11/11/11!

What will you do with all the eleventosity today?

Something special at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.?

Are you going to keep talking about turning it up to 11 or are you going to get annoyed at people who are debasing the sublime by continually making the same aged rock-music reference?

For variety: Here's the Grateful Dead playing "The Eleven" in 1968.

But who's into variety, when the whole point is sameness? You've got those ones all lined up. Is that exciting? Are you the kind of person who finds lined up numbers exciting... like 999? Or 666?

If you think 11/11/11 is exciting, imagine how folks wet their pants over November 11, 1111, the most digitally lined-up day in the entire history of the world. Mankind will have to survive — and maintain its numerical system — until 11/11/11111 for there to be another day like that.

Did anything happen on 11/11/1111? Not according to Wikipedia's compendium of things that have happened on November 11ths. Perhaps the most interesting — for us Americans, anyway — event that took place on history's thousands of 11/11s is The Mayflower Compact, in 1620. And in 1930:

1930 – Patent number US1781541 is awarded to Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator.

Albert Einstein invented the refrigerator?!

Speaking of cold, there's only one 11/11/11 event on that list. 11/11/1911, and the event is just that it was a very cold day in the Midwest. Well, it's 30° here in Madison, Wisconsin, and it's supposed to hit 41° at 11 when we reach maximum elevenosity. I think we can handle that.

ADDED: I'm getting justly slaughtered in the comments for not recognizing Veterans Day:



AND: I'm getting cold-shouldered in the comments for minimizing the weather event of 1911. From today's Wisconsin State Journal:

The freakishly warm and humid weather that sunny Saturday set the stage for Rock County's worst weather disaster....

Shortly before 2 p.m., it was 74 degrees. Then, in a matter of minutes, the temperature plummeted 10 degrees in downtown Janesville. By that night, it had fallen to zero.

A massive cold front had slammed into the warm air, unleashing a rash of storms and tornadoes throughout the Midwest.