NATIONAL CAT DAY – NATIONAL OATMEAL DAY
These Are This Year’s Most Googled Halloween Costumes
Look, pretty much everything is crowd-sourced these days, so why not your Halloween costume? For the truly uninspired, seeking out this year’s most Googled Halloween costumes can do the trick when you need a quick fix. (Alternatively, if your goal is to stand out, you can find out which ideas to steer clear from.) The results may surprise you—or not, if you’re a Fortnite fan. According to Google, the video game is the number one most searched costume in a whopping 43 states. Accordingly, it leads the top 10 list below for the whole country, but there are a few interesting additions: “Pirate” is still going strong, for example, many years after Jack Sparrow has been on our screens; and would you know that “Rabbit” is a top contender, maybe because of its versatility? There’s cute rabbit (Ralphie in A Christmas Story), scary rabbit (Donnie Darko), and even a sexy rabbit option, as in Jessica.
Below are the top 10 most Googled costumes for the year overall, then the top searches for the mere seven states in which Fortnite did not dominate. Thankfully, no offensive costume is trending—yet. And remember that Vogue has you covered with couples costumes, singles costumes, celebrity costumes . . . there’s no excuse to just throw on a sheet and call yourself a ghost on Halloween night!
The top 10 most Googled costumes in the U.S.:
1.Fortnite
2.Spider-Man
3.Unicorn
4.Dinosaur
5.Witch
6.Harley Quinn
7.Superhero
8.Pirate
9.Rabbit
10.Princess
The top costume searches that weren’t Fortnite, by state:
Alaska:Mermaid
Arkansas:Dinosaur
Idaho:Unicorn
Oregon:Dinosaur
South Dakota:Spider-Man
Utah:Unicorn
Vermont:Monster
Link:https://www.vogue.com/article/most-googled-halloween-costumes
Are Happier People More Or Less Social?
Yep: When he lived there, Johnny Carson's beachfront Malibu home -- now on the market for more than $81 million -- had only one bedroom. His.
Clearly he liked his privacy, and definitely didn't like guests or family staying with him. (They could stay across the street at a guesthouse.)
Does that seem odd? Maybe not.
Plenty of studies show that people who socialize more tend to be happier. At face value, that makes sense: Relationships, friendships, spending time with people we enjoy -- all of that makes us happier.
But that's not true if you're highly intelligent. If that's the case, socializing with friends will not increase your level of satisfaction with your life.
Let's take a step back. Researchers followed people between 18 and 28 years old. They found the more most of the people socialized, the happier they were -- but not the subset of people studied who were highly intelligent.
The more they socialized, the less happy they were.
The researchers offered several explanations. One was evolutionary in nature: Greater intelligence lets smart people more easily adapt to a modern world where close contact with a social group -- for food, shelter, protection, etc. -- is no longer as necessary.
Link:
When, How and Why To Give Your Kid A Credit Card
It’s pretty common for parents to let their kids borrow their credit or debit card to buy something online, more than half of Americans with kids under 18 have done it, according to new research from CompareCards.com. And close to half of them (48%) say they regret letting them use it.
But moms and dads aren’t just handing over their plastic; their giving them cards of their own, too. Almost one in five (18%) parents of kids between eight and 14 say their child has a credit card, according to research from T. Rowe Price. And parents have good reasons for doing it, from making it easier for their kids to buy stuff when they’re apart to helping teach them financial responsibility. But before you fork over your credit card to your kid, consider these things.
- How old and mature is your child? - Just because other parents are doing it doesn’t mean you have to or should. Matt Schulz of CompareCards.com suggests the later teen years may be the most appropriate time to give your kid a credit card, but it really depends on how mature and responsible yours is. So know your kid and set expectations accordingly.
- Set spending limits - Talk about what acceptable spending is before they get the card so everyone has the same expectations, and discuss what the consequences are if they don’t follow the rules.
- Explain the pros and cons of credit - Make sure your kids and teens understand the risks and rewards of spending on credit cards. Talk about interest, late payments and credit scores and why they’re important.
Schulz advises talking to kids about money early on and giving them some responsibility as well. “Let them buy something with their own money knowing they’ll wish later that they hadn’t,” he advises. “These things give kids the chance to make mistakes when the stakes are low, so they’ll be more comfortable making smart decisions when they’re older and there’s more on the line.” Well, we can hope anyway.
Source: Moneyish
Study: Breathing through your nose boosts memory
While it's already been proven that smells are strongly linked to memory -- like the way a certain scent can take you back to a time or place.
But a new experiment suggests that breathing through your nose while learning something can actually boost your memory, because it helps information track more directly to the brain's storage system.
Study author Professor Artin Arshamian, of Sweden's Karolinska Institute, notes, "Memories pass through three main stages in their development -- encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. Breathing through the nose compared to the mouth during consolidation enhances recognition memory."
Smelling something triggers the olfactory bulb, which process scents -- but the olfactory bulb is connected to the brain's hippocampus -- which helps transfer sense and memory information.
Breathing through your mouth shortcuts that path. "This demonstrates, first, that nasal respiration is important during the critical period where memories are reactivated and strengthened," the professor concluded.
There’s A Petition To Change The Day We Celebrate Halloween
While Halloween celebrations seem to last for days, the holiday itself has and always will be on October 31st, right? Well, not if some folks have a say in it.
Believe it or not, a group calling itself the Halloween & Costume Association has started a Change.org petition to change the date of Halloween from October 31st to the last Saturday in October, arguing it would make for a “Safer, Longer, Stress-Free Celebration!”
“Why cram it into 2 rushed evening weekday hours when it deserves a full day!?!” the group argues, noting that Halloween itself can be dangerous because parents don’t usually take proper precautions and most parents don’t accompany their kids trick or treating.
And it turns out a lot of people agree. The petition so far attracting over 24,000 of the 25,000 signatures needed. “It makes more sense to have it always on a Saturday so that we don’t have to worry about getting the kids home and in bed early for school the next day,” one woman commented. “Also, for most people, they wouldn’t have to worry about working that day or the day following.”
- Of course there are plenty of people are opposed to it, calling out the petition as being motivated by money. “This is ridiculous. People already celebrate the weekend before regardless of what day of the week it falls on. You clearly do not know the origins of Halloween,” one writes, while another adds, “The ONLY reason they want the date changed is for money reasons. The more people trick or treat, the more costumes sold, the more money in their pocket! Get real!!”
Source: New York Post
First New Hershey's Kisses Holiday Flavor in 10 Years Is . . . Hot Cocoa
One of the latest trends it seem in the last few years is companies coming out with different flavors of their signature foods. We're not going to lie, we love most of them, and this one sounds REALLY good!
Hershey's Kisses just announced their first new holiday flavor in 10 years . . . since they created Candy Cane Kisses in 2008.
And the flavor is . . . Hot Cocoa. So how are those different than regular chocolate Hershey's Kisses? They have marshmallow cream swirled in.
They'll hit stores on November 1st because, you know, November 1st is the day when everyone feels like buying a bunch of candy.