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the chilis

Red Hot Chili Peppers are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1983. For most of its existence, the band has consisted of vocalist Anthony Kiedis, guitarist John Frusciante, bassist Michael “Flea” Balzary, and drummer Chad Smith. The band’s varied musical style has fused traditional rock and funk with various elements of hip-hop, punk rock and psychedelic rock.

In addition to Anthony Kiedis and Flea, the group originally featured guitarist Hillel Slovak and drummer Jack Irons. Slovak, however, died of a heroin overdose in 1988, resulting in Irons resigning. Irons was replaced briefly by former Dead Kennedys drummer D. H. Peligro before the band found a permanent replacement in Smith, while Slovak was replaced by up-and-coming guitarist Frusciante. This lineup recorded the band’s fourth and fifth albums, Mother’s Milk (1989) and Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991).

Blood Sugar Sex Magik became a pivotal record for the band; it thrust them into the mainstream with over thirteen million copies sold. Frusciante grew uncomfortable with the band’s success and left abruptly in the middle of the tour for the album in 1992, descending into heroin addiction. Kiedis, Flea, and Smith employed Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction for their subsequent album, One Hot Minute (1995). It did not match the critical acclaim of Blood Sugar Sex Magik and sold fewer than half the copies of its predecessor. Shortly afterwards, Navarro departed the band due to creative differences.

Frusciante, fresh out of drug rehabilitation, rejoined the band in 1998, at Flea’s request. The reunited quartet returned to the studio to record Californication (1999), which went on to sell fifteen million units worldwide, becoming their most successful album to date. It was followed three years later with By the Way (2002), which continued their success. In 2006, the group released the double album Stadium Arcadium. The band has won seven Grammy Awards. They have sold over fifty million albums worldwide, have had seven singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 (including three singles in the Top 10), have had five #1 singles on the Mainstream Rock charts, and a record eleven #1 singles on the Modern Rock charts.

Preceding text, shamelessly stolen from wikipedia.

very tasty artery clogger

Poutine is a dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds, covered with brown gravy and sometimes additional ingredients.

Poutine is a fast food staple in Canada; it is sold by many fast food chains in most provinces, in small diners and pubs, as well as by roadside “poutine trucks” and “fries stands,” commonly known as “cantines” or “casse-croûtes” in Quebec. International chains like McDonald’s, A&W, KFC and Burger King also sell  poutine across Canada. Along with fries and pizza, poutine is a very common dish sold and eaten in high school cafeterias in various parts of Canada.

The dish originated in rural Quebec, Canada, in the late 1950s and is now popular in many parts of the country. Several Québécois communities claim to be the birthplace of poutine, including Drummondville, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and Victoriaville. One often-cited tale is that of Fernand Lachance, from Warwick, Quebec, which claims that poutine was invented in 1957, when a customer ordered fries while waiting for his cheese curds from the Kingsey cheese factory in Kingsey Falls (now in Warwick and owned by Saputo Incorporated). Lachance is said to have exclaimed ça va faire une maudite poutine (”it will make a damn mess”), hence the name. The sauce was allegedly added later, to keep the fries warm longer.

Preceding text, shamelessly stolen from wikipedia.

Zdeno towering over his opponent

Zdeno Chára (pronounced /’zdeno ‘xaːra/, born March 18, 1977) is a Slovak ice hockey defenceman and team captain of Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League (NHL). At 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m), he is the tallest player ever to play in the NHL

Chára was drafted 56th overall by the New York Islanders in the 1996 NHL Entry Draft. After four seasons with the Islanders, he was traded to the Ottawa Senators during the 2001 NHL Entry Draft. Chára was part of a package deal with Bill Muckalt and the second overall pick in that year’s draft (Jason Spezza) that sent Alexei Yashin to New York.

As a Senator for four years, Chára emerged as an elite defenceman in the league and more than doubled his previous offensive totals in his first season with Ottawa. In his second season with the team, 2002–03, Chára made his first All-Star Game appearance and recorded the second hardest shot behind Al MacInnis in the skills competition.

The next season, in addition to posting 16 goals and 41 points, Chára recorded the league’s third highest plus/minus, behind Martin St. Louis and Marek Malik, culminating into his first Norris Trophy nomination. Although he would lose to Scott Niedermayer as the league’s best defenceman, he would join Niedermayer on the NHL First All-Star Team.

