Happy St. Patrick’s Day! St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday named after St. Patrick and in a public holiday in Ireland, Newfoundland, Labrador and Montserrat. St. Patrick was sent to Ireland to Christianise the Irish. Some believed that he used the shamrock to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. He died on March 17, 461 after thirty years of service.

At first, St. Patrick’s Day color was blue. By the 17th Century the color had changed to green with ribbons and shamrocks being worn. A St. Patrick’s Day feast was held by the Irish starting in the ninth and tenth centuries and St. Patrick was being celebrated as the patron saint of Ireland. In the early 1600s, St. Patrick’s day was placed on the Catholic Church calender. It is a holy day of obligation for Roman Catholics in Ireland.

The Charybdis Fig Tree is a fig tree that is situated about the whirlpool monster Charybdis in Homer’s Odyssey. There is not much to explain why the fig tree is there, but it did save Odysseus from being sucked into the whirlpool monster. After Odysseus’s men at the Sun-God’s cattle, they were punished by their boat being ripped apart in a storm. Odysseus makes a raft, but the current drags the raft to Charybdis. Odysseus escapes by grabbing the overhanging fig tree branches.

Before there were fancy mbt shoes there were the original Keds! Keds shoes were introduced in 1916 by U.S. Rubber (later known as Uniroyal) and had canvas uppers with rubber soles. Keds are currently owned by Collective Brands. The original name for Keds was Peds (from the Latin meaning foot) but is was found that someone already owned the trademark. The were sold as “sneakers” due to the rubbers soles. In the 1960s and 1970s the brand added a range of casual shoes and athletic shoes called Pro-Keds which were specifically designed for basketball. Keds lost some popularity in the 1990s but sales surged again in the 2000s. Did you ever own a pair of Keds?

I think there are a lot of people out there that want to be on the television show The Biggest Loser. Well now you can, sort of. The Biggest Loser has opened two ranches in Malibu, California and Ivins, Utah. You can pay for one week at the ranch or more. You will pay $2,195 for one week in the Utah facility or $8,000 for two weeks for a private room. This may not be the fastest way to lose belly fat, but I bet it will get you into pretty good shape. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people in this country who would benefit from the program but will not be able to afford it. No wonder rich people are so thin!

The day after Thanksgiving has become the day for shopping deals from HDTVs to toys to clothing and jewelry, shoppers are hoping to find the best deal. How did this day originate?

The name Black Friday became associated with the day after Thanksgiving in Philadelphia in 1966. It was originally used to describe the heavy pedestrian and vehicle traffic on that day. It started to be used more broadly by 1975. Some say that it is the day that retailers finally get out of the red into the black.

Black Friday wasn’t the busiest shopping day until 2005. Heavy advertising and sales have boosted sales over the years.

Today is the anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The ship was a freighter that was first launched on June 8, 1958. It was one of the largest boats on the Great Lakes at 730 feet long and 75 feet wide. On November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald was sailing during a storm and sank in Canada waters on Lake Superior. It sank without any distress signals. Its entire crew of 29 perished and no bodies were ever recovered. When the boat was finally found, it was broken in two. The disaster was the subject of Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 hit song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.

You have probably not heard of the Tasmanian Tiger, because the species was officially listed as extinct in 1986. The Tasmanian Tiger is a large carnivorous marsupial native to Australian, New Guinea and Tasmania. The tiger averaged in length from three and one half and four and one half feet. The tale was about two feet long. It was about the size of a mid-sized dog and weighed between forty and seventy pounds.

It got the name Tiger due to the one to two dozen dark stripes on its hindquarters and back. Both the males and females have marsupial pouches, but only the female carried young.

The Tasmanian Tiger demise started with the introduction of the dingo and wild dogs to Australia. Plus, European settlement in areas of the Tiger’s hunting grounds caused the Tiger to be hunted and killed by settlers. By the 1920’s, sightings of the Tiger were rare. The last known wild Tiger was killed in 1930.

There are still reports of sightings of the Tasmanian Tiger in Tasmania, but these are rare.

Throughout history the tanned skin has been in and out of fashion. Remember Scarlett O’hara in Gone With The Wind? She did everything she could to avoid the sun – pale skin was the fashion. Today, there are mixed reports. Look at the Jersey Shore. Too much tan, I think. It is easy to tan now, you can head over to a tanning salon, or find cheap tanning lotions to do the trick. At one point, women used lead based cosmetics to give a tan look. Of course, this resulted in lead poisoning.

The 1940s saw the era of advertising that encouraged women to sun bathe. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize the full dangers of sun exposure at the time. Too much exposure to UVA and UVB rays from the sun can lead to skin cancer.

Medicare was first established in the United States in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson to provide health insurance coverage to seniors 65 and over. Harry S. Truman was the first enrollee. When prescription drug costs started skyrocketing, the Medicare part D plan was instituted. This plan helps subsidize prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries. It enacted in 2006. There were 27.6 million beneficiaries as of April 2010. At the end of 2008, $49.5 billion was reported as the total expenditures for the year. Projected net expenditures from 2009 through 2018 are estimated to be $727.3 billion.

I have voicemail now, but do you remember the old answering machines? The ones with the tiny tapes and sometimes broke or spilled out all over the place? Here are some answer messages that people recorded on their machines. Some are quite funny!

Roses are red, some willows weep, please leave your message, after the beep

“Hi, we aren’t in at the moment, if you are trying to sell us something please start speaking now and hang up at the beep, everyone else start speaking at the beep and hang up when you’ve finished.”

I’m not here, so say goodbye, or leave a message, and I’ll reply

“Hi, you have reached the Borg collective. Please leave your name and star system and we’ll assimilate you as soon as we can.”

“Hey guess who this is? You guessed it. Guess what you have to do now? you
guessed it. Guess what’s next? You guessed it…”

We might be in, we might be out, but leave a message and you might find out!
“Hello? …Hello? …Hellooo? I’m sorry, you’re gonna have to speak
up, I can’t hear you… That’s ‘cuz I’m not home! Leave a message.
BEEP.”

You are dazed, bewildered, trapped in a world with no time, where color collides with sound, and shadows explode. You see a sign up ahead. This is no ordinary answering device; this is “The Twilight Phone”

This call may be recorded or monitored for quality and training purposes. If you don’t wish this call to be monitored or recorded, then please let the answering machine know when you leave your message.

Hi. This is John:
If you are the phone company, I already sent the money.
If you are my parents, please send money.
If you are my financial aid institution, you didn’t lend me enough money.
If you are my friends, you owe me money.
If you are a female, don’t worry, I have plenty of money.

You can find more funny messages here.