On Today’s Show

➢ A hospital janitor is raising money for charity by asking coworkers to donate their spare change.

➢ Most of us don’t like spending any more time in hospital than we have to, but a Chinese man and his parents have been living in one for 6 years. In 2014, the man, with the last name Tian, was admitted to a Beijing hospital. He was supposed to spend a few days there after a medical procedure, but following a dispute regarding his medical bill, he refused to leave. He and his parents turned his hospital room into their own home, filling it with personal belongings and bringing in groceries. Despite several attempts to get them to leave, the three stayed put and lived there for 6 years. The weird saga finally came to an end last week, when the hospital squatters finally agreed to move out.

➢ This little boy is so bundled up for winter that he needs dad’s help adjusting a hard-to-reach article of clothing.

➢ If you thought the “Christmas star” was a big deal when it graced the sky in 2020, this past weekend through tonight Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn will be visible in the night sky at the same time.  NASA says, “[…] the planet Mercury will appear to pass first by Saturn and then by Jupiter as it shifts away from the horizon, visible each evening low in the west-southwest and setting before evening twilight ends.”. The last time this triple conjunction occurred was in October 2015. If you miss it the next time it will happen will be February 13th, 2021.

➢ Ralph Macchio was on “The Tonight Show” and said that during auditions for “The Karate Kid,” Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey Jr., and Nicolas Cage were also auditioning.

TODAY IS……………….

• “Hot Toddy Day”, saluting the traditional drink taken before retiring for the night, or in wet or cold weather. It’s typically a mixture of liquor and water with honey (or, in some recipes, sugar), herbs (such as tea) and spices, and served piping hot. Some believe it relieves the symptoms of cold and flu…or at least makes you forget them.

• “Consumer Electronics Show”, this year’s all-digital experience starts today in Las Vegas and runs through Thursday. CES has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for over 50 years. Some products that debuted or were announced at the CES include: The VCR (1970), Camcorder and Compact Disc Player (1981), HDTV (1998), PVR (1999), Tablets, Netbooks and Android Devices (2010), Connected TV and Smart Appliances (2011) and Consumer 3D Printers (2014) LINK: https://ces.tech/

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COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE

2009   Taylor Swift was at #1 on the US Country chart with her second studio album Fearless. The album topped the Billboard 200 chart for eleven non-consecutive weeks, thus setting various records, including the longest chart-topper by a female country artist. On Billboard’s Country albums chart the album logged a record 36 weeks at #1, with 3.2 million copies sold in 2009.

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RUBBING YOU THE WRONG WAY:
If that Amazonian frog poison “cleanse” that was making the rounds this week doesn’t appeal to you, how about a “snake massage” instead?

Masseuse Safwat Sedki is offering the service, which involves mixing oil with non-venomous snakes in 30-minute sessions at his spa in Cairo, Egypt. While he admits that snake massages aren’t for everyone, Sedki says they can work wonders for those suffering from pain.

He says using snakes to perform a massage, which has been popular in Asia for a long time and is becoming a thing in Brazil, Russia and even in the US, has physical and emotional benefits.

Physically, it can improve circulation and mental stimulation, and the emotional aim is to release “happy” endorphins to help people regain confidence and strengthen the immune system. How much for “snake therapy”? Only about $6.30 (US).

FOUR RANDOM FACTS

1. Hall and Oatesmet when they were both at a concert in Philadelphia . . . and a GANG fight broke out.  They hopped in the same elevator to get away from gunshots, found out they both went to Temple University, and they became friends.

2. Mosquitoes have killed more people than all of the wars in history combined . . . by infecting tens of billions of people with diseases.

3. Chris Farleywas originally set to star as the Amish bowler in “Kingpin”, but he couldn’t do it because he was contractually obligated to do “Black Sheep”.  So the role wound up going to Randy Quaid.

4. There’s about two pounds of chromosomal DNA in your body.

GOOD NEWS

A doctor in Michigan has been driving hundreds of miles in his own truck to deliver doses of the vaccine to hospitals in rural areas, so more people get vaccinated.

His name is Richard Bates, and he normally delivers babies.

He said he wants to make sure people know that a lot of other people are helping him make it happen.

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BIRTHDAYS

[75] Naomi Judd, country singer

[65] Phyllis Logan, actress (“Downton Abbey” 2010-15)

THIS WEEK IN SCIENCE

It’s time for “Nerd News,” covering the most important news for your brain you may have missed.  Here’s a quick rundown of this week in science . . .

1. A new study in Iceland found identical twins aren’t 100% identical.  On average, they have around five very small differences in their DNA that can affect things like how tall they end up as adults.

2. This would be great news if more research can back it up:  A new study out yesterday found most people who get the virus have immunity for at least eight months.  And it could last years.

3. A professor at Harvard thinks a weird, cigar-shaped object that passed by us in 2017 wasn’t an asteroid . . . and might have actually been an alien probe to spy on us.  It’s the first known object that’s entered our solar system from interstellar space.

4. Researchers can now tell if you’re listening to happy or sad musicjust by scanning your brain.

5. Today is “Earth’s Rotation Day” . . . the day a French physicist first showed how the planet rotates back in 1851.  And in case you missed it, atomic clock experts just said this week that the Earth now is rotating slightly fasterthan it used to.

Because of it, days aren’t quite 24 hours right now.  For example, Sunday was about a tenth-of-a-millisecond short.  And we might need to add a “negative leap second” at some point, so it doesn’t mess with satellites that rely on perfect timing.

