Today Is... 📆

[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It is Saturday, 8 May 2021
(W18 | D128 | 237 rem)

Today is: World Donkey Day

World Donkey Day is a show of respect for one of the most enduring and respectable animals in the Equidae family.

Throughout history, it has served the world as both a mount and a beast of burden in some of the most challenging terrains and forbidding climates, and has done so with pride and endurance. It’s unsurprising that these beasts’ success is due in part to their stubborn nature, and World Donkey Day honours them for this along with their other, perhaps more laudable, traits.

Two subspecies of the donkey, the Somalian and the Nubian, were bred together to produce what we think of as the modern Donkey. Available evidence points to the Donkey having been working alongside humanity since 4000 BCE, most likely in Nubia, as a more versatile and resilient pack animal than the ox they were presently using.

Since then they have been bred and transplanted all over the world as cultures moved, and the world expanded, and can now be found just about everywhere.

They’re also the progenitors of the sterile mule, a cross-breeding of horse and donkey that results in a breed with the strengths of both. Sadly mules are almost entirely sterile, and the exceptions so rare that no breeding stock of pure mules has ever been able to be achieved, in part due to there having yet to be recorded a case of a breedable mule stallion.

Strangely, there have been cases where female mules have birthed what are, for all appearances, pure horses when bred with a horse.

Without the help of donkeys, it is hard to imagine that the modern world could ever have come into existence. These hardy pack animals provided civilization with the motive energy needed to generate wealth, well before the advent of steam power or electricity. For that reason, many people consider donkeys just as fundamental to our society as writing, pottery, and metallurgy.

World Donkey Day is all about celebrating their stoic spirit and individual charm. These creatures aren’t afraid of a hard day’s work. In fact, they more or less invented the concept.

Donkeys pull carts, operate mills, and carry cargo for miles and miles, well after other species would have given up. For that reason, they have a special place in our hearts. They’re willing to put in the effort (for no pay) all to serve us – their grateful human masters.

World Donkey Day is the brainchild of Raziq Ark, a scientist whose interests primarily concern desert animals. Around ten years ago, he noticed that nobody was celebrating the humble donkey for its efforts in helping people all over the world improve their quality of life. In recognition of all this hard work, he set up a Facebook group, chronicling the trials and tribulations of the species all over the world. Eventually, the idea to set up a World Donkey Day emerged in 2018, and we’ve been celebrating it ever since.

Donkeys have played an essential part in human history. Ark says that they are a “precious genetic resource and a great gift of nature.” You can’t get higher praise than that!

Today is World Donkey Day, and what better way to celebrate them than to share a few of the things that make these intelligent, curious animals who they are?

1. If you challenge a donkey to a memory game, chances are you’ll lose. These gentle animals are able to remember places they’ve been to before and recognise donkey pals they haven’t seen for 25 years.
2. Donkeys are safety-conscious. If they fear a situation might be dangerous, they do their very best to stay away from it. This is often mistaken for stubbornness when, really, they’re just careful and cautious.
3. Like humans and our fellow primates, donkeys love to clean and groom each other. These herd animals are all about looking good.
4. They are nothing if not hygienic and refuse to drink water if they deem it too dirty.
5. Donkeys like to be in dry, warm places. Their natural habitats are deserts and savannahs.
6. If someone they love is moved or taken away from them, they become extremely upset. They’re social animals who get lonely when they’re by themselves because of the deep bonds they form with their friends and family.
7. The world is home to over 44 million donkeys, and they come in all shapes and sizes – there are over 186 breeds of donkey!
8. Donkeys have big ears so they can hear each other from long distances. They communicate by braying, grunting, squealing, whiffling, snorting, and even growling.
9. In their desert homes, they dig their hooves into the ground to access water, in turn providing birds, chipmunks, and other small animals with life-saving hydration.
10. Right now, millions of donkeys are being exploited or killed around the world, but you can help stop this! Choose to avoid products and tourist traps they’re harmed for – and take action for them by calling for change.

Now don’t be an smart ass - go out and have yourself a fantastic Saturday!

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World Donkey Day is the perfect time to get to know a true smart ass

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[SIGSTART]

Everyone knows donkeys are an ogre’s best friend!

