Today is the Summer Solstice for all you Northern Hemispherians. Since you have a bit more daylight to play with, go on and turn off your artificial lights and learn a little more about what this means:

• What is summer solstice?
• Which day is the longest day in a year?
• What is the date of the Summer Solstice 2010?
• If it’s June 21 in New York, is it June 21 in Australia?

By the way, the folks in the Southern hemisphere will have their day in December, the opposite end of the year. Meanwhile, hope you enjoyed the Winter Solstice down under!

And now to leave you with today’s quote:

“Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.” – Hal Borland

Have a great day!

The 2010 Winter Olympics are set to kick off in Vancouver this Friday, featuring 15 winter sports. While that sure is a bag of fun, are you aware of the weirdest Olympic sports of all time? Learn about it below. Oh, and be prepared – a bunch of them involve animals.

The 7 weirdest Olympic sports

1. Biathlon.

   Biathlon: Sounds like a contest to see how much biology you know. In general, it’s a sporting term for one event with two disciplines. In relation to the Olympics, it’s a winter sport combining-cross country skiing and… rifle shooting. Yeah… I’ll stay a safe distance away from that one.

2. Pigeon racing.

   Imagine a time when there was no Internet. No Super Bowl. Not even World Wars to look back on. That was the year 1900 – a year when pigeon racing was an Olympic sport.

   And, well, the only year that it was an Olympic sport.

3. Skeleton.

   Dare to believe in a whole new take on sledding. No, this is not the Rosebud from your childhood, folks. This is skeleton, a one-man face-down sled race on an ice track. I shudder to think why it’s called skeleton.

4. Skijoring.

   How much do you really trust your pet? Would you let Rover take the lead while attached to him with a rope… on skis? That’s skijoring, and it’s ski-aring the bejesus out of me. In the 1928 Winter Olympics it was a demonstration sport, using horses.

5. Curling.

   

   Curling, to me, sounds like it should mean something completely different – like some kind of salon Olympics. It’s anything but: the game involved two four-person teams sliding heavy stones towards a circle drawn at either end of an ice court. It originated in Scotland; somehow that makes sense.

6. Handball.

   You may be familiar with handball as a school recess favorite, but an older version of the game known as field handball did play a role as a sport in the 1936 Summer Olympics. It even had six teams contesting.

7. Korfball.

   Korfball is a version of netball played in outer space… Kidding! It is, however, a mixed-gender version of netball played in 57 countries. It was a demonstration sport in the 1920 and 1928 Olympic games. Each team consists of four men and four women… but no mixed duels! Keep it clean, kids.

Colts? Saints?

Unicorns? Leprechauns?

Whatever.

Yeah, that’s right – I’m a girl, so what? I join friends at Super Bowl parties and cheer along with the team I like better. And no, it’s not always dependant on the color of their uniforms.

As a girl, though, my favorite part of the Super Bowl isn’t the commercials. I happen to think you’re a sucker for spending 4,328,968 trillion dollars for 25 seconds of marketing. My favorite part of the Super Bowl isn’t sweaty men ramming each other, either. And I can take or leave the betting – swimming pool over office pool any day.

No, what I love… is the grub. You take the football, I’ll take the food-bowl.

First thing’s first: The chicken wings. Take a buncha wings, slather them with your favorite sauce and bake, deep fry or brown ‘em. Answers.com has a great recipe for the Buffalo wings variety, including a video for making the dip.

Once that’s out of the way, make sure you have the right crunchy snacks. It’s all about the chips: potato chips, tortilla chips, sour cream and onion potato chips, corn chips, rippled potato chips, pita chips, barbecue potato chips… and pretzels.

With the chips come the dips. Salsa, guacamole, cheese, mustard, sour cream, humus… Whatever your spread, make sure there is plenty of variety.

And what would a Super Bowl party be without the football-shaped cookies (with frosting laces)? Oh, c’mon, boys – a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

But, whether you’re a die-hard football fan or just along for the advertisements, check out the Super Bowl Q&A on WikiAnswers and make sure you have all your facts straight. Or at the very least, the colors of the uniforms.

What are your favorite Super Bowl snacks?

With more and more details coming out of Haiti after the massive earthquake there on Tuesday, it’s crystal clear how much the people of Haiti need the international community’s support and aid.

There are ways we can help even from far away; the following are some examples (thanks Chris Sacca) – and some more information.

• From within the US, text “HAITI” to “90999″ to donate $10 to the Red Cross (via your phone bill).
• Visit Yele.org (run by Wyclef Jean) to donate online or text “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele Haiti (via your phone bill).
• Partners in Health is another organization focusing on Haiti, seeking financial aid.
• To help rebuild the torn country, you might also want to donate to Architecture for Humanity.
• Learn: What caused the earthquake in Haiti on January 12 2010?
• Find out: How many people have been hurt or killed by the earthqake in Haiti on January 12 2010?
• Read up: What are some things you can do to help Haiti with disaster relief after the earthquake?

