ed poe: dead at 200

edgar allan poe would've turned 200 years old today. the only thing that stopped him: death.

poe is just one of dozens, literally dozens, of great americans whose lives were cut short by death. most famous for inventing the po'boy, the sandwich that made new orleans famous, poe also dabbled in writing. awhile ago, i bought this book of short stories that he wrote. the first one was called "the black cat" and it was totally awesome. after that, i didn't really finish any of the other stories because he uses SO many words. and i have no attention span. still. black cat was awesome.

at work, there's this calendar that has birthdays of famous musicians and it said that today was janis joplin's birthday. then some customer came in wearing a janis joplin t-shirt and i was like "hey it's her birthday today." and i think it made the customer uncomfortable. she avoided eye contact and mumbled something like "meh, yeah. i heard that on the radio, meh." she was trying to play it off like she's not a joplin-nerd. but c'mon. there's nothing wrong about being nerdy about stuff you like.

the calendar also told me that today is dolly parton's birthday. she's 63. what's weird is: i remember seeing dolly parton in a movie or something when i was like 11. and at the time, i figured she was like 50. and, for whatever reason, when i remember someone as being 50 when i was 11, i assume that now, they must be like 87. which is ridiculous because it hasn't been 37 years since i was 11 years old. not yet anyway.
so tonight, i was checking out other birthdays and i found this awesome website (with a sweet cosmic background) and it told me that LOADS of cool people were born on january 19. for instance: jodie sweetin (stephanie from full house); shawn wayans (of wayan's brothers fame); junior seau (pro footballer and children's advocate); desi arnaz jr (illegitimate son of lucille ball); dewey bunnell (of pop-rock trio "america"); paul cezzane (post-impressionist painter); and robert e. lee (leader of the douche bags who fought to keep slavery legal).

more importantly, today was doctor martin luther king jr day. and that dude was awesome.