[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It is Sunday, 9 May 2021
(W18 | D129 | 236 rem)

Today is: Lost Sock Memorial Day

There are few mysteries in life that are as perplexing as the mystery of the missing sock. No matter how hard you try to keep pairs of socks together, invariably one of them ventures out into the netherworld never to be found again.

Lost Sock Memorial Day. It is time to say “good-bye” to all of the single socks, the ones where their mates have been lost to the unknown. Where do all the missing socks go? Is there a washing machine heaven? This is a question people have been trying to solve for many years.

An answer may never be found to this problem, and life will go on. How sad to have lost such a close-knit friend!

Of course inventors have attempted the prevention of such separation anxiety. Alas, if they had succeeded, mismatched socks wouldn’t be popular today. And, we wouldn’t be pausing to remember them every 9th of May.

Lost Sock Memorial Day is a day to honour all those disappeared socks.

Lost Sock Memorial Day reminds you that it’s time to move on. Let go of those lost socks. Clean out all of your left behind socks. Some ways to celebrate this unusual holiday include:

• making sock puppets
• turn them into dust rags
• chose to never wear matched socks again
• turn them into chew toys for pets
• make wrist warmers
• make sock monkeys
• fill them with beans and use them for your corn hole game
• fill with rice and make a door stop
• open up both ends of a long sock and make a plastic bag holder
• Throw out all the single leftover socks
• Use the leftover socks as cleaning cloths
• Have a minute of silence for all the socks you have lost

What are some creative ways to use old socks? Share your ideas and say your final goodbyes to your lost socks.

Try not to get lost yourself today, call your mom to wish her happy Mother’s Day if you can, and have a wonderful Sunday!

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*Today is also *

Mother’s Day

Celebrated on various dates around the world, but traditionally, by a majority of countries that do observe the day, on the second Sunday of May.

Mother’s Day is a celebration honouring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in the months of March or May.

The modern holiday began in the US at the initiative of Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century, who organized the first Mother’s Day service of worship and celebration at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, which serves as the International Mother’s Day Shrine today.

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[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It is Monday, 10 May 2021
(W19 | D130 | 235 rem)

Today is: Mother Ocean Day

Today is the day to pay homage to our planet’s 5 oceans, and a time to respect this vital and wonderous force of nature.

For many of us, the sea is a mysterious entity and it is hard to deny the allure of the deep unknown. It is the setting of the incredible documentaries that we watch on TV, and discoveries we believe that only the likes of David Attenborough truly understand. For others, the ocean holds fond memories of warm summer days and holidays away, and the seas set the scene of our favourite pirate and mermaid tales, that many of us enjoyed as children.

Mother Ocean Day is relatively a new celebration, as it was introduced for the first time in 2013. It is a concept thought up by the South Florida Kayak Fishing Club that has since sought the approval of the City of Miami to declare this a day official.

The point, of course, is to take a day to celebrate the beauty and wonder of the ocean, and it is no surprise that inhabitants of Florida were the ones to come forward with this idea, as Florida is famous for particularly gorgeous white sand beaches and clear, aquamarine waters.

The ocean is not purely there for us to swim in and enjoy. It is critical for the survival of our plant, and it has been taken for granted for too long now! There are five oceans that make up our planet – the Antarctic or the Southern Ocean, as well as the Arctic, Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Did you know that these five oceans cover around 70 percent of the Earth?

Moreover, did you know that the ocean is responsible for producing more than half of the world’s oxygen? If that was not enough, it also absorbs 50 times more carbon dioxide when compared with our atmosphere.

The ocean is also responsible for helping with the regulation of the Earth’s climate, with the vast coverage of the ocean able to transport heat from the equator to the South and North poles. This will regulate the weather patterns as well as the climate.

And, of course, we cannot mention the ocean without speaking about the life that calls it home! This includes everything from the sea turtles in the Pacific to the manatees in the Atlantic ocean.

The ocean, however beautiful we remember or market it, unfortunately houses an ugly truth. It is no secret that for many years the seas have been continuously polluted with harmful chemicals as well as residential and industrial waste.

