My Minute of News with Jeff Caplan: Recent Episodes
Jeff Caplan, KSL Newsradio
KSL Newsradio's Jeff Caplan offers his own unique spin on the fun, quirky things that happen alongside the news.
Paul Skenes is baseball’s Rookie of the Year. But the announcement was painfully awkward, and magnificent teaching moment for young men.
Not the kind of thing that happens every day, but a small town in Washington is on Zebra Watch.
Some employers are using the power of smell to lure employees back to full office work.
An entire country tries to figure out whether Donald Trump’s cryptic comments threatened a Civil War- just like the movie.
As you bet on your brackets and brace for March Madness… the game of cricket is quietly slinking into the US.
There are two things we know about the first humans to visit Mars. Elon Musk already has a manned mission on the drawing board. First thing we know… is they’ll get one heck of a parade when they get back.
Jazz owner Ryan Smith sees a grand future for the team's arena and downtown Salt Lake. But will he be paying for it himself?
Throwing out the first pitch at a ballgame requires skill, luck, and in one case, the heart of a nation.
An amazing mountain climbing feat that nobody’s celebrating.
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We’re getting into the weed(s) at the US Open.
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We’re all under the control of BIG SANDWICH.
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Donald Trump strikes a pose for the ages
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I get all fuzzy when an expert is brave enough to say ‘em.
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After 50 years… listen to the LAST words spoken on the moon
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Who’da thunk he’d be taking his talents to Sandy?
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Could it get any worse for tourism?
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They’re ready to swoop in on Lahaina… and chase out the pesky locals
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In the famous words of Rocky "(...) it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."
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Remember the idea of giving 110%? A thing of the past.
Say farewell to Hustle Culture.
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Carrying a water bottle by your side is the new hot trend.
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When the price of eggs and milk has dropped, why hasn't the price of cake?
Answer?
"Rockets and Feathers".
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Elizabeth Braley explains why... and you won't believe this.
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The saying goes "Another year older, Another year wiser."
But when does age hinder your ability to serve in politics?
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The stigma attached to mental health therapy is disappearing. Especially in the dating world.
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Get ready for another member of the family.
Amazon is working on an update to Alexa to give it a dose of AI.
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Elon Musk is changing the name of Twitter to "X"
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One of baseball's most imperfect players just knocked it out of the park. So to speak.
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We all know that having a child is expensive.
But did you know where you live could play a factor?
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Before you donate your body to science... better listen.
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Jeff discusses the worst baseball team in history, and their new future in sin city.
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This is the story of someone who has honed the craft.
This is the story... of "Mr. Beast"
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A mid-life crisis is always expensive.
But when Jeff Bezos is involved, it quickly gets out of hand.
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If you quit drinking diet coke... your jump shot might get better
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Intermittent Fasting.
Ever heard of it?
This form of dieting has some benefits to your health and the practice goes back further than you might expect.
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China's slowing economy is forcing many young graduates to "Eat Bitterness" and look for jobs outside their chosen fields
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Jeff tackles the not-so-clear answer of if you should refrigerate the golden gooey goodness
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Do you know who it is? Can you guess?
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Let me read you the tag on my T-shirt. Put on my reading glasses.
It was made by a company called Blue 84. 52% cotton 48% polyester. Made in Mexico RN#99659. There are four little emojis. An iron.. a cup.. a triangle with an X through it. And a record player. I have no idea what they mean… but THIS IS THE LAW.
The shirt or blouse you’re wearing has to have a tag or label. Your pants your dress… your underwear must be tagged with its fiber content… country or origin…and the name of the business that made it. It’s the law… and violators face stiff fines. These laws have been on the books for more than 50 years.
But do you know what’s not required on the label?
The size.
Because size is subjective. Anyone who shops Amazon knows an XL from China is really a large... or maybe a medium.
But for all the rules and regulations... there’s no need for big clothing tags with little letters anymore. The fashion industry wants to save itself the aggravation… and just attach one little QR code on shirts pants skirts and blouses. You boop it with your phone… and it leads to a webpage with fiber content… care instructions… maybe even a coupon… if you’re scanning it at the store.
Ralph Lauren is a leading advocate for QR codes… instead of the big itchy tags. But don’t a rules change anytime soon. In Congress… they can’t even agree on a budget. And politicians love labels.
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Cottage cheese ice cream. Frozen curds of bland… in a creamy swirl of honey. Delicious ice cream and chocolate chips punctuated by little icy curds of flavorless lumpage?
Does it sound good? Are you wondering why anyone would go through all the trouble to make such a weird ice cream recipe?
I’m glad you asked. The short answer is … what goes round comes round. Back in the 1950s… cottage cheese was a diet fat. Your grandma would eat gobs of the stuff because it’s low in fat and has protein. In the 1970s… when you go on a diet… you’d load up on cottage cheese to the point where the average American ate five pounds of curd… per year.
But tastes change and cottage cheese consumption fell for decades … to the point where each of us - on average - ate half what they used back in the day. Over the generations… the snow white curds were slowly replaced by low-fat yogurt. But these kids!
Always seeking the more vintage experience… they’ve circled back to what your grand… and great grandma knew back in the days of black and white tv… that cottage cheese is good for you and is being reborn as a superb health food. Consumption is rising both straight out of the container… and as part of exotic health recipes… like Cottage Cheese Ice Cream. Not to lose weight! Millennials add the white clots of cottage cheese to Scrambled Eggs… and whip up a dip for their chips… always looking for that little hit of protein.
Making use of grandma’s bland little secret… and adding a swirl of peanut butter. a drizzle of honey… and a millennial twist.
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Here at work, I said something about work-life balance. And one of my friends said … I don’t do work-life balance. I do work-life chemistry. Because there's always changing mixture of work and life
Sounded profound… but chemistry can be dangerous
A lesson learned by a couple of CEO’s who added just a little too much work… and not enough life to the chemistry equation.
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This is Andy Owen… the CEO of a fancy furniture company….called Miller Knolls. Times were tough … in an employee Zoom meeting… here are her comments about not getting bonuses…
After the internet blowback… the CEO apologized. Meantime in Draper… they’re doing damage control at Clearlink… where CEO James Clarke complained about quiet quitters in a staff meeting…
— It’s a problem. But to motivate them… he told them what a good employee looks like in hard times.
The best employee sells the family dog… to make the boss smile. Clearlink has instantly become a case study of how not to motivate the staff. These particular CEOs don’t understand what any fourth grader knows. If you mess with chemistry…Kaboom. stuff blows up.
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Humility oozes from every pore. And why wouldn’t it. Michael Block is just a golf pro at a public course in California. Here he is doing a commercial for the gift shop
He makes his living giving lessons for $150 bucks an hour. And if you don’t follow golf. There are loads of club pros just like him. Good enough to teach but not great enough to show up on TV. Til last weekend.
Michael Block qualified for the big PGA Championship… and by luck of the draw… he was paired with one of the greatest…. Rory Macelrow. Block was stunned he’d be breathing the same air.
— are you serious
Out on the course… he blossomed…playing top-notch golf.. keeping up with the greats … while blinking back tears. Sunday… he even had a hole-in-one. But not the kind where the ball dramatically inches toward the cup. No … Block’s hole-in-one was a slam dunk that started on the tee… and divebombed straight into the hole. Listen to his reaction…
— he can’t believe it. As he walks toward the green… he still doesn’t believe it —
Back at his home golf course in California… they watched the hole-in-one on TV and went insane.
In the golf world... today… Michael Block is suddenly a household name after living every "weekend duffer's dream… pushing back tears of disbelief….
In four short days.. the guy who hustles golf lessons for a buck-50 an hour… earned $280-thousand dollars… and the hearts of weekend duffers all over the world. And the best part. After it was over Michael Block was invited back for NEXT year’s PGA championship.
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This is sorta satisfying in a world where nobody takes cash. According to Credit Karma… Gen Z is discovering the joy of the crisp green "hold-it-in-your-hand” bona fide Dollar Bill. Apparently…. these younger adults are a bit befuddled by the game of life… in this electronic world… and they’re coming to realize that nothing says “dolla dolla dolla… quite like an actual dollar. buck a bill a greenback a physical financial rectangle with George on the front ..and the words in g-d we trust on the back.
Think about it. These people ages ..say 18 through 26… are experiencing financial baptism in a world of runaway inflation … soaring interest rates… and a stock market that bounces around like a ping-pong ball. Sure… when you’re young… the standard solution is to put everything on your credit card. But then you learn the rude truth about compound interest. At the end of the month if you can’t pay up … at 21 percent interest… you’re well on your way to the poorhouse.
Or as Ray Charles put it… the Bills are all due... my baby needs shoes… and I’m busted.
So.. Credit Karma claims… more than half of people in Gen Z have discovered cash stuffing to make ends meet. At some point… you did this. They cash this week’s paycheck… put the cash toward the rent into one envelope. For the car payment in another and so on. That way… as egg prices spike through the roof… or gas lurches past 4 bucks… you got the basics covered.
Cash stuffing.
A technique perfected at the kitchen table … by many-a-family over the decades. And rediscovered by the youngest adults… who don’t actually pay for anything with cold hard cash. They just use it to navigate a cold hard world that doesn’t seem to make any financial sense.
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I’m not exactly sure why baby naming is headline news here in Utah. Maybe because we have more babies to name… but whenever the list of top baby names of the year comes out… we pour over the list looking for the names of our own kids and grandkids… first to see if they made the list… and second check whether our offspring were given a name that’s unique enough.
It’s a cutthroat business… and here’s a perfect example. A family member of mine had selected a name for her first baby. There was no baby. Just a name and a gleam in her eye. But if she was ever bestowed with a baby girl… she landed on the name "Kiara with a “K.” She told everybody the good news. There’s a name!
For whenever a baby might show up. Itd’s Kiara.
You know? The next week… one of her friends got a new dog and named it Kiara.
That’s ice cold.
But in the cutthroat game of baby naming… no harm no foul… because the dog was Kiarra with 2 “r’s.”
Their friendship continues. And years later when a baby did come… they named it Ava. Which is usually in the top 20… but this year… boys and girls… there was only one new name added to the top 10 lists... it’s Luna. A name that laid dormant for 82 years… til Harry Potter featured a rather looney girl named “Luna Lovegood.” Which sounds like it belongs to one of those websites blocked by the state - but the name really took off when model Chrissy Teigan named her baby Luna in 2016and now the name’s in the top 10.
And it’s also one of the most popular names… for dogs.
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I have a granddaughter who loves spoiling movies on me. Her greatest moment. Papa… I don’t know how to tell you this… but I saw Avengers End Game Last Night.
I say how was it?
She says… I don’t know how to tell you this but Iron Man died.
Beautiful Wait. Did I spoil it for you?
Come on… the movie’s four years old.
But in any event… spoiling a movie or TV show on someone is ok according to new research published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology. The researchers found that if you spoil a TV show for someone… it doesn’t make the show any less enjoyable.
The subjects were shown an Alfred Hitchcock TV Show called Bang You’re Dead. It features a little boy who thinks he’s pointing a toy gun at everyone in town. Has no idea it’s loaded. Participants were asked… every time someone on the show said the word “Gun” … raise your hand.
The NYTimes says that as the suspense mounted… people were so absorbed… they forget to raise their hands. Would the little boy press the trigger? People who had no idea. And people who were told what would happen… same result. Both groups were so engrossed… spoiling it made no difference.
But at the same time spoilers… are very. bad. etiquette.
Alexa.
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The dating world is brutal. If you’ve been married for a couple of decades… you probably only have a hint about how insane the world of swiping right or left is… are some of the words we’ve learned from dating apps.
Ghosting. Catfishing. When somebody creates a fictitious persona with fake beautiful pictures…. lures you in… then leaves you hanging.
There’s also breadcrumbing. Where you send short flirty messages — not because you want to meet the person. But just to keep them on the hook … in case you’re desperate at some later date.
It’s a brutal world full of collectors… those are the ones who try to make enough matches each day to boost their self-esteem… but they have no intention of following up.
If you’ve been married for decades… what your kids go through on these apps is nothing like asking Daisy Mae to the square dance. And a new term I just learned… drove the point home. I mentioned ghosting a moment ago. Now denizens of the dating app are getting zombied. Getting Zombied is described perfection by singer-songwriter Mariel Darling.
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The guy takes you out … and evaporates. Months later suddenly he’s back… pestering you to go out. Most dating experts say it’s not a good idea to dig up a zombie. Just as its not a good idea to ignore the beige flags. That’s when it’s pretty clear from their profile that they’re BORING.
One could argue that even before the internet … dating always had its share of drama. But now the drama moves at the speed of light.
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Are Utahns the hardest-working people in America…. or Not? I’m looking at two different studies that supposedly answer the question… and I can’t figure out if I’m living among people who toil til their fingertips are nubs…. or if we’re the biggest slouches in America.
I do know this.
US News and World Report just named Utah the best state in the Union… we’re number one according to their subjective list. Number 1 at what? Everything put together. They’ve decided what we already knew. This is the best place in America to live and work.
So let’s celebrate the honor.
Now … let’s get back to work to talk about work. I’m looking at two different studies…. both rank the states by how much time residents spend working.
Wallet Hub announced we work less in Utah than in other states. We’re number 32… Officials say that’s awesome. We work fewer hours .. to become the number one state. This leaves us more time for family and the great outdoors. Yay!
But here’s another study that says the direct opposite. Business Name Generator collated statistics to determine that Utahns work more hours per month than any other state in America. We work MORE. An average of 126 hours a month. It comes out to precisely 30 hours a week. Which happens to be the exact point at which part-timers would become eligible for healthcare.
But it makes us #1 at working Or #32. The hard work is figuring out the real answer.
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Almost exactly a year ago… I did a minute about a new app taking high schools and colleges by storm. It’s called BE REAL …
Unlike Instagram where people post pictures of their make believe glamorous and glorious lives… BE REAL was the antidote. The app would command you “take two pictures right now.” One with the lens on the back of your phone … and one with the front. And you would post them. You’d see people without beguiling makeup. Without bulging muscles and perfectly coiffed kids. Gen Z couldn’t get enough of reality and authenticity.
And then… because they have the attention span of a flea… they all got tired of it.
A year later… the New York Times reports BeReal is crashing. It was at the top of the app store as recently as July … but no more. Seems GenZ has seen enough messy bedrooms, lousy food, and plain jane selfies,
In the times Callie Holtermann reports that at first high schoolers loved seeing their friends with all the artifice and glitter shaved away. But after a while… endless pictures of wet hair, overcooked pasta, and laundry piles became boring… compared to the beautiful, vainglorious lives of Kardashians on superyachts, and perfectly lit buff bodies… on Instagram.
So it seems Gen Z is ready to flirt with reality. But when it’s time to settle down… they want fake.
To which every one of them is now saying … OK Boomer.
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It’s possible that civilization has run out of ideas for food. Instead of dreaming-up new dishes… big food is resorting to resizing to make the register ring. As eating turns to grazing throughout the day… Nestle is now selling what it calls selling smeals. Smeals. Small meals… or in their case pint-sized snacks. Often mashups... Cocoa Puff popcorn. Or Dr. Pepper Cotton Candy. In business.. they call it brand extension but it’s proof we’re out of ideas.
However.
Look what’s comin’ down the road. A futurist named Tom Cheesewright… yes… a guy who makes his living predicting the future… says within 20 years… we’ll be eating radically different … pizza.
He says the lack of water for agriculture could lead to pizza dough that uses crushed-up insects for filler. Do I need to say “lots of protein?”
Your bug pizza crust will be topped by lab-grown meat… the cheese will be charred by laser zapped. And the craziest part. Not the first place I’ve heard this. The pizza won’t come out of the oven…. but from a 3-D printer… that’ll squirt tiny bits of ingredients to build a pizza one tiny glop shot from a printer head at a time…. then it’s laser grilled.
While it’s weird a guy named Tom Cheesewright … is making predictions about pizza. For now, I think I’ll stick with swiss miss lucky charms cereal… and Slurpee donuts
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2020 it was the Great Resignation. In the face of the pandemic record numbers of people took this job and shoved it. Next … at the tail end of the pandemic we got quiet quitting. Where you lope through the workday expending the minimum amount of oxyge. but still collect a paycheck.
Now…. the new trend in work life balance… have you heard this?
Bare Minimum Monday. Here’s the young woman who dreamed up the term.
That is Maris Mayes… who creates Tik Tok videos… but probably didn’t today. See on Mondays… she oh so gently eases back into the concept of working.
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You’re probably saying … structure… flow… what? There’s a world of people who gotta be at work by 9… because they pay me to do the job. It works… but nobody’s pulling a fast one on you. They actually call it to work. But in a country filled with burnt-out employees on the precipice of quitting… even the HR Department is getting in on this. I read one website for HR Professionals that suggests companies lean into Bare Minimum Monday to help cut down on burnout.
One red flag… the boss should never show up Monday morning ready to implement a new genius idea dreamed up over the weekend. That … is poison. I could offer more suggestions and a funny ending. But I’ve done enough. And it’s Monday.
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An era is coming to an end. Richard Nixon started up the first relationship between the United States… and Communist China. Back then… a backward 3rd world country… where running water was a luxury.
As a gesture of friendship… the Chinese government loaned us a pair of zoo animals never before seen in the United States. A pair of Giant Pandas. At the National Zoo in Washington… Ling Ling and Sing Sing became a sensation.
Chewing on imported bamboo… and generally being cute.
The entire country followed their numerous attempts to reproduce and create an American Panda W For 10 years… the Pandas couldn’t quite get it done…. til a baby was born… and died hours later… cradled in Ling Ling’s Arms. By the way… this is where you got the entire storyline for the movie Anchorman. The pandas in labor!
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Alas… Panda diplomacy is dying. Over the years... China made a habit of befriending countries… and loaning them Giant Pandas… but now they want ‘em back. In China there’s an angry groundswell …demanding the country get the Pandas back from the Memphis Zoo. Complaining they're mistreated… and their bamboo isn’t fresh. Animal rights groups are joining in… and it looks like the era of Panda diplomacy might be coming to an end. No more ling ling’s and sing sing to marvel at.
And that’s a shame shame.
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Over and over again I’ve talked about influencers… and the fake beautiful lives they have to lead …as they pimp products for a paycheck. All this time I’ve been whining and moaning… turns out I coulda been doing something about it.
I could go on Tik Tok and become a DE-influencer. DEinfluencing is a new trend on social media… where… instead of posting videos about awesome lip gloss or a lawnmower that’ll change your life… … you post videos about what NOT to buy. About products that don’t live up to the hype.
The first deinfluencers were a couple of ex-employees at Sephora… who revealed the Top 10 products that get returned there.
They were followed by Paige Pritchard. This girl got out of college and immediately got a 60-grand-a-year job selling Cadillacs… and blew every cent on the clothing and beauty goop that she saw on Tik Tok. Penniless she took a hard look … and said “Whoa” I gotta knock this off.
Paige now calls herself a Tik Tok spending coach. Doling out financial reality to people grasping for that one product that’s gonna change their life. The message is… It won’t. You’re broke. Get real.
Now you’ll find DE-influencers everywhere… telling you to buy this… not that… and pocket the difference.
DE-influencing. Follow a few. It’ll change your life.
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Last few days you might have heard… welp… it’s the tax deadline. The only thing you can do to cut your tax bill is quick! Open an IRA. Sock away 6 or 7-thousand grand… and you can deduct it from your income.
But before you do it…. be aware that millions of Americans open retirement accounts… and then… forget about ‘em. Thousands of dollars are sitting in an account somewhere… and folks have no idea the money’s theirs… with their name on the account.
Think back years ago… you might have worked somewhere 10 ..20 ..30 years ago… and they took a little bit out of your paycheck for a 401k. At some point… you quit… and you just forgot about that account the company’s holding for you.
According to the NY Times… maybe you get snail mail once a year reminding you the account exists… and you just shrug… and go along in life. But if you forget about an account for 25 years… the dollars add up. That 2-thousand dollars people left behind in their 20’s … could be 10 or 20 grand in the 2020s. Whether you were paying attention or not… interest adds up… stocks have been going up.
At Vanguard …they say low-income wage earners with less than 5-thousand dollars in a retirement account… are more likely to leave it behind.
So next time you get a statement in the mail… don’t just shrug and throw it out. 21 million Americans have retirement money waiting… and they’re ignoring it.
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Your entire life… for many people…. you hear that you need to lose weight. It affects everything from your blood pressure to your bedonkedonk…. and now as I grow older …. for the first time, I’m hearing don’t lose the weight. Stay right where you are. Don’t gain a pound. But for goodness sake don’t lose any.
There’s a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked at 2-thousand Americans age 65 and older. Lo and behold they discovered that those over age 65 who lose 5 to 10 percent of their weight…. raise their risk of death by 33 percent. An average man weighs 197 - this means you lose 10 or 20 pounds…. it’s time to buy a plot. If you know what I mean.
Women… according to this study of 18-thousand people… you’re not off the hook. If you lose 5 or 10 percent of your weight after age 65…your risk of death rises by 26 percent. Average woman… 170 … yes that’s right. That’s 8 to 17 pounds.
