Next time maybe a lower profile target for your scheme

Maybe Lisa Jeanine Findley was thinking along the lines of 'go big or go home.' Or maybe she was just thinking that this was one hell of a get-rich-quick scheme. But trying to steal Graceland? GRACELAND! As in the home of the King of Rock and Roll (not to mention the topic of the wonderful eponymous Paul Simon song, which is, of course, today's earworm - and one of the few earworms I've actually been happy to have earworming around in my brain).

Here's what Lisa Jeanine Findley, "also known as Lisa Holden, Lisa Howell, Gregory Naussany, Kurt Naussany, Lisa Jeanine Sullins, and Carolyn Williams" was up to: 

[She allegedly] falsely claimed Presley’s daughter pledged the property as collateral for a loan she failed to pay before she died last year, prosecutors said. She fabricated loan documents and then published a bogus foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing that Graceland would be auctioned off to the highest bidder in May, prosecutors said.

...In May, a public notice for a foreclosure sale of the 13-acre (5-hectare) estate said Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland museum, owes $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan. Riley Keough, Presley’s granddaughter and an actor, inherited the trust and ownership of the home after the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, last year.

Keough filed a lawsuit claiming fraud, and a judge halted the proposed auction with an injunction. Naussany Investments and Private Lending said Lisa Marie Presley had used Graceland as collateral for the loan, according to the foreclosure sale notice. Keough’s lawsuit alleged that Naussany presented fraudulent documents regarding the loan in September 2023 and that Lisa Maria Presley never borrowed money from Naussany. (Source: PBS)

Just in the nick of time, the "brazen scheme" was discovered - among other things, the notary whose name was on the documents as attesting to Lisa Marie Presley's signature found out she was implicated and affidavited an immediate 'no way.' So in May, Tennessee authorities put the kibosh on the auction and whistled in the Feds. 

Lisa-0f-the-many-names-including-an-awful-lot-of-Lisas, if convicted, is facing some quality time (20 years+) in the pen. 

And Graceland is saved to continue it's role as a monument to Elvis and a primo tourist attraction that's on plenty of bucket lists. (It's not on mine, but if I were anywhere near Memphis, I'd sure give it a whirl. Who wouldn't want to see where Elvis made those peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwiches? His Jungle Room man cave? The place where the King is buried?)

What astounds me here is why someone with larceny in their heart and mind would go for such a prominent target to swindle. Surely there are no-name folks with no-name heirs whose estates could have been more easily stolen. But the foreclosure notice for Graceland, placed in a Memphis newspaper, was bound to attract plenty of attention. And some of that attention would surely have made its way to the daughter of the other Lisa, the real Lisa, Lisa Marie Presley: Riley Keough. (Lisa Marie Presley's estate - a.k.a., the Elvis Presley estate - was left to Riley Keough, and to Lisa Marie's other daughters, who are teenagers. Riley Keough - not a bad actress, by the way - is the prime in terms of overseeing the estate on behalf of her half sisters. The overall estate is estimated as being worth over $700M.)

Seriously, if Graceland were up for auction because Lisa Marie Presley used it as collateral for a measly $3.8M loan she didn't repay, the news would have made headlines all over the world. Guarantee it would have played on al the national news networks. No way someone wouldn't have uncovered the ruse. And someone, of course, did. 

Lisa Jeanine Findley's defense so far is the ever popular, I'm the victim of a Nigerian identity thief. The supposed Nigerian identity theft is no doubt a prince, but, let's face it, a king is always going to trump a lowly prince. Let alone some a.k.a. dumb bunny who tried to swindle Elvis' heirs. 

Talk about fools rush in...

Maybe it's time to stopr the glorification of all things Navy SEAL?

Until I read about the Tufts lacrosse players who were hospitalized with it, I'd never heard of rhabdomyolysis. 

Rhabdomyolysis (shortened as rhabdo) is a condition in which damaged skeletal muscle breaks down rapidly, often due to high intensity exercise over a short period of time. (Source: Wikipedia)

That "high intensity excercise" likely explains my lack of familiarity with rhabdo. Never been there; never done that. 

