August 29, 2014: I’m thinking More Herbs, Less Salt Day is a pretty recent holiday, developed as part of the low-salt fad that’s now making its way back out of common use. (Recent studies are showing that too little salt is even more dangerous than too much, and that humans should actually be consuming 2,000-3,000 milligrams of sodium per day — previous scare tactics demanded an intake of less than 1,500 milligrams per day.) Herbs are great, too, don’t get me wrong. But Mrs. Dash was never a good replacement for a sprinkling of good ol’ NaCl.

Today is also According to Hoyle Day, which marks the 1769 death of Edmond Hoyle. He wrote pamphlets laying out the rules of whist, chess, backgammon, and a few other games. I guess up until then, there were no written rules for some of these games? At any rate, his name lives on to this day, keeping us all in line and on the same page for card games. (I’ve never played whist myself, but I was a pinochle monster back in college.)