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Viral 'day of the week' trick will make you a hit at parties — if you can remember 14 numbers

Bet you can't resist giving it a try.

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Every once in a while, when chatting with strangers at bars or working the room at a party, we'll run into an interesting person with a unique talent. They may be able to do a Rubiks Cube in just a few seconds, lick their elbow, or show off their double-jointed thumb. Silly icebreakers are an amazing tool to have in your back pocket when schmoozing with people you don't know well — especially if you're not naturally great at small talk — so I'm always fascinated when I come across a new one.

Sometimes, you'll meet someone who asks what your birthday is and then can immediately tell you what day of the week you were born. Judging by viral X posts and never-ending Reddit threads on the topic, people never cease to be astounded by this skill.

With holiday parties galore and New Years celebrations just around the corner, you too can learn this trick and wow your friends and family! You just need to be able to remember 14 numbers, and do a little bit of mental arithmetic.

Here's how to know exactly what day of the week any given date falls on.

calendar on computer Photo by Waldemar on Unsplash

There are a lot of different methods for this popular trick, but here's the basic approach according to Farmer's Almanac. Figures the farmers would have figured this one out first!

Let's say we want to know what day Christmas 2025 will be. We'll use December 25, 2025 as an example.

1. Take the last two digits of the year (2025 = 25)

2. Divide by four, discard any remainder, and add it to the original two digits (25/4 = 6, 6+25=31)

3. Add the day of the month (31+25=56)

4. Add the Month Key Number — this is where a little memorization comes in. Each month of the year has a corresponding value for the formula, with January and February having alternate values if it's a leap year. Don't panic, it's only 14 numbers to remember!


January = 1 (0 if leap)July = 0
February = 4 (3 if leap)August = 3
March = 4September = 6
April = 0
October = 1
May = 2November = 4
June = 5December = 6

So for December, we'll add 6 (56+6=62)

5. Modify your sum for the century. If you're looking for a date from 2000-2099, subtract 1 from your total here. Dates from 1900-1999 don't require any modification. 1800s get +2 and 1753-1799 gets +4. Weirdly, this trick doesn't work for dates before 1753.

Don't forget this step! For our example, 2025 gets a minus one. (62-1=61)

(When it comes to any dates in the year 3000... I wouldn't worry about it.)

6. Divide by 7 and determine the remainder. The remainder is your day of the week, with 0 being Saturday, 1 being Sunday, 2 being Monday and so on.

61/7 = 8 with a remainder of 5. 5 is Thursday, so our formula tells us that Christmas 2025 will fall on a Thursday.

Let's check the calendar for 2025 and see how we did:

Google Calendar

We nailed it! Christmas in 2025 will be on a Thursday, and it only took 6 steps to figure it out!

The shortform formula for reference is:

Day of the Week = The remainder of (2 year digits+(2 year digits/4)+Month Key+Day+Century Modifier) / 7

Admittedly, this will take a little practice to do in your head (especially after a glass or two of champagne.) But it will be worth the effort if you can master it.

People who can rattle these dates off without a second thought have probably put a lot of time into memorizing and practicing, or they just have exceptional brains.

There are only 14 possible calendars: one for a year beginning on each day of the week, and alternate versions for leap years. So with enough reps, you can definitely start to get the hang of this and get a feel for how the different calendars lay themselves out.

This is an especially cool trick and a good icebreaker because it comes with the added bonus of allowing you to get to know other people. You can ask about birthdays, anniversaries, or other special days in their lives and wow them with your mental math, afterward finding yourself in a great and genuine conversation.

That's the secret behind a good party trick, and why we all love them so much. Sure, some people do them for the attention, but the real ones learn little tricks and games to better connect with people in social situations. A surprising talent or skill is so much better at breaking down walls of polite but stiff conversation and getting you right to genuine, deeper interactions.

As an introvert, when I was younger I gravitated toward magic tricks and card tricks. Some of my favorites to this day are the dumb, easy ones that almost anyone can learn! Because at their core, they're just a fun way to break the ice and laugh with new people.

