Courtesy MSN.com:

• Men who kiss their wives in the morning live five years longer than those who don’t.
• People are more likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing instead of the left (65 percent of people go to the right!)
• When it comes to doing the deed early in the relationship, 78 percent of women would decline an intimate rendezvous if they had not shaved their legs or underarms.
• Feminist women are more likely than other females to be in a romantic relationship.
• Two-thirds of people report that they fall in love with someone they’ve known for some time vs. someone that they just met.
• There’s a reason why office romances occur: The single biggest predictor of love is proximity.
• The women of the Tiwi tribe in the South Pacific are married at birth.
• The “Love Detector” service from Korean cell phone operator KTF uses technology that is supposed to analyze voice patterns to see if a lover is speaking honestly and with affection. Users later receive an analysis of the conversation delivered through text message that breaks down the amount of affection, surprise, concentration and honesty of the other speaker.
• Eleven percent of women have gone online and done research on a person they were dating or were about to meet, versus seven percent of men.
• Couples’ personalities converge over time to make partners more and more similar.
• Forty-three percent of women prefer their partners never sign “love” to a card unless they are ready for commitment.
• Philadelphia International Airport finished as the Number One best airport for making a love connection, according to an online survey.
• According to mathematical theory, we should date a dozen people before choosing a long-term partner; that provides the best chance that you’ll make a love match.
• A man’s beard grows fastest when he anticipates sex.
• When we get dumped, for a period of time we love the person who rejected us even more, says Dr. Helen Fisher of Rutgers University and author of Why We Love. The brain regions that lit up when we were in a happy union continue to be active.
• One in five long-term love relationships began with one or both partners being involved with others.

It’s hard enough to meet the right girl, let alone take things further along. Men’s Health did a survey of women and found the Top Five things that will turn a woman off quickly. Feel free to add more in the comments section.

• Less-than-fresh breath: 95%
• Excessive cologne: 86%
• Presence of a unibrow: 85%
• Nasty or long toenails: 84%
• Pit stains on a shirt: 83%

The National Post’s Rebecca Tucker recently presented a few trends that need to go:

A fashion-forward friend once quipped, “When I see someone wearing Crocs, I immediately know we have nothing in common,” so it comes as no surprise that news of Toronto’s first-ever Crocs emporium, set to open up on Toronto’s über-trendy Queen West stretch, doesn’t exactly have local fashionistas over the moon with excitement. But style snobs, take heed: This won’t be the first time a not-so-attractive piece of apparel has risen to inexplicably ubiquitous popularity, but has failed to withstand the test of time (as Crocs presumably — or hopefully — will). Here then is a roundup of recent, terrible trends that have since faded into oblivion — or your local Value Village.

Cargo pants
Thanks largely to baggy-clothing champions Limp Bizkit, Korn and their fellow rap-rockers, cargo pants were de rigeur in the late ’90s and early part of this decade. Characterized by pockets aplenty and enough slack in each pant leg to accommodate a second wearer, cargo pants remain practical for military personnel and those on safari, but since the advent of the skinny jean, they are no longer acceptable in the mainstream.

Modrobes
Toronto-based clothier Modrobes, with their rainbow-hued, wide-legged, raver-friendly polyester pants, rose to popularity around the same time as cargo pants. Like Crocs, their foray into fashion fame facilitated the opening of a Modrobes boutique on — you guessed it — Queen West. The store closed in 2006, and after a decade-long run, the Modrobes brand no longer exists anywhere but thrift-store clothing racks.

Frosted Tips
The popularity of this hair-colouring trend coincided with the rise and fall of studio-manufactured boy bands such as N*Sync and the Backstreet Boys. Sported largely by men, this hairstyle involved the meticulous spiking of one’s hair, either preceded by a bleach-blond dye-job mimicking overgrown roots, or the application of specialized, coloured “spiking gel” to the hair’s outermost inch.

Trucker Hats
Many thanks to Ashton Kutcher for this one. The trucker hat was popular for such a brief time — between 2001 and 2003 — that the sheer volume and variety available was nothing short of astounding. The mesh-backed, stiff-brimmed caps were most often worn by men, most often adorned with beer logos and were most often spotted at gatherings wherein other men were addressed as “guy.”

Fans of heavy metal music are gentle, creative people who are at ease with themselves, which makes them very similar to fans of classical music.

That’s the finding of a new study at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University of the link between peoples’ personalities and their choice of music.

