Friday Snippets and Soundbites

It's time for a Friday the 13th edition of your favorite blog feature: Snippets and Soundbites! Can't get enough of the randomness? Check out the print version in the February issue of ec. (Hint: it's on page 38).

• As we already mentioned, today is Friday the 13th. Apparently a superstitious attitude toward the number 13 and the sixth day of the week (Friday) has existed since ancient times. So when the two happen to fall on the same day, the superstitious get antsy. Some people don't go to work, and few get married on that day. There's even a word for the morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th: paraskevidekatriaphobics, which is useful, if you can say it. Read all about the superstition (which we think is silly) here.

• In other completely non-superstitious news, you might want to know about the launch of volumMonster. The founders warn that it would be easier to simply think of the service as one more way to get digital music, but it's not. Sean Smith and Kelly Poe, the founders, say the Internet-based service is a way for fans and artists to interact. Smith, an independent artist himself, got the idea for volumMonster when he wanted to find a way to get music into the hands of his fans—for free—but also in a protected environment that would give him insight into who was listening and downloading. There are also social networking features at the site, which allow fans and artists more opportunities to interact. Learn more at www.volumMonster.com.

• The Utah woman who holds the Guinness world record for the longest fingernails recently lost her award-winning nails in a car accident. Lee Redmon of Salt Lake City, Utah, sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries in the accident. Redmon's nails hadn't been cut since 1979. According to the Guinness website, her nails measured a total of more than 28 feet long in 2008, with the longest nail on her right thumb at 2 feet, 11 inches. (Yes, the picture in the story kind of grosses us out, too.)