Give the day of the week trick a try at your next gathering and you'll soon find yourself in all kinds of fascinating discussions about great dates in history, what the future will be like, and important moments in people's lives. Plus, people will think you're a genius, which isn't a terrible side effect.

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In 1972, an Italian singer wrote a hit song with English-sounding gibberish and it's so trippy

Seriously, this might be the catchiest 2 minutes of utter nonsense ever recorded.

Le Pietre Rotolanti/YouTube, @HarrietMould/Twitter

Sometimes it seems like social media is too full of trolls and misinformation to justify its continued existence, but then something comes along that makes it all worth it.

Apparently, a song many of us have never heard of shot to the top of the charts in Italy in 1972 for the most intriguing reason. The song, written and performed by Adriano Celentano and is called "Prisencolinensinainciusol" which means...well, nothing. It's gibberish. In fact, the entire song is nonsense lyrics made to sound like English, and oddly, it does.

Occasionally, you can hear what sounds like a real word or phrase here and there—"eyes" and "color balls died" and "alright" a few times, for example—but it mostly just sounds like English without actually being English. It's like an auditory illusion and it does some super trippy things to your brain to listen to it.

Plus the video someone shared to go with it is fantastic. It's gone crazy viral because how could it not.

And if you thought that video was something, check out another one of the same song by the same singer. Why are there two videos? Who knows. But this is truly one of the most 1970s things that has ever happened.

Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusolwww.youtube.com

Wow, right?

In a 2012 interview on NPR's All Things Considered, Celentano explained how the silly pop song came about.

"Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did," he told Guy Raz, through interpreter Sim Smiley.

"So at a certain point, because I like American slang—which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian—I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate," he said. "And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything."

In fact, Celentano didn't even write down any lyrics for the song at first, but just improvised the sounds. And people didn't appear to care. "Prisencolinensinainciusol" reached number one on the charts not only in Italy, but also in France, Germany, and Belgium.

Celentano's ability to sound like he's singing in English without actually saying anything in English is pretty impressive. Especially when you hear him sing in Italian, like this:

Adriano Celentano - L'emozione non ha voce - Official Video (With Lyrics/Parole in descrizione)www.youtube.com

Languages are fun. And funky. And frustrating when you don't understand them. Celentano was purposefully making a point with "Prisencolinensinainciusol" to break down language barriers and inspire people to communicate more. Whether he succeeded in doing that or not, it sure is entertaining to see him try.


This article originally appeared on 12.1.20

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Bored guy spent his free time building a restaurant for the squirrels in his yard

It has a menu and everything!

James Vreeland/Instagram

Two for dinner?

One man from the Detroit area put his quarantine creativity to great use. James Vreeland used his newfound free time to, as he put it on Instagram, "get into the restaurant game."

He did that, of course, by building an entire tiny restaurant in his yard specifically for squirrels. It's hilarious and also weirdly very impressive.


It's an open-air concept with communal picnic-style tables and natural grass floors, which really brings a sense of connection to the earth and the source of the squirrel food. It's a brilliant design.

It's called Maison de Noix, or "The Nut House" in English, and it's the newest, hottest neighborhood spot that all the squirrels are chattering about. If they didn't have to social distance, there would be lines out on the sidewalk every day to get a table. It's very exclusive.

communal, neighborhood, creativity

A picnic style lay out for the squirrel restaurant.

James Vreeland/Instagram

It has a tiny coat rack with wire hangers for squirrel jackets and everything! And even though the restaurant is aimed at its squirrel patrons, it's open to all sorts of creatures. James said that the blue jays in the area are also loving the new place.

Not only did James build an innovative restaurant, but his menu is like nothing I've ever seen. It's so diverse, and yet, so streamlined. And don't worry; he's printed out the menu and stationed it at the front of the restaurant for those who might be interested.

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

menus, nuts, comedy, nut house

What’s on the menu?

James Vreeland/Instagram

So simple, yet so sophisticated, you know? A mixed seed trio! How intriguing. And you can't go wrong with stale bread or pizza crust. I appreciate that the chef leads with what he has on hand and fresh (I mean, stale) that day, instead of shoehorning out-of-season ingredients into a year-round menu.