Even though the ocean covers more than 70% of our planet, the mindset of ‘out of sight out of mind’ has grown and has left our once clean oceans in extremely dire straits. Slowly but surely though, we have been opening our eyes to the damage that has been caused.

Throughout the past few years we have been educated on the effects of carbon emissions, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the vast amounts of non-biodegradable plastics invading the home of all aquatic creatures. These acts are having a devastating impact on the food chain from plants and the smallest of plankton right through to the largest animal on the planet, the blue whale.

The most shocking of revelations and the one causing many to act is the substantial growth of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Sadly, this is the biggest of the five major ‘garbage patches’ in the ocean.

The vortex of plastic particles has recently been exposed by scientists of the Ocean Cleanup Foundation to be 16 times larger than previously thought. An educated estimate of 80,000 tonnes of waste (around 1.8 trillion particles of all sizes) are floating in this area alone and researchers found that 99% of this waste was made of plastic.

The sheer size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is distressing: it is twice the size of Texas, up to 9 feet deep, and within it can be found more than 6 times more plastic than plankton, the main diet of sea animals.

Do your bit to help take care of our oceans, and have a good Monday!

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[DarthMol]

Take a journey into the Deep Blue…
…
…
…
…
…
.

The Deep Sea

[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It is Tuesday, 11 May 2021
(W19 | D131 | 234 rem)

Today is:

Eat What You Want Day

Observed annually on May 11th, Eat What You Want Day sets diets aside for a day of indulgence. It’s about having one day a year of eating with no regrets. Whether you love donuts or fast food, today is your day to gratify without feeling guilty.

Hotdogs, greasy hamburgers, french fries, potato chips, cake, cookies, sweets, and ice cream are just a few of the things you can enjoy today without remorse. Decadent food is definitely on the menu today.

However, the saying, “everything in moderation” applies to this holiday quite aptly. It’s a “don’t stress about your diet for one day” day, not an “eat everything in sight and then eat some more” day.

Many people spend time stressing over their diet, and what they should or shouldn’t eat, mainly because today’s world is filled with magazine covers sporting perfectly toned, perfectly tanned models that constantly make us feel inadequate.

The various health food fads that seem to come and go every few weeks definitely don’t help, either—as it turns out, a gluten-free diet is not particularly good for anyone who isn’t actually allergic to gluten, juice cleanses deprive us of the protein and fat our bodies need to function properly, and taking too many vitamin supplements just makes our urine expensive when our bodies flush the excess.

Eat What You Want Day was created by Thomas and Ruth Roy to help people break away from the frustrating health and diet trends of our times, if for only one day, and just let go and enjoy life a little.

Most nutritionists seem to agree that giving yourself a break every now and again can actually be good for us, and that forcing ourselves to eat only low-calorie, tasteless foods for prolonged periods of time is likely to cause us to suddenly gorge on everything in sight when our determination wears off.

There are a number of different ways you can make this day fun! Why not switch the typical meals around? You can have dinner for breakfast, and breakfast for dinner! After all, who doesn’t love tucking into Chinese leftovers the morning after? Or, if you want to have breakfast for dinner, why not put together a fluffy stack of pancakes with some maple syrup and bacon for dinner? After all, no rules apply on Eat What You Want Day, so you may as well switch things up a little bit!

If you have got children, why not allow them to be in charge for once? Most of the time, parents are in charge of what’s for dinner. If we weren’t, children would probably never see a vegetable in their life! But, for this one day, why don’t you let your children decide what’s on the menu? You may end up with a random concoction of delicious treats, but it will certainly be a lot of fun, and it will get them interested in cooking as well, which is always a good thing.

Another way to make Eat What You Want Day fun is to break your typical routine. For example, if you usually take a packed lunch to work, why not gather your colleagues and enjoy lunch together at a local restaurant? Of course, your children won’t be able to ditch their school lunches and dine out, but you can still make their packed lunches exciting. Look for fun ways to make their lunches, for example, you can cut their food up into different shapes and add some edible glitter to the mix to keep things exciting.

However you decide to enjoy the day, do it in moderation, do it safely, and have an awesome Tuesday!

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[Beo]

Quid pro quo, provided you can afford it.