Important to note… researchers have no idea what’s behind their findings. They can only guess. But if you’re getting on in years… and the doctor tells you to lose weight… you be within your rights to ask “What are you tryin’ to do… kill me?"
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When the Chips are down… what do you do. Double down and fight harder right?
Well, that’s EXACTLY what Tik Tok is doing. A couple of weeks ago their CEO had a rough day in front of Congress. Representatives made it crystal clear - they want it banned.
Tik Tok CEO Show She Chew said we’re an honest adorable sweet and caring company
But while he’s making promises out of the right side of his mouth… he’s busy with his left… introducing a new app that’s growing like wildfire with Gen Z. The new app from Tik Tok is called Lemon8 That’s Lemon with the number 8. It’s successful overseas… but it’s just taking off here.
Lemon8 features Tik Tok style videos PLUS photos like Instagram. With its current focus on health and beauty, it’s been installed on 650-thousand US phones in the past two weeks.
If you’re worried Congress will have to go after TWO apps… Tik Tok’s owner assures us… they’re going to comply with US law and do the right thing here.
Do you feel reassured?
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A couple of weeks ago… a story circulated about the way Ron DeSantis consumes food. An anonymous former staffer said the Florida Governor eats like a starving animal who’s never seen food. The staffer says one time.. on a private jet DeSantis ate a bowl of chocolate pudding with three of his fingers.
Some Democrats are obsessed with this - performing re-enactments and guessing which three fingers. Did it involve the thumb? In a recent interview, Piers Morgan simply asked Desantis…
A lot of people say there go the Democrats making something out of nothing. But does anybody remember Fox News spent a week pounding Obama over the way he orders a burger?
Yes… the Dijon scandal… we had Donald Trump’s McDonald's fixation and now we have pudding-gate
.
But are a candidate’s eating habits important? Do they need to eat like you…to be a good leader?
Nixon ate cottage cheese with ketchup. Bill Clinton loved jello salad. Great recipe too. Cherry coke… cherry pie filling, jello and whip cream - put the layers in a mold… yeah. Cherry Coke Salad. And Utah never voted for him.
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South Africa’s largest Rhinoceros farm has gone bankrupt. And so… they’re looking for anyone who wants to adopt and love 2-thousand of these giant behemoths. Talk to your family about snapping up a few ,,, and helping preserve the species. Ask your kids.
Should we buy our family a Rhino
They’re so so big… I know I know
But cute and wrinkly as animals get
A rhino might just be a pet
The giant horn won’t attack you
She’d probably just try to smack you.
Because the giant horn is ornamental
Their favorite weapon is actually dental
Upset a Rhino and she’ll then unsheath
A giant row of shiny teeth.
It sounds a little bit too corny
But the horn just shows a rhino’s horny
And by the way, it’s not a bone
That sharpened curved and giant cone
Is tangled nose hair … think its not?
It’s mixed with hard and dried-up snot
You thought that it was so majestic
But its origins are most pathetic
An 8-foot nose horn that’s conceived
By what blows out when you might sneeze?
Would you want a rhino as a pet
Please do not decide just yet
I’ve read up & investigated
They cannot be domesticated.
But they can recognize a human.
It won’t say “hello nueman”
It will have some idea you’re there
But its eyes are split by that horn right there.
And while on we’re on the vision topic A rhino's eyes are both myopic
They need.. from the day they're born
Glasses perched upon that horn.
But if you had one as a pet
You’d be popular I’d bet
From north the west the south and east
Folks would come to see your beast
But what in heck would you
do with 50 daily pounds of poo?
That’s left behind in little mounds
by a beast that weighs 5000 pounds.
And this is why you might consider
A dog named Rex or a horse named Trigger A rhino? You’d eventually despise her unless you need some fertilizer
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What a sad state of affairs. Some families don’t want to buy eggs at sky-high prices… so they're painting potatoes for Easter. At the national potato marketing organization… they usually post about potato retail sales… and offer spellbinding podcasts like this
Well. These Nematode researchers at Potoes USA saw people painting potatoes on Tik Tok . and they were like whuh.
And they immediately jumped on board. Yeah… they say … it’s fun. It’s family bonding. It’s nematode free. In case you’re wondering… those are tiny roundworms that can attack potatoes.
So… as a money-saving service… let me give you the basics. First and most important… If you’re going to paint a potato… You don’t want to paint on dirt… PEEL THE POTATO … soak it in water with 2 tablespoons of distilled white vinegar for half an hour. Dry it off… grab a brush and turn a potato into a Picasso.
You can also dye potatoes… Don’t bother to peel them. Just drop them in the dye like normal easter eggs. Or … you can squirt a drop of food coloring on the potato … and use a paintbrush to swish it around. Add another drop and keep going.
If you’re not into arts and crafts… the price of plastic eggs never went up. You can get a 48-count of plastic easter eggs for 3 bucks. And no. Nematodes.
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We’re heading into spring home-buying season. You’ll soon see the signs and balloons leading you to open houses. Interest rates will put a damper on buying this year…. but there are people ready to buy at the right price. And according to Zillow, this is what they’re looking for.
Mind you these are people who can pay cash… or afford a mortgage at 6 percent plus. Let’s start with what they don’t want Things that’ll hurt your selling price. First? Tile Countertops will cut your home’s value by 1 percent. Same for laminate flooring. And this blows my mind. Walk-in closets can cut the average home’s value by 25 grand.
Seems in 2023 … Zillow says younger buyers think a giant closet turns you into a hoarder… and they’d rather use the space for something else.
So what raises the value? Terrazzo floors. Homes with Soapstone countertops are selling four days faster. Other things that create a wow factor are pizza ovens… an outdoor kitchen… and the biggest plus of them all… a free-standing she shed. That’ll add 2-and-a-half percent to your home’s value.
This is according to Zillow… which will never tell you ,,the best deal might be to stay put… and just love where you live.
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We’ve all been cloistered indoors… sick of the relentless snow. Skiers can’t get to half the resorts because of Canyon Closures. And so we wait for the warmer weather promised for the weekend… and dream of taking a stroll… riding a bike or just sitting on a lounge chair breathing some spring air.
But I think each and every one of us missed an opportunity here. We all sat around overcome by cabin fever and suffering from the winter blues. But when snow hit Boston… Kyle Waring had an idea…
I was shoveling
That was back in 2015. Kyle and his wife launched a website called ship-snow-yo. They’ll ship the snow from their driveway… anywhere in the US. So how much are people paying for an honest to goodness pure as the driven snow … snow?
199.95 of Khyle’s snow
Since 2015 Kyle’s expanded his offerings to include a snowman kit… complete with corn cob pipe ..the button nose… and the snow in a cooler. That’l cost ya $325 dollars. For a while Kyle was offering a 50lb blizzard in a box. But that’s sold out. And that’s the point. Kyle’s makin’ it rain…
Over the past 8 years… he’s sold 10-thousand pounds of snow. Some back-of-the-envelope figuring here.. his joke business has earned him at least a couple hundred thousand dollars. And expenses are few. The snow was sitting there on his front lawn. Now he’s made enjoy money to take a private jet … to Hawaii. And THAT IS how you cure the winter blues.
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There comes a point in life… when wrinkles deepen…reading glasses appear … and the skip in your step slows to a shuffle. THAT is the point when you stop being the culprit… and become the casualty of the April Fool jokes.
Oh… As a child I started on fake dog poop… then cake pops made from brussel sprouts .. and eventually telling the family I got fired. Satisfied with their horrified reaction… as a kid I’d bellow April Fools. As a teen, it was calm and cool.
Dude ... April Fools.
As an adult… taking pranks too far and I’d end with “It was only an April Fools Joke.. I’m sorry.. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s okay.
But the final stumbling step in the April Fool stages of life… is the one I enjoy most.
This holiday… that has no clear origin. Perhaps it comes from a festival in Ancient Rome. Maybe France in the 1500s.
I’ve seen April 1st more than 60 times now…. and as a journalist… by the end of March… I enjoy being the world’s greatest skeptic. I don’t believe a single news story I read til I’ve verified every detail. But aside from the happiness of exposing fake news stories. I’ve also learned it’s more fun to be the victim. You don’t have to dream up how to fool everybody… you don’t have to come up with ever more creative stunts. As the poor hapless victim… when someone says April Fools. you get a momentary jolt to your system. Then you tip your cap to the prankster. It’s so easy. So to my grandkids… bring on the fake dog poop.
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Fat Shaming is terrible. In fact there’s only one place left where they’re allowed to fat shame.
The doctor’s office.
I was there last week… y’know… you walk in. First thing - they put you on the scale… which is located in the middle of a busy hallway. And if you’re sensitive about your weight… as you balance your feet… you cringe as you wait for the number. Oh you bargain. Can I take my shoes off. Here. Hold my phone.
But it doesn’t work. The number is the number. But now… there’s a movement to stop public weight shaming at the doctor’s office. Some women on the web… complain there is no reason to weigh you. So the doctor can tell you… “well, you’re a few pounds overweight and oughta cut back. What person who’s overweight is not aware of it already?
This is why the proper response is to ask… why do you need to weigh me? Will it change the medication you prescribe? Will I get a different diagnosis depending on my weight?
So people decline to get weighed. At the doctor's office last Friday … I was overjoyed the scale said 94. I felt 12 years old. 94… I felt lighter than air… before I realized it was kilograms. 94 kilos. Which sounds a lot less but it's exactly the same as 207 pounds.
Kilograms are a mood boost. And that’s important… because after they weigh you in pounds… and you get all upset… what’s the next thing they do? They take your blood pressure. Big surprise. It’s through the roof.
Doctors… you gotta flip your scale to kilograms … it’ll take 10 points off your patient’s diastolic
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We’ve hoped and prayed that Americans would become more tolerant. In a country where the majority of Democrats say they wouldn’t marry a Republican. And vice versa… all I want is a world where we can talk about … and respect our differences. And apparently here in Utah… we’re making progress. Proof..comes from a new survey.
3-thousand families responded to a survey by familydestinationsguide.com
They were asked… if you were going to up anchor and move your family… where would you most want to go.
Families here in Utah chose Hawaii. Fantacizing about lapping waves, sandy beaches, coconuts falling fresh from the tree… Utahns would choose gentle breezes, the aloha spirit, and paradise among the palms.
But Utah… you know what lurks behind all of those palm trees?
Democrats. Hawaii has more democrats than ukeleles…. and yet still. given the entire world to choose from, Utahns - who are among the most Republican people on earth - would raise their kids in Hawaii. To live under the thumb of a democratic governor. Congressional Delegation. Legislature. A place that taxes out of staters an extra 7 percent when they buy property. An outrageous confiscation of wealth.
Unless you add in some palm trees… then maybe it's okay. Proof …we are becoming more tolerant.
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You know who’s supposed to stop inflation?
This Guy
That’s Jerome Powell ..the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It’s his job to set interest rates…. and thereby… control whether the economy overheats. Too hot? You get Inflation. Everything costs too much.
Two percent inflation sounds pretty good from here. We’re at 6-point-7 percent in the mountain west. Down… from 9… but my basic math skills tell me we have a long way to go.
So do you think he’ll succeed? Dude has one job. Inflation. Whwait. He has two jobs. The other one is the complete renovation of the Fed’s headquarters building in Washington. Interesting Face… It’s called the Eccles building… named for the only Fed chairman from Utah… Marriner Eccles.
It’ was built in 1937… and it’s long needed a refresh. So the Fed is installing marble and brass while we all choke on the price of wood. When they got started in 2019… the estimate cost of the renovation was 1-point-9 billion dollars. But now… they’re dealing with cost overruns and the estimate’s gone up to 2-and-a-half billion. An extra 34 percent… That’s an additional 600 million in taxpayer money … because of the inflation that the Fed is supposed to predict in the first place.
This does not instill confidence ….that Mr Powell’s gonna get us down to 2-percent.
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This is a sticky situation that began with a podcaster named Patrick Neve heading to the airport in Pittsburgh for a flight. But after he removed his shoes and his belt… the TSA confiscated the jar of peanut butter in his carry-on.
The TSA agent to grabbed his jar of Jif and said “sorry … no liquids …gels or aerosols in your carry-on.
Patrick’s response… which of the things do you think peanut butter is?
So let’s consider this. Because 10 million people have now read Patrick's tweet… and the thread has become a national encounter group for the multitudes who feel they’ve been done wrong by those humorless TSA agents.
Ironically… the New York Times reports on Twitter… the TSA does a lot of funny… tongue in cheek tweeting to burnish its image. About the peanut butter… the agency tweeted “You may not be nuts about it - heh heh… but the TSA considers your Peanut Butter a liquid.
No surprise. This is the same government that declared the ketchup in kids’ meals a vegetable. But this interchange brought out thousands of people including a nurse who had her peanut butter confiscated. But they let the IV needles in the same bag go through without question.
The TSA definition of a liquid is a substance that takes on the shape of its container. If you can spill it, spread it, pump it, or pour it… the limit is 3-point-4 ounces. And they don’t keep your peanut butter... It gets tossed out. The TSA has a zero-tolerance policy about agents with sticky fingers.
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We’ve all heard the studies that show Utah has one the biggest road rage problems in America. It seems we're constantly muttering farm words under our breath..waving certain fingers with reckless abandon … and generally behaving badly behind the wheel.
It’s rude. It’s dangerous. But maybe… things are gonna get a little bit better…. thanks to a new Gen Z trend that’s just now showing up in some other cities.
Always changing the rules of the game… it seems some 20-something drivers don’t flip people off anymore. Because using the finger is so passe.. So Gen X. So boring.
In a snap poll… I asked 3 coworkers in their 20s whether they use their fingers. Two of them … women… said yeah I flipped somebody off on the way to work this morning. But a lot of 20-somethings elsewhere don’t do it anymore… instead… opting to give other drivers … a thumbs down.
These 20-somethings… who won’t use the smiley emoji because they consider it rude… think the thumbs-down hits differently. It feels like disapproval from your mom. It doesn’t mean I’m enraged. It means… shame on you. here are thousands of posts about the thumbs down on social media… I haven’t seen a thumbs-down yet…but this is one trend that can’t get here soon enough.
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A lot of today’s discussion is about whether Silicon Valley Bank DESERVED a bailout. These days… their customers are the most popular villain in the movies. The diabolical tech bro talks about changing the world and disrupting it while he jets around the world with girls on his arm and cocaine up his nose.
Tech bros have replaced Middle East Terrorists as movie bad guys. And the idea that they’d get bailed out by the government is not a good look. There are a lot of complaints that SVB - the bank deserves to pay for its stupidity.
And best I can see it is. Its executives are all fired. The stockholders who bought shares of SVB… get nothing. That stock is worth zero. You made a bad investment.
As for the bailout of the bank’s customers. President Biden started the day reassuring Americans.
Whether his actions are good or bad… There was a fear over the weekend… that millions of Americans would pull their money out of smaller banks… fear they too might collapse… Suddenly your ATM card… your Venmo… your debit and credit cards don’t work.
And when this happens…as we saw Friday… it happens quickly. So action was needed fast over the weekend. Whether it was the right action.... whether tech disrupters will be humbled by their brief brush with bankruptcy…. time will tell.
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We have the sign by the front door that says “no solicitors unless you’re selling Girl Scout Cookies.” And this year… a smiling young scout showed up at the door. I shouted, “honey, do we want girl scout cookies?” My wife was jumped-over couches like a track star to get to the door … She ordered up the Thin Mints… and Samoas and all that.
But we didn’t know about the new cookie. Are you aware of this? There’s one called Raspberry Rally. Sorta like a Thin Mint but with raspberry flavor instead of mint. Sounds awesome.
But it’s as hard to find as Taylor Swift tickets. First… the cookie is only offered online. And when the sale went live… Raspberry Rally sold out in just a few hours.
The lucky few who secured these cookies…. are still waiting for delivery. So only a few people have ever tasted the elusive Raspberry Rally… but there’s such demand… they’re now showing up for auction on eBay...
——
Nicholas Vega of CNBC got to taste these precious precious cookies.
Unlike the fresh-faced young saleswoman at my front door… Scouting OFFICIALS are said to be furious…there’s now a black market... for Girl Scout cookies.
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I have a new appreciation for the tech guy who owns the Utah Jazz. If you asked me yesterday… I’d woulda said I don’t like the boring black and yellow uniforms. I’da questioned the decision to blow up the team and reboot.
But today… today.. Ryan Smith stands tall in my eyes. Even with a mediocre team, the Jazz has managed to fill an arena close to capacity on many nights… by selling the sizzle. It’s the experience. At some point, you might have said to a co-worker “we went to the Jazz game last night… it was fun!”
And I appreciate that they’re selling fun as I look at the Los Angeles Clippers. Owner Steve Ballmer is building a new 2-billion-dollar arena. It’s a palace. And yesterday … the owner dragged the entire team to the construction site. Ballmer -who was one of the founders of Microsoft - put on a hard hat and told the world why they’re gonna love this new arena…
--How’s that again?—
1160 toilets. This is a numbers guy… from Microsoft. His data-driven conclusion… you should watch his basketball team because there are no bathroom lines.
This guy clearly doesn’t know how to sell the sizzle… so Los Angeles gets toilets.
We get the return of the Delta Center.
Thank you, Ryan Smith
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Tonight… the Utah legislative session is done, so let’s consider whether there might be another way to do this. Utah leaders are proud the session lasts only 45 days. It allows lawmakers to be gainfully employed citizens.
Of which we have lawmakers who are Doctors, Lawyers... Home Depot Clerks ..and Homemakers.
Presumably, at the end of the session, they slip on a T-shirt and binge-Netflix for the weekend… before heading back to their daytime jobs and real life. And the rest of the year… they’re just like you and me.
But the rest of the year …truth is they have one eye on constituent service and they work what’s called the interim. Meetings and committees that convene between now and next January. And of course, a politician usually has the other eye on re-election.
So at the end of these frantic 45 days of lawmaking - a Utah tradition scribed into the state constitution - we’ll wake up tomorrow and discover what laws they jammed through at the deadline. What they rejected. But you’ll never hear about hundreds of laws passed at the speed of light the past six weeks… our legislative reporter is exhausted beyond words trying to keep up.
because it’s such a jumble of lawmaking…there’s no time to contemplate good or bad policy. There’s no time for reflection consideration or second thoughts.
Maybe… this is radical… we should double it and have a 90-day session. So -as citizens- we can ABSORB everything they’re doing here on the Hill.
Sure… lawmakers would have to wait another six weeks to binge Netflix but at least we’d be able to follow the plot on capitol hill.
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We tend to romanticize the Iditarod. Lonely men and women under the darkened skies of the Alaska winter…tending to their pack of pups as they dogsled their way across the frozen turf. Onward they mush … day after day… toward a distant finish line… and the accolades.
It is brutal… this is former champion Dallas Seavey …showing off one of his 110 dogs.
But 51 years after the first race… the Iditarod is dying. Because of all the issues we’re grappling with much further south.
As the race gets started this weekend in Willow Alaska… they’ve had to move the course further toward the north pole… to ensure there’s snow for the sleds to glide upon. Regardless of what you believe about climate change… it’s warmer… and there’s less snow.
But that’s not why the race appears to be dying. 15 years ago… there were 96 entries. This year W e. That doesn’t leave much money for the guy or gal behind the sled.
So some of these competitors make ends meet by giving dogsled rides to cruise ship passengers. But even that work dried up during the pandemic. And a lot of these Iditarodders had to move on. While they used to race for the finish line… they no longer have the time… or money.. to get to the starting line. Nonetheless… on a thousand-mile course through the snow… the Iditarod starts Saturday.
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It struck me as odd… when I looked at the list of industries where paychecks have… and haven’t kept pace with inflation. And one of the professions that did the worst… was dentistry. And turns out it’s true. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics… the price of a dentist visit rose by a mere 3 percent last year…. while the inflation rate was closer to 9 percent.
So next time you sit down in the chair and the dentist revs up that drill… you can think of the bargain you’re getting.
But not so much when it comes to the tooth fairy. Delta Dental reveals in its annual survey… that when the tooth fairy descends onto your child’s bed… wings aflutter…. the average amount of money she slips under the pillow is 6 dollars and 25 cents.
Across the West… that’s up a whopping 32 percent from a year ago.
Since a child has 20 baby teeth that’s $125 a mouth If you have three kids… you’re gonna need... the tooth fairy is gonna need 375 dollars.
10 bucks a tooth is not unheard of. Three kids… that’s 600 bucks… so on this national tooth fairy day… I think it’s obvious. To make ends meet dentists have to gather up the teeth they pull… and put them all under the pillow. Problem. Solved.
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I never really wanted to take up fishing. But thanks to artificial intelligence… soon there won’t be anything else for me to do … so I might as well grab a pole.
You’ve already heard about ChatGPT - an AI app. It’s already writing marketing plans, high school essays… and for goodness sake… love letters. They’re gonna further refine artificial intelligence and for better or worse… it’ll replace 99-percent of all humans who write for a living. Which I do as part of this job.
So maybe I can get a job as window washers.
EXCEPT they’ve invented a robot to replace the brave p; people who hang from buildings. It’s called OZMO. It has mechanical arms that squeegie windows three times as fast as a human. So another job lost.
