Every year on March 17, we celebrate Irish culture and observe the death of St. Patrick, who was the patron saint of Ireland. We imbibe Saint Patrick’s Day drinks of all varieties. We line the walls of our living rooms with green garlands and set up our leprechaun figurines on the coffee table. Our homes are showing Irish pride, but now what? There are many ways to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. Make Dinner Host a special Saint Patrick’s Day dinner, featuring a plethora of Irish food for your friends and family to enjoy. There are many traditional options you can explore. Corned beef and cabbage is a classic, and comes with many variations. Bangers and mash, or sausage and mashed potatoes, is also a crowd-pleasing classic. In addition to entrees, you could prepare Irish soda bread or purple cabbage and pecan salad as side dishes. If you have kids, you may want to explore some colorful ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. For example, festive green gelatin or pistachio cupcakes for dessert. If there are no kids involved, why not enjoy some festive Irish spirits? Start off your Saint Patrick’s Day with some Irish coffee by adding a shot of Irish cream into your cup of joe, or indulge in a specialty recipe for Irish coffees. Later in the day, you may feel like cracking open a Guinness or pouring a shot of Jameson. You can even bake with Guinness to give your meal a touch of Irish flavor. Go to a Parade Without a doubt, there is a St. Paddy’s Day parade near you. Take advantage of it. Grab a lawn chair or a blanket — or nothing if you prefer to stand — and wait along the road where floats and performers will make their way toward you. Music will waft through the air and trinkets will be thrown from floats for you to catch. Enjoy the breezy weather and bask in the energy from the crowd around you. Go to a Party Many Irish pubs have special offers on Saint Patrick’s Day. Most of the time, Irish food is involved and discounted. If for no other reason, go out for dinner so you don’t have to prepare it yourself! Most Irish pubs promise loud music, discounted Irish beer and whiskey, deals on meals, and dancing space in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Immerse Yourself in Irish Culture Cooking and finding local entertainment can be fun, but immersing yourself in the Irish culture will truly get you in the mood to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day. Start with turning up some Irish tunes. Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys are amazing Irish bands to start with. Then, learn some...

Finger monkeys, or pygmy marmosets, are all the rage now. People who like to have exotic pets want to adopt these little critters and keep them under their care, and this has caused a sudden explosion in their popularity. Like piranhas and pythons before them, finger monkeys are becoming increasingly easy to find in the cities and in people’s homes. Pygmy Marmoset Facts They are the smallest animals of the primate family. Marmosets are part of the five monkey family that form a part of the New World Monkey classification. They are native to the South American rain forests and live in the western Amazon basin. They are under no threat of extinction and are classified as animals of ‘Least Concern’ by the IUCN. Their lifespan is between 15 to 20 years. Their primary diet is tree gum. Families of marmosets have been known to strip trees dry of gum and moving on to other groups of trees, ousting families that already live there. They can be quite vicious when fighting over turf. They are, however, too small to hurt humans. They prefer living in groups and are known to be intelligent and speak differently among their peers. They grow to about 6 inches, around 127mm and weigh only about 3.5 ounces, 100 gm. Living in the forests, they can jump about 15 feet in the air, between branches.   Habitats The finger monkey is native to South America. They are found in the western part of the Amazon forest. They are found all over Bolivia, Peru, Columbia, and Western Brazil. They stick to the undercover of mature forests and live among the lower branches of trees. Their spread is limited only by the rivers that cut through the forests and are not known to be strong swimmers. Their main area of activity is between the ground and about 60 feet in the trees. Since they need water to survive, they are found around the areas that are able to sustain water during the dry months. So small ponds and lakes are where finger monkeys usually congregate around. Food habits Finger monkeys are avid hunters and are often seen hunting down insects and butterflies. Moths, beetles and such cretins make up a good part of its diet. While they do hunt, its main source of sustenance is tree sap. They love to suckle on sap to such an extent that they have found ways to make the job of extracting the sap also easy. They bite, scratch and peel back the bark of trees and eat the gum that oozes out. After doing this repeatedly, the trees develop scar tissues that resemble circular, pimple-like structures. By keeping these bumps...

