TUESDAY, Jan 28 – DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION

MORNING SIDEKICK DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION FOR TUESDAY, January 28, 2025
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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 – including “holidays” created by the National Day Calendar and Wellcat websites to drive traffic to their websites – or the hundreds of disease awareness listings which occur each year.)

CHRISTA MCAULIFFE DAY
Wikipedia says this:
“Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe was an American teacher from Concord, New Hampshire, and was one of the seven crew members killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. In 1985, she was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project and was scheduled to become the first teacher in space. As a member of mission STS-51-L, she was planning to conduct experiments and teach two lessons from Space Shuttle Challenger. On January 28, 1986, the shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after launch. After her death, schools and scholarships were named in her honor, and in 2004 she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.”

NATIONAL BLUEBERRY PANCAKE DAY

NATIONAL DATA PRIVACY DAY

NATIONAL KAZOO DAY

January is:

Adopt a Rescued Bird Month
Be Kind to Food Servers Month
Family Fit Lifestyle Month
Financial Wellness Month
Get Organized Month
National Candy Month
National Clean Up Your Computer Month
National Hobby Month
National Skating Month
National Train Your Dog Month
Walk Your Pet Month

ENTERTAINMENT & CELEBRITIES

LAW PROPOSED TO ANNOUNCE ACTUAL START TIMES OF MOVIES

Finally, government is attempting to do something for the common American: A Connecticut state senator is trying to pass a law requiring movie theaters to reveal exactly what time the actual movie starts, so people can choose if they want to skip all the trailers and ads. State senator Martin Looney has put forth a bill that would “require that each movie advertisement or listing include, and separately list, the scheduled start time for (1) the movie trailers and ads that precede the movie, and (2) the advertised or listed movie.”
* How about a law to stop people from singing along to the movie? I went to the movies this weekend, people were singing along. What’s weird is, the movie was “Nosferatu.”
* Senator Martin Looney. He’s not the only politician that’s Looney, you know.
* Sometimes, over-regulation of small business is a good thing.
* While he’s at it, how about a law to make broadcast TV start their shows at the top of the hour. Not three minutes before, not five minutes before…on the hour! And another thing… what’s with the nightly NBC and ABC and CBS news spending five minutes at the beginning telling you all the stories they’re going to show you? They take away all the surprise!
* Next, make doctors’ offices say how long past your appointment time you’ll actually be called back to see the doc.
* Car repair shops telling you how long the work will ACTUALLY take.
* Oh, man, this guy’s opened up a can of worms.

AUDIO: MADONNA DOES STAND UP

Madonna popped up at New York’s Comedy Cellar on Saturday night after being brought to the club by her friend, Amy Schumer, who is reportedly a comedian. A source said Madonna did a full 30-minute set, and the audience took time to warm up to her, but she got laughs every time she dropped an F-bomb, because, as the source says, “Just hearing Madonna curse is funny.”
* Then she must keep her staff in stitches.
* How many F-bombs did she drop, on a scale of 1 to The Wolf of Wall Street?
* A guy told her, “Nice set.” She said “Thanks, it was my first show.” Guy says, “I wasn’t talking about the show.”
* She had to leave after 30 minutes to go pick up her boyfriend from his play date.
* Her boyfriend asked if she was on the pill. Madonna says, “Birth control?” Boyfriend says, “No, calcium supplements.”
CLIP: This is true: In 2016, Madonna was on The Tonight Show and showed off her stand-up skills. This is real, a clip from YouTube. Ladies and gentlemen, the comedy stylings of… Madonna:
CLIP URL: morningsidekick(dot)(com)/prep/wp-content/uploads/MadonnaStandUp(dot)mp3

THE BUZZ

HOW TO FIX A PICKY EATER

Is your kid a picky eater? If you’re trying to fix the problem by forcing the issue, you’re probably making your child’s habit of picky eating worse. A study published in the journal Pediatrics followed more than 300 parent-and-child pairs for five years.
– Eating is one of the few domains kids can exert some control over. Demanding that a child eat, or restricting food, causes some of the pickiest eaters, according to the study.
– Don’t force kids to clean their plate. Don’t make them sit at the dinner table until they eat a certain amount of the food. Avoid bribing with food. It’s a natural inclination to say, ‘If you eat your green beans, you can have dessert.’ But that can backfire and create an even larger negative association with that food.
– The best time to introduce new foods is when the baby begins solid foods at six months, and then continue to offer a variety of foods throughout the formative years of toddlerhood.
– Let your infant lean in and open his mouth when he wants to eat. Don’t play airplane games – that doesn’t help.
– Expose your child to the food multiple times. Keep putting it on the dinner table.
– Let them “pick” the food at the grocery store by giving them a choice of two, and then let them help prepare it.
– If your child has developed some picky notions about what she will eat, don’t fall into the trap of making a meal for her and a meal for the rest of the family. Have something nutritious she can eat on the table, and then let it be.
* My parents had a cure for picky eating. It was called hunger.
* Kids’ll eat almost anything – asparagus, beets, lima beans – if you put a chocolate fondue pot on the table.
* Or flip it around – “You can have either the dinner I made, or a tablespoon of Tabasco sauce.”
* Children, yes, but how about a husband?
* PHONE TOPIC: What’s the one food that people keep trying to get you to like, but you hate it?

