WEDNESDAY, Feb 15 – DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION

MORNING SIDEKICK DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION FOR WEDNESDAY, February 15, 2023
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COMEDY MP3s POSTED ON OUR PREP SITE FOR TODAY: THE ONLY MORNING SHOW IN TOWN

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.)

NATIONAL GUMDROP DAY

NATIONAL HIPPO DAY

REMEMBER THE MAINE DAY
Wikipedia says this:
“The USS Maine, sent to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, exploded in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. The phrase, ‘Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain,’ became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish–American War later that year. While the sinking of the Maine was not a direct cause for action, it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse between the U.S. and Spain. Today it is widely thought the explosion was the result of an internal coal fire which ignited gunpowder magazines, and not a Spanish mine in the harbor.”

SUSAN B. ANTHONY DAY
The Time And Date website says this:
“Celebrated on February 15, Susan B. Anthony Day marks the birthday of one of the United States’ most prominent female civil rights leaders. It is a legal observance in some states.”

February is:

Adopt a Rescued Rabbit Month
African American History Month
Celebration of Chocolate Month
International Boost Self Esteem Month
International Friendship Month
National Bird Feeding Month
National Snack Food Month
National Sweet Potato Month
Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month

THE BUZZAMERICA’S BEST PLACES TO WORK

Visual Capitalist has ranked America’s Best Places To Work, based on reviews by companies’ current and former staff. The rankings are based on companies that offer the best pay, culture, values and more over the last five years. Here are America’s Best Places To Work In 2023:
1. Gainsight, a software company.
2. Box, a cloud-based content management.
3. Bain & Company, an American management consulting company.
4. McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.
5. NVidia, maker of artificial intelligence hardware and software.
6. Mathworks, developer of mathematical computing software for engineers and scientists. (* I don’t think I could stand the excitement.)
7. Boston Consulting Group, a global consulting firm.
8. Google, finder of everything.
9. ServiceNow, a cloud computing company.
10. In-n-Out Burgers (* A burger place? I guess tech companies have to eat some time.)
11. HubSpot, software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service.
12. Slalom, business and technology consulting firm.
13. Microsoft, maker of computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers.
14. Adobe, computer software company.
15. Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity technology company.
* So I guess they only reviewed results within a three-mile square of Silicon Valley, and the In-n-Out burger joint was right on the outside of the square.
* Not a lot of good news here for unemployed Amish.
* You could use one of these consulting firms to discover which is the best consulting firm.
* Hey, look at this – Number 16 Best Place To Work is (your station)! I think we’d be #15, but the boss doesn’t allow powdered sugar donuts in the breakroom because it gets on the carpet.
* This has to be a real kick in the teeth to Disney, the Happiest Place on Earth.

U.S. NEWS

KNIGHTS, MAIDENS STRIKE AT MEDIEVAL TIMES RESTAURANT

About 50 performers and stable hands have gone on strike at Medieval Times restaurant in Buena Park, California. This is the dinner theater where audience members eat chicken with their hands while watching a Renaissance Fair. The kings, queens, knights, maidens and peons are actors, part of the American Guild of Variety Artists, and walked off the job Saturday. They claim the company has blocked efforts to raise wages and improve safety. Julia McCurdie, who plays a queen, said she’s seen a lot of knights get carried away in an ambulance. Meanwhile, the Medieval Times company says that the show will go on, because they have a bunch of emergency backup knights and squires in place.
* Some of their other demands:
– An extra block of peat for their stoves
– Three extra farthings to keep up with inflation.
– Something other than mead in the soda machine.
– No more being paid in parsnips.
– Free Armor All for the armor.
* Actually, some of the striking jousters have picked up part-time work at Dunkin’, poking holes in the donuts.
* They might as well get back to work. As they say at Medieval Times, resistance is feudal.
* [Sorry about this, but maybe you’ll want to slip it in] Remember the motto of Medieval Times: “In days of old when knights were bold / And toilets weren’t invented / You left your load, upon the road / and walked away contented.”

