MONDAY, Mar 25 – DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION

MORNING SIDEKICK DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION FOR MONDAY, March 25, 2024
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COMEDY MP3s POSTED ON OUR PREP SITE FOR TODAY: HARD-TO-PRONOUNCE COMPOSERS

TODAY IS …
(All days repeat annually on today’s date unless otherwise noted; days may or may not be called “National”/”International”/”World” depending on source; sources listed often have additional info. We generally do not list special days which were created by commercial companies for the purpose of marketing, or the hundreds of disease awareness listings which occur each year.)

INTERNATIONAL WAFFLE DAY (not to be confused with National Waffle Day – August 24th)
The Holiday Insights website says this:
“Waffle Day is a day that you can waffle on issues and decisions. And, it certainly is a day to eat waffles. This holiday originated in Sweden. It is called Våffeldagen. The holiday coincides with the Feast of the Annunciation. This day was also considered the start of spring in Sweden and Europe. It became a custom for Swedish families to celebrate the two events by making waffles on this day. The origin of the waffle: The waffle dates back to the 1300s in Greece. Greeks cooked flat cakes between two metal pans. At the time, they topped it with cheeses and herbs. Pancake syrup wasn’t around back then. Waffles are commonly eaten as breakfast or a snack. They are also an occasional dinner meal for some people.”

NATIONAL LOBSTER NEWBERG DAY

NATIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR DAY
The National Day Calendar website says this:
“National Medal of Honor day is a day that is dedicated to all Medal of Honor recipients. It was on March 25, 1863 when the first Medals of Honor were presented. Created in 1861, the Medal of Honor is the United States of America’s highest military honor. It is awarded only to US military personnel, by the President of the United States in the name of Congress, for personal acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty. There are three versions of the Medal of Honor; one for the Army, one for the Navy and one for the Air Force, with personnel of the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard receiving the Navy version.”

NATIONAL PECAN DAY

TOLKIEN READING DAY
The National Day Calendar website says this:
J.R.R. Tolkien (Jan. 3, 1892 – Sept. 2, 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist and university professor. He was best known as the author of the classic works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarrillion as well as Roverandom and Farmer Giles of Ham. This day was started in 2003 by the Tolkien Society to encourage the readings of J.R.R. Tolkien. March 25th was chosen as the date to honor the fall of Sauron in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.”

March is:

Adopt a Rescued Guinea Pig Month
American Red Cross Month
Employee Spirit Month
Expanding Girls’ Horizons in Science and Engineering Month
Gender Equality Month
Irish-American Heritage Month
National Craft Month
National Women Inventors Month
National Women’s History Month
Read an E-Book Month

ENTERTAINMENT & CELEBRITIES

WHAT TO WATCH – New and Returning Shows and Movies
Premiering Monday through Wednesday
Listings sourced from the TV Guide and EW websites

TUESDAY, Mar 26

“Dave Attell: Hot Cross Buns”
Netflix – Comedy Special
Synopsis: The old man’s back — out of the clubs, onto the screen, comedian Dave Attell brings it hard in this rapid-fire, no-holds-barred performance.

“Tig Notaro: Hello Again”
Prime Video – Comedy Special
Synopsis: A hilarious and sharply observed stand-up special packed with delightfully awkward misunderstandings, health scares made hilarious, and family moments with her wife and children that are simultaneously sidesplitting and heartwarming.