But a week or so ago, twelve Tufts' lacrosse players ended up in the hospital after a 45-minute workout conducted by a Tuft's alum who's also a recent Navy SEALs graduate. 

Now, there's certainly a time and place for the Navy SEALs. Like ridding the world of Osama Bin Laden. And their special operations work certainly requires them to be in superb physical shape and possess a supreme degree of mental toughness, braveness, bravado, and ferocity. So, hooyah to their training. 

But it seems to me that, over the past couple of decades, we've begun overglorifying these warriors. Tough, brave, ferocious: sure. But some members of this vaunted outfit have been implicated in war crimes. And they often give off an air of toxic masculinity, and scorn for anyone who ain't them. So there's that. 

Anyway, the level of workouts the SEALs endure may be entirely appropriate to prepare them for the tasks they'll be called on to perform, especially given that the most strenuous workouts aren't what the training starts with, but what it leads up to over the course of their course

Yet here were the young men on the lacrosse team, in a voluntary, unsupervised workout session taking part in an extreme workout, pretty much starting cold. Not that these fellows aren't in good shape. Lacrosse is not for the lazy-arsed or faint of heart. But they're in normal college athlete fitter than fit shape. Not in Navy SEALs, jump in to a firestorm with a hunting knife between your teeth fitter than fit. 

As a result of the workout, nine of the lacrosse players were treated in the ER and released. As of Monday, three were still hospitalized. (Note: I've seen slightly different reports on how any of these athletes were actually hospitalized. But the "three still in" seems to be factual.)

Beyond the wikipedia definition, rhabdo can be absolutely dire. 

Rhabdomyolysis is a rare condition in which muscles disintegrate, leading to muscle death. It is a life-threatening condition that can cause kidney damage after toxic components of muscle fibers enter the circulation system and kidneys. (Source: Boston Globe)

This is scary stuff, especially when you consider that three of these kids are still in the hospital after a week. Yikes! 

Tufts is no big athletic powerhouse. They're mascot is Jumbo the Elephant, and their primary color is light blue. But its lacrosse team is highly competitive, and they're the DIII NCAA lacrosse

champions. So these fellows are no doubt LAX bros who might be drawn to the SEAL mythology. But mostly Tufts is a pretty good school, and these young men are student athletes. They're not Navy SEALs. 

Hope they're okay. 

And hope that folks stop irrationally glorifying the SEALs, let alone thinking that their level of fierce training is appropriate for civilians, especially a bunch of impressionable college kids.  

OK, it does sound kinda fun in a very weird way

When my nieces were little - late 90's/early aughts - Polly Pockets were popular. 

They weren't the girls' favorites. They like Barbie. They liked American Girl. They like the Groovy Girls (my personal favorites). 

But they did like Polly Pockets.

And what kid wouldn't?

Most kids love things in miniature, and there was tiny little Polly Pocket and her tiny little outfits and her tiny little shoes and her tiny little pocketbooks and her tiny little living spaces and her tiny little stuff. 

While Polly Pocket was cheesy and cheapo, I would have absolutely been bonkers for them if they'd been around in the 50's when I was big into dolls. 

Sure, from a step on a piece barefoot perspective  - not as painful as stepping on a Lego piece, but still plenty painful -  to a search for that crucial tiny little missing piece point of view -  purple left-shoe has disappeared! - Polly Pockets had a lot going against them. But so much more going for them.

I completely get that girls who grew up with Polly Pockets have wonderful memories of them.

I wonder how that translated into those grownup 80's and 90's girls renting an Airbnb that's "a real-life scale version of the Polly Pocket Slumber Party Fun" pad that, a couple of weeks ago could be had for $89 per guest per night for any fan willing to travel to Littleton, Massachusetts. 

When the Airbnb (a collab with Mattel) was first advertised, we learned that:

Guests will be able to try on Polly Pocket-themed accessories, clothes and raid her fridge for a late-night snack. (Source: Worcester Telegram)

The clamshell design house looks like it folds up like the original toy did, but it obviously doesn't fold up with overnight slumber partiers in it. So it looks like your stay will be al fresco. But that should have worked, as the weather in Littleton, Massachusetts in September - the only days the house will be available - is generally pretty temperate.  

