Happy Monday, everyone! At CursorMania we’re counting down the days until this weekend, which is a long weekend and the official kickoff to summer! Pardon  us while we do our happy dance:

Memorial Day weekend, though, shouldn’t be all about partying (even though we know our fans are serious party people). Memorial Day, which was originally known as Decoration Day, is a day for Americans to remember the people who died serving our country. General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, first officially proclaimed Memorial Day on May 5, 1868 and the holiday was first observed on May 30 of that year. Congress passed it as a national holiday in 1971, making it a Federal holiday and closing government buildings on that Monday.

Many towns and cities honor Memorial Day by hosting parades, often incorporating military personnel and members of veteran organizations. Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. host some of the largest parades. In Washington, D.C. soldiers place American flags on each gravestone in Arlington National Cemetery and patrol the cemetery all weekend to ensure that the flags remain standing. This practice is done on a smaller scale in other cities.

So whether you’re heading to the beach this weekend or cooking out, be sure to take a few minutes to remember the men and women who died serving and defending the United States. Visit CursorMania to download free patriotic cursors for your computer or laptop.

Tags: Memorial Day Weekend, Patriotic Cursors

Every day that goes by brings us closer and closer to summer. One of our favorite things about summer is fresh produce from the Farmer’s Market. Living in a city, it can sometimes be hard to find the freshest produce, but luckily there’s a Farmers Market that sets up once a week just outside the CursorMania offices. This week we were seeing lots of fruits: strawberries, peaches, grapefruit and kiwis, along with yummy veggies like radish, spinach, turnips and asparagus. Everything just tastes so much more fresh than what you find at the local grocery store and has traveled a shorter distance to get to your neighborhood, meaning that it’s greener and better for the environment!

What are some of your favorite types of produce to get from the Farmer’s Market? We’re really looking forward to watermelon — we’ve even been looking up some delicious recipes to try. Can anyone say CursorMania Watermelon Cookoff? We’ve bookmarked recipes for watermelon soup, granita, cake, bbq sauce and even pickled watermelon rinds. YUM! If you get excited about fresh produce as we do, head over to our site to find hundreds of fruit and vegetable cursors, along with many other types of food. Today we’re sharing a watermelon cursor, what else? Enjoy!

Tags: Farmer's Market, Watermelon

Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated “Bring Your Sons and Daughters to Work” day in the CursorMania offices. The idea was started by Ms. Magazine in 1992 and evolved into “Bring Our Sons and Daughters to Work” in 2003. It was originally created as a way to encourage young girls in the early `90s to pursue their dreams by introducing them to female mentors in a variety leadership positions. In recent years, the day has grown to see 3.5 million workplaces host 7 million children.

“Bring Our Sons and Daughters to Work” at CursorMania was a crazy and exciting day. Nearly 20 children came into the office that day! We had a variety of snacks for the kids, including fresh fruit, crackers and cupcakes, and had movies playing in the conference room for those kids who tired of shadowing their parents. We surveyed the children to ask what their dream jobs would be (and their answers didn’t vary much from when we were kids). Answers ranged from firefighter to President, pop singer to chef.

One of the great things about bringing kids to work at CursorMania is all the cool cursors we have to entertain the kids — we tried to find one for each profession the children told us they’d like to grow up to be. Below, we’ve shared a cursor of a child like the many who visited our office. If you weren’t able to bring your kid to work, or if you just miss your children while you’re in the office, download it today!

Tags: Baby Cursor, Bring Your Child To Work Day

A few weeks ago a group of us from the CursorMania office headed out early one afternoon to attend a fair taking place in a nearby park. It was mostly just for little kids with activities like pony rides, face painting, etc. But what we were most excited about was the sumo wrestling.  Have you ever been somewhere that allows you to put on one of those sumo wrestling outfits and wrestled with a friend? It’s so much fun! We were just hopping around the ring trying to stay on our feet and occasionally knocking over our friend.

The gentleman in charge of the sumo wrestling gave us a quick lesson on the sport. The wrestler who first touches the ground with anything besides his feed, or who leaves the ring before the opponent, loses. Fights normally last only a few seconds — a minute-long match is extremely rare. The ring used in sumo wrestling is called a “dohyo.” It is usually elevated from the ground and is made of clay covered in a layer of sand. Unlike in wrestling or boxing, there are no weight classes in sumo wrestling. It is not uncommon for a match to be clearly one-sided — that’s why wrestlers focus so much on gaining weight. The highest level of sumo wrestler is yokozuna, or grand champion. Wrestlers can never lose this title and often retire once they reach it.

Who knew all these cool facts about the sport of sumo wrestling? Share the facts, and this free sumo wrestling cursor, with your friends today or visit CursorMania to choose from thousands of other cursors to download.

Tags: Japanese Cursor, Sumo Wrestling Cursor