THE BUZZ

YOU CAN’T DO THAT IN SCHOOL ANYMORE

Buzzfeed asked, “What ‘normal’ things used to be common in school that are unheard of today?” Some of the responses:
– “In elementary school, I used to bring teachers their cigarettes from the cigarette vending machine in the teachers’ lounge so they could smoke outside while we played at recess.”
– “When I was in elementary school, our principal would pull out your loose baby teeth if you asked.”
– “My teacher tied my left hand to my chair to force me to write right-handed.”
– “Our high school had a rifle range on the fourth floor for our school rifle team to practice after school.”
– “When I was in the fifth grade (1997), we went to the Bronx Zoo on a class trip. We weren’t allowed to go into the bat exhibit as a whole group, so our teacher paired each student with a stranger to go into the dark, cave-like exhibit with. Thankfully, we all returned to our teacher on the other side.”
– “Naughty children in my fifth-grade class were made to sit or stand in the trash can because they were acting like trash.”
– “We used to line up in elementary school to get vaccinated. The same needle was used on everyone; it was just wiped with an alcoholic cotton ball between uses. This was in the ’60s.”
– “When I was in second grade, the teacher would give us mercury to play with at our desks.”
– “In second grade, the bus got stuck on a snow-covered hill, fairly steep. The driver had the kids get out, go behind the bus, and push.”
– “In elementary school, ’88–’94, they would have fifth and sixth graders working in the cafeteria. Every week, a different group of four kids would work serving food, collecting the dirty trays, using the industrial washer for the lunch trays, and cleaning. All we got for the work was a free lunch. And we had to miss lunch recess. We all looked forward to doing it in the younger grades. I still think of those weeks as good memories.
– “Left-handed kids sat separately.”
* PHONE TOPIC: “What was common in your school that are unheard of today?”

BULLIES DO BETTER IN LIFE

Researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex have published new research that says, basically, those who were bullies in school are more successful in life. They make more money, have higher job satisfaction and have the more desirable jobs. The researchers used data collected on around 7,000 people born in 1970. They examined data from primary school teachers who assessed the children’s social and emotional skills when they were 10 years old in 1980, and matched it to their lives at the age of 46 in 2016. They found a strong link between aggressive behavior at school and higher earnings in later life. They conclude that our classrooms are competitive places and that children adapt to win that competition with aggression, and then take that through to the workplace where they continue to compete aggressively for the best paid jobs. The researchers say perhaps we need to reconsider discipline in schools and help to channel this characteristic in children in a more positive way.
* Sure – make kids even gentler so the alphas can totally bulldoze their way to the top.
* Of course bullies are richer, they have all our lunch money.
* “Have an aggressive day at school, Timmy, so you can support us when we’re older!”
* The only bright spot: If you’re a really smart nerd, you could skip to the head of the line. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Weird Al Yankovic …
* This sounds like the researchers were looking for a reason why they ended up working at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

U.S. NEWS

MAN BREAKS OUT OF JAIL, IS IMMEDIATELY HIT BY CAR

Officials in Kauai, Hawaii, say an inmate escaped from the Kauai Community Correctional Center and was almost immediately injured in a hit-and-run on Kuhio Highway. Inmate Matthew Ornellas Jr., 33, escaped just after 1 a.m. Friday but was hit shortly before 1:10 a.m. by what appeared to be a dark-colored vehicle on the highway. The driver failed to stop to render aid. Ornellas was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. Authorities are still looking for the driver of the car.
* To give him a medal? To deputize him?
* Instant karma doesn’t get much more instant than that.
* How close to the highway is this prison? Did they build it in a cloverleaf?
* Wow. Life on the outside can be tough, too.
* Kauai is an island, so isn’t the whole place basically a prison?

MAN IRONS PEOPLE’S CLOTHES IN LOCAL BAR

Here is a real-life Iron Man. For the past ten years, a Brooklyn, New York man named James Hook has been setting up his ironing board at the local Mallard Drake bar on Monday nights at 8 and irons people’s clothes for them. Some night, he dresses in a tuxedo. He says he does it out of the kindness of his heart. Mr. Hook says, “At a time when public services are being stripped away from us left, right and center, here’s something that was so undervalued that nobody would ever even consider making it into a public service.” After working at his full-time job, Hook brings his ironing board from home and irons as many as 20 garments (* Or less if he’s pressed for time. PRESSED!). If he’s doing your pants or a shirt, he has a courtesy robe you can wear while he’s working. If it’s a small crowd, he’ll iron his own clothes. Says one bar patron, 23-year-old Margaux Allen, “None of it feels weird or out of place at all. It all comes off very natural.”
* That’s one way to get ladies out of their clothes.
* Does he do it to blow off steam?
* It’s a new wrinkle on public service. Wait – it’s the OPPOSITE of a new wrinkle. A new smoothness?
* Maybe this is why the Time Square Naked Cowboy is naked. Brooklyn Iron Man is ironing his clothes.
* Wait’ll the goons from Bounce Dryer Sheets show up at his door.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