The house features, plein air:

...five beds, one bedroom, and a private half-bath. According to Airbnb, you’ll be able to camp out under the stars, play dress-up, craft your own bracelets at the Friendship bracelet station, enjoy a 90’s inspired kitchen.  (Source: Billboard)

Airbnb had a much more to say about the Polly Pocket House when they put out their presser announcing it 

The pad is packed with nostalgic surprises to take guests right back to their childhoods while getting the 411 on the pocket-sized life.

“I can’t wait for you to visit and help celebrate my birthday in my most epic compact ever,” said Polly. “Let’s have some serious slumber party fun in my hometown of Littleton, where we make the ordinary extraordinary. There’s adventure to be had from my closet full of nostalgic fashion fun to the surprises I’ve left hidden around the compact. The fun is endless!” (Source: Airbnb)

Given that Polly Pocket was invented in England, I'm a bit surprised to learn that her hometown is Littletown, Massachusetts. But what's a little make believe when "the fun is endless."]

Did Airbnb say endless? Hell to the yeah!

Get ready at Polly’s vanity, stuffed with nostalgic hair and nail accessories of her favorite colors. Did someone call for press on nails?

Check out the retro fridge and craft the snack-filled picnic every ‘90s kid wanted.

Try on the doll life for size in Polly’s closet, where her most iconic throwback looks hang waiting to be worn in joyful hues and glossy silhouettes in the beloved signature gummy texture.

Kick back in the living room with some popcorn, a movie and plenty of pillows.

Doze off on Polly’s pullout couch or cozy up in her life-sized Action Park Tent just 10 feet away from the compact after filling up on slumber party fun
Make custom, Polly-approved charm bracelets to match with your BFF.

And if you weren't able to nab one of the overnight opportunties, the house will be available for daytime adventures through early October. 

There's really nothing comparable for those my age. Our dolls didn't come with houses, or even much by way of accessories. Baby dolls had bottles and rattles. I think I may have had a layette for my Tiny Tears. 

I loved my Vogue Ginny and Ginnette dolls, and they had lots of cute outfits. But I believe us doll moms were responsible for housing our doll babies. 

Sure, we may have had dollhouses, but they weren't big enough to fit our dolls in.

But you know who would have fit in those metal doll houses? Polly Pockets. 

Sure, our dollhouses weren't as colorful and exciting as Polly's plastic fantastic clamshell compact house. But, size-wise, she would have fit right in. 

Anyway, Polly Pockets was never my jam, and I'm way too old and crotchety for this sort of adventure, but a visit to the Polly Pocket house does sound kinda fun in a very weird way. 

Kinda-sorta serves them right

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about (or going to) weddings. But I am certainly aware that they have become a big thing since I was a girl and weddings were relatively simple events without a ton of crazy hoohah and fanfare. The prime differentiator from one wedding to the next seemed to be whether there was an open bar or not.

But like so much else, weddings have become a THING.

Many are elaborate affairs that stretch across multiple days, often at a destination that you need to travel to. Some have themes - Roaring Twenties, Star Wars, Renaissance Faire - where guests are asked to come in costume. Others are color-coded, with guests requested to wear a specific color. 

There are professionally choreographed dances. Forget the clumsy father-daughter twirl to "Daddy's Little Girl." There's the groom and groomsmen dance; the bride and bridesmaids; the father of the bride's star turn, with or without his daughter; the mother of the groom's elaborate multiple-song mashup dance, with or without her son. 

Years ago, I went to the wedding, in Galway, of young Irish friends. The grandfather of the groom, the father of the groom, and the groom himself all performed step dances. But they were all champion Country Kerry steppers. It was great! 

The highlight for me of that wedding was when everyone got down on the floor and did a synchronized routine to "Rock the Boat," which I didn't at the time realize was an Irish thing. I only found that out when everyone got down and started rocking during an episode of Derry Girls.

But most of the weddings I've attended - and I don't go to a ton of weddings -  from modest backyard affairs to black-tie-optional swank hotel do's, have been on the simpler side. Nothing crazy. No bride-zilla antics. No psycho drama. Buffet or table service. Open or pay bar. Champagne toast. Bride and groom drop by every table. Everyone out on the floor for Shout and The Love Train. 

