1.)     How would you like to earn $3,500 for eating fast food for three monhs?    Among the places you can dine are McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut.     Participants must be non-smokers between 18 and 65, diabetes free, and at least 30 pounds over weight.   You’ll be asked to gain at least 5 percent of your starting weight during that 3 months.     Washington University in St. Louis is doing the study, so you’d need to live near the University to participate.      You can apply on-line …     https://vfh.wustl.edu/

2.)     Women who live in Washington, D.C., Boston and San Francisco have the highest levels of well-being in the United States.     Women in those cities earn more money, and have higher education levels.   That’s the findings of the study “Women’s Well-Being: Ranking America’s Top 25 Metro Areas, done by Measure of America.    Life expectancy, income and school enrollment and degrees were among the factors in the survey.     Minneapolis-St. Paul and New York rounded out the top 5.   The closest metro to the lowcountry on the list was Atlanta, at number 14.

3.)     35 percent of men are candle users, at least that’s according to research done by Yankee Candle company.    So now the Massachusetts company has launched a limited-edition collection of men’s candles available in four fragrances: Man Town, First Down, Riding Mower, and 2 X 4.     Man Town smells like a “man cave,” but not like an “old pizza and sweat man cave, but a modern one.  First Down, which smells leather, Riding Mover, like cut grass; and 2 by 4, which has a  sawdust scent.

1.)     If someone asked you what TV network you couldn’t do without, how would you answer?     According to a new survey, 51% of those asked said ABC was the must keep network, just beating out CBS, Fox and NBC, in that order.    CBS was tops among men, while ABC led with women, and overall.     AMC and PBS have been growing over the past few years in this survey, while premium channels like Starz, the Movie Channel and Cinemax are on the decline.    Nickelodeon and Fox News were also down from where they were in this survey last year.
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2.)     The gender gap in many areas of life continues to close in our country.   According to the FBI, the rate of female bank robbers has doubled in the last 10 years.    Sociologists say it’s because woman are more independent, and the bad economy.   Women are more likely to rob a bank out of need and desperation, not because it’s a thrill.    Plus, women are more likely to hand the teller a note demanding money and are less likely to use a weapon.    While that rate has doubled over the past decade, 9 out of 10 bank robbers are still men.

3.)      As the summer reading season is kicking off, Amazon dot com has announced its annual list of the most well read city in the United States.      Topping the overall list is Alexandria, Virginia, which was also tops when it came to romance reading, perhaps providing Virginia is for lovers.     Cambridge, Massachusetts was number 2, followed by Berkeley, California, which was the number one city for travel books.    Ann Arbor, Michigan and Boulder, Colorado rounded out the top 5.    The only South Carolina city in the top 20 was Columbia, at number 15.

1.)     Pick up your camera, or more likely your cell phone, and be a part of “Take A Picture Day.”    Everyone can participate in this project to help capture a day in the life of our planet.    All photographers, both amateur and professional, are encouraged to capture an image of their home, travel or work today.   Those images will be published on the internet, complied into a book, and then buried in a time capsule.    Then, upload your photos to www.aday.org.

2.)     If you want to make certain to get where you’re flying on time, travel on Hawaiian Airlines.    92.5 percent of their flights arrived on-time, the best percentage of any airline in the first quarter of this year.   Airtran Airways had the 2nd best arrival percentage with US Airways 3rd.    The 15 carriers used in collecting the data had an 84 percent on-time percentage, the highest mark since 2002.     On the other end of the data, the 3 airlines with the worst on-time arrival rates are Express Jet, Virgin America and United.

3.)     Texting and driving is a big issue these days.    Now, if you walk and text at the same time, it could cost you 85 dollars.   That’s the fine that’s being handed out by police in Fort Lee, New Jersey.    Fort Lee has approximately 35,000 residents and has had 3 fatal pedestrian-involved accidents since January 1st.      Officers began issuing pamphlets to violators during a grace period in March.  Since then, more than 117 tickets have been issued in the borough.

1.)     80% of the world’s painkillers are consumed by one nation - the Untied States of America.   That’s according to congressional testimony by the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.    The number of people taking painkillers in the U.S. has risen 600 percent in the past decade.    That adds up to each American having a supply of 64 Percocet or Vicodin.

2.)     The number of adults in the U.S. with a tattoo is growing.     Only 14% of people had a tattoo in 2003, but a new Harris Poll shows that number has grown to 21% today.    More people out west, one-in-four, have at least one tattoo, while the fewest tattoos are found in the south, with only 18% of adults having body ink.    Among people with a tattoo, 86% say that do not regret having gotten one.

3.)     Did you do anything impressive this past Friday?     James Peterson of Akron, Ohio believes that he did, setting the world record for longest consecutive time spent fist pumping.      The 34 year old began his quest at 11 Friday morning at the University of Akron, and kept pumping for the next 17 hours.     James claims that to make certain his first stay clenched, he super glued it shut.      The 17 hour marathon was recorded and the tape has been sent to the Guinness Book of World Records.

1.)     A 13 year old Connecticut girl believes she has found the cure for hiccups.   Mallory Kieyman claims she got the idea while trying to get rid of her own hiccups.    She ended up combining her 3 favorite cures, lollipops, apple cider vinegar and sugar, into a single cure, although she’s still tweaking the taste.    She has formed her own company  called Hiccupops, has applied for a patent, lined up financial backers and a team of business consultants to assist her, and has made herself CEO.         

2.)     What kind of people shop at Whole Foods?    Skinny ones.    A University of Washington research team has discovered that the skinniest people shop at Whole Foods where only 4% of the shoppers are obese.     The reason – it’s all about money -- or lack thereof. People who are poor and have less to spend on food try to get the biggest calorie bang for their food buck.    That means they not only shop at cheaper stores, but also buy less healthy food.

3.)     So how much change you got in your purse or pocket?   What about your piggy bank?    According to Coinstar, the coin cashing company, Americans have $7.7 billion is loose change lying around the house.    As many as 77 percent of people in the U.S. keep containers of coins at home.    The company says that 56% of people keep their change rather than spending it day to day.