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The Daily Dose/July 31, 2026
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
ALREADY WITH THE DRY, TECHNICAL MATTER: We enjoy research more than most, and we take the most enjoyable care to ensure everything you read here comes from Mount Sinai. Mistakes and inaccuracies are rare, but one came to light recently.
Get Out Your History Books: Longtime readers of this crap may – or they may not – recall we made a big deal several years ago about Lauren Daigle’s You Say spending 132 non-consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Christian Singles chart. We heralded it as the new record for most weeks at #1 on any Billboard chart, breaking the record of 110 weeks Switched On Bach by Wendy Carlos – then Walter Carlos – spent on top of the Classical Album chart from 1969-72.
Fly In The Ointment: We were wrong. Recently we found ourselves researching You Say for an item here and our source noted it’s 132 weeks at #1 was second to Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole of Hawaii, which spent 375 non-consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard’s World Digital Song Sales chart between 2010 and 2025.
More Dry, Technical Matter: The song spent the first 116 weeks of the chart’s existence at #1 and broke Carlos’ mark in March 2012, so Daigle never held the record. It spent its last week at #1 in November last year, and the chart was discontinued earlier this summer.
Go In Peace, Serve The Daily Dose: We were neither surprised nor not surprised we’d made a mistake. We’re human, and while we have superior research skills, we’re hardly an image on a stained glass window. We put every effort into determining the song with the most weeks at #1 on any Billboard chart, and we missed the mark.
The Bottom Line: Mistakes like this are the rarity and far from the rule here, and we’re not any happier about it than you are. We are comforted by the fact that even the legendary Casey Kasem made the occasional error on American Top 40. He was always gracious about it, too, even though off the air he may have issued beatings to the researcher at fault. We’re the entire staff here, though, and we are not going to beat ourselves.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow breaks in a new partner at the hospital. Today’s Diary.
Dylan may well be overqualified…He did a variety of things in the Chair Force, including security for nuclear weapons transport, and we strongly suspect that if you can ensure safe delivery of a nuke, you can probably handle unlock tour without too much difficulty.
———
Would you like 4Ever & Ever access to Gaylon’s crap?
Of course you would.
Click here. It’s only $24.99.
Click here for complimentary chapters of all of Gaylon’s books.
It’s easy reading on any device.
———
On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 1964 – Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up images of the Moon, images a full thousand times clearer than anything seen from Earth. The spacecraft sent back over 4,300 images, all taken during the last 17 minutes of its flight. The spacecraft had launched on July 28, and later crashed into the Moon. Its last picture was taken about 1,600 feet above the lunar surface, immediately before impact.
In 1954 – Joe Adcock of the Milwaukee Braves ties the major league (ML) record for most home runs in a game and establishes a new ML record for most total bases in a game in a 15-7 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Adcock had four home runs to tie the record done twice previously, and added a double for 18 total bases, breaking the record of 17 by Gil Hodges in 1950. The home run record has been tied many times since, and the total base record is now 19, by Shawn Green (2002) and Nick Kurtz (2025).
In 1982 – Jennifer Holliday is at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart – then known as the Hot Black Singles chart – for the second of four consecutive weeks with And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going. It was the first of eight Top 40 soul hits for Holliday and remains her only #1 song. The song also peaked at #22 on the Hot 100, at #32 in Great Britain, and earned her the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Holliday performed the song in the Broadway production Dreamgirls, a role which earned her the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1982.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end certainties.
Francis Bacon
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
The first song to spend 13 weeks at #1 on a Billboard pop chart was Goodnight Irene by Gordon Jenkins and the Weavers on Billboard’s Best Sellers in Stores chart in 1950.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
Who holds the major league record for most total bases in a game without hitting a home run? – Answer next time!
It’s Sparrow…An average man passing an average life.
Thursday, July 29
Back At GHSD
We worked with the new kid Dylan tonite at the General Hospital Security Department (GHSD), and it was his first shift on his own…When we got there (two hours before he did) we asked about him, and both Travis and Alisha gave him good marks, with Alisha noting – not for the first time – that he was overqualified, which was funny because this is not a tuff job to be overqualified for…Heck, if you have a pulse and can look good in a uniform, you’re already qualified, and if you can get thru the interview without drooling, you’re in…Anything else, like judgment and keeping your wits about you, is a bonus.