One trend I've read about online is that some couples have their dog serve as their ring-bearer. Seems a bit strange to me, given that the honor usually goes to the cutest little nephew, but, hey, dogs are people, too.

But I hadn't read about folks using an owl as their ring bearer. And at one July wedding, the owl took off with the rings. This was in England where, thanks to Harry Potter, his bestie Hedwig, and the snowy owls that deliver the mail at Hogwarts, owls are increasingly hired to do the job. 

Callum Russel witnessed the owl take wing with the rings.

He says the bird flew away with the couple’s rings around 1 p.m. and sat on top of the venue. The couple finally retrieved their rings seven hours later, around 8 p.m.

"It seemed like they had been ready to do the rings but the owl went away,” he said. (Source: People)

While the trend began in England, it's taking off in the US as well, with "more couples are opting for birds of prey like owls and hawks to serve as ring bearers during their nuptials."

The small business Raptor Events, based in Long Beach, Calif., offers a raptor ring bearer package for $1,200, which includes a rehearsal with the bird, ring bearer services, photos with the bird after the ceremony and a "cocktail hour" meet and greet with the ring bearer.

Raptor Events has a pretty diversified product line, which includes falcons used for pest control, hired to drive away nuisance birds like pigeons and starlings. They also have a specific practice for helping those plagued by peacocks. In the Boston area, we are plagued with wild turkeys, but I haven't heard of peacocks (and hens: remember the ladies) being a thing in these parts. Raptor Events is in California, so maybe people go in more for ornamental peacocks without realizing that they can be destructive and nasty. Sort of like our wild turkeys.

But back to the ring-bearing wedding owl. 

If you trust the rings to your cutie pie little nephew, he may have a meltdown or work stoppage on the way down the aisle. But the rings don't disappear.

I suppose a dog ring bearer might swallow the rings, which could lead to an unpleasant wait and see period. But you will get the rings back. 

But the British couple was lucky that the handler managed to coax the owl down after seven hours. The bird could have just as easily absconded with the goods entirely. 

Guess the Brit newlyweds will have a tale to tell their kids and grandkids, but the disruption and fear factor kind-sorta serves the couple right. 

The crazier and more elaborate a wedding gets to be, the more that can go wrong. 

Let's hear it for the weddings of yore. Simple, to the point, got the job done without any unnecessary risk or drama. Maybe the priest muffed the name of the bride or groom, but there was no damned owl taking off with the rings. 

So sad. So very, very sad

This past July, Brandon Miller - a 43 year old father of two, a New Yorker, a Brown graduate - killed himself.

The US averages well over 100 suicides a day, so Brandon Miller wasn't alone when he decided to do himself in. The overwhelming proportion of suicides are male, so there may well have been a few other forty-something fathers of two killing themselves on that day. And all those suicides no doubt left an indelible mark, an unfathomable level of never-going-to-go-away pain on their family and friends. 

But there's something especially sad about the death of Brandon Miller. Something particularly American tragedy.

Ostensibly, Brandon Miller and is wife were living the high life. He was the wildly successful second-generation New York real estate developer. His wife Candiece, the social media chronicler of their neo-Gilded Age lifestyle - heavy on extravagant homes, over-the-top parties, luxe consumption, jet set travel, perfect mommy-ness. 

She was known for her vintage designer gowns and for private fitness sessions (about $250 per hour on top of $900 monthly studio membership fees) that she filmed and shared online.

The Miller children’s birthdays were also an opportunity for Ms. Miller to entertain on a grand scale — for friends and for online fans. A Coachella-themed party for one daughter spawned a torrent of Instagram posts tagging the vendors Ms. Miller hired: a party planner, a florist and a DJ. Helping to keep it all afloat were nannies, housekeepers, drivers, boat captains and personal chefs. (Source: NY Times)

Having sold their Tribeca home a few years back, they were living in a glam apartment that rented for $47,000 a month. (You read that correctly: $47,000!!!)

