On Today’s Show
➢ A thief in California was caught on camera stealing hundreds of dollars worth of crabs from a seafood restaurant’s outdoor tank. (Here’s the owner, Giovanni DeGarimore.)
➢ An eighteen-year-old professional bowler named Anthony Neuer converted a 7-10 split during a match on Sunday, and the announcers went crazy. Listen to it, here. (It had been 30 years since another pro did it on live TV. Unfortunately, Anthony, also known as “The Ginger Assassin”, didn’t win the match.)
➢ A Food Network host named Molly Yeh recently introduced people to something called “popcorn salad,” and people online are making fun of it. It’s got some of the stuff you’d see in a normal salad, but the main ingredient is popcorn.
➢ Of all the things to come out of the pandemic, this one is probably the LEAST expected: “Family Matters” became HUGELY popular. And yes, this is the Steve Urkel sitcom from the ’90s.
It is up 392% from 2019 to 2020. As big as that number seems, it’s still dwarfed by “Friends”.
Nostalgic sitcoms have also been popular during the pandemic.
“The Bernie Mac Show” was up 71% . . . “Roseanne” was up by 70% . . . and “The Andy Griffith Show” was up 29%. And get this: “The Andy Griffith Show” was watched about half as much as “Friends”.
TODAY IS……………….
- “Scrabble Day”, honoring one of the world’s most popular games on the anniversary of the 1899 birth date of its inventor, Alfred Butts, a jobless architect who came up with the idea during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
– The game was just a fad with Butts’ friends until a Macy’s executive saw it being played at a resort in 1952 and the then-world’s largest department store soon began carrying it.
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COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE
Lonestar hit the top in Billboard for the first time with “No News” in 1996
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A Homeless Guy Posed as a USC Football Player for Several Days, and He Even Fielded Punts
A couple weeks ago, a homeless man was arrested after posing as a USC football player. He managed to fool everyone for “several days,” and he wasn’t hiding in the background.
He ate meals with the team . . . he shared a jacuzzi with some of the players . . . he threw on a helmet, jersey, and cleats in the locker room . . . and fielded punts during practice. (???)
The school says that access to the team’s practice facility is “very restricted,” but apparently this guy didn’t have a problem slipping in.
A “security source” says that the man “slept for some time at a suite in the Coliseum.” Which is wild because the stadium is a SEPARATE building than the practice facility where he was doing drills with the team.
He eventually got caught because he wasn’t great at fielding punts. He was so impressive at everything else that he might STILL be embedded with the team if he had Division 1-level football skills.
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FOUR RANDOM FACTS
A typical banana travels 4,000 miles (644km) before being eaten.
A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
Doctors in the 1700s prescribed ladybugs, taken internally, to cure measles.
The Titanic crew had no binoculars , which may have helped them see the iceberg. They were inside a locker and the key was lost.
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GOOD NEWS
Someone broke into a restaurant in Augusta, Georgia on Saturday and stole the register.
But instead of pressing charges, the owner wants to give him a job if he comes forward.
The owner’s name is Carl Wallace, and the restaurant is called Diablo’s Southwest Grill.
He got on Facebook and said, “No police, no questions. Let’s sit down and talk about how we could help you, and fix the road you’re on.”
(Here he is talking about it in an interview with the local news.)
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BIRTHDAYS
[71] Ron Perlman, actor (“Sons of Anarchy” 2008-14)/movie actor (“Hellboy” movies, “Beauty & The Beast”) COMING UP…”Nightmare Alley”, 2021
[51] Ricky Schroder, actor (“NYPD Blue” 1998-2001, “Silver Spoons” 1982-1997)
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WOMAN FINDS DOOR HIDDEN BEHIND MIRROR AFTER HAVING NIGHTMARE ABOUT IT
Having a dream come true isn’t always a positive thing. TikTok user @hippieloumom recently posted several videos detailing a bizarre discovery made at her mother’s salon. According to the videos, a blocked-up doorway was hidden behind one of the business’ mirrors, and the poster, named Miranda, claims her mother recently had a dream that there were dead bodies hidden behind the mirror. In multiple videos Miranda films the process of removing the mirror, breaking through the wall to find a blocked door, and breaking through the door to find another solid wall behind it. She also adds that the building is connected to a hotel that is supposedly haunted. Since he posted the original video, it’s gotten over ten million views. In one of the follow-up clips, Miranda explains that they probably won’t have answers anytime soon. They found what appears to be an old elevator shaft connected to the wall with a boarded-service window, and they won’t be able to cut further without doing major construction.
MAN LEFT RETCHING AFTER DIGGING UP ‘SECRET’ BOX IN HIS BACKYARD
Curiosity killed the cat. TikTok user @Tonyhuismanlp uploaded a video of him digging in his backyard with a spade, and discovering a heavy concrete box. The caption of the post says, “Found a secret box in the ground.” He says in the video, “I was doing some gardening in my backyard today and I uncovered some sort of crazy, secret concrete box in the ground.” He eventually details that he pulled the box out of the ground, and then shows him running away from the box as he retches and pulls up his shirt to cover his mouth, and says he found his home’s septic tank. The TikTok post has over 37,000 views. He reveals in a later post that he was actually looking for the septic tank, as he only found out about it after his pipes all backed up inside his home.