Buckle up. This is one of the more technical videos you’ll find here on The Twist. And this probably isn’t a topic for everyone. But for those of you who are into creating dashboards with Microsoft Excel, we think you’ll find the video above quite intriguing and informative. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you: creating dashboards in Excel is no walk in the park. Even for power users of the software, creating dashboards isn’t easy by any stretch of the brain. So, if you’ve been on the hunt for information about how to create a dashboard, you’ve finally found the perfect set of videos. Start by watching the one above. Then go to this Youtube channel and watch the ten part dashboard design series. After you watch them all, you’ll be a bona fide expert. Crystal Dashboard design works on top of Microsoft Excel to turn it into visualization components. Mike Taylor, your mentor in the video series, suggests you this software. Enjoy his videos, and be sure to comment on...

Casinos are frequently depicted in the media, in movies and television shows, as they can add tension, excitement and unpredictability. As any casino gambler including those who started playing online will tell you however, this is also true of the experience in real life – which is a big part of the appeal. This article will take a look at some of the craziest real-life stories to have emerged as a result of casino gaming. 1. The ultimate all-in bet Many people consider themselves to be high stakes gamblers, but when compared to one Ashley Revell they are naught but lightweights. This tactical genius – or madman depending on where you stand – opted to bet the entirety of his net worth on a single spin of the roulette wheel. In case you don’t realize what that means, Revell took out all of his cash and sold everything he owns except the clothes he needed to attend the casino, and bet it. His resulting bet was $136,000 and he won –  walking away with $272,000. 2. Giving it all up Most people who play casino games have dreamed of securing a life-changing win at some point – but it’s probably safe to say that fewer of them dream of giving that money right back to the casino afterwards. Astonishingly, this is what David Meade, a mentalist from Ireland, opted to do after taking the Vegas casinos for a cool $1 million. He did this as part of his David Meade: Million Dollar Bet television show, which saw him test his mental skills by becoming the first player to devise a winning roulette strategy –  something even Einstein couldn’t manage. He admitted he wasn’t really a gambler at heart though, and gave all his winnings back. 3. Poker prodigy This story involves an eight-year-old who is believed to have won $500,000 playing poker at an online casino. The child, who has never been named, is a prodigy who hails from India and began creating his own web pages when he was just four. As the story goes, he was using an account for the online casino that had been set up by his uncle when he won the money, but there is some dispute about whether he ever collected his winnings. Some say the site refused to pay due to his age, while his family maintained that he had played poker at the site before and was known by people who run it as the “little poker wizard” – although they were probably calling him something less polite when he took $500,000 off them. What these stories go to show is that gambling attracts the brilliant and the mental, but...

Have you ever wished a “Happy Birthday” to someone you barely know on Facebook? Of course you have. We all have. And some of us even had fun doing it! More than likely though, you only wished someone a happy birthday because you felt a random moral obligation to congratulate them. And this small act of kindness helped you sleep at night. No, not as much as the Zzzquil and Quaaludes, but it helped a touch. We last featured Garfunkel and Oats on Golden Twist after they released their amusing “Sports, Go Sports” sketch. Not long after they published that video on their YouTube channel, they unveiled a bit titled “Happy Birthday to My Loose Acquaintance,” and even though it’s a year old, it — amazingly — is still culturally relevant today. (Your sarcasm meter should be going wild at my use of the word “amazingly.” If it’s not, get it checked.) Through song, Garfunkel and Oats point out the absurdity of taking ten seconds to wish a stranger on social media a happy birthday. A lyrical highlight: “Facebook told me, it’s your birthday, and I wouldn’t have known any other way. Because we co-exist in a mutually unstated unattached cohesion that Facebook created.” So, the next time you send birthday wishes to a loose Facebook acquaintance, keep this song in mind. Hell, maybe even direct them to this video as you congratulate them. No reason to leave them out of the joke, if you ask...