The showpiece of their consumption was their 5,500 square foot Hampton's mansion, where a few years back they held a 10th anniversary party. 

Beautiful women in gowns watched with their handsome husbands as the couple renewed their vows near a swimming pool strewn with peonies and rose petals beneath a canopy of lights. 

Peonies and rose petals. Sounds gorgeous.

For the Millers, unfortunately, the lifestyle of the rich and famous was becoming an illusion. 

They were behind in their rent, and hadn't paid the tab for the rented furniture ($180K for the first year; $12K a month after that) that graced the apartment they were more or less squatting in. 

None of the deals Brandon Miller was working on came through. He borrowed millions, trying to stay afloat until his ship came in - in the image and likeness of a fabulous, lifestyle-saving deal. Some of his borrowing came from friends.

He took mortgages out on the Hamptons house, mortgaging it to the hilt. 

His million-dollar speedboat - Miller Time - was repossessed. And by the looks of the green scum-covered pool, the Millers hadn't been paying the pool service on their Hamptons pool.

Candice Miller supposedly had no idea of the dire straits they were in until late last spring. She just kept spending up a storm to fuel her Instagram account with content - spending on items like an $800 facial. After she found out about the financial shape the couple was in, on the promise that a new deal was going to make all the bad stuff go away, she took off with her daughters on an Instagrammable luxe vacance on the Amalfi Coast.

While his family was away, Brandon Miller hit a friend up for $1,000. (You read that correctly: a lousy one-thousand bucks.) He then headed out to the Hamptoms, where he jiggered with his Porsche Carrera so that it would fill with carbon monoxied, and proceeded to kill himself. (He was found before he died, and lived a few days in the hospital.)

No one's waiting around for Candice Miller to finish her grieving. She's being sued for all the money owed on the Hamptons house, which she has now put on the market for $15M. Word is that Brandon Miller had a hefty life insurance policy, so she is not being left a penniless widow. But $15M (the rumored policy amount) isn't going to go very far toward sustaining a lifestyle that was more billionaire than millionaire. (I was wondering whether insurance paid out on a suicide death, but apparently as long as you've held the policy for two years, you're good to go. As it were.)

And word is that Candice Miller is relocating to Miami from New. 

Who could blame her, although Miami doesn't exactly scream unostentatious lifestyle to me. 

Still, I wish her and her daughters well. Not sure of their ages, but in a picture I saw, they looked 11-12-ish. Terrible to lose a father at that age, for sure. And terrible for Candice Miller to lose her husband, who she'd known since childhood, especially in such an awful and sudden way. And in such a public and humiliating fashion.

But what a lesson in getting sucked into the wannabe super-rich way of life. Can't help but think that, if they'd decided that they didn't need to be super rich, or have super-rich people think they're super rich, they could have lived a more than comfortable life in Westchester or New Jersey or Connecticut. Nice house. Nice cars. Nice clothing. Nice vacations. Nice schools. A nice, prosperous, upperish classish life. Just not a $47K a month rent and Coachella party life.

Candice Miller might still have a husband. And those two little girls might still have a father. 

If crazy, deadly, insane consumption isn't an American tragedy, I don't know what is.

Whatever happened to "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night"

I have a wonderful postman. Unfailingly pleasant and upbeat, he delivers the mail every day - no matter how rotten the weather, no matter how late it takes him. He's terrific about sorting whatever mail doesn't fit in the mailboxes. He even automatically dumps the flyers into the basket I keep in the foyer for recyclable catalogues and junk mail, since he knows that they just sit on the table until I grab them for recycle anyway. And he never fails when it comes to holding the mail and bringing the withheld mail back the day I want it back.

I've been living here for 30+ years, and we've always been fortunate when it comes to our letter carriers. Before W, there was B. Before B, there was E. All of them were great. And I'm sure there are plenty of other folks who also have a positive experience with their letter carriers. 

Not all, of course. There are rogue postal workers who toss out mail they just don't feel like delivering. Who swipe envelopes that they think contains a giftcard or cash. Who are careless, or lazy, or who otherwise f things up.

I've been fortunate that none of them have happened to me.

