Friday 11/5/21
Celebrate National Donut, Love Your Red Hair, American Football, Bank Transfer, Love Your Lawyer, Commercial TV Broadcast, Fountain Pen, Gunpowder, and Jersey Friday.
--
How many times did you hit snooze this morning? 40% of people in a new poll claim they never do it, and another 20% don't use an alarm.
13% said they usually hit snooze once 11% said twice, 7% said three times, and 5% said more than that. That includes 1% of Americans who usually hit snooze at least six times. And young people are more likely to do it a lot. 4% of folks under 25 said they mash that snooze button at least six times a day.
The most common way we wake up now is with an alarm on our phone. Only 16% use an actual alarm clock. 19% of people said their body's internal clock wakes them up, 5% said another person does it, and 3% usually get woken up by a pet.
--
Daylight Saving Time ends Sunday.
We gain an hour on Sunday as we "Fall Back" at 2am.
--
PETA is asking Major League Baseball to stop using the term "bullpen" for the place where relief pitchers warm up during a game.
PETA says, quote, "Words matter, and baseball 'bullpens' devalue talented players and mock the misery of sensitive animals.
"Strike out the word 'bullpen,' which references the holding area where terrified bulls are kept before slaughter, in favor of a more modern, animal-friendly term."
And what "more modern, animal-friendly term" did they come up with? "arm barn".
--
Months after announcing that WarnerMedia and Discovery will merge into one media behemoth sometime in 2022, executives hinted during an earnings call on Wednesday that it probably makes a lot of financial sense for their flagship streaming services, HBO Max and Discovery+, to combine into one entity, too.
--
Far from Glasgow and COP26, Ithaca, New York, just made an unprecedented move to tackle climate change and the city’s carbon footprint. In a unanimous vote on Wednesday night, Ithaca’s city council approved the full decarbonization of its buildings.
It is the first U.S. city to begin operation on a 100% decarbonization plan, but it won’t be the last, and its focus on buildings and its use of private financing to support the effort show how more urban models to tackle emissions may develop and even leapfrog federal and state efforts.
“On decarbonization, and frankly, just about every issue ... no one is coming to save us. Whether on climate or infrastructure ... we have more determination we will have to save ourselves,” said Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick. “This is the biggest step we’ve taken towards decarbonization and maybe the biggest step any city has taken.”
Ithaca had already lined up $100 million in private financing over the summer to support the effort from private equity partner Alturus. Its building energy efficiency partner BlocPower is in place and the city is ready to begin going into buildings and start the work on Thursday.
--
Colin and Donna Craig-Brown were weeding their garden in New Zealand when Colin's hoe struck something huge just beneath the soil's surface.
As the couple knelt down and began digging around the object, Colin wondered if it was some kind of strange fungal growth, a giant puffball. After Colin pried it out with his garden fork, he scratched away a bit of the skin and tasted it.
A potato.
“We couldn't believe it," Donna said. “It was just huge.”
And not exactly pretty. Donna describes its appearance as more of an ugly, mutant look.
It weighed in at a remarkable 7.9 kilograms (17.4 pounds). That's equal to a couple of sacks of regular potatoes, or one small dog. It could possibly be the largest potato on record.
--
Everyone knows that orange juice and toothpaste do not mix but that might change.
Tropicana is releasing a limited edition toothpaste, which supposedly doesn't ruin orange juice. They say it offers, quote, "maximum O.J. flavor protection."
A spokesperson said, quote, "It does not include sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) as an ingredient. [That's] a cleaning agent prevalent in toothpaste that contributes to the bitter aftertaste from brushing your teeth with toothpaste and then drinking O.J."
Unfortunately, the toothpaste isn't for sale, yet instead, they're launching some kind of social media campaign where you can enter for a chance to win some.
They claim this is not a stunt, and that the toothpaste is real and it's "amazing." If that's the case, it's hard to imagine them not offering it beyond this campaign, but for now there's no info on future availability. Find out more here.
--
Managers, you've heard it all on why someone can't come to work. WELL - A contractor in England named Ken Moore posted a screenshot after one of his employees used a ridiculous excuse for skipping work. He said he couldn't come in because he didn't have any clean socks. And he blamed his girlfriend for it.
He said she didn't do laundry, so he didn't have any socks to wear. And he couldn't soldier through work without socks, because his boots have holes in them.
Ken texted back and asked if he was joking. Then he said fine, but that he'd better be there the next day.
One person online said he should have offered to bring an extra pair of socks to work for him, just to see what his next excuse would have been.
--
Today's Useless Fact of the Day - Jupiter is twice as large as all the other planets combined.
Commenti