U.S. NEWS

PET TORTOISE SURVIVES CALIFORNIA FIRE

A family’s pet tortoise has been found safe in the wake of the California wildfires. The rescue occurred after the family’s Altadena home was destroyed in the Eaton Fire. Rocky the tortoise was found in a hole in the family’s backyard. In a video on Instagram, a deputy was seen bringing the 100-pound Rocky to safety, as the family cheered.
* “Yay! We just lost our home and now we have a giant tortoise to take care of! Thank you officer!”
* The family’s cheering; Rocky’s just looking a them going, “What the hell? You left me behind to fry.”
* The fish in their aquarium – not such a happy ending.
* If this story is supposed to be the silver lining after $250 billion in damage and over two dozen dead, somebody in the media is nuts.
* California has just decreed that all rebuilt homes shall be made out of turtle shell.

CARNIVAL CRUISE SAYS NO DRYING LAUNDRY ON THE RAILING

Carnival Cruise Line has felt the need to remind guests that hanging laundry out to try on the balcony of their stateroom is not allowed. Photos from two Carnival ships have recently circulated showing clothes lines with items such as T-shirts and underwear across balconies hanging to dry. They say cabin attendants will remove them due to concerns that your clothing could blow into the ocean. Also, it looks tacky. The company notes that Carnival does provide self-serve washers and dryers for the slobs I mean passengers to use.
* As if anyone has a dollar for the dryer after paying for the cruise.
* So unfair. When Leonardo DiCaprio dries his laundry on the balcony, they turn a blind eye.
* “Concerns that your clothing could blow into the ocean.” God forbid a stray T-shirt blowing into the ocean would be added to the cruise ship waste that’s pumped out. Which is, during a typical one-week voyage of a 3,000 passenger ship:
– 210,000 gallons of sewage
– 1 million gallons of wastewater from sinks, showers, and laundries
– more than 130 gallons of hazardous wastes
– 8 tons of solid waste
– and 25,000 gallons of oily bilge water
(Source: United States Dept of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics)
* There’s so much white underwear flying, Somali pirates think the Carnival ship is surrendering.
* That’s not clothing, that’s passengers signaling for help because the ship is infected with norovirus.

PETA WANTS TO SWITCH GROUNDHOG DAY FOR “WEATHER CAKE REVEAL DAY”

Animal rights group PETA is calling for a change to Groundhog Day. They suggest that Punxsutawney Phil and all the other caged groundhogs around the country that fake-predict if winter will go on for six more weeks or spring will arrive early, should be replaced with a “weather reveal” cake. Like the baby gender reveal parties, a weather cake would show one of two colors: blue, meaning six more weeks of winter, or pink, indicating an early spring. Oh – and the cake needs to be a vegan cake.
* Which means it’s inedible.
* Why not both? Why not make a cake out of the groundhog? Or maybe a meat loaf.
* By the way, they also think it’s cruel and fat-shaming to call them ground-HOGS.
* Okay, now I get it. We’ve been hoodwinked. PETA announcements are really from a bunch of comics doing their version of funny performance art.

TRENDINGBILL BURR SLAMS HOWIE MANDELL FOR BILLY CORGAN STUNT

Are comedian Bill Burr and Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan half brothers? No one really knows, but both of them are royally p.o.’d at Howie Mandel. Mandel, on his podcast, was interviewing Burr when in walks Corgan. The Smashing Pumpkins guitarist went viral a few months ago for theorizing that he and Burr may be half brothers. Corgan said his stepmother told him that Bill Burr “might be one of the children that your father sired in his days being a traveling musician.” Corgan himself recalled his father saying that he had a half-brother named Bill, who was born around the same time as him (Corgan is 57 and Burr 56). Burr told Corgan: “Did you ever think the fact that I never told that story [meant] that maybe you shouldn’t?” Burr then clarified that while he has nothing against Corgan, the speculation brings up negative memories. Burr then tore into Mandel for setting up the encounter for the ratings, saying, “What was supposed to happen? Are we going to go play catch? We’re both in our 50s.” By the end of their conversation, Burr did say he was convinced: “We have the same father.”