I usually run into W once or twice a week, and we chat for a few minutes. But in early August, I hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks, so may have missed a convo about his going on vacation. 

But then came a Monday, when I didn't get any mail.

On Tuesday, I noticed that there was no mail on the table in the foyer where W puts the mags, catalogs, and envies that don't fit in the boxes. And I couldn't see anything in anyone's box. (There are 6 units in my building.)

I knew I was supposed to be getting mail because - although I have no recall of having signed up for the service - each morning I do get an email alerting me to what I can expect from USPS that day. Some days, the email includes a scan of the envelopes and packages that are expected. And those daily emails were telling me that I had mail coming.

Wednesday. No mail. 

Thursday. No mail. (Hey, that's my New Yorker day!)

Thursday, I sent out a group text to the other residents. I didn't hear from everyone, but the ones I heard from weren't getting any mail, either.

Each day, our building's mail generally arrives at some point in the afternoon. By 3 p.m. at the latest.

On Friday, it was 3:30 p.m. and still no mail.

It almost goes without saying that there was no answer at the local post office. And the general PO customer service number didn't seem to have any humans associated with it, either.

So, despite the fierce heat and humidity that day, I decided to make a house call, and trekked up the hill to the post office that's responsible for my mail, the PO that W works out of.

After waiting about 10 minutes in line, I told the clerk that my building hadn't had any mail since the prior Saturday, and wanted to know if she could tell me what was up.

Her answer was that, if we weren't getting any mail, there may not have been a letter carrier available to deliver it.

Huh?

I know from my conversations with W that the post office is under a lot of stress. They are desperate to hire. They've had a lot of retirements and not enough new recruits to replace the retirees. There's a lot of OT being worked, and the letter carriers are under a ton of pressure. 

This is, of course, the inevitable outcome of how the postal service has been treated over the years, ever since the powers that be but shouldn't be decided to put the screws to the service, pushing to privatize and profitize it and make it a lousy place to work and - the long game - eliminate it.  

Anyway, I asked the clerk whether the lack of mail was because W was on vacation. She told me she couldn't tell me.

I asked whether these mail outages were common, how long they could possibly last, how we were going to get our mail.

No answer.

She went briefly into a back room to "check" for my mail, but came back almost immediately and told me there was no way she could go through any accumulated mail and find mine. Let alone the mail for anyone else in my building. 

She told me that I would need to talk to a supervisor, but that there was no supervisor there are the moment - and she didn't know when there would be. Go out for coffee and come back, she told me, and maybe the supervisor with the answers would be around. Or come back Saturday morning, when the PO was mostly closed, but the rental box area would be open and where there'd be a supervisor on duty from 3 a.m. on. So the supervisor would possibly be there if I came in.

I was sorely tempted to burst into the old Marvelette's song. 

Please, Mr. Postman, look and see.Is there a letter in your bag for me? 

It was late Friday afternoon, so I'm sure the clerk was tired and ready to go home. But still, I was expecting more help than I got. I would have settled for fake help, or a bit of sympathy. (By the way, I may have sounded increasingly incredulous as I asked her unanswerable question after unanswerable question, but I guarantee you that I was not being an unreasonable bitch.)

When I walked out, the woman who'd been working with the clerk next to me told me that she couldn't help but overhear my exchange. And, like me, she was pretty astounded by the runaround and lack of info I was given. Surely, we told each other, the clerk should have been able to tell me a tiny bit about what was going on. As in "we've been experiencing a shortage of postal carriers...our policy is that no route goes more than x days without mail delivery...I'll take down your information and report it to the supervisor, who will be in contact with you." Something. Eventually, she did say that she'd take down my name and address and give it to the supervisor, but I had little confidence that she actually did so. And also told me she had no interest in the names of the others in my building. They were going to be on their own.

Amazingly, when I got home, the mail had arrived.

Later than the norm, but it was there. Unheralded but seemingly intact. 

Saturday, we got mail, too.

Remember the part of the Marvelette's song when they sang deliver the letter, the sooner the better. (Or as my cousin Ellen and I cleverly wrote on the envelopes of our penpal letters to each other: D-liver D-letter D-sooner D-better.)