[murfle]

So soon after no diet day…

[SIGSTART]

Yeah I feel like these extra cheat days were instituted by people with very restrictive diets who were feeling the burn as the middle of the year approached

[DarthMol]

So every other day, just without the guilt

[aldyr]

I ate what i wanted to yesterday, am going to eat what i want now, and will probably do the same tomorrow.

I mean, shouldn’t this be the norm?

[Beo]

Well, I mean we wouldn’t be eating it if we didn’t want to, would we? WOULD WE?

[GregRedd]

Good morning!

It is Wednesday, 12 May 2021, my Dudes
(W19 | D132 | 233 rem)

Today is: Limerick Day

There was a young fellow named Lear
Who invented Limericks, we hear,
so now we converse
in humorous verse
on Limerick Day every year

Limericks were named after the Irish city of Limerick, and although limericks were not in fact created by Edward Lear, it was he who popularised them, bringing the love of limericks to the masses. Limericks could potentially date back as far as 500 years, however it is currently unknown when the very first limerick was created, and whether it was created purposely or by a happy accident.

The distinctive sound of a limerick which uses a special metre and AABBA rhyming scheme are ideal for the creation of nonsense verses, which is why many limericks tend to have a childish or even obscene tone to them, ensuring that they pack a humorous punch. The best limericks tend to be both hilariously childish and somewhat obscene.

Limerick Day celebrates the birthday of famous English artist, illustrator, and much-loved author and poet, Edward Lear. This multifaceted artist was born on 12 May 1812 and lived a long and vibrant life, making a significant contribution to the art world.

Limerick Day occurs on the birthday of Edward Lear to celebrate the incredible works he created during his life, including his many whimsical limericks. However, he was also known for his prose and poetry, among other areas of the arts.

Lear is primarily famed for his literary artistry in poetry, prose, and fittingly as the day is named, limericks. Limerick Day focuses on celebrating limerick poems, which were popularized by Lear’s famous book of poems named ‘Book of Nonsense’ which was published in 1846, when he was 34-years-old.

Limerick Day offers the ideal opportunity to bring a little literary humour to your life through the art of limerick writing.

A limerick is a special type of poem that is short, packed full of humor, and is made up of ‘nonsense’; a limerick is meant to be funny. A limerick is made up of five lines. The first two of the five lines must rhyme with the fifth line, whilst the third and fourth lines of the limerick should rhyme together. Another unique feature regarding a limerick is that it should have a particular rhythm – this rhythm is described as being an ‘anapestic trimeter’.

Limericks are meant to be instantly recognisable from the rhythm that the verses create, limericks are carefully constructed to create humor and bring laughter.

Limerick Day is the ideal opportunity to encourage children to become more interested in poetry, as it brings humor and fun to a topic that many children can often find dull and boring and struggle to understand.

For anyone who is passionate about the written word and loves to spend time creating their own pieces of unique artistic works, Limerick Day is an ideal excuse to put pen to paper and create a number of new, humorous pieces of content, perfect for sharing with friends and family.

There was a old frog named Frude
Who used to shout “it’s Wednesday my dude!”
But then one terrible day
He forgot what to say
And everyone thought “oh, how rude!”

Drop your favourite limericks below, and have a seriously amazing Wednesday, my Dudes!

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[Beo]

There was a man from Capri
Who tried to pee over a tree,
He peed so high
He peed in his eye,
Now the poor bastard can’t see.

[DieGrootHammer]

There once was a gamer from MEW
Who just wanted to play some pew-pew
But his GPU went bust
And he started to cust
Cause he saw the price of those cards brand new.

[murfle]

There once was a man from Nantucket,
who wanted to write, then thought “F*** it”

[TechThief]

There was once a man that played warzone
Whose skills were quite well known
Getting kills for fun
Making his enemies run
Burning their eyes with chloroacetophenone

[TechThief]

A man stood in his own disappointment
His stupidity had no ointment
By the ring of a bike bell
His icecream did fell
Twas bad luck that had an appointment

[TechThief]

Windows XP Pro
Sure is mighty slow
Drivers are a pain
What year is it again?
This client needs an upgrade fo’ sho

[murfle]

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who once told a guy to go suck it,
The guy went down fast,
The man felt aghast,
And took off to go puke in a bucket.