Our holiday poet Mike 2 is back in the Poetry Cafe by popular demand with this poem about the new year 2010.  It’s hard to believe we’re in a new decade already!  How time flies when you’re having fun wiki’ing.

[If you would like your original poetry profiled on this blog, please e-mail it to poetry @ wikianswers.com (no spaces) and include your WikiAnswers username!]

Happy New Year, by Mike 2

Happy new year, to one and all
Just seems like a moment, since the start of the Fall

09 has gone, now 10 is here
Let’s raise the roof, and have some cheer

A new year is a time of hope
Better things to come, and that’s no joke

May the new one for you, bring a better start
This wish comes to you, right from my heart

May two thousand and ten, be a be a year to remember
It won’t be long before its December

Break out the bubbly – it’s that time of year again.

It’s time to celebrate turning one year older and one year wiser (er, well, at least one year older). Let’s take some time to sit back and reflect on some of the most inspiring, outrageous, unfortunate and touching stories of 2009 through the eyes of Answers.com’s most curious contributors.

History was made as the first African American president of the United States was inaugurated into office. A record number of people watched President Barack Obama’s moment in person, as well as from their TV sets and computers around the world. But wouldn’t it have been even better to have been a fly on the White House wall that day? On second thought, maybe not…

Speaking of TV, the commercials of the year go to:

1. Corona, for casting a mysterious hot babe in their beach-front ad…
2. Geico, for vocals, animation and ingenuity…
3. HTC, for getting us pumped with song…

…combine ‘em all and you have a jamming pothole in a white bikini!

If you’re not on Facebook, that means two things. First of all, you are a freak of nature. Second, you missed playing the top three hottest apps on the site: Mafia Wars, YoVille and Farmville. Lucky for you, the WikiAnswers community can answer that question you’ve been dying to know: How do you get the purple sheep in Farmville?

While on the topic of animals, it would be wise to note that our little oinker friend, however cute and tasty, is being held responsible for one of the worst virus scares in history. When the World Health Organization raised the warning level for H1N1 to a shocking level 6 (global pandemic), everyone wanted to know how to avoid the Swine Flu.

Although sickness is avoidable, death, unfortunately, is not. This year saw many fallen stars, such as: gossip columnist James Brady, Charlie’s Angel Farrah Fawcett, Dirty Dancer Patrick Swayze, U.S. Senate powerhouse Ted Kennedy, ‘most trusted man’ Walter Cronkite, all-around actress Natasha Richardson, ‘philosopher of adolescence’ John Hughes and globally-recognized pop music legend Michael Jackson. RIP.

Those stars passed away, while other stars killed their own reputations. Kanye West ripped the mic out of Taylor Swift’s hands faster than Chris Brown could throw a punch at Rihanna. ‘Jon and Kate Plus Eight’ was renamed ‘Kate Plus Eight’ after Jon supposedly strayed from his wife. Tiger Woods was also outed as an 18-hole ‘Cheetah.’

But fret not! Many other rising celebrities have proven their worth to the public in 2009. Underdog Susan Boyle was, at one point this year, the most YouTubed person in the world. She ‘dreamed a dream’ – and so did Justin Bieber, a 15-year-old singing prodigy who became famous after posting his work online.

Another irresistible YouTube sensation included the ‘Forever’ wedding dance.

The Yankees also performed well this year and won the World Series for the 27th time. Baseball was a great distraction from the economic recession, which started with the crash of the stock market in 2008 and led to a global scare – and stimulus plan – in 2009.

Almost as scary was your grandma trying to figure out the conversion box for the TV to HDTV switch.

Why not just ask for the directions on Twitter? Any computer-literate person knows that information is just a twitter – I mean, a tweet – away.

Tweeting was one of the ways many learned about Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenburger’s safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River, after both engines had been struck by birds. He even sparked a new phrase… Way to ‘land it in the Hudson,’ Sully!

What would Oprah have to say about all this? You have about one more year to ask. To the disappointment of millions, she announces this year is the last season of her show.

Wipe those tears from your eyes and put on some 3D glasses. It’s time to go see Avatar! The 500 million dollar blockbuster is making history as the most expensive movie ever made. If the storyline of Avatar is a predecessor for the future, I’m all smiles. Who wouldn’t want to welcome in the New Year with an aesthetically-proportioned blue giant trying to save the universe?

Happy New Year, everyone! We hope 2010 proves to be another year of getting your questions answered… on Answers.com, of course.