Mercedonius Day

Did you know that the original Roman calendar only had 304 days spread over 10 months? Furthermore, the fifth and sixth months were initially named Quintilis and Sextilis, before they were renamed in honour of Julius Caesar and Augustus…which is honestly a pretty baller ass thing to do. Initially the dates between the end of the year after December and before the beginning of the year in March weren’t assigned to months, since that was the winter period and honestly who gives a shit about winter?

But then they eventually did give a shit about winter, and the total calendar was revised to 355 days over 12 months. 51 additional days were added and spread over the two new months of January (29 days) and February (28 days), which were originally added to the end of the calendar. But because a 355 day calendar was not fully accurate in regards to the solar equinoxes, a 27 day intercalary month “Mercedonius” was added every four years to the end of the year – overlapping a chunk of the end of February (because February sucks) and before March, to form a 377 day calendar every four years (or 378 days every eighth year).

And then at some point some asshole flipped it and January and February were moved to the beginning of the year instead, which is why today September, October, November, and December are the 9th to 12th months of the year instead of 7th to 10th as implied by their names.

Julius Caesar later decided that it was kind of stupid to have a 22 day jump in the calendar every four years, so as a reform of the Roman calendar, the Julian calendar averaged it out to a 365 day year. The extra 10 days were spread out among the other more enjoyable months, but not February, because let’s be honest – February was kind of cold and miserable and crappy in Rome so why would you want to prolong February? That’s just science, duh. Mercedonius was essentially shortened to just a single day, added between February and March every four years.

Thus…happy Mercedonius Day.

On to the links!

– I’m often judgmental of European sports and how they just lack that extra dash of athleticism and overall blackness that makes basketball and football so good, but after watching a rousing match such as this, I’m tempted to rethink everything.

– I can’t remember how I originally stumbled onto this page, but this might be the most attractive burger I have ever seen. It’s got fried shrimp in it! No real discussion here, I just wanted to share it so that we may all look longingly at it together.

– Someone is making a new SNES game called Nightmare Busters, due for release in 2013. Just in case you missed it – someone is making a game cartridge for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which apparently hasn’t seen a new release since 1998. This is baller as FUCK.

It’s been a weird month. But at least I fixed the tagboard 100%. Weird that no one wants to post their name or their message though. I guess the internet is strange like that.

“When was the last time you were home?”
“Two years, two hundred and sixty four days and this morning.”