ALMANAC

NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES

TOMORROW – Chinese New Year (The Year of the Wood Snake)
February 2, Sunday – Groundhog Day
February 12, Wednesday – Lincoln’s Birthday
February 14, Friday – Valentine’s Day
February 17, Monday – Presidents Day / Washington’s Birthday
March 9, Tuesday – Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras
March 9, Sunday – Daylight Saving Time Begins
March 17, Monday – St. Patrick’s Day
March 20, Thursday – Spring begins, Spring Equinox is 5:01 a.m. EDT

BIRTHDAYS

Ariel Winter (actress, “Modern Family”) … 27
Yuri Sardarov (actor, “Chicago Fire”) … 37
Elijah Wood (actor, “Lord of the Rings”) … 44
Nick Carter (singer w/ The Backstreet Boys) … 45
Angelique Cabral (actress, “Life in Pieces”) … 46
Joey Fatone (singer w/ ‘N Sync) … 48
Mo Rocca (humorist, journalist and actor, “CBS Sunday Morning”) … 56
Sarah McLachlan (singer/songwriter) … 57
Alan Alda (actor, “The Blacklist,” “The West Wing”, “M.A.S.H.”) … 89

Today’s Birthdays grade: Frodo Baggins is 44 – where did the time go? We’ve also got battling boy band alumni, and Hawkeye Pierce is a year away from 90. Lots more, a big list with a few standouts, depending on your demographic. Grade: B-minus, mostly for the sentimental value.

[Want to try something different with the daily birthdays? Try grading them! Some days have “good” celebs, some have “great” celebs, some have “lousy” celebs. For fun, give the group an arbitrary grade: A-plus through F-minus. Sidekick will give you our take on it; you can to take the concept and run with it.]

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

“I’m a fruit.”

(A) Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
(B) Vin Diesel
(C) Elijah Wood

ANSWER: (C) Elijah Wood

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1986 – The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, killing all seven crew members.
(Not appropriate for jokes.)

1878 – The first telephone switchboard went into service in New Haven, Connecticut. Operators were instructed to answer calls by saying, “Ahoy!”
* And if you refused because it sounded stupid, they made you walk the plank.

1807 – London’s Pall Mall street became the first street to be lit by gas.
* Previously, if you wanted to see at night, you had to light your OWN gas.

THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY

2016 – Guitarist, singer and songwriter Paul Kantner died in San Francisco at the age of 74 due to multiple organ failure and septic shock after he suffered a heart attack days earlier. He was known for co-founding Jefferson Airplane, the leading psychedelic rock band of the counterculture era, and its more commercial spin-off band Jefferson Starship. With Jefferson Airplane, Kantner was among the performers at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1966, the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and the Woodstock Festival in 1969.

2015 – Funk legend Sly Stone was awarded $5 million in unpaid royalties by a Los Angeles court. The singer claimed his former manager, Gerald Goldstein, and lawyer, Glenn Stone, had cheated him out of earnings dating back more than 20 years. In 2011, it was reported he was homeless and living in a camper van after falling on hard times and fighting drug addiction problems.

2008 – Madonna topped the list for the richest female musician, according to the Forbes website. Its first-ever list focusing on women in the music industry estimated the then-49-year-old banked $72m between June 2006 and June 2007. Barbra Streisand came second, with $60 million followed by Celine Dion with $45 million.

1999 – 20th century crooner Pat Boone formed the Gold Records label, which would only sign artists 45 years old and up. One of the first performers to be signed was two-time Grammy Award winner Jack Jones.

1996 – Diana Ross performed as the featured halftime act during Super Bowl XX in Tempe, AZ.

1991 – At The American Music Awards in Los Angeles, Gloria Estefan made her first live performance since injuring her back in a bus accident while on tour.

1985 – More than 40 artists gathered at A&M’s Hollywood studios to record “We Are the World” under the collective name “USA for Africa.” Proceeds from the single went toward worldwide hunger prevention.

1980 – The original Ants split with Adam.

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 recent survey, having one of THESE adds 7 hours of housework to the average woman’s week. What is it?
A husband

2. The average woman spends one year of her life doing THIS. What is it?
Deciding what to wear

3. The average adult woman says life is just too … What?
Tiring

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