Wednesday 6/22/22
Celebrate:
National Chocolate Eclair Day
National HVAC Tech Day
National Onion Rings Day
Stupid Guy Thing Day
World Rainforest Day
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Chris Pratt's casting as Mario made the internet collectively cry out "mamma mia," but one of the producers says ... let's-a-give him a chance! Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri, who's producing the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, spoke at an event Monday about the controversial decision to cast Pratt in the lead role, claiming that once everyone hears his performance, "the criticism will evaporate."
Meledandri also addressed the fact that the role went to a non-Italian actor, assuring everyone it's cool. "I'm not sure this is the smartest defense, but as a person who has Italian-American heritage, I feel I can make that decision without worrying about offending Italians or Italian-Americans," he told Deadline. "I think we're going to be just fine." And hey, if the studio has a change of heart, we hear Jared Leto's still going around using that House of Gucci accent to this day.
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If you could choose, would you want this summer to be milder and cooler than usual, or totally sweltering? We were surprised how many people chose the second one.
30,000 Americans were polled, and one in seven hope it's hotter than usual this year. That even includes one in seven people in the South, and one in eight in the Midwest.
Overall, 14% want it to be hotter than usual . . . 37% said cooler . . . and 43% said whatever it normally is.
If you're someone who loves the heat, here's some good news: 44% of us are expecting a hotter-than-average summer. Only 5% think it'll be cooler than normal.
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Two authors who write articles and books on grammar came up with a list of the top mistakes that drive grammar nuts crazy.
Here are a few of the most common mistakes grammar nerds hate to see.
1. Misplaced apostrophes. Like writing the word "it's" with an apostrophe, but you don't mean "it is."
2. Putting periods outside quotation marks. Unless you're in the U.K., they go inside.
3. Too many commas. A lot of people use them with no rhyme or reason now.
4. Using semicolons like commas. In general, they're mostly for linking two COMPLETE sentences that are closely related.
5. Two spaces after a period. That one's debatable. It used to be how everyone did it. But now people think the extra space is unnecessary and makes you seem old.
6. Capitalizing random words. Some people do it for emphasis now. (Including our former president.) And it drives grammar nuts crazy. In general, the only words you capitalize are proper nouns, the first word in a sentence, and most words in a title.
7. Too many exclamation points. If a single email has more than two, you're overdoing it. And even for emphasis, you don't need more than two or three in a row.
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In a new poll, 34% of graduates say they have no idea what they're going to do for their career. That includes both high school AND college graduates. And 41% say they don't have a job lined up yet.
62% of graduates say they'd be interested in attending college and again, that includes college "graduates" who already have a degree.
But it sounds like we could do a better job preparing kids to do . . . something . . .
70% of students say colleges have a responsibility to prepare them for the challenges in settling into a career . . . and 69% of people who attended college said they'd be interested in switching to a field that's unrelated to the one they originally wanted to pursue.
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Today's Useless Fact of the Day - Only two athletes have ever had their numbers retired across an entire league . . . Jackie Robinson's number 42 is retired for all of Major League Baseball, and Wayne Gretzky's number 99 is retired for the entire NHL.
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