On psychic rodents and fake holidays

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Groundhog Day. May Punxsutawney Phil bring you much cheer (and, God willing, an early spring.)

(Above image courtesy of someecards.com)

As we celebrate this day, which has brought so much joy into the world through questionable methods of weather forecasting and one of Bill Murray's better movies, this seems like a good time to discuss something I've been thinking about lately...

I have been arguing for years that, simply put, the world needs more and better holidays. There are all manner of weird, interesting, funny, and/or stupid things out there that deserve more attention. To this end, about 10 years ago I created my own personal set of holidays, which is now updated and available on Google Calendar (available in HTML, RSS, or ICAL).

The holidays on my calendar basically fall into four categories:

• anniversaries of under-appreciated events in history
• birthdays of people I like, primarily blues or soul musicians I was obsessively listening to when I started this. (A few people, mostly due to scheduling conflicts, are celebrated on the anniversary of their death instead.)
  
• certain Catholic saints' feast days (I probably should have written this post yesterday, when Super Bowl Sunday happened to fall on the feast of St. Brigid, patron saint of beer drinkers.)
• a few fake holidays started by other people. (Festivus being by far the most famous)
  

Anyway, this calendar (much like this blog) is filled with dumb things that I celebrate strictly for my own amusement. Everyone else, if they are so inclined, are hereby invited to join or not join me for any that catch their interest.