Raw peanuts on the shell are a known squirrel favorite, and counter-softened apples, well, that's an application you don't see very often, mainly because they're so hard to get just right. But I have faith in the kitchen staff of Maison de Noix.

peanuts, Facebook Live, shaky cam, streaming

Business is nutty.

James Vreeland/Instagram

For a brand new restaurant that opened during a global pandemic, Maison de Noix is doing very well. It helps when you are the only restaurant that caters to squirrels in the whole United States. They really cornered the market.

He has even started doing Facebook Live videos that are just a live stream of the restaurant. You can tune in each day to see the animals stop by. At one point during the last live stream, James commented, "Sorry for the shaky cam — there is a bluejay sitting on the camera."

A time-lapse of the "brunch rush" can be found on his Instagram, and it's just delightful. This whole venture is just entirely lovely, and I thank James for his efforts. I hope things like squirrel restaurants don't go away once the pandemic ends. We need them now, and we'll need them then.


This article originally appeared on 4.5.20

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14 things that will remain fun no matter how old you get

Your inner child will thank you for doing at least one of these.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Swings can turn 80-year-olds into 8-year-olds in less that two seconds.




When we’re kids, fun comes so easily. You have coloring books and team sports and daily recess … so many opportunities to laugh, play and explore. As we get older, these activities get replaced by routine and responsibility (and yes, at times, survival). Adulthood, yuck.

Many of us want to have more fun, but making time for it still doesn’t come as easily as it did when we were kids—whether that’s because of guilt, a long list of other priorities or because we don’t feel it’s an age-appropriate thing to long for.

Luckily, we’ve come to realize that fun isn’t just a luxury of childhood, but really a vital aspect of living well—like reducing stress, balancing hormone levels and even improving relationships.

More and more people of all ages are letting their inner kids out to play, and the feelings are delightfully infectious.

You might be wanting to instill a little more childlike wonder into your own life, and not sure where to start. Never fear, the internet is here. Reddit user SetsunaSaigami asked people, “What always remains fun no matter how old you get?” People’s (surprisingly profound) answers were great reminders that no matter how complex our lives become, simple joy will always be important.

Here are 14 timeless pleasures to make you feel like a kid again:

1. Playing with dogs

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Doggos are basically furry children, so this one’s a no-brainer.

2. Legos

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The only thing NOT fun about Legos is stepping on one. Everything else is pure magic.

3. Popping bubble wrap

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With each satisfying “pop” sound, just imagine tiny bursts of dopamine flooding the brain.

4. Riding roller coasters

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While it’s true that riding roller coasters might become less physically possible with age, barring that limitation—you’re never too old to ride one.

5. Arcades

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Playing video games at home is cool, but there's a special thrill in seeing an arcade absolutely buzzing with different game sounds, colored lights and other people enjoying themselves.

6. Go-karts

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Because speeding in real life is irresponsible.

7. Pillow fights

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A quintessential sleepover activity that can easily be done with a roommate. Bonus points for surprise attacks.

8. Dinosaurs

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Whether in toy or nugget form, dinosaurs are a delight.

9. Dressing up for Halloween

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Halloween costumes can go from a fun form of playful expression in our younger years to a source of self-image issues in our teens and beyond (as so many things in life do). Hopefully though, dressing up for the spooky season can be a highlight on the calendar.

10. Water slides

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Roller coasters in liquid form!

11. Dolls

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We no longer have to hide our passion for toys under the serious moniker of “collecting.” Playing with dolls is a fun practice in storytelling and has even shown a very specific set of therapeutic benefits. Permission, granted!

12. Daydreaming

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Remember peacefully imagining made-up worlds while staring up at the clouds? Those were good times.

13. Swings

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Whether you are a traditionalist or prefer to go crazy and twist yourself up for some epic spins, a swing set is a perfect place to let your inner child out.

14. Taking sick days

via GIPHY

Everything is more fun when you do it during a time you technically should be somewhere else.


This article originally appeared on 9.7.22

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