My only comfort… is that I also talk for a living. so they can’t replace me. EXCEPT… there’s a new DJ on Spotify
DJ X is 100% not human. It’s artificial intelligence… It’s BASED on the voice of Xavier Jernigan…
DJ X… as he’s called at Spotify now offers personalized patter between the songs…meant directly for you.
So it’s crystal clear like many others… I will soon lose my job to a computer … and I might as well go fishing. EXCEPT….
— The automatic fisherman ----
So now robots even do the fishing… as humans get the hook.
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I want you to think about your sister. Or your brother.
Got it?
This is an exercise you cannot do t do in China. Because out of a billion people … practically nobody has a brother … or sister.
For decades the communist country had a one-child-per-family policy…. and now… everybody there… is an only child.
At the beginning, it was a draconian measure to control the population struggling to feed itself.
But decades later now that there’s enough food…. they need more young people. Soon China will be completely overwhelmed in paying pensions and benefits to an aging population. And they need a much bigger next generation.
A one-child policy became two children… and then three…. but while the government urges its citizens to be fruitful and multiply…. hundreds of millions of Chinese people are saying …”nah.”
Young Chinese couples consider it too expensive to have children in today’s economic climate. And perhaps the bigger determining factor … is culture.
Y’know how you have fond memories of hangin’ out with your sibling? These are cherished memories Chinese people don’t have. Each of them only has fond memories of being an only child.
So the government is offering ever-increasing benefits.. even -for the first time - giving money to unmarried women who get pregnant… hoping to create siblings. But it’s not working. The birthrate remains flat…. in a country of a billion people… where nobody’s a brother… and not a sister among them.
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This is 30-year-old Marlene Engelhorn giving a recent Ted Talk…
Marlene Engelhorn is a multi-millionaire… worth maybe 50 million? I’d love to tell you that she made her money creating an app that changed lives. Or inventing the electric airplane…. but here’s how she became way richer than you. Are you ready?
Her grandma died.
At age 30 Marlene inherited a chunk of the family fortune … Her great great great great grandfather founded Germany’s biggest chemical company 150 years ago. They’re worth billions
So soon as they blew out the candles on her 30th birthday cake…. she met with the lawyers who told her … the money’s yours. Just enjoy yourself!
But Marlene was wracked with guilt. Knowing she did nothing to earn the money … while others starve and struggle.
So at this point, you expect me to tell you she’s giving it all away. Nope. Marlene says the world has enough foundations doling out money for pet poverty projects. Instead, she's launched a campaign for governments to levy a massive wealth tax. She doesn’t want to give it away. She’s making headlines ... demanding the government TAKE her money. And you say “whah… why the Government… “
And so she sits on her pile of cash too tall to count…. begging the government to take it … and level the playing field… You could call her a limousine liberal… crazy… or a poor little rich girl. Her response is that she's not smarter … better… prettier or more shrewd. She was simply created more equal than you.
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I know for most of us… the World Cup is over. The US is out… that’s that. See ya in four years. But in Qatar… they’ve created something so repulsive for this World Cup Tournament… that I have to share it with you.
Y’know the luxury boxes stadiums have for VIPs? The climate controlled boxes with the endless food and drinks and a hostess. The beautiful people are often sealed behind glass like zoo animals for the rest of us to gaze upon?
Well in Qatar … where oil billionaires outnumber schoolteachers…. they’ve offering another level of luxury. Over there… even the VIP’s are nothing special. Thus… at the World Cup… one step above … they have VVIP’s. Very very important persons…. their luxury boxes are filled with unspeakable pleasures. They include beds and showers.
And as you wonder why you might need to shower during a soccer match. Mull on this.
The Qatari’s created a special ROAD for the VVIP’s - The roadsign above actually says “VVIP” with an arriow. The road zips you to a secluded stadium entrance so you don’t even have to be seen by the normals. Among the VVIP’s… kings and Princes… Emirs and Shieks… Ivanka Trump & Jared.
And while they dine on six course VVIP dinners… Utes fans are scrambling for an 18 inch seat at the Rose Bowl…. where there is no VVIP section. But if you want a luxury suite for the Rose Bowl It’ll run you $50-thousand dollars. Or as it’s known in Qatar… pocket change.
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I wanted to do a minute of news about tennis players. They are almost to the point of protesting and their chant would be “Pickleball will not replace us.” Towns are repurposing tennis courts for pickleball… interesrting
But I didn't feel like writing today. So I thought… why not download one of those artificial intelligence apps… where you type in a subject… and your computer writes the story . So I got one called Nexbot AI. My instruction… “In a sarcastic tone write an article showing that tennis players are mad at pickleball players." So here goes! The first minute -ever -written by artificial intelligence.
Tennis players everywhere have been outraged at the suddent emergence of the pickleball athletes. Wait… wait. Let’s go all the way… Let the computer read it. I get a day off.
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The tech industry has turned dogfood into a verb… creating an entirely new word. Ever hear this? Dogfooding. For some reason… in the tech industry… it dogfooding is when an employee uses the company’s products. When I listen to KSL… because I work here… that’d be considered “dogfooding”
Bosses love when loyal employees use the product. Some people think the term comes from the Old Alpo Dog Food Commercials. 40 years ago the late actor Lorne Greene would talk to the audience as he fed Alpo to his dogs.
You can hear the dogs chewing there. Lorne Greene was the spokesman for Alpo… his dogs ate it. Dogfooding…
The ultimate example… comes from the CEO of AirBnB. Brian Chesky is worth 8-billion dollars. But he’s put his home on AirBnb. Well. Not his home. But he’s renting out a room in his home… and he promises he’ll be there for the guests.
So you might pop outa the shower and run into a billionaire. By the way… price for the room is ZERO dollars. Since it’s AirBnB the cleaning fee is probably 250-bucks. But it lists at zero. And availability is zero. It was booked up in a milliseond. So you won’t get to personally experience the ultimate example… of dogfooding.
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Holiday sales are up… but we’re not because we’re buying more stuff. We’re spending more on Christmas because of inflation. And nowhere do you find more proof… than with the CPI.
Don’t roll your eyes. The CPI is the Christmas Price Index… which totals up the value of all the gifts in the 12 days of christmas…. and compares them to last year. Buckle in.
$280 dollars. Partridge prices are the same as last year. The pear tree way more expensive because of higher fertilizer costsl.
Two Turtle Doves - 600. Feed prices are skyrocketing. Same deal for the French Hens. The price of four calling birds remains unchanged this year. A rare bargain.
Jewerly buyers?
Gold prices were up 40 percent… so set aside 1245 dollars. Now I problem with the day eight.
Maids a milking are calculated at minimum wage… which hasn’t changed. But come on nobody makes minimum wage $725 an hour? Get outa here. 4 of the maids would quit. 3 of em would go work for Amazon. The other'd make 17 at McDonalds. Onwoard…. to this…
12 drummers
Starving musicians. After the pandemic … they’re greatful to perform again…. so the drummers drumming are only up 2-poin6- percent… at about 3-thousand dollars. likewise the pipers piping… and when you add them all up. The price tag for the 12 days is $45,500. Up 10-and-a-half percent from last Christmas.
Now if you were the romantic type who’d buy all 12… would you skip a couple to save money? Course not. The first thing your true love would say is …where’s the nine ladies dancing…where’s the partridge in a pear tree And that is why we’re all spending more… to get the same amount of stuff for Christmas.
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This week Merriam Webster announced its “Word of the Year.” Some of the runners up included Omicron… Oligarch…. and Queen Consort - the title given to the wife of King Charles. But to decide the word of the year… the dictionary publishing company… looked at all the look-ups…for the word that was searched the most and saw the biggest sustaining surge in interest… for the word….. [drumroll]
Gaslighting
Accepting the award on behalf of gaslighting… Jeff Caplan.
Thank you. Gaslighting is more or less another word for lying. But more than that… it represents psycological manipulation. The Political Dictionary says to gaslight someone you sow the seeds of doubt with misinformation til they question their own sanity.
—
The word actually comes from a move in 1944… called Gaslight. The evil husband swipes his beautiful wife's jewelry and convinces her she’s forgetful. He even gets her to believe that she’s a kelptomaniac.
In the movie… the husband does something mysterious in the attic that makes all the gaslights dim… but he convinces his beleaguered wife she’s imaginging it… we get “gaslighting.” Since that movie’s released The term “Gaslighting has been around nearly 80 years… just waiting for 2022.
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On Sunday… 730 in the morning… they played the first NFL game ever in Germany. The Bucaneers and Seahawks went to Munich and 70-thousand people showed up. 700-thousand expressed interest in tickets… and you wonder …who are these Germans so interested in our uniquely American sport?
Turns out… behind Soccer… American Football is the Germany’s second favorite. They get to watch the NFL on Free TV. They quickly snapped-up seats ranging from 65-to 160 dollars. . and you also have countless Americans livignall over Europe so hungry for a taste of home… they leaped at a chance to see Tom Brady play…
Proof? Here’s a heartwarming moment . of Americana During one of the TV commercials breaks… the stadium sound system played take me home country roads. Listen to this crowd…
—
A 70-thousand person singalong. The radio reminds me of my home faraway.
A reminder… this is Germany… where tom Brady did Tom brady stuff and the Bucs beat the Seahawks… in the one game this season where the outcome … didn’t really matter.
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Of the four major sports…. hockey comes in fourth. Anybody want to fight about it. Because to most Americans hockey is just fighting on ice skates. But there’s a celebrity who wants to change the perception and turn you into a hockey fan.
First… because he’s Canadian… and second… because he has a lot of money from all those Deadpool movies you paid to see.
Rumors started floating around that Ryan Reynolds wants to buy the Ottawa Senators. Which is a real NHL Team tucked away in Canada’s Capitol. And he confirmed it… on the Tonight Show.
— cut —
Snap… funny guy. But turns out he’s serious about buying the team. Up in Ottawa he was at the game last night… and fans really want to see him do it.
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That is a standing ovation for a celebrity with 150-million dollars… who’s lookin for a Sugar Daddy.
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Here is a campaign commercial from 1952. It helped Dwight Eisenhower… better known as Ike… become President Eisenhower.
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So I ask… why can’t they sing the commercials for the Utah Senate race. Instead we get millions and millions of dollars of fear and loathing.
If you added-up the price-tag for all the annoying commercikals in this race. … I figured this out… it’s enough to buy a brand new .. bright and shiny …. fresh from the factory… Lear Jet.
The sticker-price for a brand new Luxury Lear jet … is 13-point-8 million dollars. Which is exactly how much has been spent on this Senate race.. It comes out to $7.32 for every single registered voter in Utah. They spent 7.32 trying to win your vote.
Exactly as much as you’d pay for a dozen original glaze Krispy Kreme donuts. That’s what your vote is worth. But the donuts don’t leave a bitter taste in your mouth like this campaign has.
After enduring these commercials and rolling your eyes this point… almost everybody’s decided which of these candidates is scarier. Which one is wrong for Utah. Who’s ineffective. Who’s evil.
Next time there’s a senate race… before we suffer through all the mudslinging… just a suggestion … We should pass a law that they have to sing the commercials. And if they don’t we should take all that campaign money… buy the learjet… it seats six. Load up McMullin… Lee… the billionaires bankrolling the ads. and fly them anywhere except Utah.
And for meal service on board? A dozen krispy kreme donuts.
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This is pong. The first video game. Ping pong on a black and white screen. A game that is ancient. A game that is boring. And a game that is so simple… scientists tought a petri dish full of brain cells to play it.
Let me repeat that because it sounds so ridiculous. They taught a dish full of living brain cells how to play pong. part of research about the human brain… and how it works differently than a computer … they plopped these 800-thousand brain cells into a glass dish… and the cells gradually learned… this is the ball. This is the paddle… here’s how you play.
The brain cells were grown on a silicon chip in a bath of nutrients. That chip chip send electrical signals to the cells and transmits them from the cells… which the researchers named dish brain. to help it learn…. when it got something right… scientists sent a sweet electrical signal. If they got it wrong… they got white noise.
Dish Brain never got that good at pong… because 800-thousand cells is about the number you’d find in a cockroach. Make the brain network bigger… and it’d get better… which indicates our computers may someday be made of humming thrumming human brain cells.
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I just read Romeo and Juliet. translated into emojis. Boy Emoji Girl emoji Heart Wink Knife the little face with the X’s for eyes… that’s death. The reduced Shakespeare to 24 little pictures.
Emojis are a language all their own. And chances are … if you’re over age 40… you might not speak it properly.
A new study shows that 91- percent of workers say some of their text messages have been misunderstood. In part… because older workers use the wrong emojis. For instance.. Gen Z only uses the thumbs up sarcastically. The dog messed up the rug. Response? Thumbs up! Use it like that.
Teens have made a whole different language with these same little emojnis . and parents you gotta know this stuff. A baseball cap represents a lie. It’s derived from men wearing baseball caps to hide their receding hairlines. So a ballcap represents make believe. Fakeness . A lie
The plate of spaghetti emoji. That means nude photos. Spaghettis are noodles… noods…. Get it. You better. Problem is … when you reach a certain age it becomes hard to see those little details in an emoji. You know the little yellow face that’s laughing so hard its crying? Many a grandma has sent that hysterical laughter emoji after a death in the family… because they only see the tears.
So to avoid hysterical laughter at your expense… put on your reading glasses... text carefully… and if you’re emoji game is weak… just try words. They were good enough for Shakespeare.
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Yesterday the US Mint announced we’re getting new coins… including quarters that depict Maya Angelou… and Astronaut Sally Ride. And for some reason this story… made my producer SNAP. She was losing it. All because the washing machine at her apartment… takes quarters. Five quarters. And apparently yesterday was not easy on a young woman who needs quarters… in the United States of America. what happened, Jess?
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Remember 25 years ago when the internet was like the Wild Wild West. You could dream up a name… like.. uh… Rockies.com because you loved the mountains. You register the name for 20-bucks…. you forget about it… and if you’re lucky… the Colorado Rockies come along and pay you more than a million dollars…. for the name.
That happened
But some people are happy to sit on these names registered long ago. One of them… is Gail. Back in 1996… her husband bought her Gail.com as a birthday gift. For years now… the only thing on Gail.com is the answers to a few questions. No pictures at all. It’s only Gail explaining that she likes the birthday present. She’s not selling it.. And she doesn’t want to make any money from it. Even though Gail.com gets 6-million hits a year… which makes you wonder …what’s so special about her helvetica text page that basically says “leave me alone?”
Well.. it’s one letter off from GMAIL.com. If you’re too light tapping the “M” in Gmail… you get Gail. Dot-com…. and apparently people make that mistake 6-million times a year…. which …if she did monetize it… could be worth around a half million dollars each year
But like a farmer who refuses to sell to the developers.. Gail remains anonymous… holding on to Gail.com … and whenever you mistype the email address of a friend… she’s content to let your digital tumbleweeds roll across her prarie…
By the way don’t go to prarie.com … it’ll absolutely wreck your computer.
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It’s one of the most ubiquitous taglines in advertising. W hen I say it… you’ll instantly know which company they go with. Ready?
Just Do It.
This is the first commercial to use those three words… back in 1988. They never said the words in the commercial - in fact they’re never spoken. At the very end of commercials… they just appear … and this is the guy who dreamed them up.
Dan Wyden had a little advertising agency …that worked with this upstart shoe company… from Oregon. But the three words came in a twisted way… from Draper Utah. Where in 1977.. convicted killer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad Like most Americans … Dan Wyden was fascinated by Gilmore’s last words.
Push through… Push Through… 11 years later… Wyden borrowed Gary Gilmore’s farewell to the world … for Nike.
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Just Do It. Words rarely spoken aloud… spawned at the state prison in Draper. … which gone. As is Dan Wyden… but his nike tagline is known round the world.
And for an advertising guy… there’s no better epitaph.
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Remember when Washington was contemplating whether to boot Tik-Tok out of the country. The issue is Tik Tok's Overlords in China having back-channel access to your personal information here in America?
Tik Tok promised to behave… and now with 70 million active users in America Tik Tok is making expansion plans in an unexpected direction. While you or your kids laugh the 180-billion funny little videos… Tik Tok is getting ready to take on Amazon.
And of all the insults… we learn of this on Amazon Prime Day.
Dozens of Tik Tok job openings on Linked In seem to indicate the company is planning to scale up an e-commerce business… complete with product fulfillment centers… a supply chain… a streamlined customs operation to get products out of China …where half of everything comes from. The Financial Times reports Tik Tok will start by introducing a live-shopping feature. Something like QVC where you can snap up all kinds of different baubles and chachkas.. Tik Tok's already doing this in the UK… and from there… once the pipeline is created it’s just a question of scaling up and eventually… in their dreams… giving Amazon a run for its money.
And there certainly is a lot of it. Last year… Amazon’s revenue totals almost a half trillion dollars. Soon … some of that money might be shipped off to China
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Out West … high atop a deser dry mountain in Central California… you’d have a hard time finding it… but if you look hard enough… you’ll find what’s believed to be the oldest tree in the world.
In fact you’ll find a few ancient Bristlecone Pines. Thick... twisted wood bent at almost unnatural angles… petrified branches swirling toward the heavens above. And topped by pine needles that look like a crew cut… that grew out a bit too much. The age of the oldest tree among them has been confirmed by scientist who drilled out a sample and counted the rings.
These Bristlecone Pines have taken everything nature’s thrown at them since before the days of Moses or Mohammed. At about the time the Egyptians were first figuring out how to build a pyramid. Little sprouts sprung from the earth… high on White Mountain in California. That tree is still standing… still alive … a staggering 4 thousand 8-hundred years old.
If you go to see it you’ll have to hike your way through the Inyo Forest to what they call the Methusalah Grove … where thetrees still grow at a rate of 1 inch every hundred years…. But you’ll have to guess WHICH fiBristlecone pine is the 4800 year old granddaddy.
A sad statement about modern society… the NY Times reports the Forest Service won’t label the tree… it’s fire resistant… and seems to handle climate change… and the ravages of time. ut the rangers want to protect the world’s oldest tree… from man… almost expecting// that someone will vandalize it.
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If it turns out there are martians… do you want them to look like us? Or do you want your martians with six arms and lizard heads?
I ask because we’ve just heard the first live recording of a meteor crashing into the surface of Mars. It’d be cool if it sounded just like the meteor that exploded over the Great Salt Lake. Remember … a month ago. Saturday morning started with an earth shattering boom that echoed across three states. We all wondered if it was an earthquake… or a military test… a rocket blast… or even an earthquake.
That was impressive. But it turns out with the thin unbreathable atmosphere on Mars… a meteor blast. This rock hurtling through the heavens at unimaginable speed toward Mars produce a different sound than you’d expect.
The Perseverance Rover set-up a microphone on the Martian surface …and on Labor Day weekend a meteor struck roughly 100 miles away. And while we’re all used to Star Wars version of cosmic explosions… this -for the first time ever - is what a giant meteor sounds like when it blasts a crater into the martian surface. You ready?
——
To me… that sounds like a bubble bath in a thunderstorm. Here it is again.
Wimpyt. A weak little noise indicates sound indicates ... if there are martians. whether they look like lizards or just like us… twhen that meteor hit… they probably looked unimpressed
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I may be a little older than you… but I can remember when a Netflix subscription cost 7-99. It’s nearly doubled over the past decade But even at inflation fueled $15.49 … it’s the biggest bargain in the state of Utah. This is not a commercial… this is data,,,, from a new study about Netflix useage nationwide. And it turns out based on Google search… Utahns watch more Netflix than any other state except Oregon. On average… the typical Utahn streamed 782 hours of Netflix last year. Which is about 2 hours and a few minutes each day.
If you’re the average Utahn… that means last year you paid 23-cents for each hour of Netflix you watch. No commercials. Where do you get entertainment that cheap?
But the other fascinating bit of data from this study is that we’re the most honest state in America when it comes to Netflix password sharing. Across America … when theri children are grown and parents wave goodbye… and say “Sorry we’ve created a world where you can’t afford a house. But here’s the Netflix password.”
But in Utah… In true conservative fashion… we raise our children and send them off into the world with “Bye… love you Now go get your own Netflix Account.
The rest sof the country sees us as glowing examples of honestly… but I think we show our love sharing the Disney Plus password. Just sayin
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My dad was a stamp collector and it bored me to tears. Look at this one from England. It’s the Queen’s head …dad. Can I go outside?
Janet Yellen and I have the same relationship with stamps. She the US Secretary of the Treasury… you’ll find her signature on the dollar bill. And she does not collect stamps.
But somehow… everybody thinks she does. Yellen inherited her mom’s stamp collection. She has little interest… but she had to list the stamps as an asset on her financial disclosure forms. So for years… every time she meets a foreign ambassador… they give Janet Yellen a stamp. Indonesia even created a stamp with Janet Yellen’s portrait. Still not her thing.
Yellen was even invited to join the most prestigious stamp collecting club in the world… the Club De Monte Carlo even boasted Queen Elizabeth as a member. When Yellen got the invitation…she said no.
