Monday 12/6/21
Celebrate National Pawnbrokers, Microwave, Gazpacho, Miners', Mitten Tree, Put on Your Own Shoes, and St. Nicholas Day.
St. Nicholas Day is popular in Europe, particularly with children, because of the belief that St. Nicholas brings them gifts. Before the day, many European children place shoes or special St. Nicholas boots in front of fireplaces or outside of their front door at night. On the morning of the day, they receive small presents, such as candy, cookies, fruit, and small toys. Besides shoes or boots, presents are also placed in stockings, socks, or bags. In some countries, gifts are given on the eve of the day. In some European cities, especially those where he is the patron saint, the day is also marked with parades, feasts, and festivals. Some churches also have special services dedicated to the day.
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Bob Dole, a longtime Senate Republican leader and the party's presidential nominee in 1996, died Sunday at age 98.
Dole's death was confirmed in a tweet by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation.
"It is with heavy hearts we announce that Senator Robert Joseph Dole died early this morning in his sleep. At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years."
Dole was in many ways the embodiment of the World War II generation in Congress. He had served in a combat division in Italy and suffered grievous wounds that kept him in military hospitals for years after the war. But despite losing the use of his right arm, he got through law school and became a public prosecutor, state legislator, representative and U.S. senator.
Dole was a giant of the Senate, a powerful committee chairman in the early 1980s and then party leader from 1985 until he resigned 11 years later, in 1996, to concentrate on his presidential campaign. He had won the GOP nomination easily that year but fought an uphill, losing campaign against incumbent President Bill Clinton. Previously, Dole had been the party's vice presidential nominee with President Gerald Ford in 1976 and had sought the presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988.
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A new poll asked people, "If you could have access to only one kind of utensil for the rest of your life, which would you choose?"
23% said spoon, 22% said fork, 22% said spork, and 18% said knife. 4% said chopsticks, and 10% said they're not sure.
For what it's worth, men (23%) and Republicans (20%) were more likely to select knife , Independents (24%) were, ironically, happy with the middle-ground that a spork provides, and younger people were much more likely to select chopsticks (8%) than older folks (1%).
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A man has reportedly died in Brazil after jumping into a lake to escape bees, only to drown and be eaten by piranhas.
The 30-year-old was fishing with friends when he jumped into a farm lake in the municipality of Brasilandia de Minas on Sunday, according to the local Fire Department.
A firefighter who performed the rescue said the carnivorous fish has disfigured the man's face and other parts of his body.
His body was found four meters from the shore.
It's not yet known if the attack came before or after the man's death.
The man's friends also jumped into the water, but swam to safety.
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PNC Financial Services released their annual list of the cost of everything in the song. And the total this year is $41,205.58. That's up $2,212 from 2019, or 5.7%. (They didn't do the list in 2020).
That price is just if you buy every group of things once. If you buy things over and over like the song says, you'll need nearly $180,000.
Nothing is cheaper than it was in 2019, but four things cost the same: Ladies dancing, maids-a-milking, swans-a-swimming, and calling birds. The cost for turtle doves went up 50%, and geese-a-laying went up 57%.
The most expensive thing is the seven swans-a-swimming they'll run you $13,125, or $1,875 each. So they're around one-third of the entire cost.
The cheapest item is the partridge to put in your pear tree it's just $20.18. The pear tree will run you $202.50.
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How often do you successfully perform your "good deed of the day"? According to a new poll, we only get around to it about 26% of the time.
The average American does an average of eight good deeds a month or 94 per year.
And the definition of a "good deed" is generous it can be anything from a momentary gesture, to a significant contribution of time and money.
In the poll, Americans were asked what good deeds they do regularly and the most popular responses were being kind to strangers, recycling, picking up litter in their neighborhood, donating money to charity, giving money to the homeless, donating clothing to charity, volunteering, donating food to a food bank or shelter, "paying it forward" at a shop, and donating blood.
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Useless Fact of the Day - Chalk is edible.
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