(It would turn out that Dylan may well be overqualified…He did a variety of things in the Chair Force, including security for nuclear weapons transport, and we strongly suspect that if you can ensure safe delivery of a nuke, you can probably handle unlock tour without too much difficulty.)
Dylan is older than he looks…He did ten years in the Air Force and was let go because of injuries…He has a 100% VA disability rating, and he has a wife who’s working to be an EMT/firefighter, and he has a 6-year-old daughter, too, which is almost interesting because he barely looks old enuff to vote.
We didn’t steal money tonite, but the nite wasn’t all that taxing, either…Right off the bat, at 2300 Wednesday nite (Thursday for Diary purposes) a Facilities evolution replacing something or other somewhere or other was conducted…It meant that badge access to doors would be shut off…Or maybe not…And that the sliding ER doors would be down…Or maybe not…There were other scenarios, too, which no one was entirely certain of, so most everyone in Facilities was here…As it was, the ER sliding doors, both of them, went down, but it was a simple matter to keep the interior ones open, and yours truly resolutely stood post, ready to help any and all patients, but the repair only took 15 minutes, there was no one to help, and I spent the time eating snacks in a wheelchair.
But that was it…There were no patient watches, but we got the lowdown on the one from last nite, the one Hunter had asked me to come work on the nite off we were working at the hotel, because it turns out Dylan hasn’t yet completed tactics training, so he can’t do a patient watch on his own.
The guy was crackers, quoting the Bible and preaching to his imaginary flock, all while trying to leave the room and generally presenting a non-compliant nature…It might’ve been almost interesting to deal with him and enter his confused world because while we’re heathens now, we had 13 years of Lutheran schooling and can probably still work our way around a Bible…But we’re not here to annoy or peeve people, so maybe it’s best we never saw him.
There were more bears tonite…Dylan and yours truly happened to be on a parking lot patrol at the same time, and we met in a front parking lot, with Dylan shining as big a flashlight as we’ve seen in the trees.
– There are two cubs up there…
We looked around, somewhat anxiously, because cubs generally have a mommy somewhere nearby…Dylan didn’t think so, tho.
– They look pretty big…I think they’ve broken away from mama.
So in addition to ensuring safe transport of nuclear weapons, he’s a qualified forest ranger, too…The fly in the ointment was the tree they were in was pretty close to one of our scan points…We discussed this, with Dylan noting the cubs were unlikely to jump out of the tree to attack us, and yours truly, after considering the matter for a bit, went and scanned the tag without incident.
A Good Session
Today’s tai chi class with Tim was wonderful…We got there early, and he was with some kids, so we walked around the basketball court a few times and got some solid deep breathing in…When we got back to Room 2, Tim had some Chinese music going and was sitting on a rubber ball meditating…So we joined him…Then yours truly did a reading from the Tao Te Ching, which we both found rewarding, so we discussed that for a while, and it turns out Tim has 26 years of sobriety, which we didn’t know, tho he thought we did…He started tai chi after drinking himself out of the Navy – never particularly easy to do – and he’s one of the few tai chi/Tao practitioners we’ve met with strong religious beliefs, which is known as a Higher Power in AA and other 12-step rooms…But we agreed all spiritual disciplines lead to the same place: a life lived from the inside out, where you trust your instincts as opposed to always reacting to outside influences.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log:
0930 Thursday until 1630 Thursday…7.0 hours for the day and 36.0 hours for the week…Regular readers of this crap the first is a strong figure, while the second is merely OK.
——-
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
The Diary of a Nobody was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
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Valued Reader(s) –
Your Daily Dose will return.
Please click here to read today’s entry in The Diary of a Nobody.
Campers, The Daily Dose will return.
Please click here to read today’s entry in The Diary of a Nobody.
Have a nice day,
Friends, The Daily Dose will return.
Click here to read today’s entry in The Diary of a Nobody.