So a note to foreign ambassadors. May I suggest instead of gifting the Treasure Secretary Stamps… give her live chickens. The inflation she’s fighting has hit the price of eggs the hardest. … so she’ll appreciate the free omelets. Plus the every time she cleans the coop… it’ll remind her where the economy’s going.
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I’ve been around… and Utahns have more state pride than anywhere else. . Cept Tecxas. But Texas pride is an in your face kind of boastful proud that says “we’re great, you suck.”
Utahns are just as proud… but with humble confidence. We have the mountains… the fry sauce… and we apparently spell better than the rest of the country.
Google Trends just released the list of words most misspelled in each state. They basically compiled a list of every time somebody Googled “how do you spell… some word.”
Anti-disestablishmentarianism. Or Supercalafragalisticexplialadocious. Whatever. And at least the word most misspelled by Utahns… is a difficult word with French origin. But one that comes up every prom season… every wedding. Can you guess?
Down in Texas … home of the new National Spelling Bee Champion… Texas… where they think everybody else sucks… Google says the word they misspell most … is Normal. Is that a hard word? Checking on the neighbors… Colorado stumbles on the word Choice. Wyoming can’t spell Autumn. Nevada chokes on the word seizure.
But in Utah… we stumble on the word… you ready… Boutenniere. It’s harder. We’re smarter.
But be humble about it. The way Texas behaves… it’s not … Normal.
N-O-R-M-A-L. Duh.
At least when Utahns trip it’s on a word that’s almost impossible. BOUTEN NIERE. Boutenniere
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MonkeyPox. MonkeyPox.
Undoubtedly… when you first heard about it. You… or someone you love… immediately scratching going ooo ooo ooo. There are two types of people in this world. Those who did the ooo ooo … and those who roll their eyes at it… and that’s the problem with these scientists.
I respect and appreciate the miracles they create in their laboratories. They've cured countless diseases …but they are absolutely horrible at naming sicknesses.
MonkeyPox. Very descriptive it originated in simians… and it causes pox… pus filled lesions on the skin. But … MonkeyPox.
They want to get us on board call it the pus virus… or jungle rot. Back in the days before scientists were naming diseases we had some good ones. The Black Plague. Come onnn. That’s how you do it.
But MonkeyPox. Covid… is just the first letters of the words "CoronaVirus Disease” They shoulda called it the Bat Plague.
Everybody woulda joined in to fight the bat plague … they’d put up search lights in the night to remind you to mask up. We coulda skipped all the politics. But instead…. Covid. Meh. But now… MonkeyPox. I want to suggest… if it’s not too late… lean into the part about the pus filled lesions. Call it… lesionaire disease. Call it Gorilla Flu. Anything but a name that conjures up images of a barrel of monkeys. Which is supposed to be fun. Right up into you get the disease.
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The headline was jarring. Research confirms what most parents realize far, far too late. A study from Columbia University confirms that raising three kids can make you lose your mind.
Here’s the information from Columbia’s School of Public Health and the University of Paris published in the Journal of Demogrraphy when they compared elderly people who’d raised three or more children with those who raised two.
You ready?
Feeding all those mouths and juggling soccer games and gymnastics and screaming matches over who gets the biggest burger and curling all that hair for Sunday church takes a toll.
Specifically, the study shows having 3 kids ... it increases the risk of cognitive deterioration. You run a greater risk of dementia.
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Walmart’s Profits were down last quarter. If you think "ohhh too bad… Jimmy Walmart has to build a smaller summer mansion. What do I care?"
Let’s reconsider this. Walmart cash registers ring up 20-thousand dollars in sales per second. In the time it took Jeff to type that they ran up 100-grand. And there’s another 100-grand. You get the idea?
They have 5,000 stores chock full of - well - almost everything. And Eddie Elfbein from Crossing Wall Street says Walmart is a better barometer of the US Economy than all the government statistics. And here’s what Walmart’s earnings tell us.
That middle and lower class Americans are already changing their shopping habit.
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Jeff doesn’t play board games. Just, not his thing. Sure, he'll play a chaotic round of Trouble with the grandkids, When he was a kid that popping thing in the middle was his version high tech. It was an incredible innovation in board games… and he's serious.
In Kansas and Nebraska to this day - another classic - Sorry remains their favorite board game.
See, a site called Solitaire Bliss just released a map of America’s favorite board games by state.
And Utah - according to this website - the most popular board game here is Catan.
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Jeff feel like we’ve been remiss. For the past three weeks, the English-speaking world has been transfixed by one thing.
It’s not Elon Musk, Trump or Biden. It’s not gas prices, nor the inflation rate. We’re not focused on - what is it - this 18th wave of Covid. The war in Ukraine? Nope. Nope.
As climate change steals our water. As fire crackles across the West. And India reaches temperatures that threaten human survival. We’re apparently worried and fascinated by Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard.
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We’re all out of whack over inflation. Ground Beef costs an extra dollar a pound, but if you’d invested all your money in Bitcoin, well Matt Damon suggested you should. But now it's silence from him.
The New York Times reports that with Bitcoin prices down by 39 percent since the Superbowl, we’re not hearing a single word from the celebrities who made some coin of their own by speaking up for crypto.
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The art of peaceful protesting has been the same for years now. You make signs, you chant, maybe you stage a sit in, or you lock yourself to something with handcuffs.
Same old Same old. But have you noticed the newest innovation in peaceful protesting. People have been gluing themselves to stuff.
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We’ve already explained that Josh Wardle invented Wordle as an act of love for his girlfriend. When the daily puzzle game went viral, he sold it to The New York Times for a couple million dollars or so. A sweet nest egg for a puzzle where you use clues to guess the daily five letter word.
For millions of people it’s a fun escape from a world gone crazy.
But there was no escape Monday. The five-letter answer to the Monday puzzle was loaded into the system last year, before The New York Times bought the game. Before Josh Wardle sold the game.
So when you figure out the puzzle and feel that burst of pride that moment of escape - you pause for a second and say “what?”
Monday's answer is straight outa Roe v Wade. It just so happens by coincidence Monday's word is “fetus.”
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Hans Riegel was fed up with job. The German confectioner did what so many people are doing today, he quit his job to launch a start-up. In his home kitchen Hans cooked up batches of hard candy and sold them at street fairs. But back in 1920 there was nothing special about another guy peddling hard candy so he started noodling around in his kitchen. These days we’d call it a pivot as he mixed together fruit flavoring sugar and gelatin.
He molded the soft candy mix into the shape of a dancing animal. People loved his soft candy and at the very same time KSL Radio was signing on the air for the very first time in 1922, Hans Riegel invented … the Gummi Bear.
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Is Google robbing us of the ability to think for ourselves? Google is great when you need a fact. Like - which country exports the most octopus? China. How many pounds in a kilogram? 2.2. Whaddaya call a vet who specializes in salamanders? A herpetologist. Wonderful. Thank you Google.
THE one question google is asked the most worldwide is this. Are you ready?
What is my IP Address.
Now computer trouble-shooting makes sense. But for the life of Jeff, he can’t figure out why you would ask google a question that begins with the words “Should I.” Because that means you’re entrusting your life to a machine. Yet millions and millions of times a day, people ask Google “Should I…”
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Now the food shortages are hitting a little too close to home. Specifically Garland Utah, where the fire department is typically getting ready for next months’ big Salmon BBQ.
To host such an event you need bbq sauce, you need grills, you need utensils, you need volunteers and it’s all good. I’m happy to say heading toward summer, America is awash in Barbeque sauce. Garland has all the equipment and volunteers, but what they don’t have is salmon. Like none.
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It’s funny how people can go crazy … as soon as they join a committee.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival e. The central California community is the epicenter of garlic production here in the U-S. And a generation ago they started this quirky festival that celebrated all things garlic. People flocked by the 10s of thousands for freshly harvested garlic cloves ...Garlic ice cream.. bubble gum… you name it.
And now the festival is no more. There was a mass shooting a few years ago. A pandemic and new homes are encroaching on the open fields that served as the parking lots. The festival - this quirky piece of Americana is cancelled.
But there’s hope.
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Thank goodness Utah lawmakers had the wisdom to create a penal code that anticipated inflation. Because if they weren’t so wise, these rising prices be terrible for all the criminals.
Let Jeff explain. In Utah, theft law says that if you steal something worth $1,500, when you’re caught, you get charged with a felony. That’s serious business. But if you steal something worth $1,499, it’s a misdemeanor, and you’re in a whole lot less trouble.
In other states around the country, lawmakers aren’t as wise as ours. Some states set the threshold at $200. Steal something worth a mere $201 dollars and you’re facing a deadly serious felony. Possible prison time.
In New Jersey for instance, they’ve kept the felony threshold parked at $200 since 1978. It was fine for 43 years, but with this inflation we’ve been seeing, it’s not just eggs and milk going up. Sneakers are going up - and those coveted Air Jordans now easily top 200-bucks. Swipe a pair, in a handful of states, you’re now looking at prison time.
When Nike’s were only $175, same shoes were a misdemeanor
Yes, inflation is taking a toll on thievery.
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It’s Earth Day. Jeff's already celebrated. Thursday, during the dust storm, he did the show outside Vivint Arena and the Jazz game.
And for five solid hours he sat still in my little chair in our KSL booth and he talked on the radio. Which means his mouth was open. And he ate the earth. He could taste the grit on his teeth. Friday morning, he had to spend a half-hour washing the dust off the tech equipment.
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If you remember when the Russians invasion began - the first glimpse we got of Ukraine’s determination and grit - the first time we we realized they weren’t going to roll over was when a Russian ship transmitted a message to a tiny island off the coast of Ukraine ordering troops on the Island to surrender.
One of the Ukranian soldiers radioed back “**** You Russian Ship.” Except he didn’t say the explicative. It was the real deal. An emphatic, profane declaration of resistance that was like a wake up call for the entire world. These guys are gonna fight back.
And that they did. In fact two months later, that very Russian ship sits on the bottom of the Black Sea, sunk by a Ukranian missile.
And now, in a blasphemous moment of pride, the Ukranian Postal Service has released a stamp that commemorates the moment of resistance.
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Long before healthful eating was a thing, long before healthful was even a word, Jeff's mom refused to buy Lucky Charms. Even back then, when a typical breakfast would mean cocoa krispies, sugar pops, apple jacks, or Cap’n Crunch…. mom drew the line at Lucky Charms.
Even in 1966, she had a hunch that processed artificially colored dried up marshmallow bits were not breakfast food, and on this point she refused to budge.
Which is why to this day, Jeff goes down the cereal aisle. He see the Lucky Charms, he grabs a box and he eat 'em all. But never for breakfast cause he was raised right. But now, he has to admit mom had a point. It took more than 50 years, but she was right.
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Friends, Jeff has to tell you about an Amazing diet he's about to start. He has a lot to lose, so he's gonna start tomorrow - right after the egg salad is gone.
All those expensive eggs the kids colored, he's not gonna waste them. He will slide his wfie’s creamy and dreamy chopped egg leftovers between two slices of bread for lunch. He's gonna start the Amazing and Ridiculously Delicious Jeff Caplan Diet.
Here’s how it works and it’s really simple. You just eat chocolate. Nothing else. Ghiradelli for breakfast. Lindt Chocolate for lunch. Those little Ferrero chocolates in the foil wrapper for dinner. Three meals a day, just chocolate. Much as you want.
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I’m going to assume you already know how a bill becomes a law, thanks to the little scrolled-up fella from Schoolhouse Rock.
That goes back to your childhood, but these days, there’s a new wrinkle. When they introduce a new bill members of Congress go acronym crazy.
They make up a clunky name for the bill like the Sensible Oversight for Technology which Advances Regulatory Efficiency Act. Pure word salad. But take the first letter of each word and suddenly it’s the SOFTWARE act. And the genius politician who dreamed it up hopes you’ll sit around with the family playing a board game and say “so did you hear about the Software Act"
You don’t.
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Jeff's not here to judge. He will just report that baseball superstar Albert Pujols showed up at spring training a bit creaky, after all the 10-time all-star has been at it for two decades. Albert Pujols is a lock for the Hall of Fame, he’s fifth on the all-time home run list, and he’s wearing the Cardinal uniform the season, going back to where it all started.
But it’s also a new chapter in his life. The whispers started last week, during the first day of spring training. For Pujols, it was another day at the office. He went 1-for-3 - showing he’s still got it. But at the same time, he was stepping up to the plate in Jupiter ,Florida, his wife was having brain surgery. His wife Dierdre was having a tumor removed, and Albert was in the batters box.
He did not fly home to be at her side Monday as she’s recuperating. Pujols announced that after 22 years of marriage, he’s decided to file for divorce.
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Over the weekend, Jeff went to see the giant whale in Salt Lake City. In the middle of the round about at 9th South and 11th East, there’s a massive blue leviathan beast, breaching the the ground, shooting straight up in the air.
This fiberglass humpback whale soars 23 feet up, his fins are 46 feet across.
In the middle of Salt Lake City.
But Why?
This is the proverbial fish out of water. But before you shake your head and see the art piece as another example of ridiculous folly from the crazy people of Salt Lake, let’s consider Utah history for a moment.
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For a story Jeff was writing, he asked people: what do you call a person from Salt Lake? And they get this glazed over look, shrug their shoulders and say "I dunno … Salt Laker? Maybe. Yeah."
I mean do you really say that? I haven’t heard it out of anyone’s mouth in 11 years.
A Parisian is from Paris
A Roman is from Rome
But what do you call a personwho calls Salt Lake his home?
Ogdenians and Heberites have names that both make sense
Or maybe their Hebernians-‘bout this I’m on the fence.
But surely all the Loganeers and most of the Duchayniards also
West Jordanians are known by rather sane words.
A spaniard is from Spain
They have Eskimos in Nome
But what do you call a person who calls Salt Lake his home?
Some would say Salt Laker.
But would that describve your Mom?
A Laker shoots a basketball
A Laker is LeBron
It doesn’t seem appropriate it doesn’t feel quite right
It makes about as much sense
Salt Lakeian or ite.
Some would say just call your friend a Utahn…but for fun… I’ll have to ask if Utahn's spelled with two “a"s. Or just one.
But insist you’re a Salt Laker I’ll know just what you meant. But pardon me if I call you "A Salt Lake Resident"
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They had me at the Rice Krispies. See, ever since Jeff learned that old time radio shows would use live sound effects in the shows, Jeff's been transfixed by this job that no longer exists. Sound effects guy.
Did you know that to create the sound of eggs frying in the pan? They’d crumble up cellophane.
So the Oscars are Sunday Night, and the only award Jeff cares about is the Best Sound Editing because of the movie Dune. Turns out they created a sci fi desert planet that doesn’t exist with the help of old timey sound effects.
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An unknown hacker claims he’s broken into Okta - which you’ve never heard of. It’s a computer system that manages logins for thousands of companies and hundreds of millions of users.
This is huge because Okta is supposedly as secure as secure gets, and the passwords they manage are the keys to the American castle.
So the obvious question is, was it the Russians? Well, it’s complicated.
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March Madness continues with eight games Thursday, but all eyes are on Philadelphia, where this year's Cinderella team takes the court tomorrow night.
The St. Peters’ Peacocks face Purdue at 5 o’clock and for some reason this Cinderella team has captured America’s imagination more so than most. Every year there’s a team that rises above humble roots, but St Peter’s is such a small forgotten school that this is the kind of run they make movies about.
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Would you get on a plane with no pilot?
Jeff's guessing your reflexive answer is “no” — but there’s a 7-billion dollar bet that your answer will eventually change to “yes.”
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A recent survey shows the majority of Russians support the country’s war in Ukraine. But the war they support isn’t the one that’s actually happening. Russian media tells fairy tales about evil Ukranian Nazis and Mother Russia’s brave rescue of its neighbor. Truth gets blocked at the border.
So there’s no easy way to find out about the bombs raining down on hospitals and children’s shelters and senior centers. About the failure of the ground assault. They have no idea that 10-thousand Russian soldiers have died in battle. And that’s a conservative estimate. How are they going to find out? Facebook, Twitter and Western Websites are all banned.
And that’s when it's time get creative.
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We are grappling with a pasta shortage. It’s not as bad as the toilet paper shortage. You’re still gonna find a few stray boxes of noodles on the grocery shelf. But Jeff went shopping this weekend and there’s a gaping hole where the buccatini and fusilli and farfalle are supposed to be.
Now he knows, it used to be we had like three kinds of pasta. There’s always spaghetti - to feed a family on the cheap. Lasagna is a family chef who has patience. And Mac (paired with powdered cheese).
Well in Utah, there’s a fourth pasta.
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A long awaited tractor has just rolled off the John Deere assembly line for the first time ever. They call it a headless tractor.
While we still wait for truly autonomous self-driving cars, John Deere has developed a $500,000 tractor with no seat, no steering wheel, no pedals and no farmer.
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We work in a newsroom here at KSL. A giant floor where there’s a section for radio, another for KSL-TV. We all see each other in the break room and work together. And for the life of Jeff, he can’t imagine a staff member here running onto the TV news set standing behind Deannie Wimmer and holding up in a protest.
But in another newsroom far far away that’s exactly what a staff member did. In a country that’s been washed clean of truth, Russian TV airs Vladimir Putin’s myths 24/7. The absence of honesty leaves a vacuum filled with stories about glorious Russian liberators ridding Ukraine of Nazi animals.
But in a newsroom, you have access to the truth. You have tv feeds that come in unvarnished from around the world and at Russia’s Channel One, the entire staff is complicit in whitewashing this war. Except for one woman.
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Gas is cheaper for Costco members, and yesterday Jeff heard there were long lines at the pumps at at least one local Costco. Look. He can handle a pandemic, political upheaval, BUT he gets a bad case of PTSD when you say the words “gas lines”
And if you’re older than say, 55, you know what he's talking about. 1973, and again in 1979, Middle East Oil Producers cut our supply of oil they raised prices overnight, and America suffered a meltdown.
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Most Russians get their news from state run television. 70% of them say it’s their primary source of information. And Jeff wondered what they could possibly be seeing on TV, as most of the world turns its back on Russia.
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Imagine for a second, if suddenly you learned South Jordan is actually pronounced "South Jhordann." Or that West Valley is actually "West Vallay." That’s what it’s like for newspeople in almost every city that becomes a global hotspot.
For instance, during the Gulf War the country Jeff's geography teacher called Qatar became "Cutter." During the olympics, he learned that the city his World Geography teacher called Peking… with a P… is not Beijing with a B… But actually Bei-Jing with a hard “J” - Beijing.
And now… we have the city that I’ve always known as Kiev.
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The world is on edge, Ukraine is ablaze, and their President says that with no help coming, Ukranians should make molotov cocktails.
To those who don’t know a molotov cocktail is not a drink.
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Three years in office and the President of Ukraine was at the epicenter of the Trump Impeachment Remember the perfect phone call? It was this president. Now he’s in the crosshairs.. literally. Intelligence reports say he’s on Kill List.
Three years ago, I did minute of news about the President of Ukraine the day after he was elected.
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You never know what Vladimir Putin is thinking, but his bizarre speech rewriting Ukrainian history was a big clue. He was filled with fire and fury as he spoke.
Then… he warned the rest of the world.
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Used to be everybody watched the same TV shows. You had three networks, and a typical office conversation the next morning would be “did you see Cheers” last night?
And everybody would say, yeah, that was pretty funny when Sam and Rebecca, y’know.
But times change.
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What’s up with the Golf guys? Tiger, well, we know his story. But now his rival from the good ole days Phil Mickelson has suffered an abrupt fall from grace. No women. No drugs. Just stupidity.
Mickelson’s best days are behind him - like the 2004 Masters.
Mickelson can still swing a driver at age 51. Fans always loved him as the 2nd best golfer. They enjoyed his dry sense of humor. Here. After one victory, he explained how he did it.
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When you get home tonight and hit the button to open the garage door, whisper a prayer - because you’re fortunate enough to have a garage door.
If you’re like thousands of Utahns moving into new construction, you’re probably waiting, and waiting for that one last piece of the construction puzzle that never arrives.
The New York Times did a deep dive into the garage door shortage and discovered first of all - prices have doubled. That’s before we even get started. One builder told the Times it used to take 20 weeks to build a house. Now it takes 20 weeks to get a garage door.
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For two weeks now we’ve watched the best ice skaters in the world jump, leap, dance and pirouette.
We’ve watched toe loops lutzes and triple axels, and even the salchows - Jeff had to look it up - a salchow is a jump where you’re going backwards, and leap off the inside edge of one skate and land on the outside edge of the other. It’s named after Sweidsh Skater Urich Salchor who invented the move in 1909.
But back to The Minute - watching Nathan Chen twist his way to a gold medal, and seeing the shenanigans with the Russian women, Jeff was left with one question? How do they do those spins where they turn into a blur, AND AVOID GETTING DIZZY?
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Every year they make a big deal about the Super Bowl Commercials. Just like Crypto people drop insane amounts to buy invisible money .
This weekend, hopeful companies will drop $7 Million to buy 30 seconds of… air.
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Have you noticed that when somebody wins gold in Beijing? Instead of a medal, you see them holding a white Mardi Gras mask surrounded by something shiny. At first I was like - “is that a skull they’re holding? No can’t be. What is that."