I guess the updated lyric would be deliver the letter, better late than never.

Not that I got anything that actually qualified as a letter. A couple of bills for the condo association. The usual requests for donations. And, yes!, my New Yorker. 

Still, as I gritted my teeth on my march up to the PO, and my even more annoyed march back - among other things the humidity and heat were tropical - I kept harrumphing to myself. Whatever happened to "neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." 

Amazon, the great job-creator!

I may not like Amazon, but I do order plenty of stuff off their site. Yes, I always (mostly always) try to get what I want locally, in a brick & mortar. Or directly through the vendor. But sometimes you just gotta do what you just gotta do. And I have to admit, it's great when that little smiley package lands on the doorstep the very next day. 

And Amazon is a job creator. It has over 1.6M employees. Plus the small businesses that have expanded the market for their wares thanks to Amazon. Of course, it's also a destroyer of jobs, and there are some studies that maintain that it has destroyed more jobs than it's created, leveling local retailers all over the place. Is Amazon a net job creator? Maybe yes, maybe no.

But Bezos is responsible for creating at least one oddball job, one fellow has struck gold in the Amazon.

He looks like a billion bucks.

A German ex-electrician went from watts to wealth after quitting his gig and becoming a professional Jeff Bezos lookalike.

Now, much like his celebrity doppelgänger, he lives a lavish lifestyle as an entrepreneur.

“I look like his twin brother,” Cagdas Halicilar, 46, told Jam Press of his uncanny resemblance to the Amazon founder, who is the world’s second-richest person with just over a cool $201 billion dollars. (Source: NY Post)

Halicilar does have another source of income. A while ago, he had swapped out being an electrician for running his own transport company. But who couldn't use a side hustle? So a while back, he signed up with a "doppelgänger agency." (Imagine such a thing.)

Moonlighting as Bezos part-time has allowed the mogul impersonator to land some eye-popping opportunities, including various gigs on German TV stations and at events.

The shiny bald head obviously helps, but Halicilar does look an awful lot like Bezos. On a trip to Seattle, he strolled around the Amazon campus and was asked for a selfie by a number of employees who thought he was the big mahoff. Many of them also took the opportunity for a bit of suck-up, telling the faux Bezos how proud they were to work for Amazon. Turns out that effort was a misdirected waste of breath.

Some folks who've asked for selfies have been so tongue-tied and shy in the presence of Bezonian greatness they've been rendered speechless. I guess they communicate with the universal language of holding up their phone and raising their eyebrows in an 'ask' that they wanted a selfie.

Between his transort business and his side gig, Halicilar is living pretty large. Not Bezos large, of course. Not bunch of $90M homes large. Not personal space flight large. Not invitest to state dinners at the White House. But large enough to hire a butler, drink top shelf whisky, and travel in style. 

He even did a guest spot on the German Netflix mini-series “King of Stonks.”

Never heard of "Stonks." Probably because it's a German thing. I'll have to look it up and may even decide to binge it.

But whether it's Bezos of Halicilar, I doubt if I spot him on the street I'd ask for a selfie. Too busy trying to think of what I'd say to John Roberts if I ever saw him out and about - and it sure wouldn't be asking him for a selfie. But that's another story altogether...

Need another reason to fear and loathe AI?

I don't really hate AI. Not all of it, anyway. It's great and is going to be greater when it comes to assistive technology that will let an awful lot of folks live their best lives. It will likely deliver on the some of its promise to provide better healthcare. It will absolutely eliminate a lot of drudge work.

But, but, but...However compelling those assistive technology and better healthcare arguments may be, this "death to drudgery" argument is a pretty dubious one. What's the benefit to those whose jobs involve drudge work?

One supposed ansewr is that, once drudgery-free, people will be freed up to unleash their inner whatever. Of course, most of those inner whatevers will eventually be rendered obsolete by AI. 

Then there are the jobs that are higher up the food chain that AI will do away with. White collar/knowledge workers may have largely escaped the job losses that automation and shifts to overseas production resulted in over the last n decades that absolutely hit those who worked in manufacturing. But AI's coming for those jobs big time, too.