Cheers,
The Daily Dose/July 27, 2026
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
GOD, I LOVE THE INTERNET: This site – call it America’s Digital Front Porch, if you must – has been down since Friday and none of us were breathing normally again until it was back up Sunday night. We first noticed the problem when at work early Friday morning, when we tried to post the daily miracle you’ve come to expect here, and this site wouldn’t load.
Here We Go Again: These aren’t the first problems we had, and we started the usual chat with our webhost, and soon enough it was elevated to Level 2 support. The dreaded ticket was generated and we waited.
Dry, Technical Matter: Initially, Level 2 support – again, hardly uncharted waters – wasn’t very helpful. They kept sending me a bunch of technical jargon we didn’t understand, and responses were taking an awfully long time, about twice as long as usual, and the problem was far from resolved when we left work Saturday morning
Fly In The Ointment: The problem continued into Saturday and wasn’t fixed when we went to work Saturday nite/Sunday morning, and it still wasn’t resolved when we left for home. In fact, our last response at 0230 Sunday still hadn’t been answered…Well, billions of people don’t read this crap, and we are loath to alter our personal routine, so we left the matter until we got back to work.
More Dry, Technical Matter: When we next visited our ticket, we had a message advising that assorted files in our account (we have several websites) had been infected with malware. We were told to remove them and provided a link to a blog that explained absolutely nothing whatsoever. We pleaded for help, and we’re told they could do it for us, but we have to open a new ticket and ask them to do it. We do, but before the new ticket is acknowledged, BOOM, we get a message saying that, like magic, no infected files were detected, and full access had been granted
Can You Shorthand The Rest Of This?: Except it wasn’t. We were told they’re doing another malware scan on it, and we went to bed Sunday morning with the site still down. We checked in Sunday evening after waking up and there was a message advising there was malware, but the company would be thrilled to take care of the matter if we would only open yet another GD effing ticket.
The Bottom Line: Longtime readers of this crap know outages happen occasionally, but this was the longest one ever, and we missed our daily chats as much as you did. How malware got into our website isn’t completely clear, though we will now make sure all aspects of every website we have will be kept updated because they said, shy of someone actually inserting them, out-of-date software was the likely culprit.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – There are two entries for you today, from Wednesday and Sunday. From Wednesday, Sparrow deals with a very pregnant woman.
She wasn’t saying the f-word every three seconds like that one lady a while back, but she was doubled over and groaning, and even a dolt like yours truly could tell that while the kid wasn’t waving at us, it was ready to drop…
———
Would you like 4Ever & Ever access to Gaylon’s crap?
Of course you would.
Click here. It’s only $24.99.
Click here for complimentary chapters of all of Gaylon’s books.
It’s easy reading on any device.
———
On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
Editor’s Note: Due to time constraints, these entries have previously run.
In 1789 – The first federal agency under the new US Constitution is formed when President George Washington signs legislation forming the Department of Foreign Affairs. The department would be renamed the State Department in September, with John Jay serving as interim secretary until Thomas Jefferson got around to taking office the following March. Today the US has diplomatic relations with 171 countries and roughly 75,000 employees.
In 1919 – Joe Wilhoit of the Wichita Jobbers of the Class-A Western League establishes a new professional baseball record for the longest hitting streak in a game in a 14- 1 win over the Tulsa Oilers. It was the 46th consecutive game with a hit for Wilhoit, breaking the record of 45 established by Jack Ness of the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League in 1915, and Wilhoit would eventually hit in 69 consecutive games, a record that still stands. Some sources say this was the 50th consecutive game with a hit for Wilhoit; however, three Wichita newspapers all have it as his 46th.
In 1940 – Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers are at #1 on Billboard’s National Best Selling Retail Records chart for the first of twelve consecutive weeks with I’ll Never Smile Again, the first #1 song on Billboard’s first-ever music chart. The record for most weeks at #1 on any Billboard chart is 373 weeks by Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole of Hawaii on the World Digital Song Sales chart from 2010-2025.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow.
Gene Cernan
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
The last human to walk on the Moon was Gene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, on December 14, 1972.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
What song broke I’ll Never Smile Again’s record with 13 weeks at #1? – Answer next time!