Adrian North, the professor behind the study, said he was surprised at the similarities between fans of classical music and heavy metal, especially their creativity and generally shy natures.

“The general public has held a stereotype of heavy metal fans being suicidally depressed and of being a danger to themselves and society in general. But they are quite delicate things,” he said in an interview with the BBC.

North suggests that music lovers tend to identify with the characteristics of the music itself.

“We think, what we think the answer is, that both types of music, classical and heavy metal, both have something of the spiritual about them — they’re very dramatic — a lot happens.”

The study of more than 36,000 people from six different countries found that people had more in common with fans of their favourite music in other countries than they had with fellow citizens who preferred different styles of music.

North describes it as a new kind of tribalism, based on musical taste.

“We have always suspected a link between music taste and personality,” North said.

“This is the first time that we’ve been able to look at it in real detail. No one has ever done this on this scale before.”

Jazz fans tend to be creative and outgoing, with high self-esteem, in keeping with the innovative and sociable nature of the music.

Country western fans were found to be hard-working, but introverted, fitting with the blue-collar image of country music.

The research concluded soul music lovers are a well-rounded bunch — creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease with themselves and with high self-esteem.

Rap fans are outgoing and far from gentle, while indie music lovers lack both self-esteem and the work ethic.

“Researchers have been showing for decades that fans of rock and rap are rebellious, and that fans of opera are wealthy and well-educated,” North said.

He also made a link between income bracket and musical tastes, with more affluent consumers liking more exciting, punchy music while those lower down the pay scale preferring more relaxing sounds.

North said his research might have applications in commercial marketing of music.

If your idea of breakfast is more along the lines of a jelly donut and a Diet Coke or three, soon you can combine the two. Dr. Robert Bohannon, amolecular scientist who graduated from the Baylor College of Medicine, is the brains behind Encaff, an additive that inserts caffeine into everyday foods while hiding the bitter caffeine taste. Bohannon has already developed Buzzed Donuts and Buzzed Bagels and is working with companies to inject Encaff into gum, breakfast bars and smoothies. Food that has been Encaffienated will contain somewhere between 50 to 100 mg of caffeine, about the same amount as a cup of coffee.

In the battle between Facebook and MySpace, Facebook has finally surpassed Myspace for users. I’d given up on MySpace ages ago, though still check my account about once a month. I’ve put links for both my Facebook and MySpace below. Friend me! I love that my show has become a two-way connection and always enjoy interacting with you. You can get in touch a whole bunch of ways:

Phone during the show: 403-238-X929 (9929)

Leave a voicemail: 403-670-0210 x 1851

E-mail: josh@x929.ca

Social Networking: Facebook, MySpace (let’s be friends!)

Feel free to take a browse through the past years’ worth of blog archives, and make sure you bookmark my blog!!!

P.S. if you’re Facebooking, make sure you know my rules!!!

Deva Dave stopped in to explain the “frosted tips” on guys in Calgary phenomenon. Is it a conspiracy by Calgary hairdressers to make extra buck selling hair dying to dudes here, or is Calgary stuck in a fashion trend that peaked 15 years ago? Listen:

Deva Dave Audio

Yes, it’s true. They represent everything that is sh!tty about rock these days. Overwrought singing of lyrics written in the style of a 14-year old boy. Generic middle-of-the-road crap. This caller disagrees. Hear him out:

Nickleback is Great!

And, as a bonus, here’s something I did a few years ago at another radio station in Toronto. We took the banal lyrics of Nickleback, and made a short radio-play:

Nickleback Theatre

Calgary has a Panhandler epidemic. And it’s getting worse, because people are giving money to these people. DON’T GIVE MONEY TO PANHANDLERS! By doing so you become part of the problem, not the solution. Listen:

Stop Panhandling

• Dial-up Internet Access: Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.
• Movie Rental Stores: While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit
  City. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.
• Classified Ads: The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.
• Yellow Pages: This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like ReachLocal and Yodle. Factors like an acceleration of the print “fade rate” and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year — much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.
• Answering Machines: The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It’s logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.
• Cameras That Use Film: It doesn’t require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional’s choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market — only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.
• Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys: BowlingBalls.US claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts, and gambling casinos.
• Hand-Written Letters: In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world’s population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?
• Drive-in Theaters: During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there isn’t much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.
• Analog TV: According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% — or 13 million individuals — who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you’ll need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.

courtesy of Consumerist