DOCTORS REMOVE EEL FROM MAN’S STOMACH

Last Wednesday, Vietnamese doctors saved a young man’s life by removing a live 30-cm-long eel from his stomach, where it had caused intestinal perforations. The 34-year-old man was admitted to the hospital with severe abdominal cramps. An ultrasound revealed a foreign body in his abdomen, as well as intestinal perforation. They operated and found a 12-inch live eel. Asked how the large eel could have wound up in his abdomen, the 34-year-old man could not provide a clear answer, but doctors believe that the critter crawled from the anus to the patient’s colon (* Oh, sure, always believe the worst.), bit through the intestine, and entered the abdomen. But what truly shocked the hospital staff was that the eel was still alive inside the man’s body.
* And they were even more surprised when they found the gerbils.
* Just curious – did he ask if he could take it back home with him?
* “My roommate must have put it up there while I was sleeping.”
* I’m sure the eel was thinking, “Uhn uh. No way I’m dyin’ like this.”
* It being Vietnam, everybody enjoyed some fresh eel soup for lunch.

SPERM WHALES FEND OFF POD OF KILLER WHALES WITH “DEFENSIVE DIARRHEA”

A group of sperm whales managed to fend off a pod of orcas near the Australian coast by releasing a “cloud of diarrhea.” The event was witnessed last Tuesday by Jennah Tucker, a marine biologist. Tucker said that she witnessed the confrontation, and then a massive dark bubble rising to the ocean surface, which she thought might be the blood of a sperm whale that was harmed by the orcas. But then the killer whales all just suddenly swam away. Tucker only realized that the dark bubble was sperm whale diarrhea after reviewing the footage they took of the incident. She called the unusual tactic deployed by the sperm whales “defensive defecation.”
* Or – like people, whales crap themselves when they’re suddenly terrified.
* One thing’s for sure – these whales need to eat more fiber.
* Cloud of Diarrhea was the name of my band in high school.
* “A cloud of diarrhea” was released. That’s kinda what happens at our staff meetings.
* Given that it was a group of sperm whales, the mystery blob could have been a lot worse.
* I guess this is the whale equivalent of cutting the cheese in an elevator.

TRENDING

KEVIN BACON GOING BACK TO “FOOTLOOSE” SCHOOL

Kevin Bacon announced on Friday’s Today show that he will attend this year’s prom at the school where Footloose was filmed. The school is relocating at the end of the academic year, so the building will be abandoned. Footloose, now 40 years old, was filmed at the school in Payson, Utah. The students have actively tried to get Bacon to attend the prom on social media. Their efforts caught the actor’s attention. He told the students in a video call that, because of all their efforts, “I’m gonna come. I gotta come.”

MEGAN FOX HASN’T HAD THAT MUCH PLASTIC SURGERY

Megan Fox tells the Los Angeles Times that she has been scrutinized for allegedly undergoing a lot of plastic surgery. To clear the air, she went through a list of the procedures she has and hasn’t had. Megan says she’s had three breast augmentations, a nose job, Botox and filler. She has NOT had a face-lift, lateral brow lift, regular brow lift, thread lift, buccal fat removal, liposuction, body-contouring or a Brazilian butt lift. “In terms of surgery, it’s not that much,” Fox said. She added, “Now when it comes to lasers and stuff like that, I’ve done everything you could possibly think of doing, and I always will. It’s about embracing what’s ‘natural,’” she added.

PEARL JAM TO PLAY NEW ALBUM IN MOVIE THEATERS, ONE NIGHT ONLY

Pearl Jam – anybody? Pearl Jam? Anybody? – Pearl Jam is offering listeners an early preview of their upcoming album, Dark Matter, by playing it in select movie theaters around the world for one night only on April 16. The band says the album will be played in its entirety twice, once in darkness and then again with added visuals. So… no live band, just the album. Tickets are now available on Pearl Jam’s website.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (March 22-24)

1. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – $45 million
2. Dune 2 – $17.6 million
3. Kung Fu Panda 4 – $16.8 million
4. Immaculate – $5.3 million
5. Arthur the King – $4.3 million