After the 2004–05 NHL lockout, in which Chára played in the Swedish Elite League for Färjestad, he matched his previous NHL season’s 16-goal total and increased to 43 points, good enough for NHL Second All-Star Team honours. As Chára’s would not come to terms to a new contract with Ottawa, he became an unrestricted free agent at the end of 2005–06.

Subsequently, on July 1, 2006, he signed a five-year, $37.5 million contract with the Boston Bruins and was named the team’s captain, a role left vacant since Joe Thornton’s departure during the 2005–06 season. He became only the third Slovakian-born NHL player to become a team captain, after Peter Stastny of the Quebec Nordiques and Stan Mikita (co-captain) of the Chicago Blackhawks. He was named to the 2007 All-Star Game, his second appearance, in Dallas and scored two goals in an 12–9 Eastern Conference loss. Chára also won the hardest shot segment of the preceding skills competition, clocking a shot at 100.4 mph.

In 2008, he was voted in as a starter in the All-Star Game for the first time in his career and repeated as the winner of the hardest shot competition, recording an even-faster 103.1 mph (166 km/h) on the radar gun. On March 8, 2008, during a game against the Washington Capitals, Chára suffered a torn labrum in his left shoulder. However, after missing five games, he played the remainder of the season including the playoffs. Upon a first round elimination at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens, he underwent a shoulder operation on April 29. At the end of the season, Chára received his second nomination for the Norris Trophy after tallying a career-high 17 goals, 34 assists and 51 points, marking the fifth straight season he had either matched or increased his previous season’s points total.

In 2008–09, Chára was named to his fourth All-Star Game.

Preceding text, shamelessly stolen from wikipedia.

Ham, also known as Ham the Chimp and Ham the Astrochimp, was the first hominid launched into outer space. Ham’s name is an acronym for the lab that prepared him for his historic mission — the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, located at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Ham shaking hands after landing

Ham was born July 1957 in Cameroon, captured by animal trappers and sent to Rare Bird Farm in Miami, Florida. He was purchased by the United States Air Force and brought to Holloman Air Force Base in 1959^.

There were originally 40 chimpanzee flight candidates at Holloman. After evaluation the number of candidates was reduced to 18, then to 6 including Ham. Officially, Ham was known as #65 before his flight, and only renamed “Ham” upon his successful return to earth. This was reportedly because officials did not want the bad press that would come from the death of a “named” chimpanzee if the mission were a failure. Among his handlers, #65 had been known as Chop Chop Chang.

Beginning in July 1959, the two-year-old chimpanzee was trained at the Holloman Air Force Base Aero Medical Field Laboratory to do simple, timed tasks in response to electric lights and sounds^. In his pre-flight training, Ham was taught to push a lever within five seconds of seeing a flashing blue light; failure to do so would result in an application of positive punishment in the form of a mild electric shock to the soles of his feet, while a correct response earned him a banana pellet. After all of the training, it was time to find out whether he could function under the stress and pressure that comes with space travel. What differentiates Ham’s mission from all the other primate flights to this point is that he was not merely a passenger, and the results from his test flight led directly to the mission Alan Shepard would make on May 5, 1961 aboard the Freedom 7. On January 31, 1961, Ham was secured in a Project Mercury capsule labeled MR-2 and launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, into outer space. Ham had his vital signs and tasks monitored using computers back on Earth. The capsule suffered a partial loss of pressure during the flight, but Ham’s space suit prevented him from suffering any harm. Ham’s lever-pushing performance in space was only a fraction of a second slower than on Earth, demonstrating that tasks could be performed in space. Ham’s capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and was recovered by a rescue ship later that day. He only suffered a bruised nose. His flight was 16 minutes and 39 seconds long.

Ham fitted into a special biopack couch prior to flight

Ten months later, another chimp, named Enos, successfully orbited the earth. This was several months after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s orbital flight and Shepard and Grissom’s suborbital flights, but before US astronaut John Glenn’s orbital flight aboard Mercury’s Friendship 7.

After the flight, Ham lived for 17 years in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., then at the North Carolina Zoo before dying at the age of 26 on January 19, 1983. Ham appeared repeatedly on television, as well as on film with Evel Knievel.^[2]:255

Ham’s backup, Minnie, was the only female chimp trained for the Mercury program. After her role in the Mercury program ended, Minnie became part of an Air Force chimpanzee breeding program, producing nine offspring and helping to raise the offspring of several other members of the chimpanzee colony. The last surviving astro-chimp, she died at age 41 on March 14, 1998.

Preceding text, shamelessly stolen from wikipedia.