American Blog

  

 

 

  

 

Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses", carving Jack-o’-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom and occasionally in parts of Australia. In Sweden the All Saints’ official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November.

  

 

Pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae (which also includes gourds). It is a common name of or can refer to cultivars of any one of the following species: Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata.The word pumpkin originates from the word pepon, which is Greek for “large melon.” The French adapted this word to pompon, which the British changed to pompion and later American colonists changed that to the word we use today, “pumpkin.”  The origin of pumpkins is not known, although pumpkins are thought to have originated in North America. The oldest evidence, pumpkin-related seeds dating between 7000 and 5500 B.C., were found in Mexico.

  

 

Trick-or-treating, is an activity for children on or around Halloween in which they proceed from house to house in costumes, asking for treats such as confectionery with the question, "Trick or treat?" The "trick" part of "trick or treat" is an idle threat to play a trick on the homeowner or his property if no treat is given.[citation needed] Trick-or-treating is one of the main traditions of Halloween. It has become socially expected that if one lives in a neighborhood with children one should purchase treats in preparation for trick-or-treaters. The National Confectioners Association reported in 2005 that 80 percent of adults in the United States planned to give out confectionery to trick-or-treaters, and that 93 percent of children planned to go trick-or-treating.

  

 

King Sigismund of Hungary, who became the Holy Roman Emperor in 1410, founded a secret fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dragon to uphold Christianity and defend the Empire against the Ottoman Turks. Its emblem was a dragon, wings extended, hanging on a cross. Vlad III’s father (Vlad II) was admitted to the Order around 1431 because of his bravery in fighting the Turks. From 1431 onward Vlad II wore the emblem of the order and later, as ruler of Wallachia, his coinage bore the dragon symbol.

  

 

  

Despite the public shame of driving around with a cell phone jammed against your face and the growing number of laws against it, people just can’t stop dialing and driving, it seems. Could the next step be technology that actually disables your cell phone while you’re on the road? A Canadian outfit called Aegis Mobility proffers this new system, called DriveAssist (not "DriveAssistT," a typo which is widely being re-reported), which stops calls while your car is in motion. It doesn’t block calls through any sort of electromagnetic shielding or jamming system, it’s actually considerably simpler: When your car is moving, the system simply tells your wireless carrier to hold incoming calls and texts and blocks outgoing messages as well. When you stop, the calls come through normally. The advantage to such a system vs. a crude jammer is that your caller receives a notice that you’re on the road and unable to receive calls, rather than just going to voice mail automatically. Reportedly they can also bypass the restriction by pressing a button to go into "emergency mode" (which I’m sure would never, ever, be abused). The software will work with Windows Mobile and Symbian phones, at least to start.

 

 

Take a journey into the unknown with a building called Wonder Works. Its central Florida’s only upside down attraction. And an amusement park for your mind, and your stoner friends. This odd building has over 100 wacky interactive exhibits for your entire family to experience. But make sure you free your weed before coming.