~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
February 5, 2012

Posted updated: February 5, 2013

★~ Today’s Quote:  Weather forecast for tonight:  dark.  ~George Carlin

★~ Superbowl XLVI:

More Americans than ever will celebrate Super Bowl Sunday this weekend, spending a predicted $11 billion — more than ever before — according to a National Retail Federation survey. Nearly 173 million people will watch the Giants play the New England Patriots, the most in the survey’s eight-year history and up from an estimated 171 million last year. Of those, at least 5.1 million will buy a new TV specifically for the big day, compared to 4.5 million last year and 3.6 million in 2010.

The Super Bowl snack that is expected to trend upward this year is the chicken wing. The National Chicken Council predicts that more than 1.25 billion chicken wings will be consumed this weekend. That’s more than 100 million pounds of wings.

If they were laid end-to-end, they would circle the circumference of the Earth more than twice over. “With all due respect to what both San Francisco and New England bring to the table culinarily, the council is happy the Giants made it to the big game because those in New York and in the Mid-Atlantic region are 24 percent more likely than the national average to order chicken wings,” said National Chicken Association spokesman Tom Super.

There is even a chicken wing cupcake. A baker in New York took a cornbread cupcake, coated it with blue cheese frosting, and then put a chicken wing on top. If you’re not a fan of chicken wings, the company also offers cakes that look like pizzas.

If Super Bowl chicken wing cupcakes are not your idea of the perfect half-time snack, don’t worry — you can celebrate Nutella Day with the rest of the world.

★~ World Nutella Day:

In 2007, two American expat writers living in Italy, Sara Rosso and Michelle Fabio, had a dream that Nutella lovers worldwide would unite and eat Nutella for just one day. And so they made it official, declaring their love for the chocolate-hazelnut spread and the day a holiday.

Antoinette, El Morno’s saucy Aussie and Nutella lover,

would explain to you (in her gently precise teacher voice) that Nutella is more than just a “chocolaty hazelnut spread,” it is a way of life . . . a jar filled with the goodness of childhood memories.

Her eyes would glaze over as shared childhood memories of Nutella oozing over hot crepes, and spooning Nutella from the jar directly into her mouth.

Celebrate Nutella day by making some memories of your own. Spread it onto bread, pancakes, waffles, or crepes. Or after making sure nobody is looking, just spoon from jar to mouth

★~National Weathercaster Day:

For more wacky Weatherman click here

Created for eighteenth century weather observer John Jeffries, Weathercasters’ Day honors “men and women who collectively provide Americans with the best weather, water, and climate forecasts and warning services of any nation,” the National Weather Service advises us.

It may also help to raise the suffering self-esteem of weathercasters after Groundhog Day. Think about it, Punxsutawney Phi didn’t even spend all those years in college learning to become a meteorologist, and he is right about as often as the weathercasters.

The weather forecaster to whom most of Chicago turns to make sense of the weather is Tom Skilling. I am not a weather watcher, but I do read Tom’s reports on my Facebook page because he leads me easily through complicated graphs and maps to my seven-day forecast.

Happy Weathercasters’ Day, Tom!

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1861 – Samuel Goodale of Cincinnati, OH patented the moving picture peep show machine. One put in a coin and turned a crank on the side of the ornately decorated box and voila, a flickering movie appeared!

♥~ 1952 – New York adopted the first Walk/Don’t Walk automatic traffic signs.

♥~ 1961 – The Shirelles were winding up their first week at #1 on the music charts with Will You Love Me Tomorrow. The song was at the top for two weeks. It was the group’s first #1 tune and the first #1 tune from the pen of a New York Brill Building songwriter who worked right down the hall from Neil Sedaka. She became a huge star in her own right with several #1 singles and albums in the 1970s. Her name: Carole King.

♥~ 1971 – Apollo 14, the third U.S. manned Moon expedition, landed near Fra Mauro. Alan Shepard & Edward Mitchell walked on the Moon for four hours while Stuart A. Roosa took care of biz in the command module.

♥~ 2010 – New Zealand explorers reported finding  five crates of whisky and brandy belonging to polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. The crates had been buried for more than 100 years under the Antarctic ice.

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1744 – John Jeffries physician and one of America’s first weather forecasters: kept detailed records of weather conditions [1774-1816]; died Sep 16, 1819

♥~ 1944 – Al Kooper songwriter, singer, musician: guitar, keyboards: groups: The Royal Teens: Short Shorts; Blood, Sweat and Tears: You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,Spinning Wheel, And When I Die

♥~ 1948 – Barbara Hershey (Herzstein) actress: Hannah and Her Sisters, With Six You Get Eggroll, Beaches, The Right Stuff, The Natural, From Here to Eternity, The Monroes

♥~ 1961 – Tim Meadows actor: Saturday Night Live, The Cookout, Mean Girls, The Ladies Man, It’s Pat, Wayne’s World 2, Coneheads

♥~ 1967 – Chris Parnell, Actor-comedian (“Saturday Night Live”)

★~ Did You Know:

♥~ It’s Super Bowl 46 time!  Also known as Super Bowl XLVI, although for whatever reason most places have abandoned the “XLVI” and gone for the simpler “46″.

♥~ About 173 million people will watch the Super Bowl.  For context, 38 million viewers watched President Obama’s State of the Union address last week, and regular season NFL games averaged 17.5 million viewers.

♥~  Pizza Hut is predicting it will sell more than 2 million pies (or more than 16 million slices) on Sunday.

♥~ The average Super Bowl party will be attended by 17 people.

♥~ Eight million pounds of guacamole will be consumed Sunday.

♥~ 14,500 tons of chips will be wolfed down

♥~ The Super Bowl is the second largest food consumption day in the United States; Thanksgiving is the first

♥~ There is a 20%  increase in antacid sales the Monday after the SuperBowl

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I don’t usually watch football, but if they had thrown a football across a TV test pattern Joe, would have sat in front of it, and given a play by play commentary. He loved football and he loved the Super Bowl even more.   He made ribs every year for  “game day” and those little cocktail hotdogs on a tooth pick. We honor the “game day”  tradition with chips, guacamole and take-out ribs from our favorite barbecue place.  Cole is lobbying for five full slabs.  The boy loves ribs.  I have no idea which team we are cheering for. . .I will be watching the Budweiser commercials and the half time show wondering, “Why Madonna?”  when they could be show casing outstanding high school marching bands.

Do you watch the Super Bowl? What kind of snacks do you prepare? Leave a comment and share…Odd Loves Company. And if you don’t watch the Super Bowl you can share about your favorite weatherman!

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