1.)     What’s the best way to get a first date?    Certainly being friendly, fun and looking your best are important.    But, according to Match.com, having an iPhone helps as well.    In the dating site’s survey of some 5,000 non-married men and women, 49% of single iPhone users had at least one first date last year.    46% of Windows Phone users had first dates.    For Android users is was 44% and 42% of Blackberry users went on a first date in 2012.      Only 25% of old-school feature phone users had a first date last year, and among singles who don’t carry a phone at all, only 18%.

2.)     If you’re in the process of interviewing for a new job, use a low voice on your interview.     Duke University conducted a study of male CEOs at 792 companies and compared their salaries with the pitch of their voices.      The CEOs with deeper voices made more money than those with higher voices.      Consider that James Earl Jones has a voice at 85 hertz, while comedian Gilbert Gottfried is at 200 hertz.    The median CEO has a 125 hertz voice frequency, earning $3.7 million a year.     However, the average salary of a CEO’s with a deeper voice averaged about $187,000 more a year.

3.)     If you haven’t started your summer diet yet, you’re already 3 days behind.    This past Sunday was the day most women started their goal of shedding 11 pounds before summer.     A new poll has discovered that 82% of women aim to slim down to be bikini, or bathing suit prepared for this summer.     More than a quarter of these women use a celebrity bikini photo as motivation, with 15% decorating their frig with one of these pictures.     On the other hand, only 1 in 5 men plan to shed some weight before going to the pool or beach this summer.

1.)     If you're having trouble getting to sleep, the problem might not be in your head.    In fact, it might be in your feet.   Swiss researchers discovered when we’re on the cusp of falling asleep, our body redirects blood flow to our hands and feet.    When these extremities are warm, their blood vessels can dilate and allow for greater blood flow, which, of course, aids in the redistribution of blood and helps you get to sleep. So if you're having trouble nodding off, the solution could be as simple as throwing on a warm pair of socks.

2.)     The newest merit badge being offered to Girl Scout is meant to help encourage members to get interested in science and technology.    The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles have introduced a Game Design merit badge.      The chapter has partnered with the Women in Games International organization to create a curriculum for the patch.   Girls will be required to program their games as well as design them, using software called Gamestar Mechanic.    The Boy Scouts introduced a Game Design merit badge last month, but it doesn’t include the programming requirement.

3.)      US states have official flags and official flowers, but Oregon could become the first to have a state microbe.   Oregon's microbe of choice is better known as ale yeast.     The bill's sponsor hopes the measure will show appreciation for the $2.4 billion that craft-brewing brings to Oregon each year, according to Popular Science.   The bill has passed Orgeon's House unanimously and is headed to the Senate.    Passage is expected, since, according to NPR, Portland, Oregon has more brew houses than any city in the world.

1.)     If you ever need to do a background check on your date to make sure he or she is not a distant cousin, well, there's an app for that. Software engineers in Iceland have scraped publicly available genealogy data to create a mobile Android app which allows its users to bump their phones together to check if they are blood-related before making any traumatic mistake.    When a match is too close, the device will sound off an alarm, notifying the two users that they should probably just be friends.

2.)     Among the places you should never text – in court while you’re sitting in the jury box and the trial is going on.       An Oregon judge noticed an unexpected glow on a juror's chest while the courtroom lights were dimmed during video evidence in an armed-robbery trial.     The court was cleared, except for 26-year-old Benjamin Kohler, who had been doing the texting.    The judge held Kohler in contempt, and the jurist spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday in the county jail.   He was released Wednesday night.    An alternate juror took his place and the trial ended Thursday with the defendant found guilt.

3.)     Decades after women fought to participate in the workforce and higher education, a Vanderbilt University professor has noticed a strange counter trend: more and more female graduates of elite universities are dropping out of the workforce.     The research finds that 60 percent of female graduates from elite colleges are working full time compared to 68 percent of women from other schools.     Even though elite graduates are more likely to earn advanced degrees, marry at later ages and have higher expected earnings, they are still opting out of full-time work at much higher rates than other graduates, especially if they have children.

1.)     Today is Tax Freedom Day, the date on which Americans will have earned enough money to pay this year’s tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels.   We worked 5 days more in 2012 to pay all of our taxes, which add up to 29.4% of our income.     This year, Americans will pay more in taxes then we’ll spend on food, clothing and housing combined.     The good news for us is that Tax Freedom Day in South Carolina actually fell earlier this year.     April 3rd was Tax Freedom Day in the Palmetto State, the 4th earliest in the country.   

2.)     You’ve heard of ignition interlocks have proven effective in preventing intoxicated drivers from starting their car.     Now, a new system is aiming to do the same for cell-phone users who talk or text behind the wheel.    The system is called Origo, and it requires a driver to secure their phone — facing away from the driver — in a docking station before the car can start.     The phone can still connect to Bluetooth and use verbal commands, and it can be charged up while docked.    If a driver takes the phone out, an alarm is sounded until the phone is replaced.    The next time the driver tries to start the car, they will be unable to do so until an administrator resets the system.

3.)     The latest in political correctness is a bedroom word.    According to a report in the Washington Business Journal, the term “master bedroom” is no longer considered politically correct.    Some people think it implies a man, while others think it invokes its old slavery connotation.     So some home builders are referring to the biggest bedroom in the house as “Owner’s Suite,” “Owner’s Bedroom,” or, “Mastre Bedroom,” but spelling it m-a-s-t-r-e.   

1.)     It’s always better at the top – particularly if you’re the CEO.    According to the latest Executive Paywatch report, CEOs earn 345 times what the average worker takes home.    The AFL-CIO has taken the reported compensation for CEOs from 327 companies in the S&P 500 and compared them to the average employee pay for 2012.    The average worker makes less than $35,000 a year while the average CEO takes home more than $12.25 million.

2.)     One of the best things about eating sugary cereal is the milk left at the bottom of the bowl.     Now, a company is selling milk that tastes exactly like that.    “Cow Wow’s” cereal milk is getting ready to roll out nationwide.   Their first two flavors will taste like the milk leftover after a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles.     Look for new flavors designed to taste like Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch before the end of the year.    The milk comes in eight-and-a-half-ounce packages, and they have about 175 calories each.

3.)     If you’re a smoker, selling your house is more difficult.     According to a survey of real-estate agents by Pfizer, 56% of agents said that buyers are less likely to buy a house if the previous owners smoked in it . . . and 27% said that most of their buyers REFUSE to consider a house where someone smoked.     Plus, even if you’re able to sell your house, the smoke smell will drive down the price.    One in three agents say that a smoker’s house will sell for 10% to 19% less.  Another one in three thinks smoking lowers the price by 20% to 29%.