BEST TIME TO GET BITTEN BY A SHARK

Florida had more unprovoked shark attacks – 16 – in 2022 than any other place in the world, according to new research conducted by the Florida Museum. The museum also took a look at the time of day most people were bitten based on data collected since 1926.
– A total of 72 people were bitten by a shark between 2 p.m. and 2:59 p.m. The second most popular slot was between 11 a.m. and 11:59 a.m.
– Since 1926, the most unprovoked shark attacks happened in September.
– The time with the least amount of shark attacks — three — was between 8 p.m. and 8:59 p.m. Followed by six unprovoked attacks from 12 a.m. to 6:59 a.m.
* Although, as people from the internet have pointed out, the times when people get bit are the times when more people are in the water. Duh.
* The most common times to get bit is 11 to noon, and 2 to 3? So the sharks must take a lunch break from noon to 2, and then go back to their job of eating people at 2 o’clock?
* How are they still that hungry?
* And how are they keeping time? Apple watches on the arms of people they’ve eaten?
* Maybe sharks break between noon and 2 because that’s when their soap operas are on.
* Remember – these are UNPROVOKED attacks. If someone drags you through the water on a rope while you wiggle your legs, or if you paddle offshore and yell rude things into the water with a bullhorn, your results may vary.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

NORTH KOREA ORDERS WOMEN WITH SAME NAME AS KIM’S DAUGHTER TO CHANGE IT

North Korean authorities reportedly are forcing residents who share the same name as Kim Jong Un’s daughter, Ju-ae, to change their name to something else. The order is part of the regime’s effort to build mystique around Kim Ju-ae. She is believed to be between 9 and 10 years old. The order from the central government says women who use the name ‘Ju-ae’ must change it, including changing it on the person’s birth certificate, within a week.
* Aw, man, and we already ordered the birthday cake with Ju-ae’s name on it!
* And if your nickname for your daughter is “My Little Pork Meatball,” STOP IT!
* Does she not have a middle name? Or are they gonna have to do this again in a few weeks?
* Most 9-year-old girls want a pony, but this one wants everyone to change their name. Besides, all the ponies have been eaten.
* They say a lot of women named Ju-ae are changing their name to Dennis Rodman.

MAN DRESSES IN SHEEP’S WOOL TO ESCAPE PRISON

A prisoner attempted to escape from Chonchocoro, a maximum security prison in Bolivia, earlier this month by wrapping himself in sheepskin and crawling through the grassland surrounding the jail. The inmate, also known as “El Araña,” (“The Spider”) used a woolly sheepskin to sneak past security and attempted to break through one of the prison’s external walls on Feb. 4. Security noticed the prisoner, who is serving 15 years for homicide, was not in his cell, and they took a look around. They found him in dark pants but a white wool coat, crawling around on all fours in a field of tall grass, as if he were a lost sheep. He was taken back into custody.
* Baa-a-a-d idea.
* Dummy! Sheep don’t wear pants!
* So he was literally on the lam.
* He told his cellmate he was going to get the flock out of there.
* So he wasn’t able to pull the wool over – ah, never mind.
* I think I tried one of Taco Bell’s new Cheesy Chonchocoros a couple nights ago.

TRENDING

JAMIE LEE CURTIS’ SECRET TO SUCCESS

Kids, you want to be successful? Just show up to work, and stay there. Case in point: Jamie Lee Curtis has revealed her secret to getting more on-screen time in movies, and that is to stay on the set. Don’t go back to your trailer. Curtis told Insider magazine, “It’s my secret sauce. Don’t go back to your trailers. Trailers are not your friend.” Director Rian Johnson incorporated Curtis into more scenes than he had originally planned on the 2019 movie “Knives Out” simply because she was hanging around on set all the time. Curtis said she never left the set. He ended up using me in shots he wasn’t going to use me in because I was on set.”

