-
Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Dec 1, 2015
December 1, 2015
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
Holidaze:
WASHINGTON IRVING is best known for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow's" headless horseman, but the author also came up with the idea of Santa's flying sleigh. In "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon," an 1819 series of short stories, Irving recounted a dream where St. Nicholas flew across the sky in a wagon. His stories were so popular that they sparked a Christmas fervor in the United States and even England, so much so that CHARLES DICKENS reportedly was inspired by Irving when making his own holiday classic, "A Christmas Carol." (Kaye)
Holiday shopping:
If you didn't get all of your holiday shopping finished yesterday, we have handy trick you can use to save money while shopping online. Create an account with your favorite website, fill up your online shopping cart... then abandon it! It sounds crazy, and doesn't work for every website, but Rather-Be-Shopping.com says some of the big name retailers will email a coupon or discount code to encourage you to finish the purchase - usually within the week. That includes websites for Babies-R-Us/Toys-R-Us Bed Bath and Beyond, Dick's Sporting Goods and Macy's.
For a full list of retailers who might send you a discount for your abandoned shopping cart, click here. (Bartha)On, off and way-off-Broadway:
NBC's "The Wiz Live" airs Thursday night, and it's just been announced that the same production will head to Broadway in 2017. It's not exactly the same show from 1975. Playbill.com says HARVEY FIERSTEIN has spruced up the script a bit. Listen for STEPHANIE MILLS, the original Dorothy who is now playing Auntie Em, to make a few references to that fact along with some other inside jokes and backstory. No word on whether or not any of the NBC cast will transfer over to Broadway for the revival. (Marino)
Grace notes:
PSY dropped the video for the first single off his new album yesterday. The tune is called "Daddy," and the video is really disturbing. But, the song is very catchy so it could be a huge hit. It definitely will be in South Korea, where it's on Psy's seventh album, "Chiljip PSY-Da," which literally means "This Is Psy's Seventh Album" in Korean. Oh, and the first few seconds of the video have no sound, so you'll turn the volume way up before the tracks kicks in! (Marino)
Taking everything much too seriously:
A British town might rename its local train station after rap star KANYE WEST.
A group in the town of Canterbury West has filed a petition to rename it's local train depot Kanye West Station. So far, the petition at Change.org has nearly 15-hundred signatures. The petition calls for city officials to recognize Kanye as the "greatest human being of our time." So far neither Kanye nor the city of Canterbury West have commented on the request. (Still)Divorce may not be all bad news:
Feeling sorry for the poor, broken-hearted girl that's going through the big "D" in the cubie across the hall? You may want to save your pity for someone else! The NY Post reports a new survey by Bravo Media shows that 84 percent of divorcees will eventually view their split as a positive experience and 20 percent of the respondents say they would've never gotten hitched to their spouses if they knew what they know now at the altar.
Some 61 percent of brides are responsible for dissolving their marriage and both genders like to get freaky after the papers are served --40 percent of men and women say the best part of divorce is sex with a new person! (Lee) -
-