ALMANAC

NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES

March 31, Sunday – Easter
April 1, Monday – April Fools Day
April 15, Monday – U.S. Tax Day
May 12, Sunday – Mother’s Day
May 27, Monday – Memorial Day

BIRTHDAYS

Katharine McPhee (singer, actress “Scorpion,” “Smash”) … 40
Laz Alonso (actor, “The Boys,” “L.A.’s Finest”) … 53
Sarah Jessica Parker (actress, “And Just Like That,” “Sex and the City”) … 59
Marcia Cross (actress, “Desperate Housewives,” “Melrose Place”) … 62
Sir Elton John (singer/songwriter) … 77
Paul Michael Glaser (actor, “Starsky and Hutch”) … 81

BIRTHDAY QUOTE QUIZ – Ask your listeners “Who said it?” HINT: Today’s their birthday!

“Who really needs a new album from me?”

(A) Paul McCartney
(B) Rod Stewart
(C) Elton John

ANSWER: (C) Elton John

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2019 – NASA canceled a planned historic all-female spacewalk because it didn’t have enough spacesuits to fit women.
* Is there NO place to escape body shaming?

1996 – The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.
* Personally, I’ve never seen one. I work in radio, so the largest bill I ever manage to handle is a ten.

1992 – Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returned to earth after 10 months in the “Mir” space station. While he was away, the Soviet Union fell and a new Russian government was established.
* “I KNEW I was the guy holding the country together!”

1954 – RCA began the first commercial production of color television sets – they were priced at a thousand dollars.
* Can you believe that? We used to make TVs in the United States!

1944 – During World War Two, British flier Nicholas Alkemade jumped out of a burning bomber over Germany with no parachute. He fell 18,000 feet into a snow bank and suffered only a bruised knee.
* A stunt done twenty years later by a Mr. Bond … James Bond.

1916 – On this date, women were allowed to attend boxing matches for the first time.
* Great move – from that day on, women knew how to fight dirty.

1913 – The Palace Theatre opened in New York City, and soon became known as the home of vaudeville.
* Vaudeville was a form of on-stage entertainment that often featured scantily-clad women and bawdy language – it was the cable TV of its day.

1882 – Pancake-making was first demonstrated, in New York.
* “Hey, these would taste great with some syrup.” “Oh yeah? What’s ‘syrup’?”

THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY

2015 – Radiohead’s seminal album “OK Computer” became one of 25 recordings to be preserved by the U.S. Library of Congress. It was joined by Ben E King’s ‘Stand By Me’ and recordings by Joan Baez, The Doors, The Righteous Brothers and Steve Martin.

2010 – The manager of pop star Justin Bieber was arrested after police claimed he failed to warn fans on Twitter about overcrowding at a shopping center event. Police said they asked Scott Braun to tell fans through Twitter that Bieber would not be appearing because of fears over safety after hundreds turned up – resulting in five people being hospitalized with minor injuries. Police said Mr. Braun refused to send the message until 90 minutes later. He pleaded not guilty to charges including reckless endangerment related to the event in Roosevelt Field Mall in a New York suburb.

2005 – Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne were forced to flee their Buckinghamshire mansion after a blaze broke out as they slept. Ozzy and his wife were roused by a fire alarm and ran to safety in the garden, rescuing their pets as they escaped.

2000 – *NSYNC set a new world record after selling a million tickets in one day for the group’s forthcoming tour, netting them over $42.5 million.

2000 – Former Bay City Rollers drummer Derek Longmuir was given 300 hours community service after being caught with a hoard of child pornography.

1990 – Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee was arrested for mooning at the audience during a gig in Augusta. Lee was charged with indecent exposure.

X-TREME TRIVIA CHALLENGE

Every installment of X-Treme Trivia Challenge includes three mystery factoids. Create your own “Impossible Question” contest – great for listener giveaways and phone interaction starters! Also a perfect sponsorship opportunity!

1. According to a scientific study, humans are not biologically equipped to do THIS before 10 a.m. What is it?
Work

2. In a recent survey, the average U.S. worker said they spend at least two hours a day doing THIS. What is it?
Nothing job related

3. In a recent poll, U.S. workers named THIS as the biggest issue when it comes to meetings. What is it?
That they start or end late

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