The Daily Dose/July 27, 2026
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
GOD, I LOVE THE INTERNET: This site – call it America’s Digital Front Porch, if you must – has been down since Friday and none of us were breathing normally again until it was back up Sunday night. We first noticed the problem when at work early Friday morning, when we tried to post the daily miracle you’ve come to expect here, and this site wouldn’t load.
Here We Go Again: These aren’t the first problems we had, and we started the usual chat with our webhost, and soon enough it was elevated to Level 2 support. The dreaded ticket was generated and we waited.
Dry, Technical Matter: Initially, Level 2 support – again, hardly uncharted waters – wasn’t very helpful. They kept sending me a bunch of technical jargon we didn’t understand, and responses were taking an awfully long time, about twice as long as usual, and the problem was far from resolved when we left work Saturday morning
Fly In The Ointment: The problem continued into Saturday and wasn’t fixed when we went to work Saturday nite/Sunday morning, and it still wasn’t resolved when we left for home. In fact, our last response at 0230 Sunday still hadn’t been answered…Well, billions of people don’t read this crap, and we are loath to alter our personal routine, so we left the matter until we got back to work.
More Dry, Technical Matter: When we next visited our ticket, we had a message advising that assorted files in our account (we have several websites) had been infected with malware. We were told to remove them and provided a link to a blog that explained absolutely nothing whatsoever. We pleaded for help, and we’re told they could do it for us, but we have to open a new ticket and ask them to do it. We do, but before the new ticket is acknowledged, BOOM, we get a message saying that, like magic, no infected files were detected, and full access had been granted
Can You Shorthand The Rest Of This?: Except it wasn’t. We were told they’re doing another malware scan on it, and we went to bed Sunday morning with the site still down. We checked in Sunday evening after waking up and there was a message advising there was malware, but the company would be thrilled to take care of the matter if we would only open yet another GD effing ticket.
The Bottom Line: Longtime readers of this crap know outages happen occasionally, but this was the longest one ever, and we missed our daily chats as much as you did. How malware got into our website isn’t completely clear, though we will now make sure all aspects of every website we have will be kept updated because they said, shy of someone actually inserting them, out-of-date software was the likely culprit.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – There are two entries for you today, from Wednesday and Sunday. From Wednesday, Sparrow deals with a very pregnant woman.
She wasn’t saying the f-word every three seconds like that one lady a while back, but she was doubled over and groaning, and even a dolt like yours truly could tell that while the kid wasn’t waving at us, it was ready to drop…
———
Would you like 4Ever & Ever access to Gaylon’s crap?
Of course you would.
Click here. It’s only $24.99.
Click here for complimentary chapters of all of Gaylon’s books.
It’s easy reading on any device.
———
On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
Editor’s Note: Due to time constraints, these entries have previously run.
In 1789 – The first federal agency under the new US Constitution is formed when President George Washington signs legislation forming the Department of Foreign Affairs. The department would be renamed the State Department in September, with John Jay serving as interim secretary until Thomas Jefferson got around to taking office the following March. Today the US has diplomatic relations with 171 countries and roughly 75,000 employees.
In 1919 – Joe Wilhoit of the Wichita Jobbers of the Class-A Western League establishes a new professional baseball record for the longest hitting streak in a game in a 14- 1 win over the Tulsa Oilers. It was the 46th consecutive game with a hit for Wilhoit, breaking the record of 45 established by Jack Ness of the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League in 1915, and Wilhoit would eventually hit in 69 consecutive games, a record that still stands. Some sources say this was the 50th consecutive game with a hit for Wilhoit; however, three Wichita newspapers all have it as his 46th.
In 1940 – Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra with Frank Sinatra and the Pied Pipers are at #1 on Billboard’s National Best Selling Retail Records chart for the first of twelve consecutive weeks with I’ll Never Smile Again, the first #1 song on Billboard’s first-ever music chart. The record for most weeks at #1 on any Billboard chart is 373 weeks by Somewhere Over The Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole of Hawaii on the World Digital Song Sales chart from 2010-2025.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow.
Gene Cernan
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
The last human to walk on the Moon was Gene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, on December 14, 1972.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
What song broke I’ll Never Smile Again’s record with 13 weeks at #1? – Answer next time!
