NAME AT YOUR OWN RISK

...oh? I won't name it then. I'm not feeling ultra risky this morning.
It's Thursday. Here's a buncha shtuff....





YOUR DRINK OF CHOICE FOR THIRSTY THURSDAY...
A new Harris poll surveyed the country to rank America's most popular drinks. And the verdict is...BEER. 63% of us say we drink beer, "at least several times a year." Here's the full list...

#1.) Beer, 63%
#2.) Domestic wine, 54%
#3.) Vodka, 41%
#4.) Rum, 34%
#5.) Tequila, 28%
#6.) Imported wine, 28%
#7.) Foreign whiskey (Canadian, Irish), 20%
#8.) Champagne, 17%
#9.) Cordials and liqueurs, 17%
#10.) Bourbon, 15%
#11.) Gin, 14%
#12.) Scotch, 11%
#13.) Cognac, 8%
#14.) Brandy/Armagnac, 7%
#15.) Other, 6%

Here are a few more findings from the poll...
Men are most likely to drink beer. Women are most likely to drink domestic wine. No surprise there.

Three-quarters of men drink beer several times a year, versus half of women.

Two-thirds of women drink domestic wine several times a year, versus less than half of men.

Men are four times more likely to drink bourbon or scotch than women.

The most common drinking frequency in the country is at least once a week, at 29%. Next most is "I never drink" at 25%. At least once a month is third, at 20%. And...6% of people say they drink EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Men are more likely to drink daily than women, 7% to 3%.









LIKE VAMPIRES? GO TO MAINE!
A new website monitored 21 online dating sites to see what keywords different single people use in different parts of the country. For example, people in Houston want "rich entrepreneurs"...in Maine, they want "unmanly vampires."

The site's organization is pretty clunky, but it's still a pretty cool way to see the dating trends in your area and how they compare to the rest of the state and country. Check out the maps at http://perfect.lukedubois.com/









PHONE FROM POTTY...
When you're talking with someone on the phone, and suddenly it sounds a little more echo-y on their end, do you think...did they just go into the bathroom? Or when you suddenly hear flushing water?

In a new survey, 56% of Americans admitted to using their cell phones in the bathroom. And we say "admitted" because we STRONGLY suspect there are some people who lied.

Of the people who take their phones to the can, 70% make calls, 62% text, 20% listen to music, 19% check Facebook and Twitter...and 7% actually pull up something on their phone to read.

I can honestly say...I've been guilty of ALL of those at some point or another!








YOU SHOULD ALSO GO TO MAINE IF YOU WANT PEACE...
In a new study, a think tank called the Institute for Economics and Peace ranked all 50 U.S. states based on how peaceful they are. Which is a good thing or a bad thing, I guess...depending on your feelings toward hippies. (???)

The study was based on factors like homicide rates, the percentage of the population in jail, the availability of guns, the number of police officers, and the overall crime rate.

And the basic conclusion is...the Northeast is peaceful. HELL YEAH we are!! And the South is gonna kill you. Bastards.

Maine was named the most peaceful state in the country, and five of the top 10 most peaceful states are in New England.

The top 10 goes: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Washington.

Louisiana was named the least peaceful state, and it's joined in the bottom 10 by a LOT of other Southern states: At least six, and up to eight if you count Tennessee and Oklahoma as Southern states.

The bottom 10 goes: Louisiana, Tennessee, Nevada, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Maryland.

The good news in all of this is that according to the study, the U.S. on the whole has become significantly more peaceful over the past 15 years...mostly thanks to a big decrease in homicides and violent crimes.








MARRIED WOMEN ARE HAPPIER...
According to a new study, women might CONVINCE themselves that they're happy living with their mantoy and not getting married...but until they get a ring and a piece of paper that says "marriage certificate" on it, they're secretly depressed. Yep, they needed a study to figure that out.

Researchers at the University of Cologne (LOL?) in Germany studied more than 22,000 women around the world, and found that in every country, married women were ultimately happier than unmarried women who live with their guy.

And they believe married women are happier because ultimately, society STILL disapproves of unmarried couples who live together.

They did find that in countries where cohabitation is more popular, there's less of a happiness difference between married and unmarried women.

So places like England, Sweden, and the Netherlands had smaller happiness differences between married and cohabitating women than more traditional countries like Mexico, Brazil, Bulgaria...and the U.S.


BUT...

In theory, moving in together with your boyfriend or girlfriend for financial reasons is probably not the smartest move. But whatever. This is America. You can do what you want.

And if you are doing it for financial reasons, according to Mint.com, as a couple living together, you'll spend 41% MORE than a single person. But since you're both contributing, that means you'll both spend 30% less than if you lived apart.









WHICH CAR HAS THE WORST REPUTATION?
When you think of a Fiat, you may think of them as the crappy cars that are a plague all over Europe.

Well, the Fiat is back in the U.S. And we already hate it.

Very quietly this year, the 2012 Fiat 500 subcompact car went on sale in America. Chrysler owns Fiat, and they've been selling it.

And in a new study of the American car market, the car brand that got the lowest scores for reputation is...Fiat.

Apparently, we have long memories. Even though very few people knew Fiat was back in the U.S., we only associate the brand with its mediocre '70s fleet. In fact, the new Fiats are apparently pretty decent.

Other car brands that scored just better than Fiat are Suzuki, Smart Car, Dodge, Chrysler, Kia, and Jeep.

Volkswagen, Audi, Acura, BMW, and Lexus got the highest scores for having the best reputations.

Really? That's my only comment.










DAILY DUMBASS!!
It's been a minute since our last DD story!
Yeah...this burglar is going to end up dead one day. Because he clearly doesn't understand the downside of high risk, low reward crimes.