Turns out, it’s their Olympic mascot.
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There are two kinds of snowboarders at the Olympics. The grizzled veterans who measure their success in torn cartilage and broken bones, and the younger ones who came up in the era of airbags.
The New York Times points out, they’ve managed to create these mind blowing mid-air moves by testing their twists with the knowledge that trial and error jumps will end with a soft landing on a giant marshmallow.
For the record, the highest dive onto an airbag ever was 342 feet straight down.
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On Sunday, while you’re scooping up 7 layer dip, 100 men will go into battle using all the strenghting skill and cunning they can muster hoping to win what Vladimir Putin already has.
The most coveted piece of Sports Jewelry in the World: a shimmering Super Bowl Ring. Last year’s ring featured 340 diamonds and a first! Aflipp off top that revealed a gold replica of the stadium on the inside.
Now that is bling! But that’s not the one Putin pilfered.
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You gracious, gracious people. Turns out as we weather the tail end of the pandemic, we’re finally learned how to tip better. On average, Americans are digging deeper into pocket and tipping one percent more.
One percent!
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Troops from Ukraine aren't just guarding the border with Russia. They're also guarding Chernobyl, an infamous nuclear disaster site -- lest the Russians invade and take back the mess they created.
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If you have a dog or cat, you already know about the pet food shortage.
Humans have been scrambling for crunchies or kibble - or whatever you call it. And if Fluffy McFluffface a picky eater and will only accept one brand of pet food, it’s a nightmare.
Rushing to Walmart when a new shipment comes in, scouring the online sites, constantly gauging how many days of Fido’s choice you have left before the pantry runs dry.
It’s stressful.
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Jeff used to think the most ridiculous sport in the world was Speed Skydiving. Here’s how it works: You take an airplane ride to 13-thousand feet, put on your helmet, jump out of the plane and plunge headfirst. Hands at your sides you plummet faster and faster as you try to break the record of 318 miles an hour.
You maintain perfect body control, turning yourself into an arrow shooting downward. When you max out your speed you gently curve your body to slow down. Gently because otherwise you’ll rip your limbs apart. Then you open your chute, and drift toward the puff of dust you’ll create on terra firma.
Jeff used to think it was the most ridiculous sport in the world. But then he learned about Extreme Ironing.
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It’s going to look like the Winter Olympics. Sorta the way they’re remembered here in Utah. Not quite the same though.
Same song and everything, but watch closely.
Because there’s a lot you’re not supposed to see in Beijing.
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It was a throwback Thursday nobody wanted. Late last week thousands of Utah kids were back in remote learning. Once again putting pressure on parents deal with a new pandemic development, and it’s been driving people nuts.
Especially the moms, who have to worry about succumbing to the virus, nurturing the sick, working or working from home keeping after the kids, who never left the house last week. It never ends.
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Maybe for a week, maybe just a weekend, we all fantasize about getting off the grid. But in Tonga everybody’s off the grid, and it's a nightmare.
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This is what Jeff remembers most from a year ago today. And he kids you not, it’s a message from a listener on the KSL Text line.
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Lucy Harris was an amazing woman… and if things worked out a little differently she coulda been the first woman … to play for the Utah Jazz.
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We’ve talked about the British Prime Minister… and the scandal that may cost him his job. From this we learn once again the lying is the easiest way for a politician to get in trouble. And we also learn that they speak a different language in England.
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When Jeff listens to popular song he's fascinated how the most gifted songwriters suddenly get a glimmer of inspiration that quickly turns into a sparkle of genius. Every so often lightning strikes, and we get a song that resonates for generations.
The latest song? It's from a Disney Movie - Encanto. There’s a character named Bruno in the movie. Bruno can predict the future and tell you all the bad things that are gonna happen to you. So they explained this to Lin Manuel Miranda, and he immediately sat down at the piano and started plunking the keys
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For 10 year old Noah Reeb, 2022 is starting off way better than 2021.
The Highland child went through 6 months of radiation and treatment at Primary Children’s Hospital last year. This year he got tickets to the Super Bowl from Tom Brady.
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He was the tallest player ever to wear a BYU basketball uniform.
In his playing day, they called him the Stormin' Mormon. Bradley’s outstretched arms and shot blocks earned him 70-million dollars over his career in the NBA. But then came the bike crash in St George.
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We have the legislature considering whether to put the kibosh on "test to stay.” Remote learning is popping up in at least a few places. Teachers are out sick. The school lunch lady in the cafeteria just got a positive test. Parents are organizing in favor of masks. They’re against masks. We’re hearing about tyranny… community… personal responsibility. County councils have catfights. We’re swamping the hospitals.
But its just an Omicold!
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Usually when we follow dysfunction in England, we focus on the Queen and her sloppy family problems - mostly because it teaches us that even the wealthiest, most privileged people on this earth have their own messy problems, just like us.
But today, let’s focus on the drama swirling around British Prime Minister Boris Johnson - a rumpled populist with tussled hair, who seems to have a problem - he’s a hypocrite.
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The NBA sells NFT’s. Digital files of highlights on the courts. Most people don’t understand what an NFT really is … Jeff could tell you its unique blockchain digital asset, and regurgitate all the technical jargon, but Jeff has no clue what an NFT is.
What he does know is that at the same the NBA is leaping into the digital future, they’re also rooted deep in the past, keeping precious videotape of great moments, locked in an actual nuclear bunker.
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You’ve have never been to Telosa, Utah.
Because you’d have to hop on I-15 and take an off-ramp to the future. Telosa has yet to be built. It’s still a fantasy being dreamed-up by tech billionaire Marc Lore.
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They say chicken soup is food for the soul. But apparently chicken breasts cure the common cold. At least that’s what a lot of people think when they prepare the latest culinary delight in the kitchen.
I kid you not.
Chicken breast braised in NyQuil.
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Maybe you do this. You’re reading something on the phone, and somebody -say your spouse- starts talking to you. And she says “the dishwasher is acting up again. I’m gonna call the repair guy.” You're completely absorbed by your phone. All you heard you heard was "bhalh zah dish womp womp” As you continue reading you respond “uh uh .. okay,” and you never heard a word.
It’s worse when you try to talk to your kids. They’re busy speed texting, and makin’ duck lips and completely ignoring you, and this is gonna get much, much worse.
Because there’s a team hard at work perfecting a brand new way to use your phone. I kid you not. It’s a retainer.
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When you buy a car… many a couple has reached the point of breakdown over a simple decision.
What color? The other day BMW put the discussion about color to rest.
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A year after the attack on the US Capitol, Jeff Caplan reflects on his own visit to the Capitol building back in July -- and the "new normal" that emerged from that day.
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Have you ever shoved anything up your nose? I’m not talking about nose drops or tissues - I’m asking like - if you ever stuck something like chopsticks up your nose? Jim Carrey Style.
I ask because each year the US Consumer Product Safety Comission compiles a list of the items pulled out of peoples’ noses, in emergency rooms. And in a year we were warned non-stop to mask-up, hide our faces, and avoid putting our own fingers in our nostrils, let’s just say some people got inventive because this government list of items extracted from people’s snouts come in three categories.
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Red Hamilton is low on the hockey totem poll. He’s the assistant equipment manager for the Vancouver Canucks. He sits on the bench at games, and makes sure everybody has a stick. A few weeks ago, some crazy lady started banging on the glass behind the bench…
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This is the story of one man and a dream. For a dozen years, Utah inventor Mark Kirkland has been trying to sell a product called the Candwich.
Back in 2010 Steven Colbert explained what a Candwich is.
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Back in the day, any time any American went into space, they’d get their wings. Astronaut wings - little godlen pin that signified they’d flown more than 50 miles up, and came 50 miles down.
But no more. Last week… the FAA announced they’re retiring the practice.
And guess who’s among the last humans to be awarded their wings?
Jeff Bezos.
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While we wait for snow blanket the region… ushering in the Christmastime season The men with their snowplows are gassed up to go But what do we call the trucks pushing snow?
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Yesterday Jeff grabbed an apple… and in one practiced motion… he put it in his palm while pulling the hand toward my already opening mouth…. and as he braced for that first delightful chomp…. he froze. The fruit sticker was in Jeff's target zone.
He stared at the sticker. It stared back. And the fruit devil on his left shoulder said “Eat It. Eat the Sticker.” The fruit angel on my right said “peel it off Jeff”
And it got him wondering ... is it ok to eat the sticker?
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Jeff's spent the past two weeks… no kidding… trying to find out what the metaverse is?
He's been reading. He's been watching youtube… and he doesn’t get it.
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Churchill Canada bills itself as the Polar Bear Capitol of the World. Perched at the Northern tip of Manitoba… and pressed up against the Arctic Circle… the people of Churchill are pondering a problem.
With not a single road leading back to the rest of the world… they depend on wealthy tourists to come see the bears… and leave their bucks behind. Tundra Buggies take them out on tours …
Churchill is the place that polar bears wait for the ice to harden …. and as winter takes hold they lumber off onto the frozen sheet hunting for seals.
In Churchill there’s no great love for polar bears. When they’re hungry… they’re so dangerous last week trick-or-treaters in Churchill were followed by parents in cars… just in case of polar bear attack. The New York Times says… drivers take wide turns around corners… in Churchill … llest they plow into a polar bear.
That’s trouble enough but Churchill has a bigger problem and its climate change. Which is happening more quickly the farther north you go. Almost every Christmas we hear about a heatwave at the north pole and it’s suddenly warmer than Utah up there.
So the ice forms later and later each year. The bears get less time to hunt seals… and when their hungry they produce fewer cubs… So their population is dwindling. And Churchill wonders… how to lure the tourists? You can see the Northern Lights there… but that’s true of any town up north.
Churchillians are moving out. The town’s thriving population of 5,000 is down to 800… and soon… thanks to climate change…
the town that will soon by popalted not by its hardscrabble people… nor by majestic polar bears .. But only by ghosts.
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Election Day… and the only people who are gonna drop-off their ballots today are the same ones who do their Christmas shopping December 23rd.
Voting by mail makes it so easy. But we need a changeYou sit home … you go to each candidates facebook page and discover they’re all in favor of family values and the American way of life…. they’re against higher taxes… so you just pick the one with a name you’ve heard before… seal it up… and send it off.
At some point you’ll find out who won. Or maybe you won’t. Either way… you’ve fulfilled your civic responsibility. And I mourn for the kids who’ll never get to have the kind of Election Day experience I enjoyed.
Because back when I was a little one… dad would take me to vote. I felt so important sharing this secret responsibility. He’d hold me in his arms so I’d be tall enough to close the curtain. And he let me pull the little levers on the voting machine. Then I would pull the big handle to make it all final and it made a big cranking noise and I felt like the world’s more important 4 year old. 5 year old. And when I stood on my own two feet.. as an eight year old… and as a 35 year old… took my own young song into the voting machine.. and he pulled the levers but that’s where the story ends.
Because that wizard of oz moment feeling like a powerful man behind the curtain will never be experienced by this new.. generation.
Instead… when it’s time to vote… they’ll get to lick an envelope. So I’d like to suggest this change for the future… that election officials use cherry flavored glue on the envelopes… so that at least there’s something special for kids learning how to be good citizens.
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There are two English Language dictionaries. There’s Merriam Webster… And there’s the other one that you sniff before you say the name.
That would be the (sniff) Oxford Dictionary. It was created in England in the 1850’s… by Justin Quincy Bieber .. actually the great great grand fa… no I’m just messing with you. It was created at Oxford University and ever since they’ve been naming a word of the year.
You probably heard the word of the year for 2021… is vax. It was barely used before this year. But always busy .. we desperately needed to whittle down four syllables to one… and vaccination became vax. Bonus points… it’s both a noun and verb.
And.
It got me wondering … about years past. Last year… the (sniff) Oxford Dictionaryt didn’t bother with a word of the year0. There were too many choices from lockdown… support bubbles.. pandemic Brexit.. black lives matter. Old Justin Bieber Oxford blew a gasket… and they just declared “all those pandemic wordy words” win. congrastulations!
But let’s look at the long term staying power of words gone by. 2005 the word of the year was truthiness. Which means something that seems like it must be true… but its not. 16 years later we are awash in truthiness.
2016 the word of the year was dumpster fire. Even though its two words. . 2017 it was fake news. Two words again.
So this year… salute the (sniff) Oxford dictionary for brushing up on basic math skills. And selecting one word as its word of the year. Out of all the words in the English language… it’s VAX.
Get the point?
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We’ve seen this countless times. The founder sells his company to an investment firm. Next thing a bunch of beancounters in expensive suits show up… and they start laying people off. To “tighten up the balance sheet.”
But not at Sarah Blakely’s company. 20-years ago she invented panty hose without the feet. Nobody thought of it.
So she started Spanx. And her idea was noticed by Oprah.
Oprah Raved…
And the rest is history. With an emphasis on female empowerment… Spanx grew and grew until last week… Sarah Blakely sold the company to an investment firm for 1-point-2 billion dollars.
Normally… the 500 employees would fear for their jobs at this point. But that’s not what happened. Instead Sarah Blakely said thank you. A 6 million dollar thank you.
The Spanx women screamed. There were tears. They cried. But Sarah Blakely had more.
So now you can think about where in teh world you’d go… if you worked Sarah Blakely. But you don’t. And you’ll go home… wishing you did.
In that moment of celebration… the employees didn’t realize the best news of all. After the sale… Sarah Blakely is staying with the company.
So now you can think about where in teh world you’d go… if you worked Sarah Blakely. But you don’t. And probably wish you did.
We’ve seen this script before. The founder of a company sells out to some blue-chip investment firm.; Next thing that happens a bunch of beancounters show up in expensive suits… and then come the rumors… and the layoffs as the numbers crunchers “tighten up the balance sheet.
But Sarah Blakely ran a different kind of company.
People crying
So now you can think about where in teh world you’d go… if you worked Sarah Blakely. But you don’t. But righty now… you probably wish you did.
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You’ve been hearing about supply chain problems for Christmas… but before we get there I’m a little worried that thanksgiving dinner might be a squeeze of ketchup … a glass of water… and a cup of baking soda from the back of the fridge.
It is looking bleak at the grocery store. The New York Times reports that people all over the country are scouring the supermarkets for favorite ingredients out of fear we’ll see last-minute shortages.
So far there’s no sign of shortages but the stuff you buy will cost more.
In some cases a lot more…. right down to the aluminum roasting pan for the turkey. Sweet Portato farmers are paying truckers twice as much to get their goods to market.
And the turkey? Turkey prices will gobble—up more of the family budget. The times says you can blame the supply chain issues … gas prices… labor shortages. Bad weather. Take your pick - they’re all factors.
Listen to this. Farmer can’t even find the wooden pallets they need to ship to ship their produce.
And so… food prices are up 4-point-6 percent from a year ago. Meat Poultry Fish and Egg prices are up more than 10-percent. And the Thanksgiving Turkey is leading the pack. The Department of Agriculture says Turkey prices will cost 25-cents a pound more than last year.
But while the price of everything is up…. including the trip to Grandmother’s house - I don’t have to tell you about gas prices. We should be thankful that so far - most all the food is available.
So when you’re not busy with the neccesarily early Christmas shopping— you got to head to the grocery store and start shipping for the ingredients for thanksgiving
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Anybody who’s been through 4th grade can figure this out. In the summer of 21 a neighborhood of new houses went up. Wood frames with contoured landscaping that allowed grass grow its way up a slope to the roof. These homes were furnished with custom Swedish furniture. They had working fireplaces. But what they did not have… was realtors prowling the neighborhood looking for folks who might want to flip they’re just built homes.
This neighborhood consisteing f 8 houses finished in the summer of 21 were built without any lumber shortages or contractor delays. Because the homes were built by their owners not in 2021.. but 1021.
Scientists say this enclave is the first proof that Vikings got to North America recisely a thousand years ago. They landed their boats stowed the oars and started chopping trees in easternmost Canada lo those many years ago. Building8 A farmhouses with earthen walls that sloped up to a peak and the homes almost looked like hills. The trrees they cut formed the framing and doorways.
500 years before Columbus. Long before Plymouth Rock. But what became of these homeowner They disappeared while remnants of their humble homes remain. Did their village die out? Did they go back to Scandinavia to spend a thousand years plotting the arrival of ikea? A mystery, but the precision dating of the year they arrived was unearthed through carbon dating by learned scientists…combined with something you learned in 4th grade. they counted the rings on the trees. Their lumber. And the researchers came to an irrefutable… undenialbe… arrival date of 1021.
Long gone … these Vikings were the first Europeans to establish a beachhead these shores… and the only way we commemorate their arrival… Is with a pro football team in Minnesota.
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My wife & I are now watching the squid game. It’s horrific and violent …and all you need to know is that each episode ends with a body count. But it’s the most popular show in Netflix history… and my job requires me to stay on the cutting edge of popular culture.
So I watched the first five episodes. Fair warning the show is in Korean… and the English dubbing doesn’t quite match the mouths and it’s distracting. Even worse- the American voice actors who performed the dubbing are about as good as high school actors… which makes the entire show comical.
But my associate producer… shout out Jessica Lowell said try watching it in Korean… with English subtitles. And I was like “get outa here.” Next thing you know I’ll be eating brie and … and … wearing sweaters.
But we watched two episodes in Korean… and you know what? WAY BETTER. Becaiuse I wasn’t distracted by the clownish American voice dubbing. This show that seemed comical in English… is a drama in Korean. Listen…. to the difference?
Wicked witch of the west. Funny
Dead serious. Woman is losing it. Life and Death.
So if you’re watching Squid Game… after you hit play… choose the Korean version… for a completely different experience.
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A few of the sit down restaurants I’ve been to aren’t the same anymore. The food isn’t quite as awesome. Service is a little slower. And during that endless wait for the appetizers… 5 minutes. 10 minutes. And tthere’s a little devil on my shoulder demanding that I say something.
Uh … Excuse me. Excuse me.
But the angel on the other shoulder says I have to calm down and be an adult.
The restaurant does not care that I’m wrestling with my demons. They’re sick and tired of stressed out customers snapping because the jalapeno poppers and cheese sticks took 7 minutes.
At $12 bucks an hour… the wait staffis doing the best they can and don’t care that you want to talk with the manager. Because the manager is also secretly sick of the way people act lately.
Hospitals are distributing panic buttons to nurses. Flight attendants are getting self-defense courses. In rare cases customers are getting prison sentences. And before you bellow “whatever happened to the customer is always right?” It’s changing right before your eyes to the customer is usually right…. we’re doing the best we can.
We have to be more patient and less abrasive. We have to do better given the labor shortages the supply chain issues. You’re not gonna get what you want by throwing a seismic fit anymore. The people behind the counter have heard too many diatribes. They know you’ve never been treated so badly in your life. They know you want to talk to the manager.
Believe it or not … your momentary frustration is not the most important thing in the world to the folks trying to serve your needs for 14 bucks an hour.
If the line moves too slowly. Or if they can squeeze you in til next Thursday. Or if that other table got its food before you.. chill. Next time you’re about to snap… listen to the angel on the other shoulder… gliss …. and kill ‘em with kindness.
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Can we still call it the Great Salt Lake? If you've been out to water's edge you know the Salt Lake isn't close to what it used to be, and it's our fault.
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Have you been following events in China?
They just celebrated their 4th of July… and part of the celebration was flying jets into Taiwan’s airspace. They violated the territory of their sworn enemy. 38 military jets on Saturday. 39 on Sunday. More than 50 of them yesterday.
China chuckles that this was .. heh heh. like a military parade. People in Capitalist Taiwan. Our friends. Our trading partners…. grin and bear these ever escalating tweaks… all the time.
But consider this. When 1 Russian jet flies into US airspace… it is news.
But when more than 100 Chinese jets invade Taiwan’s airspace …like they did this week… the smallest mistake in the sky could spark war. China’s President makes no bones about conquering Taiwan and the US better not get in the way. .
I’m an expert in Mandarin I’ll translate his warning to the US
We will never allow any foreign forces to bully coerce or enslave us. Whoever attempts this surely break their heads on the steel Great Wall built with the blood and flesh of the Chinese People. This guy musta hired Kim Jong Un to be his speechwriter.
But China can back up this bluster and if they tweak Taiwan into war… what happens?
Do we go to war with China? Would today’s supply chain shortages here in the US look like little hiccups?
Unclear… but it’d only take one mistake in the sky… and we might find out.
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At the rate this is going… I wonder if Kyle Whittingham is gonna be able to field a football team .
I mean… a MEN’S football team.
Because fewer and fewer young men are choosing college. If you go to the average campus this fall… you’ll find the student body is 40 percent male. 60 percent female The numbers have been creeping this wayr years… and the Wall St Journal reports the gap is growing ever wider.
One college enrollment counsultant tells the Journal this gender disparity is higher education’s dirty little secret that nobody wants to talk about… and nobody’s gonna do anything about.
More boys are graduating high school and lurching for the first paycheck they can find. Colleges don’t have really have an answer. Why don’t you go deep into deb with student loans to face a shaky job market in four years… or grab $16 bucks an hour at an Amazon warehouse?
