On Today’s Show

➢ Police in Burlington shared photos of a vehicle that was pulled over and impounded when the driver was found to be sitting on a folding lawn chair. Officers pulled a car over Monday when something seemed off about the vehicle’s driver’s seat. A closer look revealed the driver’s seat of the car was missing and had been replaced with a folding lawn chair. Police said the vehicle was impounded and the driver was ticketed for unsafe vehicle operation and driving with an inoperative seat belt.

➢ A former college track star named Andrew Vos beat the world record for fastest mile while pushing a child in a stroller.  The previous record was five minutes, and he did it in 4 minutes 57 seconds.  He says he chose his youngest child to do it with, for obvious reasons.

➢An Australian man called Jake Gray, let a massive huntsman spider live in his house for a year. He shared the photos of his eight-legged roomie on Facebook.

As if it wasn’t creepy enough that he’d just been casually living with the arachnid, he announced he’d been ‘watching it grow’. He has been keeping an eye on the creature in his home in Cairns, in Queensland, where he’s watched it grow into what he calls a ‘mighty huntsman’.

Not only do they travel extremely quickly, they often ‘use a springing jump while running, and walk on walls and even on ceilings’.

➢ A 21-year-old man in Florida named Chris Nikic just became the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman race.  That’s a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and then a full marathon.  (The people talking in the clip are Chris and his father Nik.)

TODAY IS……………….

• “Roof Over Your Head Day”, an annual observance to draw attention to the plight of the homeless

• “Apple Pie Day”, (observed on May 13th and December 3rd) The first apple pie recipe printed was in England in 1381. The list of ingredients included good apples, good spices, figs, raisins, pears, saffron and cofyn, a type of pastry crust.

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COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE

Dolly Parton‘s “Here You Come Again” began a five-week run at Number One in 1977. 

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FOUR RANDOM FACTS

1. Most people pass gas 14 to 23 times every day.

2. Chevy Chaseplayed in a band in college with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen . . . and they went on to form Steely Dan.

3. South Africa has ELEVEN official languages:  But somehow, the motto on their coat of arms isn’t in ANY of those . . . it’s in a language called Khoisan.

4. Costco sells roughly one-eighth of all the blueberries in the world.

GOOD NEWS

Dogs don’t care about the borders between countries. A German shepherd named Diamond recently escaped from her family’s home in New Brunswick, and crossed the border into the U.S.

Paryse Michaud owns the Diamond and says her dad was watching the dog while she and her family were out of town.

The 17-month-old dog escaped through an open garage door and ran away. Michaud put out a plea for help on Facebook, and started getting reports from people saying they saw Diamond cross into Maine via the International Bridge in Fort Kent.

A family friend living in Maine was able to take custody of Diamond after she was tracked down inside a resident’s garage. Diamond’s family was then able to coordinate a hand-off at the U.S.-Canada border, and the dog was reunited with her family.

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BIRTHDAYS

[60] Julianne Moore, actress

[60] Daryl Hannah, actress

[52] Brendan Fraser, actor (“The Mummy” films, “Crash”) COMING UP… “No Sudden Move”

[41] Tiffany Haddish, actress

LAW & DISORDER

Three suspects have been arrested in connection with a huge robbery from a castle vault in the German city of Dresden last year.

Around 100 pieces of priceless treasure were stolen in November 2019 when thieves gained access to the Green Vault, one of the largest collections of masterpieces in Europe.

Authorities said they were searching for the missing treasures. The vault features an astounding collection of historical jewelry and precious ornaments – from bowls carved out of crystal and agate to jeweled gold figurines and goblets fashioned from gilded ostrich eggs.

A total of 1,638 police officers are involved in the operation.

There’s a guy named Randall Whited who worked for a Library in Austin, Texas.  And over the course of 12 years, he stole at least $1.3 MILLION worth of printer toner.

Between 2007 and 2019, he bought at least $1.5 million worth of toner for the library . . . which really only needed about $150,000 of toner.

