5/22/25 - Weenie 500, Work Meetings and Emails, and Romance Goes Wrong

Thursday 5/22/25

Celebrate:

Bitcoin Pizza Day

Canadian Immigrants Day

Harvey Milk Day

International Being You Day

International Chardonnay Day

International Day for Biological Diversity

National Buy a Musical Instrument Day

National Craft Distillery Day

National Maritime Day

National Solitaire Day

National Vanilla Pudding Day

Red Nose Day

Sherlock Holmes Day

World Goth Day

World Paloma Day

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The Indianapolis 500 is this Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and this year as part of the festivities there will be a Wienie 500, featuring all six of the Wienermobiles.

The Wienie 500 is the first competitive race for the entire Wienermobile fleet . . . and the first time all six vehicles have gathered in one place in over a decade.

Each Wienermobile will represent a distinct regional hot dog.  There's . . .

1.  The Chi Dog, representing the Midwest

2.  The New York Dog, representing the East Coast

3.  The Slaw Dog, representing the Southeast

4.  The Sonoran Dog, representing the Southwest

5.  The Chili Dog, representing the South

6.  And the Seattle Dog, representing the Northwest.

They say it'll also include custom "Hotdogger" racing suits, and a finish-line celebration in the "Wiener's Circle."  There will be a "condiment spray" and a hot dog for the champion, which sounds . . . interesting.

The race will happen on Friday at 2:00 P.M. Eastern, and it'll stream live.

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Microsoft has a new report out, that claims office employees are interrupted by meetings, emails, and other work-related pings every two minutes.

They also say 60% of meetings are "ad hoc" . . . called in the moment.  And because of all those meetings during the workday, they say there's been a 15% increase in the number of chats sent daily outside of work hours.

Unfortunately, nothing is going to convince the higher-ups to do away with inefficient meetings . . . but there are things you can try to make the most of the time you have.

One suggestion is to pick the time of day that you're most productive, and block out that time ahead of time, if possible.

Could it have been an e-mail????

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A new poll of working adults found 93% of us check our email every day, including 88% who even check it on vacation.  Only 6% don't check it every day.

Here are a few more stats on America's email habits . . .

1.  Only checking it once a day isn't very common.  42% said three to five times a day . . . 28% said 10 to 20 times . . . and 19% check their email MORE than 20 times a day.  Only 8% check it just once.

2.  All that time in your inbox adds up.  On weekdays, 35% said they spend less than an hour reading and responding to emails . . . 30% said about an hour . . . 17% said two hours . . . and 18% spend up to FIVE hours on email each day.

3.  Only one in five people open all their emails.  21% said they'll open an email no matter what, even if they think it might be spam.

4.  If your email gets sent to spam, they might never see it.  24% of people said they NEVER check their spam folder.  

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It's graduation time for the Class of 2025!  Whether it's high school or college, here's a list of the best graduation songs:

1.  "School's Out", Alice Cooper

2.  "Hey Look Ma, I Made It",  Panic! At the Disco

3.  "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)",  Green Day

4.  "We Are Young",  fun. featuring Janelle Monáe

5.  "Moment 4 Life",  Nicki Minaj featuring Drake

6.  "Prom",  SZA

7.  "The Edge of Glory",  Lady Gaga

8.  "Graduation (Friends Forever)",  Vitamin C

9.  "Unwritten",  Natasha Bedingfield

10.  "Congratulations",  Post Malone featuring Quavo

Two lists, one from the pioneerwoman.com and yardbaker.com

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The age-old semicolon is dying out as Britons admit to never or rarely using the punctuation mark, a study has found.

In 19th century English literature it appeared once in every 205 words, but today it is down to one in every 390 words. 

In addition, more than half of respondents did not know or understand how to use the punctuation mark correctly.

A semicolon's use is to connect two parts of a sentence where a conjunction is omitted, such as 'The cat sat on the mat; the mice watched from behind the sofa'. 

'They should be used between two main clauses that balance each other—or contradict each other—but are too closely linked to be written as separate sentences.'

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A husband tried to surprise his wife with a romantic gesture that ended up going wrong!!!

Rachel Norman, 36, and her husband Johnnie, 35, went out in Blackpool, Lancashire, to celebrate her birthday and he secretly asked hotel staff to put 30 assorted bags of chips on the bed while they were out to surprise his chip-loving wife.

Someone misunderstood the assignment and instead opened the bags, and sprinkled the chips on the sheets like salty confetti.

The pair couldn't stop laughing though,

Rachel said: “I was hysterical. His face was a picture.

“Since that day he’s never tried any more romantic antics, but it’s one of our favourite memories.”

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TikTok announced a new feature that will prompt teenagers to stop scrolling and start meditating instead.

If your kid is on TikTok after 10:00 P.M., they'll see an alert in their "For You" feed that offers guided meditation to help them fall asleep.  Then if they keep scrolling, they'll get hit with a second prompt that fills the whole screen.

TikTok's parent company ByteDance says they tested the feature with a handful of teenagers this year, and only 2% turned the feature off.

It's in response to public pressure and claims TikTok is melting our children's brains.  They're making it available for adults too, but anyone under 18 will have it turned on by default.  

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The Philadelphia Flyers just added a new member to their squad . . . a puppy named Stanley, as in "Stanley Cup."

(might be the closest they get since they haven't won it since 1975)

They're taking care of him and training him to be good around people.  He'll eventually be a service dog for a veteran or first responder.  They're working with the group America's VetDogs.

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Today's Useless Fact of the Day - The T-shirt was invented in 1904 and marketed toward bachelors who didn't know how to sew and replace buttons.

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