For a lot of 18 year old boys… its a no-brainer. Go to work. But that doesn’t explain why increasingly .. young women are choosing college. If the trend continues… women could eventually rule the world. And play quarterback for the Utes.
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In Paris… the French are gawking at the Arc de Triumph. A massive stone war memorial in the heart of paris…that’s been completely covered with silver cloth.
It’s a massive art project that will draw millions of people to stare over the next two weeks.
Meantime in California… they’re wrapping another monument. A living monument. This project is anything but art.
National Parks workers wrapped the base of The General Sherman Tree. the mightest of the Giant Sequoias… it’s 2500 years old. It’s as tall as the tip of the dome on the Utah State Capitol Building. Wildfire’s but a single mile away from the famous grove of giant sequoias… and to protect the legendary tree…. they’vey’ve wrapped the base of the trunk in tin foil.
To imagine this… think of a wooden baseball bat. Now imagine putting tin foil around that little lip at the very bottom of the bat. That’s what it looks like and what it seems like … is an exersize in futility. They’re protecting the mightiest tree in the world with an aluminum foil miniskirt.
And it turns out that aluminum foil is a thing in California this summer. Some nervous homeowners have wrapped-up their entire homes in silvery foil. Every inch from the ground up inc including the entire roof … the doors and the windows. That much fire resistant aluminum foil will run you $6000.
In Paris… they’d call that art. But in California… it’s called desperation.
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After tragic moments in American history… we’ve always been asked to remember what happened. In the 1800’s the battle cry was Remember the Alamo! In the 1900’s… Remember Pearl Harbor. But we don’t say Remember 9/11.
We say Never Forget. And there’s a difference.
Remember the Alamo… almost sounds like a request. Through the lens of time we hear “Remember Pearl Harbor” and as the greatest generation fades away it seems less like a battle cry, and more like a plea that a dark moment and souls lost hold their page in the history books and they have as they should.
But the vast majority of Americans only remember Pearl Harbor — not as a visceral shock to the system … but as a story told by grandparents who struggle to share the raw emotion, and the fear, and the anger that spurred the country to great things. The story can be retold but the raw emotions can’t be shared.
We remember Pearl Harbor. But 9-11… we say… we demand Never Forget. In New York the charity is the Never Forget Fund. Even Clydsdale Commercials over the weekend said Never Forget. A statement of defiance about a brief moment of desperation and pain. And we won’t forget.
But our grandchildren will never remember. They can’t feel what we felt but I did find hope this weekend from - of all people - a teenage Canadian girl… who just came from nowhere and played in the finals of the US Open Tennis Championship and after the biggest moment in her young life… at Center Stage in New York City … Leyland Fernandez had the presence of mind to literally grab the mic and say this…
She is only 19. There is some hope.
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The Jurassic Park movies. Do they end with dinosaurs giving little kids horsey rides.
No. They do not. Every one of those movies features, razor sharp claw marks etched in blood, giant jaws ripping apart human torsos, and airborne pterodactyl assaults.
And now a brand new genetics company - planning to use its test tubes to stir-up a massive prehistoric creature extinct for 800,000 years.
What could go wrong?
The company is Colossal and their goal is to reanimate the Woolly Mamouth. A six ton elephant with a giant skull, massive tusks, and a shaggy dog haircut. They plan to tinker with elephant DNA to add the hair.. the layers of fat… and other manmouth features. They’ll implant the embryos in a fake elephant uterus that will hold the unborn baby for 2 years… til its 200 pounds… and then it’ll be born into a world where it has no mother. Kinda cruel… because elephants are very tight with their moms as they grow-up.
So why is Colossal doing this? Because they can. And because they have 15-million dollars to burn. They want to reintroduce the beasts to Siberia where they say .. it might help repair the climate-damaged tundra. Theoretically these motherless behemths would eat moss and create fertilizer. Thereby reducing carbon emissions. But I once again ask…
What could go wrong?
Just one misplaced strand of DNA… and we could have Jurassic Park Six: furry mess in the frost. But this one… will be a documentary.
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You might remember that flying… used to be fun.
——Sh—
Classic moment from the movie Airplane… a comedy from 1980 that couldn’t be made today. Because of September 11th. If you flew on September 10th, 2001… your family walk with you to the gate to say goodbye. Nobody checked nuthin. The plane had a flimsy cockpit door with a lock as secure as the one on your bedroom door.
Do you remember this… sometimes… they’d fly with the door open. And you’d see scenes like this.
Ahhhh the slapstick days of air travel … long gone…. and that movie couldn’t be made today. A comedy about air travel? Unthinkable… after September 11th In a heartbeat…. the experience flipped from fun to a nerve-wracking battle with your patience, steeped in fear that a fellow passenger might be a terrorist. In those weeks after the attacks… the words “this is your captain speaking” were met with applause. Jetliners flying past ground zero would dip their wings as passengers whispered a prayer.
But I am here to tell you flying used to be fun. No masks… no TSA. And they used to give you legroom. It was an entirely different kind of flying. Or …as they put it in Airplane….
I loved that movie as much as I hate flying.
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The English language is constantly changing…and I try to roll with it. The word yahoo once described a race of brutish creatures in Gulliver’s Travels. Then it was used to describe crass and stupid people “what a bunch of yahoos” Now… it’s a website. It’s email. And for that matter… google only became a word within the last 20 years.
So I try to keep up… but when it comes to words that used to be good… and now they’re bad.. it’s a little harder to break habits.
This summer I understood when the entomological society of America changed the name of the gypsy moth. Because its a slur against the Romani people. Inferring that like the moths… Romanis strip everything they can and then move. I get it.
But when I hear you can’t talk about shark attacks anymore… I can’t quite get there. In Australia… oceonographers have stopped using the term… shark attack. Because it makes us hate sharks at a time when their population is dwindling…. and might disappear. Better to call them shark incidents… or shark encounters. if we soften the language …they think we’ll want to save the sharks that serve as a vital role of the ocean ecoysystem.
In Massachussets Brandeis University has come up with a list of terms to avoid.
I get that you should avoid the term “rule of thumb.” Rule of Thumb supposedly comes from an old british law allowing men to beat their wives with sticks no wider than your thumb. But there’s no evidence that is true.
Brandeis also says you should avoid the term picnic. Because people would supposedly picnic while watching lynchings in the south.
If this ban against the word picnic triggers you…you can’t use the term trigger warning at brandeis… because a trigger references guns and violence.
What a bunch of yahoos.
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warned ya two years ago… they’re tracking your every move. — CUT —— See? That was 2019. And two years later… retailers have upped their game bigtime.. with facial recognition. You stop by Macy’s and they record your face in a database. Next time you visit they not only pinpoint where you are… but they can recognize you. Not by name. They say they don’t attach personal information to the faces on file. But if you have the store’s app… they already know “oh… nancy’s here!” Cuz the bluetooth beacon got the info from your phone. If you find the facial recognition to be invasive… you should know Walmart, Smiths, Home Depot, and Target have pledged that they won’t use it. But Macy’s and Apple stores do use facial recognition technology. They say for security. Somebody shoplifts and then visits a second time, the store knows instantly that trouble just walked through the door. Problem is facial recognition is not perfect. 18 year old Ousmane Bah can tell you all about that. He’s suing apple after their recognition system botched the ID of a shoplifter and Apple had this innocent kid arrested. By the way he looked nothing like the real shoplifter. But be aware… even if you shut off your phone when you walk into a store… they might be watching
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Chances are you’ve been on a crowded flight. No space in the overhead bin… crying babies. Bathroom lines. Friends …these are first world problems. Because the world has just seen what a crowded flight really looks like. There’s a picture making the rounds of the interior of a giant C-17 cargo jet taking off from Kabul on Sunday. You look at this picture and you can’t believe it. The cargo hold is teeming with humanity. Hundreds and hundreds of Afghan refugees crammed into this airborne warehouse… sitting on the floor. No seats.. No seat belts. Now you get on a crowded flight… there might be 200 people on board. Every seat’s full. But t his flight? We only have a recording from the other side of the military radio transmission. Listen… No ticketholders. these desperate Afghans saw an open cargo ramp and they all ran in.----Instead of removing them… the crew decided to get them out.——Afghans——Bless that crew for making the decision. The flight took off without incident… and lande safely in Doha 3 hours later… 640 souls filed out with nothing but the shirts on their back … and a future as refugees. But safe… from the Taliban thanks to the brave efforts of an Air Force flight crew.
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I’m gonna talk about medical science. Now exhale… this has nothing to do with Covid.
A new study just published shows that everything we thought about our metabolism… is wrong. This comes from a paper published in journal Science yesterday…. and experts are calling it a pivotal study that turns our knowledge of metabolism upside-down.
6500 people were studied. They were everywhere from 8 days to 95 years old. Men … women… And it’s expensive to measure people’s metabolism. It involves tracking the carbon dioxide we exhale during activity. In other words… masks. A bunch of researchers pooled the results and discovered… your metabolism doesn’t slow down as you age.
You know … you celebrate a few birthdays … you put on a few pounds… you chalk it up to a slowing metabolism. Nope. Nope nope nope. The researchers found our metabolisms go through four phases
At birth its the same as mom’s. But a month later it kicks in hard… and that first year you are racing
Then from age 1- through 20 it slows by 1 percent a year.
When you hit 20 20 through 60… your metabolism stays rock steady most of your life. And after 60… it slows but only a tiny bit. By 7-tenths of 1 percent a year.
By the time you’re 95 years old… the NY times says you’re metabolism is 20 percent slower than 60. All this means that for almost everybody listening to me now… chances are that slowly expanding waistline. That little bit of belly jiggle… isn’t because your metabolism is slowing. Landmark research.
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I think this all started with AirBnB. The idea you can rent-out something you own but aren’t using all the time. Why not make a few bucks. And the idea spread to cars… and now … swimming pools. You have a backyard pool… it’s August you don’t use it as much as you did in june…. so rent it out… with an online service called Swimply. That’s basically AirBnB for swimming pools.
The price ranges from $30 to $45 dollars an hour. The company plans to branch out into hot tubs… private basketball courts… and even home gyms. Which sounds a little skeevy. Going into some guy’s home office to lift his weights and ride his sweaty elliptical. But this is all gonna be part of a new service called Joyspace.
And I wonder. What else could I rent out that I’m not using. And I took a walk around my house. We have electric bikes. We could charge a few bucks an hour for anybody who wants to rent a ride. Hey. We only use the silverware at mealtimes. So why not rent it out. Let the users bring ‘em back dirty. Cleaning’s included in the rental price… We’ll call the app Forkly.
You live in an apartment? How’d you like to get cozy and warm sitting in front of my fireplace. We’ll rent it out to you for 25 bucks an hour… call the app Crackle.
And look at thiiiis. My toothbrush sits in the little stand all day long. I only use it three minutes a day. Why not rent out my toothbrush…. toothpaste included ... dollar a minute. Brushie… with the letter u left out of course.
I’m gonna be rich with my rental empire. And then you can rent all my money and be flush for a while. We’ll call it flushie. Which reminds me… the toilet. just sits there all da… never mind.
But a penny for my thoughts. We’ll call it thinkie. Or we could call it…
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First you pierce the think layer of chocolate with your teeth… and your upper palette tingles from the mint. Then comes the satisfying crunch of the wafer inside. There’s nothing like a Thin Mint from the Girl Scouts.
It’s a huge business… but a little less huge during the pandemic… because the normal channels used to peddle the cookies were closed off. You couldn’t set up a booth. You couldn’t send mom and dad to work with a sign up sheet … because… everybody was home.
So sales were down significantly and the Girl Scouts have 15-million extra boxes of cookies. They’re sitting at the bakers’ warehouses.
So what to do with 50-million dollars worth of cookies? Sell ‘em next year? Nope. Shelf life is 12 months. Sell ‘em to grocery stores? Nope. The annual sale becomes less special… when you can get the cookies at any old store. They did put them in Harmons at the peak of the pandemic… but now… it’s unclear what happens to all those cookie boxes.
What is clear… is that no matter how much it seems like a big business. And they sell 800-million dollars worth of cookies in a good year. the pandemic taught us that there’s one ingredient that makes Girl Scout cookies a hit. The girls themselves.
They’re the 50-million dollars worth of magic that makes it all happen
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Ever been to Lake Chaugagogmanchahgagaggchaubunagungagaug?
The longest town name in America. And making matters more complicated… it’s in the state with the longest name… so if you’re looking for the lovely lake on the google… type in Chaugagogmanchahgagaggchaubunagungamaug, Massachessets.
Out of necessity… the town’s Welcome sign is 16 feet long. The name is a native american term for the boundary between the English and the local Indian Tribe.
49 letters … that town name. The letter G is used 15 times… and when the state wanted to get rid of some of them to make life easier for map makers… the town rose up as one… behing a poet named Bertha who wrote.
Tho Gogg and Magogg shout and thunder; Chaugagogmanchahgagaggcaubunagungamaug, renown Shall blaze, the beacon of the town, While nations gaze and wonder.”
Once a poet gets involved it’s game over… and the state gave up … So 49 letterse it stays… but the crystal blue lake dotted by cottages has changed. These days it's hot real estate. Houses are going up… trees are coming down… and the newest residents of Chaugagogmanchahgagaggcaubunagungamaug have as hard time with the name. Spelling it is murder if you didn’t grow up there… so they just call it Lake Webster.
And when they have to write their address by hand on that form at the doctors office… they just use the five digit equalizer that the same length for every town in America… Zip code 01570.
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Probably the most famous Youtube video ever. Ladies and Gentlemen… I give you ….Charlie Bit My Finger.
This was back when the internet was innocent… 2007… instead of trolls and karens… 2007 Kids and cats were the superstars.
And none more so than Charlie.
Fast forward… the grinning little finger-biter is 14 years old. Thanks to 900-million views on YouTube… you hear me .. almost a billion views… Charlie and his finger bitten brother now go to private school in England.
And the family has decided to get one last payday.
They’ve turned “charlie bit my finger” into an NFT. I don’t want to get into the convoluted digital sorcery of NFT’s… so suffice it to say… that the video is a one-of-a-kind collectible. The family has promised to remove the video from youtube forever. So - at least in theory the highest bidder …would have the only copy of the video … and yesterday… 11 bidders threw serious money at the auction…. and when the digital dust settled…. Charlie Bit my Finger sold to some anonymous internet dude… for $761,000.
Three quarters orf as million dollars… to own a beloved piece of internet history.
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I just noticed this. If you have an iphone… look at the bars… y’know…. the signal bars at the top right of the screen.
Other day just above the bars… I saw a tiny orange dot. Thought it was a little spec of dust and I tried to brush it away… but it was on the screen.
Maybe you knew this… but that tiny orange dot above the bars…. is the new way that Apple warns you one of your apps is using the microphone. Some app could be listening.
For instance… if you’re on the phone… you get the orange dot. Buit if you’re not on the phone and you see that orange dot…. that means there’s an app that listening to you. Could be legit… but if you’re concerned… start closing the apps on your phone one by one til the dot goes away.
Even creepier… is a greet dot. If you see a green dot up there… it means one of your apps is watching. It has access to your camera. Could be facebook… cause you gave permission. Could be something else. But if you want privacy… shut apps til the green dot goes away.
And if you have an Android phone…. sorry no dots. You would have to go to the app store and find one that warns you about mic and camera useage. If you don’t download a warning app…. they could be listyening. Or watching.
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Listen to this woman on this commercial. Listen close.
——
Any idea who this is? I’ll play another clip of her. See if you get it.
——
This woman has chosen to hide the biggest role of her life as a voice-over artist. I’m gonna play one more clip of her. See if you get it.
—
That’s Nina Rolle from Minneapolis. She does radio commercials… and voices audiobooks… and very quietly…. landed the gig of a lifetime. But after snooping and sluething… tech website the verge.com has revealed Nina… is … Alexa.
—— la voice
She still won’t talk about it. A blonde 40-ish … not really reclusive… but for obvious reasons… Amazon doesn’t want this lady running around declaring “I’m Alexa.” When the Siri Lady… Susan Bennett of Atlanta got famous… Apple replaced her. So for now… it’s all hush hush.
I even asked my Alexa about her….
Figures. Wrong answer. Dang Alexa
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We've all had that question, should I ice an injury, or put some heat on it?
I took a bike ride and hurt my back over the weekend. Just a little bit… nothing major.
So question … should I ice it. Or heat it? People are passionate about this topic. I don’t want to get in a fistfight with you… but my move … is to go the fridge and fish out the frozen peas.
But maybe that wasn't the best move
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May the Fourth is like Christmas for Star Wars fans, but it didn't get its start with Sith and Jedi, but rather Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
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It’s the return of live music comes not a moment too soon for Jacob Shaw. He’s a world-class cellist who performs with symphonies around the world. But with no audience the past year… what’s an elite performer to do? Zoom Concerts? Sure he offers free lectures on Instagram. But a performer misses the warm sound of live applause, so Jacob Shaw found a new audience...
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Cows
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So Broadway Zach is the highest draft pick in BYU history.
---With the Second——
Here at home where this young man grew his roots under the watching eye of a loving mom and dad…. the accolades poured in last night. And a lot of BYU fans were beaming with pride.
But do you have any idea what’s waiting for him in New York? The media machine in New York City… lives to grind up a young man with aspirations… and turn his self-respect into dust.
Jets fans spit when they say the names of the hapless … hopeless… quarterbacks who came before. Name you don’t know…but they’ll never forget.
It was all smiles last night… Zach had a contagious grin as he talked about the future last night.
But let’s take a look at what they’re saying in New York this morning. Two headlines in the New York Post.
Firist this..
Zach Wilson’s mom was the real breakout star of the NFL draft. The page is adorned with attractive pictures of Zach’s mom her blond hair flowing. The other headline. Meet the Girlfriend of Jets QB Zach Wilson. And there's Abby Giles. Her blond hair flowing.
Not a word on the front page about Zach Wilson throwing footballs. Let’s hope the rest of the jets catch those footballs… the media will be eating out of Zach’s 18-million dollar hand.
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A bizarre story I saw on KSLNewsradio.com yesterday.
A man was arrested by customs at JFK Airport in New York for smuggling. Tucked inside his jacket… and taped around his legs… not drugs. No. Hair curlers. And inside each curler… was a small bird… stuffed into the roller… with the open ends capped by mesh netting.
Why would a guy smuggle 35 little finches into America. And the answer is… for the singing competitions of course.
In New York… this is a man known as the Bird King of Queens. Ray Harinarain is an immigrant from Guyana in South America…. where bird singing competitions are a form of entertainment. And he’s brought it here.
Competitors bring their caged birds to a park … for head-to-head sing-offs. Each cages is placed on a pole… and the rest is like Avian Idol. Now if you think there’s cruelty involved. No… no…
Owners coddle these birds with protein diets and selective breeding because in a Sunday competition… the bird that makes the most birdcalls in the course of an hour can win $10,000.
No wonder there’s a housefinch smuggling ring. 36 year old Kevin MacKenzie says he was paid $3000 to smuggle the finches into America. He’s been released by customs on $25,000 bond. The smuggler… is now free as a bird.
When Kevin MacKenzie goes to court… he better hope those finches… don’t sing like canaries.
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Here’s a “Karen” with something legitimate to complain about.
Caron McBride got married… and she quickly did the right thing…. and contacted the DMV to get her name changed on her drivers license. DMV emailed back… Caron… there’s a warrant to your arrest.
She had no idea . Caron called the District Attorney who said… yeah… there’s a warrant alright. Felony Embezzlement.
Caron did not go all Caron. Because she was so scared she thought it was a heart attack. She’d never done anything wrong. Except. Apparently… 22 years ago… she went to the video store and rented a VHS… and never returned.
For our younger listeners VHS stands for Video Home System. A spooled videotape canister pre-recorded with movies that you’d select in an actual store… for 4 bucks and return to the store the next day. Good citizens would always rewind the tape back to the beginning before returning it but I digress.
Caron McBride doesn’t remember renting Sabrina the Teenage Witch in 1999. But Movie Place in Norman Oklahoma never forgot. They went out of business long ago… but the charges stuck.
CAron McBride now thinks she’s lost jobs over the years because of the felony charge she never knew about.
Good news though. The prosecutor has now dropped the charges… good thing. because the Movie Place went out of business. So there’s a crime with no victim.
And somewhere… there’s a copy of Sabrina the teenage witch … that cast a dark spell over a young woman’s life.
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It’s such a gentle term, “final resting place”. Prince Philip will be lowered to his by the time you wake up tomorrow morning. His casket will be privately lowered into a vault in the church floor... after a funeral for family members at which no choirs performed. At a humble service…. a trio will perform the musical selections for the small gathering of family.
And besides... England’s had enough music this week. The entire country was shocked by the senseless way BBC Radio 1 made the announcement of Prince Philips death. This is the national radio channel of the UK. Upon who’s microphones King George VI spoke during world war 2. Where Queen Elizabeth mourned the death of Diana.
Monday morning they’re playing some headbanger techno music… and all of a sudden a mash up for the ages… with no warning. You’re getting your groove on cranking on the computer and buzzkill. All of a sudden it's G-d Save the Queen… and this.