WHAT THE SUPER BOWL WINNERS AND LOSERS GET PAID

How much of a bonus did the winners of Super Bowl LVII get paid? According to the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL, each member of the Kansas City Chiefs receives a $157,000 bonus. The members of the losing Philadelphia Eagles will get $82,000. Although, some players only receive half of those amounts depending on their length of time in the league and their roster status.

ALMANAC

NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES

February 20, Monday – Presidents Day / Washington’s Birthday
February 21, Tuesday – Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras
March 12, Sunday – Daylight Saving Time Begins
March 17, Friday – St. Patrick’s Day
March 20, Sunday – Spring begins, Spring Equinox is 5:24 p.m. EDT
March 21, Monday – First full day of Spring

BIRTHDAYS

Alex Borstein (actress, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Lois Griffin on “Family Guy”) … 52
Mikey Craig (bass guitarist in Culture Club) … 63
Ali Campbell (singer with UB40) … 64
Matt Groening (creator of “The Simpsons”) … 69
Jane Seymour (actress) … 72
Mick Avory (drummer with The Kinks) … 79

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

“Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.”

(A) Dr. Phil
(B) Chelsea Clinton
(C) Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons

ANSWER: (C) Matt Groening

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2013 – Over 1,200 people were injured when a meteor broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia.
* That makes it an even worse breakup than Brad and Angelina.

2008 – Business tycoon Steve Fossett, 63, was declared dead five months after his small plane vanished over California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. (His remains were discovered later in the year.) In 1995 he became the first solo pilot to cross the Pacific Ocean via balloon, and in 2002 he became the first person to fly a balloon solo around the world.
* So … should have stuck with balloons.

1995 – The FBI arrested its “most wanted hacker,” Kevin Mitnick, charging him with cracking security in some of the nation’s most protected computers.
* “Mitnick, if you want digital porn from the OnlyFans website, you’ve got to pay for it like everybody else!”

1973 – The USSR launched Prognoz 3 to study the sun.
* Their conclusion: It’s hot – damn hot.

1931 – Dracula appeared in a film for the first time.
* Unlike it’s star, the movie didn’t suck, so its big bite at the box office gave the other movies a pain in the neck. Fang you very much.

1903 – The first teddy bears went on sale in America.
* These days, if our kids need comforting, they see an analyst.

THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY

2013 – Chubby Checker launched a $500,000 lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard for including an app on its phones and tablets that was not only named after the 71-year-old musician, but measured a man’s manhood based on his shoe size. HP settled for undisclosed terms.

2008 – An apartment once rented by the Beatles in London went up for sale for $2.7 million. The band shared the three-bedroom top floor property in Green Street, Mayfair in the autumn of 1963. A publicity photo of the Fab Four peering over a banister was taken at the top of the property’s communal stairwell.

1991 – Kelly Emberg the ex-girlfriend of Rod Stewart filed a $25 million palimony suit in Los Angeles. The couple lived together from 1985 to 1990. Rod Stewart later said: “Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and just give her a house.”

1986 – Whitney Houston started a two week run at No.1 on the U.S. singles chart with “How Will I Know.”

1975 – Linda Ronstadt went to No.1 on the U.S. singles chart with “You’re No Good,” the singer’s only solo chart topper out of 12 other top 40 hits. Also today Ronstadt went to No.1 on the U.S. album chart with “Heart Like A Wheel.”

1969 – Singer Vickie Jones was arrested on fraud charges for impersonating Aretha Franklin in concert at Fort Myers, Florida. No one in the audience asked for their money back.

1968 – John and Cynthia Lennon, along with George and Patti Harrison, flew to India to study meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Paul and Ringo joined them a few days later, but Ringo became bored and left on March 1st. Much of the Beatles’ “White Album” was written during their stay.

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. The typical woman will devote 5 hours to THIS task, while the typical man will spend half of that. What is it?
Packing for a trip

2. 26% of men have done THIS in mixed company, but only 12% of women have done it. What is it?
Skinny-dipped

3. Women are four times more likely to fear THESE than men. What are they?
Spiders

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