He’d take most of the boxes of toner out with him and he told people he was taking them to other branches.  But he was really just taking them home to sell online.

Hel also used the library’s credit cards to buy himself at least $18,000 worth of electronics, including video games, a drone, and a Roomba.

The library FINALLY caught on after a city audit and an investigation, and he was arrested for theft.

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How Do You Christmas Light?

Edison’s Christmas lights were initially not Christmas lights, though.

Technically, they were New Year’s lights, strung up around his New Jersey laboratory on New Year’s Eve 1879, which just happened to be within view of a nearby railroad.

Its passengers marveled at the pretty lights, but the notoriously unsentimental Edison was just showing off, trying to win a bid to supply Manhattan with electricity.

It worked, but the public was still wary of electricity, so in 1882, Edward Hibberd Johnson, who was kind of Edison’s hype man, got the idea to put the string lights on a Christmas tree instead of the traditional candles and display it in a prominent window. 

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THURSDAY DECEMBER 3^RD  

1. The Pittsburgh Steelers held off a comeback from the Baltimore Ravens in yesterday afternoon’s game, winning 19 to 14.  The Steelers are 11 and 0, and remain undefeated. (Here’s Pittsburgh’s final touchdown. From “NFL: Ravens at Steelers” on Wednesday, December 2, 2020.)

2. Dolly Parton could sing a duet with whomever she wants, so who did she pick to sing with on last night’s “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” special?  Jimmy Fallon.  Here they are singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You”.  (From the “88th Annual Christmas in Rockefeller Center” on Wednesday, December 2, 2020)

3. A 77-year-old veteran in Michigan who survived polio as a kid has now beatenthe coronavirus twice.  He got it earlier this year, and then a second time while being treated at a V.A. hospital in Ann Arbor.  He says that if you get it, it’s important to stay positive.  (He also says that when they told him he might not make it, he said, “Get the hell away from me.”)

4. Here’s comedian Dennis Regan on how the three “R’s” in school don’t make any sense.

MONOLITH UPDATE……

A group of guys have taken credit for removing the monolith that was found in the desert in Utah last month.

A guy who saw them knock it down says they told him it’s what happens when people leave “trash” in the desert.  He also said it was obviously man-made and wasn’t left there by aliens.

MAREN MORRIS IS WRITING FROM ‘A MOTHER’S HEART’ THESE DAYS

Maren Morris recently released a new song and video called “Better Than We Found It.” She has called it a “protest song,” which she says comes from her new role as a mother to her infant son, Hayes.

Maren explains that this song is indicative of her mindset while writing songs these days. [“I’m happy that ‘Better Than We Found It’ was received with so much love because it was given with love. It wasn’t given as like a hand slap. It was literally saying, like pleading from like a mother’s heart now, ‘Please, can we leave this better, just a little bit better for our kids,’ so that’s kind of where my head’s been at in the writing space.”]

A portion of the proceeds from “Better Than We Found It” will be donated to the Black Women’s Health Imperative, the first nonprofit organization created by Black women to help protect and advance the health and wellness of Black women and girls.

JUSTIN MOORE POLITICS

Someone asked Justin Moore if it’s true that he’s thinking about running for office some day.  Here’s his answer.

JORDAN DAVIS HELPS TAG 17 FOOT SHARK

Jordan Davis recently assisted OCEARCH (pronounce o-search) on an expedition to Nova Scotia. Jordan was able to be on board the M/V OCEARCH to assist with the sampling and tagging of 17 foot, 3,500+ pound great white shark named Nukumi.

He said, “Growing up in Louisiana and being an avid outdoorsman, loving being on the water . . . a passion for the environment was instilled very early. I went to LSU, and I graduated in environmental science. My path led to music, and music is something that I’m extremely passionate about, but my love for the environment has never, never died out. When you see what OCEARCH does, and you see the people that are just as passionate about the ocean as maybe you would say I am about music. It was an easy connection.”

Categorised in: Mornings

This post was written by Dave Palmer