05 | December | 2012 | Eleventh Stack

I bet today you thought, “Hey, I wonder what I can celebrate on this fine December day?”

Then a ninja tackled you on the street and you figured it out.

That’s right, today is the Annual Day of the Ninja.

Every December 5 the creators of the Ninja Burger website encourage people to “dress as ninja, engage in ninja-related activities, and spread information on ninja online.” The Day of the Ninja began in 2003 in response to the release of the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai, which apparently has some ninja fighting scenes.

Tom Cruise is totally believable as a Samurai Warrior. LOLZ.

And it’s world wide. Check out the French Day of the Ninja. Oh, those crazy Francs!

For no particular reason I could find, it has since morphed into an alternative to Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19.) In one article, this clash was referred to as the “familiar Pirates versus Ninja conflict.” There have even been some instances of ninjas protesting pirate festivals.

The closest explanation I found came from Know Your Meme.

Well, duh.

Before you do anything, visit the Iga-Rye Ninja Museum online for the history and origins of real ninja. Then find out if you are a ninja with this handy quiz. In the interest of full disclosure, it turns out I’m not ninja at all. Sadly, here are my results:

You are not a ninja. You are a vampire. You’ve got most of the elements of ninja-ness down pat, but you generally don’t get along well with others of your kind. And the whole blood drinking thing is, well… just ick. Dude, get a burger. Jeez.

Alas, I was not discouraged. Instead I found this: Become a Ninja in 7 easy steps