July, the month which will also experience a blue moon/two full moons in the same month. The next time this will occur is in January 2018.

Milan, Italy will be hosting Expo 2015 from May to the end of October this year, while the much anticipated Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens, is scheduled to debut this December.

And elsewhere on the calendar...

800^th Anniversary (1215)

King John signed the Magna Carte (June 15)

450^th Anniversary (1565)

Spain established the first European settlement in North America at present day Saint Augustine, Florida, USA (September 8)

250^th Anniversary (1765)

Boulanger's, the world's first restaurant, opened in France

115^th Anniversaries (1900)

Major League Baseball created the American League (January 29)

90^th Anniversaries (1920)

The 19^th Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving women the right to vote and run for office, became legal (August 18)

80^th Anniversaries (1935)

Monopoly board game debuted (February 6)

Social Security Act became official in the United States (August 14)

75^th Anniversaries (1940)

Walt Disney's Pinocchio debuts (February 7)

70^th Anniversaries (1945)

Soviet forces liberated the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps (January 27)

United Nations founded (October 24)

65^th Anniversaries (1950)

The Peanuts comic strip by Charles Schulz debuted (October 2)

60^th Anniversaries (1955)

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring first published

Disney's Lady and the Tramp debuted (June 16)

Disneyland opened (July 17)

Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat, thus setting off the civil rights movement (December 1)

50^th Anniversaries (1965)

First space walk ever, accomplished by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov (March 18)

First airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas (December 9)

45^th Anniversaries (1970)

Apollo 13 launched. (April 11) NASA would later hear those infamous words: “Houston, we have a problem.”

NASA receives report from Viking spacecraft that Mars once had a polar ice cap (September 22)

40^th Anniversaries (1975)

Any television program that debuted, including Space: 1999 on September 4 and Saturday Night Live on October 11

35^th Anniversaries (1980)

Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back debuted (May 21)

Pac-Man hit arcades (May 21)

First Caddyshack movie premiered (July 25)

30^th Anniversaries (1985)

Thundercats debuted (January 23)

We are the World recorded (March 7)

20^th Anniversaries (1995)

Star Trek: Voyager (January 16)

15^th Anniversary (2000)

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant permanently closed (December 15)

10^th Anniversaries (2005)

Cathy finally married Irving in her comic strip (February 5)

Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith debuted (May 19)

So it looks like 2015 will be another busy year.

Join us, won't you?

Video: "Sufferin' 'til Suffrage" from Schoolhouse Rock, courtesy of YouTube; (c) whoever is maintaining the Schoolhouse Rock franchise nowadays, but they really should consider re-releasing the classic tunes AND producing new episodes for today's children.