On Saturday morning, a man broke into the LION HOUSE at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. He used a ladder to cross the TIGER moat and broke into the tiger enclosure.

Luckily for him, there weren't any lions or tigers there at the time. They'd been moved out of the public areas and into a secure area for the night. But there was a CHANCE that there'd be lions and tigers there, which makes this insanely high risk.

And what did this guy steal? Some walkie-talkies and pepper spray. The value was estimated around $3,500...but that REALLY doesn't seem like a worthwhile prize for breaking into an area of the zoo that could've been filled with lions and tigers.

Police are still searching for the burglar.








HEY FB! EASIER PRIVACY SETTINGS?
According to a new study, almost none of us have ANY IDEA what we are and aren't making public on our Facebook profiles.

Researchers at Columbia University surveyed students...and 93% of them were publicly sharing something they thought was private. 84.6% were hiding something they wanted to share.

EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the survey fell into one or both of those categories. Which means ZERO PERCENT completely understood exactly what they were sharing and hiding on Facebook.

The researchers say the problem isn't with us...it's with Facebook. They make their privacy settings incredibly confusing, which makes it almost impossible to set your privacy the way you want it. I'm 99.9% sure mine is the way I want it? Perhaps I should check...

Which of course leads to the conclusion: DON'T TRUST FACEBOOK. If you have something you think should be private, it's best not to have it online at all.







NAKIE CELEBS:
ASHLEY TISDALE, BRIDGET MOYNAHAN, KERI HILSON and KALEY CUOCO get NAKED in the new issue of "Allure" magazine.

***SEE THE PICS HERE: http://www.facebook.com/robbiemackpage***

Ashley says she did it to let people know she's not a little Disney kid anymore "I'm 25, almost 26, but people think of me as much younger because I look young.

"Being in this shoot was me saying, 'I'm not just the young girl everybody thinks I am. I'm actually a woman.'"

I honestly thought she was like 21!

Kaley says, "I have not told my family about this, and I'll tell you why: Until they see the photos, they won't understand.

"When I told my mom about the shoot, I left out the part about taking my clothes off. I was way more excited than I ever thought I would be. Which made me realize, I'm more comfortable in my own skin than I thought."

AGAIN, PICS HERE: http://www.facebook.com/robbiemackpage







LUPE FIASCO IS BETTER THAN YOU...
In the upcoming issue of "XXL" magazine, which comes out in two weeks, LUPE FIASCO boasts about his lyrical prowess.

He says, "I can actually make the argument, seriously, that, Yo, I'm better than all y'all. You have people who can say that. Jay-Z can say that. Eminem can say that. Canibus can say that...if we are going line for line.

"If you want to relate me to the newer cats, let's go. Let's go line for line and bar for bar. If it's all about spitting and metaphors and MCing and lyrics and entendres, I will eat 99% of you dudes up."








MICHELLE IS IN!
ALYSON HANNIGAN has officially signed on for the latest "American Pie" sequel, "American Reunion". As the title implies, this one reunites the original cast. Or at least that's the plan.

Last we heard, JASON BIGGS, SEANN WILLIAM SCOTT and EUGENE LEVY had all signed on.

Deals are also in the works with Tara Reid, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Chris Klein, Mena Suvari and Stifler's Mom herself, Jennifer Coolidge.

It's not clear if any of them have officially signed on yet, or if any other cast members...like Eddie Kaye Thomas, Shannon Elizabeth or Natasha Lyonne...are returning.








SMASH THAT SUMBITCH!!!
Good to see that even in today's awful work climate, there are plenty of office workers who are still firmly devoted to beating the system. Literally. Beating the system.

According to a new survey, 13% of office workers say that if they really wanted their company to replace their old computer with a new one, they think the quickest way to make it happen would be...SMASHING their computer.

7% of people would try buying parts and upgrading their computer themselves.

4% would put in a request saying they needed a computer to be set up for a new co-worker, and hope no one realized it wasn't true.

And 20% said they'd take their computer to a store and trade it in for a new one...THEN tell their boss or the I.T. department about it.

Added up, that means almost HALF of workers think that the best way to get a new computer at work is by taking care of things on their own.

Only 37% of people said they'd go about things by the book...filing a request with their manager demonstrating why they need a new machine and how much it would improve their work.








THIS *SHOULD* PISS YOU OFF...
...wait, on second thought. NO, it shouldn't! I like seeing the oil companies coughing up some cash!
BP has paid more than $754 MILLION to state and city governments in the Gulf Coast region because of the oil spill. The money came with almost no strings attached...just that it had to be loosely tied to recovering from the spill.

And the governments that got the money REALLY took that whole "loosely tied to the recovery" thing seriously. Here are some of the things that they've purchased...

Biloxi, Mississippi bought 14 SUVs and pickup trucks, two boats, two dump trucks, and a backhoe loader.

A $35,000 2011 Chevy Tahoe went to the mayor of Biloxi so he could get to, quote, "countless meetings" about the oil spill.

Ocean Spring, Mississippi bought Tasers for all of their reserve police officers...it's not clear how that was related to the spill.

In one Florida county, which was kept anonymous, $14,000 went to the county commissioner's girlfriend so she could open up a PR firm to spread good news about the area.

The head of the Lafourche, Louisiana parish bought herself a top-of-the-line iPad because, "I must be in contact at all times." Her spokesman got a $3,165 Dell computer because work on the spill wore out his one-year-old computer.

Florida spent $560,000 on three concerts...Kenny Loggins, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the Doobie Brothers. They played on Okaloosa Island to show that the spill hadn't ruined tourism in the area. Or whatever. Let's hear "Danger Zone!"