BBC Television did it a bit more gently. The anchor is wearing black. She looks like she’s been crying. And now… Prince Philip goes to his final resting place. Except its not.
When his wife the queen dies…. they’re gonna pull Philip up out of the floor… and move him to her side… to HER favorite location at Windsor castle. As he lived his life… so too in death… Philip will take his final trip… two steps behind his Queen
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The future finally arrived yesterday when Domino’s announced it’s going to start delivering pizza with driverless cars.
--Left-Left-Left Right Left—
Pizza wasn’t even a thing til after World War II. Long before that.. in the 1700’s… the first pizza came out an oven in Naples Italty smothered in oil and tomato. It’d be a long time before they’d top it with cheese. Or Pineapple.
On these shores Italian immigrants first served pizza in 1895 in big cities. But it only bubbled across the country after World War II … when troops stationed in Italy got to enjoy real Neopolitan pizza. After that… its popularity exploded.
And yesterday’s announcement by Dominos… could be one of the most important in pizza history.
They’re testing pizza delivery in a driverless car… at one Dominos in Houston. You prepay on the app… and you check a box if you want driverless delivery. You track the pizza’s trip on GPS… and then a Nuro R2 autonomous car pulls into the driveway. It’s a 4 foot tall white push-me pull you. It’s 8 feet long and you can barely tell which is the front and which is the back.
You have to go get the pizza from the Nuro. When you order they give you a pin number. Enter it on the side of the car and a door gently swings upward revealing your hot delicious pizza… hopefully without pineapples.
And as the door gently closes… you can smile …realizing that you didn’t have to tip a pizza guy.
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It’s been a while since we checked in on the stupidity on tik tok. Along the way we missed the Feed your Dog hot sauce challenge. We missed the cover your face and neck with hot wax challenge. Yes itt goes in your mouth. Do I have to waste your time with the warning don’t do this?
I will spend a moment telling you the next stunt is so stupid you won’t believe it, and you might be tempted to try it. This one… you’d risk serious injury…. and you have to make sure your kids don’t try this.
Millions and millions of Tik Tok views for Deep Fried Water.
A chemist came up with this recipe. You combine water with a chemical that I won’t give the name of… and it forms a sphere. a jelly like bubble with water inside. Flour …egg.. breadcrubs… you pop the batter covered bubble into the deep fryer… and voila Deep Fried Water.
Unless… the bubble breaks. Dr. Christopher Cramer tells the Daily Mail…. that water boils as a lower temperature that the bubbling oil. So if the bubble springs a leak… you get a high speed explosion and hot oil rains down on everything including… you.
So whenever you hear a story about tik tok is the new place to find stocks. Or tik tok is helping this group or that group. Or how its changing the world… Keep in the back of your mind… it’s still a place filled with epic stupidity.
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If you don’t follow golf… you might not care about history made at the Masters over the weekend.
Hideki Matsuyama won the tournament… would you care if I told you the Masters might lead to cheaper concession prices at Jazz games?
See Augusta National Golf Course offers concession food at prices so cheap they’re shocking.
The traditional dish is the egg salad with pimento cheese sandwich on white bread. it looks like something your mom packed in your school lunch… but it only costs a dollar-50. The only flourish it comes in a green plastic so you drop the wrapper … it blends in with the grass.
Augusta National keeps the prices so cheap because they don’t need the money. And it seems quirky… Golf love quirikiness. But here’s what economists are realizing. When you drop the concession prices… people buy more. Atlanta built a wonderous new football stadium. When it opened they lowered concession prices… to family friendly levels . and they made more money. So now the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets… the Baltimore Raveins
and the 49ers have all followed suit.
Which makes it possible for cheaper concessions at Vivint. So when you dream of a Utah Jazz championship… you can you can also fantasidze about cheaper curros and chick-filet.
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College basketball is absolutely joyless. It’ll be intense this weekend… as the Sweet 16 gets whittled down. It’ll probably be thrilling … and crushing at the same time. But joyous?
College basketball doesn’t do joyous. Case in point.
A week ago… I told you that Utah Geological Survey was holding an online contest… to choose Utah’s Greatest Natural Wonder. Delicate Arch… Bowtie Arch? Is it Owachomao Bridge? For a week… people have been having fun whittling down the brackets… and we’ve made it to the Seismic 16. All three I mentioned are still in.
But a problem. This week… College Basketball’s Missouri Valley Conference complained Arch Madness is their registered trademark… you know. St. Louis has that stainless steel arch. And for goodness sakes… the Utah Geological Survey decided to change the name of their cute little contest to avoid a lawsuit.
They had to rebrand the website… change all the images… the logos. And instead of Arch Madness… right now… you go to geology.utah.gov and today you’ll find the generically named Utah. Arch. Challenge.
The Seismic 16 voting continues through Sunday.
Unless another joyless college basketball conference owns the phrase Seismic 16
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Some grandpa’s tell war stories. Richard Burt did.. . Regaling his grandson with his tales from World War II and the jungles of the South Pacific .
But he didn’t carry a gun. Richard Burt carried a trumpet… in 7-46th
The Far East Air Force Band…. playing music just behind the front lines in the Phillipines to build morale.
A couple of times… they used those newfangled machines to record their songs… and when he came home. Richard Burt brought his recordings to KSL in 1946… and they turned the music into recordsthat sat in Richard Burts garage… ….. til long after his death in the 1980’s.
When the family recently found the old recordings in the garage… his grandson Jason got a Hollywood music producers….. to erase 75 years of static… and clean up the sound.
And this is one of the few known battlefield music recording from World War II. Jason now hopes you’ll download the 7-46th… on iTunes or stream it on Spotify to help remember a grandpa who fought for freedom — not with the gunmetal… but with the shiny brass… of a trumpet. Jason hopes Grandpa will win a grammy for historical recording next year.
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Admit it. Half of everything you know about Neanderthals… comes from the GEICO Commercials.
You think of Neanderthals as hairy looking lunkheads with prominent foreheads … blurting things like MMMNMH.
But there’s a new body of scientific evidence that indicates Neanderthals might have been more like the mango-salsa nibbling… Geico caveman wearing tennis whites. In short… Neanderthals are getting a makeover.
Examining an intact skull 130-thousand years old… they were able to reconstruct a 3D model of the Neanderthal ear… the evidence shows… they could hear much like we do… a surprise that means they were capable of forming the sounds that make up human speech. Difficult sounds like “th” - Thhhhh. There’s no indication if they had the mental ability… TH might have just been Thuhhhh…
or they might have had a thesaurus worth of speech. We don’t know Recent disocveries show they made cave art. They worse jewelry and buried their dead. So like the Geico commercials… they’re smarter than we thought. But why should you care? Because new research shows that if you carry a specific gene handed down from the Neanderthals… you have a greater risk of severe covid.
So get the vaccine. It’s so easy ….
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Jensen Carp is a guy loves his Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. So he wrestled the inner wrapper open … pours a bowl… and what’s this? A flappy-looking thing.
He asks his wife - as a point of reference - his wife played Topanga in Boy Meets World - He loopks at the flappy thing and asks “what’s this?”
And his wife says … uh… that’s a shrimp tail.
And there were more of them in the cereal box. Shrimp tailos coated in brittle cinnamon sugar. So Jensen Carp - a guy who loves his Cinnamon Toast Crunch… reaches to General Mills on the web… and whaddaya think they did from
They offered him A free box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Now.. Jensen Carp is mad. He wants some answers. Like.. why’s there shrimps swimming in my cereal box?
So he went public. And General Mills went public saying those aren’t shrimp tales. It’s just a ball of cinnamon sugar.
This was a bad move. It’s gone so far that now Crustacean researchers have offered to sample the DNA to identify not only that its a shrimp - but what subspecies… and General Mills is getting its worst publicity ever… the story’s everywhere. They’re messing with the guy who’s married to Topanga.
Some people think Jensen Carp is just looking for publicity. He is a podcaster. And he lives in the shadow of a more famous wife… Danielle Fischer.
But it’s become crystal clear… that General Mills is up against the only carp in the world who won’t eat shrimp. Even if its toasted in cinnamon sugar.
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This is the late Margaret Thatcher …after she criticized the Soviet Union and refused to back down.
The Iron Lady lampooning her own fashion sense…. but she left a lasting mark with a different quote. Sadly it was never recorded when she offered If you want something said… ask a man. If you want something done…. ask a woman.
And Senator Chuck Schumer got the message. The other day… he announced a new Senate Sgt at Arms.
SHE is retired Lt General Karen Gibson.
She’s an expert in military intelligence. After the capitol riot on January 6th… the old Sgt at Arms was fired… and General Gibson now brings along a female deputy and chief of staff ..marking the first time in the history… women have held these jobs.
Her title is Sgt at Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate. and if wonder why the Senate needs a doorkeeper. Back in the 1700’s … lawmakers would leave the Capitol… because they’d get bored. The Doorkeeper kept the door closed so they couldn’t run off.
Ironically since January 6th… the job is to keep people out. Those who’d do harm… and since the Senate wanted to get something done…. they asked a woman.
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You could almost watch airfares rise by the hour this past week. So anxious we are to get back in the air and away for vacation… we’ve been booking like mad. I’ve seen a few airfares double in the past seven days… so before we go crazy burning up the frequent flier miles and buying expensive tickets… let’s remember what it’s like to fly.
For instance.. last week… a United airlines passenger John Yerkovich arrested on board. And what was he accused of.
— biting off the ear of a fellow passenger——
Oh… so you’re checking out what movies are onboard… and all of a sudden… chomp? Like that?
— police report says….
Basically… John Yerkovich went crazy. Like Tazmanian Devil style… so beserk that it wasn’t enough to pin him to the floor. A doctor on board gave him a shot of benadryl to settle him down.
But what set him off?
— crystal substance —
A meth bender on board. So what about the flight. Wh-where were they going.
New Jersey
Uh
Florida
That figures. The plane made an emergency stop in South Carolina to take the Yerk away in handcuffs. And now everybody’s enjoying sunny florida… some passengers slightly worse for the wear. Good luck booking your next flight.
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Fewer cars on the roads… more people hitting a hundred out there.
UHP could tell you about the crazy driving around Northern Utah lately. But monday (today) we’re going to have a real nut on the road. The Planters Peanuts NUTMOBILE is coming to (will be in) SLC Monday .
Ever see this thing. It’s a 26 foot long peanut with windows. It goes from town to town driven by a NUT ambassador named Danny Holton …a young guy who dreams of climbing Mt Kiliminjaro… but for now.. drives a peanut.
If you happen to see his ride on Monday… it is a sight to behold. It’s basically an Isuzu Truck Chassis that support an environmentally friendly epoxy peanut as it drives around America going to stadiums.. supermarkets… and community groups. It has hiden solar panels… a wind turbine… and burns 5 percent biodiesel… which means the fuel contains a little bit of peanut oil.
It’s really just one more nut on the roads… but it’s an 11 foot tall 13-thousand pound nut … that’ll make you smile.
So watch out for the NUTmobile….and wave to Danny… who’s having a shell of a time.
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I have a nephew who’s the world’s premier bracketologist. My nephew Brad predicted 67 of the 68 teams in the tournament. He doesn’t gamble. He does it for fun… and the sportsworld clamors to interview him this time of year. He’s the guy who calls in sick and stops everything for March Madness… and he’s not alone.
11 percent of America calls in sick for the tournament … brackets in one hand … clicker in the other they’re glued to the TV… watching these overlapping games… and dreaming of beating the one-in-80-trillion-billion odds of nailing a perfect bracket.
But this year is a little bit different because so many people are already working from home. And on this March 19th… I put the word “working” in quotes. Among those who actually go to the office… 30-percent are watching the games on their computer anyway. And this is before we get to BYU tomorrow night.
Big Dance veterans will tell you the way to watch this tournament is to keep all the games up on your computer… and go about your business with the sound ofdf. Notice the scores every once in a while… then stop everything to watch the final two minutes of any close game. Of course… two minutes of basketball takes about 15 minute with commercials… but you can still get the rest of your work done…. and you don’t burn a sick day.
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Ahhh that blessed sound that signals the day is done… there’s nothing left to do.
— Netflix —
Netflix time! But very soon… you might put your feet up to chill with some Netflix and get a rude surprise.
See … one out of every three people is logged in with a shared password. And Netflix is launching a crackdown.
Here’s what’s gonna happen. If you’re the main account holder who pays the !3.99 a month… nothing. Netflix likes you. But if your sharing with your sister-in-law … here’s what happens to her. A screen pops up at her house that says “start your own netflix account for free. And at that moment of maximum relaxation a jolt goes up your spine and you w- wh- what do I do.
What you do is breathe. BREATHE! Because the bottom of the page… they offer to text you a verification code. Of course it’s going to the account holder…. your in-law… so you call them up and say “hey… what’s the code?” Now if you’re not talking to them… because they cancelled on Sunday dinner at the last minute… that’s a 14-dollar a month mistake. Make peace.
But there’s a way out. There’s a button on the screen that says “verify later” Click that and Netflix lets you watch your show in peace. Or as much peace as you can get… knowing they might bust you at any moment.
You can Netflix. But you cannot Chill.
But on a Friday night when the work for the week is done and you put your feet up … if you have a shared password… you cannot chill.
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So the end is near. We can see the finish line. The After begins shortly. So… quick question.
Are you gonna keep washing your hands? I mean five times a day with soap and warm water singing happy birthday.
According to a new study of 2-thousand americans… almost half of us will stick with the new hygiene regimen
42-percent of people surveyed plan to scrub their skin as if we still had a pandemic. Hand sanitzer. Oh you betcha.
In the great before… studies showed that regardless of what people say… if you stood in a public rest room and watched people - the vast majority of men - 69% - walked out of the restroom without washing.
Now… a year later … we’re a nation of snowflake germaophobes… and it looks like for half of us… the intensive hand washing is gonna remain a way of life.
For the other half…. when this is all over if you plan to waltz out of a mens room without washing … I have four words.
Happy Birthday to you.
After this is done…. If you’re not gonna wash your hands in the mens room.. try to understand why I’m gonna stick with elbow bumping.
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Wow did Burger King blow it, bigtime.
International Women’s Day on Monday… they decided to honor women with a tweet that reads “Women belong in the Kitchen”
The tweet from Burger King in the UK riccocheted around the world…. as people smacked their foreheads over the tone-deaf tweet.
Burger King had to write a follow up tweet to explain that what we meant was.
Folks, if you ever post on twitter… you never want to be in a situation where you have to say “what I meant was.”
In this case… they meant that only about 20% of chefs.. are women. And Burger King’s committed to empowering its female employees pursue their culinary dreams.
The blowback was so bad that KFC tweeted “delete the entire thing.”
One observant person said… it would have been so easy for Burger King to honor women. All they had to do was change their name for a day to Burger Queen.
After all… to be a Queen? What could be better?!
These days the Queen has beef with her grandkids. And she says… recollections of what happened with Megan vary. So …its’ possible somebody’s telling … a whopper.
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A lot of people are angry Dr. Suess Enterprises. The company has stopped publishing six Dr. Suess books because of their racial insensitivity… and there’s a lot of grumbling that this is cancel culture at work. That children are being denied the fine books that first opened your eyes to the joy of reading.
I have two things to point out. And I’m gonna call them thing one… and thing two.
Thing One: You’ve probably never heard of these Dr Suess books being removed from publication. This is not green eggs and ham. The Cat in the Hat will be around for a long time to come. Truth is … there are six .. maybe 10 doctor Suess books that have stood the test of time and mremain famous. The titles going away include "McElligot’s Pool and “On Beyond Zebra” They’re not the ones that were building blocks of your childhood.
Now Thing Two: While some see yet another case of cancel culture This is could be seen a case of free-market capitalism hard at work.
Dr Suess Enterprises is owned a private company that decided to stop selling six of their products. It’s their right. The result of the decision… is that they’re making a ton of money. Go check Amazon’s Best Seller list. At this moment …the top selling book in America is The Cat in the Hat. 9 of the top 10 books on the list …are by Dr Suess. That’s never happened Green Eggs… One Fish Two Fish. Fox in Socks. The old favorites are all there.
Even if you will not read them in your house.
and will not read them with a mouse.
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It’s March and that means we’ve gone once around the sun with Covid casting it's shadow. Prepare yourself. In days ahead we’ll observe a full year since the shocking night Rudy Gobert tested positive. This month we’ll mark 12 full months since the physical shock from the earth beneath us.
Brace yourself again. Because ironic as it may seem… the anniversary means we’re going to relive one of the worst months of our lives. You’re going to see endless looks back… beginning this week… as we mark a year since the first case of Coronavirus in Utah.
That was Marc Jorgensen….
—— Cut —
Fuss? His family was threatened on social media. After she was done with quarantine his wife was banned from the gym.
— Cut —
And now we DO understand what the panic was about. Anniversary gives us an opportunity to relive the nightmare… knowing all the things we didn’t know then… and it gives us the chance to see how far we’ve come.
And then we can focus on how far we’ll go. Will we go back to hugging? Will people work from work. By next month… we’ll all be looking forward to whatever’s next…. as we begin to write post-pandemic history.
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If you take I -80 straight to the east … and go 15 hours… you’ll arrive t=ao Des Moines, Iowa. you gotta make a right from the 2nd Aveoff-ramp… and a few blocks later… you’ll arrive at Fong’s. A storefront amid the 3 story brick buildings. And it’s the home of America’s newest Culinary abomination.
Well… let me pause here. If you were going to add breakfast cereal to a cheese pizza… which would you pick? Corn flakes for some crunch? Rice Krispies for some snap crackle pop?
Think about your favorite… as I inform you that Fong’s has lit up the internet in pure disgust… with the
with Fruit Loops Pizza.
It’s a 16-inch thin crust cheese pie… smothered in mozarella… and topped with a healthy handfdul…. unhealthy handful of fruit loops. Multicolored sugary circles …that leach dye into the mozarella… making this pizza something close to a steaming rainbow.
And before you consider what it tastes like … I have to let you know the fruit loops absorb the pizza grease…. so they’re actually wet warm and soggy.
So if your dinner tonight turns out a little disappointing… just remember… it could be worse.
For the privilege of eating this revolting combination of fruit loops mozarella and tomato sauce … Fong’s will charge you $20 a pie.
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Some Utahns are looking nervously at their diet cokes… wondering if they’re supposed to boycott the bubbly brown liquid that keeps them going.
What’s GOT them going is a social media rumor… that claims Coca Cola is instructing employees to “try and be less white”
It’s all because of a screenshot… is supposedly from Coca Cola Diversity training. But Coca Cola sayhs… wait a minute. That’s not us. What you’re seeing online is not from our diversity training.
The “try and be less white” lesson comes from a Linked-In video posted by the company that run Coke’s diversity progra That video explains that “try to be less white” means to be less arrogant… less defensive… more humble.
No matter how offensive you think”try to be less white” might be … Coke says… the offending slide making the rounds is not a part of the company’s diversity curriculum.
But if your in Coke's online diversity training… there are links you can click for more information … and you can end up making your way to that “try to be less white” screen. But Coca Cola employees are not “required” to “try and be less white.”
So is it okay to slurp a Diet Coke?
Having done my research, I would. Except I hate diet soda.
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Have you seen that AT&T Commercial… where the guy calls his mom to tell her about the deal?
——
So true. And proof that word of mouth works… comes fromNew York City… where people have been whispering about a fella who makes the best pizza in New York. But you can’t buy it. At any price. According to the word of mouth… this guy makes the pizza in his apartment with imported flour from italy. He leavens for 72 hours for the perfect crust and he tops it with fresh burrata cheese and organic produce. It costs him 25-bucks to make a pie … and legend has it he only makes three pies a week in his tiny kitchen.
The chef has a webpage where you put in your email address. When he makes a pie… he might contact you. And if he does… you have to trade… and give him fresh food. Donuts … cookies …whatever. No money. Here he is on the street like a drug dealer… trading one of his coveted pies with a woman who has homemade jam.
Yesterday… the NY Post outed 30-year old Gabriele Lamonoco ... as the creator of the best pizza in New York.
What began with Word of mouth is now an explosion of publicity and . Undoubtedly … somebody with deep pockets is going to back him …and Gabriele’s…. will open its doors … before you can say Grazie
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I feel like my social life has been reduced to an episode of the Brady Bunch. Just me and a bunch o squares on Zoom.
——
Teams… Slack… Zoom … no matter the app… it’s all the same a two-dimensional checkerboard of human heads… sure… the heads change from meeting to meeting… but the awkwardness stays. Try singing happy birthday to a co-worker. We did….
That was not the Tabernacle choir in case you were confused. — that was bad —
Thankfully… the next generation of group meeting apps is in beta testing. There’s one called gather.town — instead of a tik tak toe board…. you’re in a house. You use the arrow keys to move around… and as you get closer to a person …they get louder and other voices fade. You can sit on a couch or at a table… and have a private one-on-one… while others do the same thing. It’s more like being at a party … than that sad …sad … birthday song I just played.
Point is… there’s hope. developers are working on a bunch of different meeting apps that do away with the checkerboard and make virtual life a little more engaging.
