Friday 9/13/24
It's Friday the 13th! Are you feeling nervous? If so, you're not alone. Around one in five or 19% of people are with you on that.
26% overall say there's at least one thing in life they're superstitious about. 21% think breaking a mirror or walking under a ladder can cause bad luck. Opening an umbrella indoors, 19% . . . black cats, 15% . . . the 13th floor of a building, 13% . . . and stepping on a crack, 12%.
The word for a fear of Friday the 13th is impossible to pronounce and 23 letters long: "Paraskevidekatriaphobia" (Pair-uh-skevvy-decka-try-uh-phobia). The fear of the number 13 is triskaidekaphobia.
National Defy Superstition Day
Supernatural Day
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Celebrate:
9 X 13 Day
Bald is Beautiful Day
Blame Someone Else Day
Fortune Cookie Day
International Chocolate Day
Kids Take Over The Kitchen Day
National Peanut Day
Positive Thinking Day
Roald Dahl Day
Skeptics Day International - like people celebrate this.
Snack a Pickle Day
Stand Up To Cancer Day
Uncle Sam Day
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A guy in Spain claims he's making very good money working as a professional "wedding destroyer." Brides with cold feet supposedly hire him to show up and object, so they don't have to go through with it.
He says it started as a joke. He posted a silly ad offering to rescue brides from their wedding for 500 euros, or about $550 a pop. Then women actually started hiring him, and he's booked through the end of the year.
His ad says, "If you have doubts or don't want to get married and don't know how to refuse, don't worry anymore. I'll object to your wedding. You just need to tell me the time, place, and date."
He shows up and waits until the officiant asks if anyone objects. Then he pretends he's an old flame, and the bride runs off with him.
He says it doesn't always go well. People at the wedding tend to get upset, as you'd expect. So there's an extra $50 fee for every slap he receives.
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Someone talked to sleep experts and asked them to name the Top 10 "sleep mistakes" people make. Here they are . . .
1. Not knowing how much sleep you really need. We tend to underestimate it. In general, it's seven to nine hours a night, but it varies from person to person. So pay attention to things like how moody you are, and how hard it is to focus.
2. Eating too much, or too little, before bed. Too much can cause things like indigestion and heartburn. But feeling hungry can also keep you up.
3. Screens before bed. Put your phone down and turn off the TV off. The blue light is one reason. But just the stimulation alone can also keep you up.
4. Not winding down. It's important to have at least 30 to 60 minutes of wind-down time before closing your eyes.
5. Napping too much. Naps are fine. Just try to limit them to 30 minutes, so they don't keep you up at night.
6. Spending too much time awake in bed. The more time you spend in bed not sleeping, the more your body gets used to it.
7. Not getting enough sleep on weeknights. Don't assume you can catch up on sleep over the weekend. Sleeping in once or twice won't completely make up for burning the candle at both ends Monday through Friday.
8. Keeping an inconsistent sleep schedule. Our bodies have a hard time adjusting. So that's another reason sleeping in on weekends isn't ideal.
9. Too much caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine takes eight hours to metabolize, so a cup of coffee at 3:00 PM could still be keeping you up at 10:00 PM. And alcohol might make you FEEL tired, but you end up getting a worse night's sleep.
10. Worrying about sleep. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. You lie there worrying you won't fall asleep, so you don't. If you need to get up for a while and try again later, that's okay. Just try your best to relax.
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Jon Bon Jovi was filming a video on a bridge in Nashville Tuesday night when he noticed a woman in despair, standing on a ledge.
Bon Jovi went over to the woman and was able to convince her not to jump. He also helped pull her off the ledge.
In case you didn't know, he has experience speaking with individuals who are going through a crisis from hunger to homelessness, thanks to his JBJ Soul Foundation.
The chief of the Metro Nashville police department says, quote, "A shout out to Jon Bon Jovi and his team for helping a woman on the Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge . . . It takes all of us to help keep each other safe."
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A study of four generations . . . Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z . . . found that in their experience, adulthood actually starts at the age of 27.
You're paying all of your own bills . . . you're financially independent . . . and you're putting responsibilities over "having fun."
So you're paying your own insurance, you're not on your parents' family plans, you're laying the groundwork to support yourself and your family into the future, you can be trusted with a credit card, and you know how to do laundry.
Older folks sometimes poke fun at younger generations for struggling with "adulting," but 42% of people across all the generations say they found that being an adult is harder than they expected it to be.
And 71% of Americans surveyed believe that being an adult is harder TODAY than it was even 10 years ago.
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Mike Flint of Columbus, Ohio signed up for free ZZ Top tickets for every tour. And he STILL gets them 40 years later.
(ZZ Top, two with beards, and one named Beard.)
Mike bought a lifetime membership to the ZZ Top Fan Club back in 1984. It cost $100, which must have seemed like a fortune at the time.
But when you consider that he's seen almost every single tour since then for FREE, and that those tickets come with backstage passes, it turned out to be an INCREDIBLE value.
The membership also included a satin tour jacket, bumper stickers, and a signed poster. And while he can't find the poster at the moment, he still has everything else.
Mike is 61 years old now, but he has no plans to slow down. Quote, "As long as I have these benefits and I'm still kickin', I'll go see 'em . . . I've never had an issue with the tickets not being there. It's just been fabulous and unbelievable."
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Taylor Swift won a bunch of awards at Wednesday night's "MTV Video Music Awards". . . including Video of the Year and Best Collaboration for "Fortnight", featuring Post Malone and also won Artist of the Year and Best Pop.
"Espresso" by Sabrina Carpenter won Song of the Year, and Chappell Roan was voted Best New Artist.
Lenny Kravitz, LL Cool J, Katy Perry performed and were great, I was also very impressed with Benson Boone.
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Someone found the most mispronounced names in English by looking at how often they're looked up on the pronunciation site Forvo.
They analyzed more than 12,000 names, and the two that people have the hardest time with are . . . Anne and James.
It's because they included searches from all over the world, not just the U.S. Names we think of as straightforward aren't that obvious elsewhere.
Here are the Top 10 English names people in other countries struggle with:
1. Anne
2. James
3. Lauren
4. Evelyn
5. Christian
6. Eleanor
7. Ashley
8. Robert
9. Jane
10. Joan
A few more that made the Top 20: Heather . . . Hugh . . . Gary . . . Lisa . . . Jack . . . Katie . . . and Cyan.
See the article here.
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Today's Useless Fact of the Day - Your brain represents 2% of your body weight . . . and uses up to 20% of your body's energy. That's more than any other organ.
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