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IF YOUR ENERGY IS NONEXISTENT THESE DAYS   

If you’re feeling tired all the time there could be many reasons why, and the pandemic could be having more of an impact than you might think.

One reason could be that you’re being more sedentary than usual. Dr. Sobia Khan explains, “The human body gets more tired with progressive sedentary habits due to generalized deconditioning of the body, and ultimately, muscle loss.” Basically, if you don’t exercise regularly, you’re going to feel more tired when you actually do start moving, and during the time when you’re not expending the energy as well.

You’ll feel better if you move more. The general physical activity recommendation is that you get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week, along with two or more days a week of muscle-strengthening activity.

NICE PROBLEM TO HAVE:
Tesla Inc chief Elon Musk, who has just surpassed Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person, is looking for good ideas on how to give his fortune away.

As of Friday, Musk’s fortune was estimated at more than $208 billion, and he is one of the ultra-rich who have signed Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s “Giving Pledge” to donate half his fortune. One of Musk’s first reactions to the news, after cheekily tweeting “Well, back to work…”, was to post that “critical feedback is always super appreciated, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (way harder than it seems).”

He was, of course, inundated with suggestions on how he could dispose of some of his wealth, including funding schools, arranging a monthly check to all Americans living in poverty, and a suggestion from someone with the Twitter handle “SADIST”, who wrote:

“I am a prince in kenya and i have unprocessed diamonds…send 100 thousand dollars for their refinement…you shall be repaid 45% of profit…I cannot run with your money I tweet here everyday”

MONDAY JANUARY 11^TH  

1. NFL….

Buffalo            27        Indianapolis     24

Tampa Bay      31        Washington     23

New Orleans   21        Chicago           9

LA Rams          30        Seattle             20

Baltimore        20        Tennessee       13

Cleveland        48        Pittsburgh        37

2. A couple in Illinois weren’t satisfiedwith take-out. So they turned the back of their van into a mini dining room.  When they want to go out to eat, they just park the van in front of a restaurant and open up the back.

3. Legendary Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda died of heart failure Thursday night.  He was 93.  Tommy was with the team for 71 years.  He managed from 1976 to 1996, winning two World Series titles.  (Here’s Tommy sayinghe wants the Dodgers schedule put on his gravestone.)

4. On a serious note, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, is comparing last week’s insurrection to Nazi Germany.  He said, quote, “The mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol. They shattered the ideas we took for granted . . . [and] trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.”

No winning ticket was sold for the $32 million jackpot in Friday night’s Lotto Max draw.

It means the jackpot for the next Lotto Max draw TOMORROW will grow to approximately $40 million.

A ticket holder in Ontario won Saturday night’s $8.7 million Lotto 649 jackpot.

The draw’s guaranteed $1 million prize also went to a lottery player in Ontario.

The jackpot for the next Lotto 649 draw WEDNESDAY will be approximately $5 million.

BROTHERS OSBORNE TAPPED ROAD BAND FOR LIVE FEEL ON LATEST ALBUM

Brothers Osborne switched things up with their latest album, Skeletons, by enlisting their road band to play on the project. Most Country artists use local studio musicians when recording a project, but as John Osborne tells us, their band helped them achieve the sound they were going for this time around. [“It worked best for us because it is TJ and I, we are the face of Brothers Osborne, but it’s also a band. We always treat it like a band. Our guys play on the road. We have a comraderie musically. Every time you get on stage and we start playing it’s like it just feels right, so there’s no reason to lose that. The second we got in the studio we put our headphones on and started playing. It felt like we were playing a live show, and the direction of this record was to match our live show as much we could so it was only fitting that we used the guys that played on the road.”] 

That live sound comes through on the duo’s latest single, “All Night,

CHRIS YOUNG SAYS KANE BROWN WAS FIRST CHOICE FOR ‘FAMOUS FRIENDS’

Chris Young says that Kane Brown was his first choice when it came to choosing a buddy to join him on his new single, “Famous Friends.” He explains: [“I think the biggest thing for me as far as why I asked Kane is because we are friends and it extends further than the ‘hey, you’re friends because you’re both in music together.’ Like, I love that dude, and it’s been great getting to know him over the years and he was the first person that popped in my head. I was like, ‘I wanna do this song, I wanna add somebody else to this. It’d be really cool if it was me and Kane,’ cause I’ve guested on his stuff before but I’ve never had him guest on something of mine, and then obviously now with it being a single is really, really cool.”] 

Chris co-wrote “Famous Friends” while at a headline tour stop in Tampa in 2018.

JAKE OWEN SHARES TEASER FROM HIS FIRST UPCOMING MOVIE

Jake Owen will be starring in the upcoming movie, Our Friend, and he shared a first look at his acting skills on his social media on Friday (Jan. 8th). He wrote in part, “I’ve never been in a ‘movie’ before so I won’t lie . . . sitting down in front of Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel, and Casey Affleck and acting like I knew what I was doing, was a bit of a challenge. I’ve always loved a good challenge . . .”

Our Friend is based on the true story of journalist Matthew Teague and his wife Nicole, whose good family friend, Dane, moves in to help Matthew take care of the couple’s family after Nicole is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Jake plays Aaron, a friend of the Teagues’ and Dane’s from college.

The move was shot in 2019 in Fairhope, AL where the Teagues lived during Nicole’s cancer battle. It’s due in theaters and on streaming services on Jan. 22nd.

Categorised in: Mornings

This post was written by Dave Palmer