KENTUCKY HOME WITH CREEPY ‘OPTIONAL ROOM’ HITS THE MARKET
A home has gone for sale in Louisville, Kentucky that has some people raising an eyebrow. Photos show the secluded home looking pretty average, and it sits along a quiet backdrop that includes a tree-covered hill and a lake. But people have taken notice of an extra room in the two-bedroom, two-bathroom house that doesn’t really fit the floorplan. The questionable room is windowless and is connected to another windowless room via both a vaulted door and a barred door that looks like it belongs on a jail cell.
The room is listed as a “an additional bonus room that can be used as a craft room or office with a sofa room attached,” and notes it has concrete walls that provide “protection and lots of insulation from the elements.” Some on Facebook note the room could have originally been intended to be a bomb shelter or a storm shelter to be used in the event of a tornado.
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TUESDAY APRIL 13TH
- DET 3 – CAR 1 CHI 4 – CBJ 3 OT MTL 4 – TOR 2 OTT 4 – WPG 2
COL 4 – ARI 2 VGK 4 – LAK 2 ANA 4 – SJS 0
- A woman in Florida wasjust sentenced to 30 days in jail for intentionally coughing on a cancer patient at a Pier 1 store last year. (Here’s a clip from the video that went viral last June.)
- With all the recent attacks on Asian-Americans, a woman in New York offeredup $2,000 on Venmo to anyone who felt threatened and needed a cab ride home that they couldn’t afford. Then people online started donating to her cause. And in two days, she raised over $100,000.
- George Carlin on the common experiences we all share.
Here Are the Laziest Days of the Year . . . In 2020, Today Was Number One
Feel like just planting yourself on the couch today and never getting up? April 13th can have that effect on people.
A career website called Zippia just analyzed the LAZIEST days of the year from 2020 . . . and they found that last year, April 13th was number one.
Now . . . it was the day after Easter last year, so that probably had something to do with it. But still, if you feel like being lazy today, there’s precedent.
The rankings are based on how many people were searching for things like “no motivation to work” and “no desire to work.” And all of the top five laziest days last year were Mondays.
Number one was April 13th, the day after Easter . . . number two was July 6th, the Monday after 4th of July . . . number three was June 22nd, the Monday after Father’s Day . . . and numbers four and five were two random Mondays, June 8th and July 27th.
The laziest months of the year overall were August, October, September, July, and November.
The least lazy were March, February, January, December, and April.
(Here’s a chart of the laziest months and a chart of laziness by day.)
Luke Bryan’s Covid-19 Has Him “Scuttled” From Sunday’s ACMs
We were planning to see a lot of LUKE BRYAN this week, until he tested positive for COVID-19. As you probably know, he couldn’t do last night’s live episode of “American Idol”. (PAULA ABDUL took his place.)
Here’s what Luke Tweeted yesterday morning. “I’m sad to say I won’t be a part of tonight’s first live ‘American Idol’ show. I tested positive for COVID but I’m doing well and look forward to being back at it soon.”
A post on the “Idol” Twitter account said Luke is resting in quarantine at home and they wish him a speedy recovery.
It ALSO looks like he won’t be on Sunday’s ACMs. According to a couple of sources, his pre-taped appearance on the show has been “scuttled.” It’s not clear why a pre-taped appearance couldn’t air, though.
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LADY A’S HILLARY SCOTT TAPS INTO HER SASSY SIDE FOR NEW SINGLE
Lady A‘s Hillary Scott connects with her sassy side on the group’s new single, “Like A Lady.” Hillary co-wrote the song, and she tells us she easily taps into the fun attitude she projects on the record. [“The sass in the lyric of this song, I mean I can definitely be that. You can ask my husband (laughs), but for me, it’s honestly fun. It’s a fun departure. I love being able to kind of get in character a little bit with this song. When I think about what this song makes me feel, it makes me happy. I mean, I know it’s a little bit feisty and ‘attitudey’ but it’s that balance between feeling so strong and empowered, and at the same time not taking myself too seriously, which is a really fun place to be.”]
“Like A Lady” will be featured on Lady A’s upcoming project.
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CHRIS STAPLETON GRATEFUL FOR SILVER LINING OF PANDEMIC
Like most musicians and entertainers, Chris Stapleton is champing at the bit to get safely back on the road. Until then, he continues to enjoy the gift that Covid-19 gave him which is time to just be at home with his family and be a dad on a daily basis. Chris tells us: [“I have three children under the age of three and I have two older ones that are 12 and 10. When I go in to get the boys in the morning, and I open the door, they say ‘Daddy’ before I even open the door, and I’ve never really had that before. So, that’s kind of a neat thing for me to get to have that, so I’m thankful for that and I’m grateful for that. As much as I look forward to getting back out on the road, I’ll miss a little bit of that.”]
Chris is nominated for several awards at the ACM Awards, including Entertainer and Male Artist of the Year on Sunday (April 18th) on CBS.