Or irf you’re a Brady Bunch fan… you can always stick with Zoom.
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Did the Mars Landing get you all excited about space again?
Well here’s your chance to go into space… thanks to a guy named Jared
Yeah. Jared Isaacman. He's a 37-year old tech billionaire… from Pennsylvaniawho paid Spacex to give him all the seats on one of their upcoming trip to orbit.
See there’s no pilot on this flight. Computers will do the work. Leaving room for Isaacman to buy four.
He bought four seats. Doesn’t say how much he paid. One seat’s for him. He’s the commander. One seat goes to a health care worker for free. One seat will be raffled off … with the proceeds going to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. And the fourth seat can be yours if you’re lucky.
You go to this website. Inspiration4.com That’s the number 4. You can make a donation to St Jude’s. Every 10 dollars you donate counts as one ticket in the raffle. So you could spend 10-bucks… and get a 55-million dollar ticket to space.
While supporting a great cause. This is a win win. It’s hoped the raffle will raise up to 200-million dollars for St. Judes.
There’s gonna be a lottery for the third seat. Only for customers of Isaacman’s business==
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Archeologists have discovered what might be the oldest music instrument ever found.
Almost 100 years ago In an ancient cave in France… they unearthed a large seashell. Which has been sitting in a rather ho hum French museum ever since.
But archeologists recently took a closer look at this foot long shell… and discovered notches and punctures that could only serve to enhance the sound it makes when you purse your lips and blow into it like a trumpet player.
The best part. This prehistoric musical instrument still works. And courtesy of the NY Times… Here’s a recording of this 17,000 year old instrument from the Paleolithic era. This is musicologist Jean Michel Court… is playing the shell...
———
The oldest musical instrument ever. And all I can think about is the cave man who played it. Dude must have been a rock star. Could you imagine… prehistoric people hearing music for the first time. Undoubtedly this guy did concerts had cave-women groupies. And for the first time… as a KSL treat… I’ve used spectral audio analysis and state of the art multitrack regression to join both ends of the historical spectrum for an imaginary duet between this cave man…. and one of our legendary classic rock stars… John Lennon. Please enjoy.
You’re chuckling… but I suggest this prehistoric hornblower was every bit as popular as the Beatles. Just 17,000 years ahead of his time. And he For 17,000 years… he never tooted his own horn.
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I only recently remembered that I was once in a room with Donald Trump once. Yeah. 1990. I got tickets to a Mike Tyson fight… at the Trump Plaza hotel in Atlantic City.
All the beautiful people were ringside. Rap Stars… and Sports Heroes… and your host for the evening….
I was sitting in the last row of the place… way up there… barely able to see…. and there wasn’t much to see. Iron Mike punched some guy into orbit… first round knockout.
It was scary. The place went so crazy I thought there was gonna be a riot…. I mean.. some people paid hundreds of dollars a ticket… and the thing lasted two minutes. I thought they were mad that they didn’t get their money’s worth So I put on my coat… and headed for the exit… but things calmed down… everybody filed out of the arena… presumably headed to the casino floor to spend all their money.
But all that cash coming in … it still didn’t pay for the sparking chandeliers dripping from the ceilings at Trump Plaza… and the casino went bankrupt. And it changed hands. Back in 1990 that hotel was the glittering jewel of atlantic clity.
But it never made good money…. and this morning… The Trump Plaza hotel…. was blown upt. Controlled explosions collapsed the 37 story building …
All that’s left behind this afternoon… is a heap of rubble…. and memories of Donald Trump’s Jersey Shore heyday.
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The name makes perfect sense. Casting about for a rebranding of Aunt Jemima pancakes… a slew of executives… a bevy of branding experts and an armada of analysts… held focus groups… saved spreadsheets … and a million powerpoints later… the an landed on the new name… Pearl Milling Company Syrap.
Like their pancakes… the name's a mouthful.
Pearl Milling Company. According to the newly minted legend… Pearl Milling Company was tthe Mill in St Joseph, Missouri. where self-rising pancake batter was first created.
Aunt Jemima’s portrait is gone from the box and bottle. Replaced by a quaint sketch of an old stone mill and waterwheel.
It’s supposed to make you think down home thoughts of earnest bakers… grinding the grist by the sweat of their brow. When actually Aunt Jemima is owned by Quaker Oats… which is owned by Pepsi. Which is a 192 billion dollar company.
On twitter today… pancake fans have come up with 192 billion reasons the name… stinks.
Pearl Milling. Sounds like a gravel mining company. Here’s a nother … sounds like something owned by a James Bond Villain. Boring and Forgettable. I’m switching to Mrs. Butterworth.
Somebody thought Pearl Milling was a good name. I hope that somebody checked… on the name because there are at least two African American women in America named… Pearl Milling.
Somewhere Mrs. Butterworth is laughing her cap off.
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Did you know that foreigners think we’re nuts…. because we eat peanut butter?
They can’t fathom putting hydrogenated peanut paste in their mouths … Here’s a British woman trying it for the first time.
She takes a taste
o: could you.
Sure I could. It’s as Ameri
can than apple pie - by age 17... the average kid has eats 1500 peanut butter sandwiches
All American Peanut Butter was invented by the same guy who created corn flakes. John Harvey Kellogg… in 1895…. … it was food the beautiful people. Amelia Earhart and Henry Ford enjoyed it as a delicacy … then the little people followed along believe the ads that said 10 cents worth of peanuts pack six times the energy of a porterhouse steak.
Wasn’t true. But now Peanut Butter is so ubiquitous… this past spring… Yale researchers applied for a grant to use it as an early-warning covid test. Because it’s in almost every American kitchen. The test was simple. Open a jar. Smell it. If you can’t … you probably have Covid.
Theyyyyy didn’t get the grant.
But Peanut Butter can fix dings in your wooden furniture… hide scratches in leather … and remove bugs from your windshield… Smear it on let it sit a half hour and hose it off. Bugs are gone. but if you try it… you gotta use smooth. Crunchy’d be a disaster.
So hoist a pbj high in the air … it might look like a sandwich… but its what makes you …an American.
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In his Super Bowl Commercial… Bruce Springsteen asked America to meet in the middle. Metaphorically speaking the the middle of the country… there’s a church.
— Bruce —
I’d love to see the pews filled with millions of Americans… but there’s something from last month stuck in my mind… that keeps me from seeing all of America... meeting-up at a church.
Some people can’t get to the middle because of their apocolyptic fear of the other side. They were inside the capitol a month ago… shattering the unbreakable glass that protects our democracy.
But what’s stuck in my mind… is a New York Times article in the Fashion section of all places… from January 15th. Nine days after the capitol siege .. it’s still a raw wound. a reader asks… is it okay to wear camo… or will people think I’m sympathizing with the rioters?
The Times Fashion writer contemplates this and very seriously decides… it’s okay to wear the clothing that uses a bit of the camo pattern because it’s a classic style like polka dots… but you should avoid wearing camo fatigues…because it might be misinterpreted.
With Democracy shaken to its core… this is what some New Yorkers worry about … and I’m not quite sure how we all get to Bruce Springsteen’s middle.
And i
Today… the nation is focused on what happened at the Capitol January 6th… and the former President’s role in the chaos … the riot… the siege… whatever you call it.
But a month later - it’s only been a month - I can’t stop thinking about an article I saw in the New York Times that graphically shows how different
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Did you happen to catch the commercials for Paramount during the Super Bowl.
Paramount owns CBS these days… and the commercials feature all the stars
The Star Trek Characters… Beavis and Butthead… and the Survivor guy trudge through biting wind as they hike a snow-covered mountain.
The imagery is not lost… they’re hiking the mountain from the Paramount logo that you’ve been seeing your whole life.
Can you picture it? snowy peak… surrounded by white stars…
So let me ask you … does the mountain in the Paramount logo familiar? It should if you’ve ever driver I-15 north… through Ogden.
The man who designed the logo was William Wadsworth Hodkinson…who built one of the first movie theatres in Ogden in 1907. Then Salt Lake … then he went to the west coast… and when he needed a new logo for his Paramount Picture Company… he drew the peak he remembered from childhood in Pleasant View. The majestic… craggy 10k peak of Ben Lomond… which your staring straight at… when you’re driving north past ogden.
The Paramount logo is a loose representation of a local mountain and you probably never knew. Even though the logo’s been arround for 106 years… based on a Utah mountain ….that’s been around for a few more.
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Couple nights ago ... one my kids texted… and asked “should I buy Gamestop?”
Exactly like the old Wall St saying… when your plumber asks what stocks you’re buying… it’s time to sell.
You’ve been hearing about Gamestop. If you’re wondering what’s going on… think of it as the story of Robin Hood.
Young people clutching their stimulus checks … play the market. Buy Sell Buy Sell… and in this case … they locked onto a single crummy stock… Gamestop. A little videogame store in the mall. hyped it up on social media… til millions were buying. Wednesday… alone 24-billion dollars worth of Gamestop.
Robin Hood robbed from the rich to give to the poor. In this case… the rich are billionaire hedge funds that bet gamestop would tank. The billionaires lost their starched white collar shirts … and it so unnerved the markets… the Dow fell 600 points Wednesday.
Did I mention thesemerry young men with stimulus checks use an online brokerage called RobinHood.com Even they’ve had enough. Robin Hood shut down trading in Gamestop on Thursday. and the stock tanked.
These young traders probably don’t realize how the story of Robin Hood ends. With a bloody mess… with Robin Hood dead. So I told my kid… if you follow the hype and buy Gamestop… there might not be a happily ever after.
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I don’t drink beer. I do consume beer commercials. And I’ve noticed there were far far fewer of them on football games this season.
Of the ones that did air… Budweiser used the old trick of playing old quote-unquote “legendary” commercials from years past. It costs less to re-run an old commercial.
And now… Budweiser has announced it won’t run any Superbowl commercials for it’s signature beer. Kinda sad
Through the years…. Budweiser’s used the Super Bowl created pop culture catchphrases… and unforgettable branding. If you’re old enough… do you remember…
or frogs croaking the brand name.
and who can forget the Clydesdales.
But this year… Budweiser is getting even more attention by releasing a commercial that explains why they won’t be at the SuperBowl.
At the end … on a black screen… you’ll read that they’re spending the Super Bowl money on a year long vaccine awareness campaign. This commercial will be all over TV for the next two weeks… leading up to the Super Bowl.
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You’ve probably never heard of Brendan Smialovski. He works very quietly. Oh so very quietly as a photojournalist… never stirring. never creating a commotion. Always just a heartbeat away from the action…
He took the famous photo of President Trump in front of the church holding a bible. And countless other shots seared into your brain…. over the last 20 years. . The last four presidents. War Zones. Brendan Smialovski has spend his life an arm’s legnth from history.
And so it was again…. last Wednesday. When the 40 year old award winning photographer passed through the security checkpoints… clambered onto the rickety photographer’s stand and set up his equipment to record history. The inauguration of Joe Biden.
It was cold… on that open platform 30 feet in the air… wind was biting as the hour approached. Smialovski took pictures of all the dignitaries greeting each other … his eye glued to the lens… but he’s a pro. While he looks through the lens ...e’s learned to scan aa crowd with the other eye.. and that’s how he saw Senator Bernie Sanders fidgeting. Legs crossed. mittens wiggling…
< snap >
And out of all the wars.. and inaugurations.. and famous moments… Brendan Smialovksi’s will now be most remembered… for the picture of an old man bundled against the cold. At the inauguration.
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I’m gonna hand in my man card and admit I get a little queasy around blood. Whenever they need a blood sample… I look the other way …and recite the 1969 New York Mets batting order. Tommy Agee… CF Wayne Garrett… 2nd base Cleon Jones left field.
I remembered this just to truck it out whenever I give blood. So I understand people who say they’re afraid of needles. A fear that could spell the difference between getting vaccinated… and getting covid.
If you’re afraid of getting a shot… if you get that cold sweat… if you feel lightheaded… or passout… it’s a recognized disorder. if you fear blood or injections it’s called trypanophobia. They say a quarter of all adults are afraid of needles. 7-percent of us will avoid the vaccine because of that fear.
We’re all pulling for herd immunity… so if you’re afraid of needles… short of visiting a shrink… experts tell CNN you could distract yourself… by counting your breaths… reciting the Mets batting order. And if that doesn’t work.. benadryl can calm you down somewhat. No prescription required.
But if you experience serious mortal fear of needles… you might need a shrink. They say it takes four to 10 sessions on the couch to cure trypanophobia.
But it CAN be cured. And it can be treated. That’s the point.
Ouch
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It’s no secret the car business is really the SUV business these days. Sedans have fallen far from favor in dealer showrooms. And you certainly don’t see a lot of hot new sportscars on I-15… You see pickups and more pickups and minivans… and late model SUV’s everywhere.
So it was inevitable ever since Porsche started selling the Cayenne. The car company synonymous with sexy curves… and speed … Ferrari…. is coming out with an SUV.
Save up folks. Next year… at some point … you’re gonna do a double-take when you see a fire engine red SUV woosh by in the passing lane…. and you’re gonna say “what was that?
But since you’re listening right now you’ll know it’s the Ferrari Model with the name that’s so hard to pronounce… that Motor1.com had to consult with it’s editor in Italy and recorded the pronunciation. You ready? IT’s the Ferrari
Again?
A translation… ( ) is the Italian word for thoroughbred. The ( ) should do 200 miles an hour… acceleration? All you need to know is It'll flatten the kids in the backseat… and send their sippy cups flying.
The sticker should be around $260,000. Only problem… when somebody asks “wow. What is this thing… you’d gonna sound like a jerk when say … oh .. it’s my new “ “
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This inauguration had the biggest crowd ever. If you’re counting flags instead of people. 191-thousand flags fluttering in the breeze…. on the mall…. but the historic day began… with a goodbye.
Attention quickly shifted from the palms of florida to the seat of government… the nation’s capitol.
Famous voices rose in song. Lady Gaga…
There was Jennifer Lopez
There was a historic first.
And the moment…. prescribed by the constitution…
There was an appeal to heal…
And a presidential promise….
The formalities …punctuated by Garth Brooks… and a poem.
And thus ended a peaceful transition of power. Now the work begins.
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You could say one good thing about the War of 1812. We know what year it happened. Other than that it was ugly. As British Troops fought their way toward washington President Madison and top officials evacuated to Maryland…sleeping at people’s homes…. the night the Brits burned down the White House… which wasn’t even called the White House yet. It was the Presidential mansion.
That same night... the Brits set fire to the Capitol. And it was the British. Wasn’t French people dressed in British swag. History has proven that sometimes… it is what it is.
For 206 years since the Brits sparked the fire … the Capitol Building has stood as the stone embodiment of national pride. Til a ragged mob cast aside the heavy wood doors… and their good judgement.
Because regardless of the dirty business of politics taking place under that rotunda… it’s the People’s building. It doesn’t belong to James Angeli… a Q-Anon leader photographed in the house chamber with a megaphone yestereay. Confirmed by his family it was him.
The Capitol doesn’t belong Nich Ochs…. the founder of the Proud Boys Hawaii Chapter…. who tweeted Hello from the capitol … as smoked a cigarette.
Nor Bigo Barnett… the leader of an Gravette, Arkansas Gun Rights Group… who put his feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and stole her paperwork… and bragged about it.
These were not Trump supporters. These were Trump diehards … tried and true…breaching the US capitol…
Disproven social media posts say otherwise… but sometimes… it is what it is.
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The complaints are off the charts. As the vaccine rollout kicks into 2nd gear… a lot of people are angry and frustrated. As they prepare to open things up to the elderly … we’re seeing complaints about crashing government websites… overloaded phone systems. Appointments confirmed and then unconfirmed.
I heard one complaint that at a vaccination drive through… can you believe they won’t have porta potties for the elderly?
Folks. This vaccine is an awe-inspring miracle of modern science. They’re creating 500-milion doses in the snap of the fingers… distribuing it via utra cold storage to the states… and stick it into people’s arms. This is a herculean undertaking. I gaurantee you that nobody involved in this effort has any experience at something like this.
And the complaints aren’t just in Utah. Similar sentiments are echoing across the country … because everybody who wants t he vaccine wants it right now….
A few days ago… Health and Human Services announced they’re releasing their reserves. The vials the vials are coming. But the Washington Post reports when they said we’re releasing the reserves…. there were no reserves. They were already depleted.
So the states aren’t going to get a flood of vaccine as they expected. Appointments might be cancelled… and we’ll hear more complaints.
This is a breathtaking vaccination program that’s beginning with one symptom you don’t associate with Covid.
Hiccups.
So try to be patient. And for the meantime… stay safe.
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While we’re all hangin’ out on the couch binging on junk food… it’s time to salute America’s favorite cookie— which keeps finding new ways to excite the public about a treat that’s been hanging around kitchens for 108 years.
Of course… I’m talking about Oreos. In the past three years… Oreo has introduced the following limited edition flavors. Carrot Cake Oreas. Crispy Tiramisu Oreos. Jelly Donut, Mississippi Mud Pie and Key Lime Oreos.
There were Churro flavored Mystery Oreos… Waffle and Syrup Oreos.
None of them as good as the original of course.
And that’s the point. The new flavors spark new interest… and send people back to the store to buy plain ole oreos. The New York Times reports when the novelty flavors boost sales by 12-percent… traditional oreas go up 22 percent.
So they spentdup to two years researching,, choosing … and baking each of these new flavors.
But did you know they make special flavors for other countries? And you’re never gonna get to taste them? In China they sell hot chicken wing oreos. And wasabi oreos. But thats nothing.
To give you an idea how different taste buds work in China… a few weeks ago McDonalds briefly offered a Spam and Oreo Burger. Two slabs of spam with the sweet aftertaste of Oreos mixed in.
I have no idea if it goes well with fry sauce.
But here’s one that goes well with milk. The new oreo just hitting stores has three layers of creme. Brownie fl, original creme and cookie dough. Pressed between two delicious biscuits.
Hey. It’s better the spam.
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My son Benj and I always laugh when we see dippin’ dots for sale. You know what their slogan is …right? Says it right on the cart. “The Ice Cream of the Future.”
For 30 years they’ve been the" ice cream of the future” And we ask each other… When does this future show up?
Well seems the answer is … 2021.
Because the Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at a temperature of minus 94. And it’s hard to find freezers that cold.
Dippin Dots… has them.
They have a subsidiary that makes ultra-cold freezers. The ones they make for other industries … can hit 122 below. Some of them are already used for vaccine storage. Dippin Dots also have expertise in distributing ice-cold products…. using dry ice and insulation to get those dots from here to there before they become itty bitty puddles.
And because of this expertise… and their freezer manufacturing operation … and the inquiries they’re getting about how to keep the vaccine cold… my son and I now have the answer to the age old question we’ve been pondering for a quarter century.
At Dippin Dots…. The future is now
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Over the past 10 years… you probably heard about Forest Fenn.. an eccentric millionaire who buried treasure somewhere in the Western US… and he published clues. Oh, wait.
— Fenn
Before he died… Fenn wanted to get people off their couches. And along the way, treasure hunters scoured the Rockies searched, and surrendered …at least two people died… before the treasure was discovered last summer.
but as to WHO discovered it… that remained a mystery …until now.
Because of a court case over the treasure hunt… the person who found Forest Fenn’s booty… had to reveal himself… and he chose to do so to Outside magazine.
And it wasn’t a grizzled Indiana Jones type. If you can believe this… he’s a 32-year-old med student who used to write comedy for The Onion. Name is Jack Steuf…. who says he became obsessed with the treasure hunt in 2018… and found the mysterious box in Wyoming… but he won’t say where.
Inside… he found gold nuggets… coins … sapphires… diamonds and pre-Columbian artifacts worth .. eh… 2-million dollars.
Jack Steuf decided not to keep the treasure. He’ll auction it off… because he’s in med school. And has student loans to pay off.
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It’s gotta be miserable running a bookstore… knowing that every day Amazon is going to beat his brains in.
Meet James Daunt the new CEO of Barnes and Noble.———————
Are you the type who likes to fan the pages and feel the wind. For those who complete a chapter and get sensory satisfaction from turning… flipping… or sliding the paper right to left. For those who dog ear, bookmark, and highlight literature… there’s the bookstore. The one with a lot of empty parking spaces out front… but James Daunt is aiming to change that.
Maybe you’ll notice his changes at Barnes and Noble. Little things.
Instead of Big tables chock full o books… they’ll put em on small tables. They gotta be round. Seems it sells more books. And they’ll display the books on the shelves so you can see the cover. Instead of standing upsideways
The biggest change… is the end of faceless people in New York deciding what books should be on the shelves of Utah. James Daunt has given store managers more control of inventory. So you might see more books about .. say… family activities… then about the dangers of the subway.
Which makes sense… but is it enough to save bookstores?
James Daunt is confident. He already rescued the biggest book chain in England… and now he’s hoping to save the Barnes and Noble…. with an amazingly simple philosophy. Cater to people who love fanning the pages and feeling the heft. people who love books.
Barnes and Noble
https://www.wsj.com/articles/barnes-nobles-new-boss-tries-to-save-the-chainand-traditional-bookselling-11607144485
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