So one of my biggest issues with AI madness is that, as we shrug our shoulders and accept it as inevitable, we're not as a society talking about what it is that people are going to do for work. The point the AI gurus keep making seems to be that 'we don't yet know what all those great new jobs are going to be, but they're going to be.'

This may work on the macro level - after all, a lot of those lost manufacturing jobs were replaced by spiffier white collar jobs in financial services etc. - but it really doesn't do all that much for those whose jobs were lost who weren't for whatever reason able to skip into a fancy new job, somewhere outside the Rust Belt, that required them to not just uproot their lives, but completely remake themselves. 

And what if all those presumed not-yet-imagined jobs don't pan out at the macro, let alone the micro, level? Are the trillionaire geniuses going to be happy with forking over a pittance of their trillions to give the rest of us a guaranteed income that's livable onable? Will we end up with a society that's even more alpha-beta-gamma-delta-epsilon than we already have? Blech, blech, a thousand times blech. Make that a trillion times blech.

What else are we ignoring when it comes to the downside of AI? 

Well, there's the environmental impact of the power all those datacenters will be consuming as the AI algos do their AI-ing. I guess we'll be having nuclear powered datacenters. No Three Mile Island worries there... Then there's the potential for some absolutely dreadful use of surveillance technology and big data. You, the guy with the protest sign? You're done for. And hey, you, folks with your profile commit crimes maybe. So you're done for, too. 

Anyway, as if anyone needs something more to worry about, when it comes to AI, there's a ton to add to your fret list. 

And as if I needed yet another reason to at least quasi fear and at least quasi loathe AI, now there's this brohaha with OpenAI.

OpenAI, which was founded nearly a decade ago to make sure that AI would benefit humankind vs. the opposite, has two components: a non-profit research organization and a profit making sub. 

You may recall that, earlier in the year, Elon Musk sued OpenAI, and his OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, claiming that they were putting profits over their initial mission to make sure AI benefits humanity. Anyone else find the idea of Elon Musk's being such a fanboy of anything benefitting humanity, and not whatever his current narcissistic whim is, laughable? He did drop the suit in June. Guess he had to put more focus into doing whatever he can to make sure that he benefits humanity by getting Trump elected...Talk about blech, blech, a trillion times blech.

OpenAI has been in the news for more than the Musk suit. There's been a lot of back-and-forth about Sam Altman staying the CEO. Etc. 

And more recently they've been in the news thanks to some whistleblowers lodging a complaint with the SEC claiming that "the artificial intelligence company illegally prohibited its employees from warning regulators about the grave risks its technology may pose to humanity, calling for an investigation."

The whistleblowers said OpenAI issued its employees overly restrictive employment, severance and nondisclosure agreements that could have led to penalties against workers who raised concerns about OpenAI to federal regulators...

OpenAI made staff sign employee agreements that required them to waive their federal rights to whistleblower compensation, the letter said. These agreements also required OpenAI staff to get prior consent from the company if they wished to disclose information to federal authorities. OpenAI did not create exemptions in its employee nondisparagement clauses for disclosing securities violations to the SEC.

These overly broad agreements violated long-standing federal laws and regulations meant to protect whistleblowers who wish to reveal damning information about their company anonymously and without fear of retaliation, the letter said. (Source: WaPo)

OpenAI, of course, pushed back, claiming that employees do have the right "to make protected disclosures." And that the organization is increasing their efforts to make sure that their AI models are safe and secure, their technology able to withstand the pressure for the profit-making part of the entity to, well, make profits. 

Bit a spring update to the model behind their big product, ChatGPT, was supposedly rushed out the door in May:

...despite employee concerns that the company “failed” to live up to its own security testing protocol that it said would keep its AI safe from catastrophic harms, like teaching users to build bioweapons or helping hackers develop new kinds of cyberattacks. 

Again, OpenAI acknowledges that, sure, there were pressures. But maintains they didn't cut any safety corners. 

Somehow, I'm not 100% convinced that there's not someone out there using ChatGPT to figure out how to build bioweapons. 

Meanwhile, it's not clear whether the SEC is opening an investigation based on the whistleblowers. Maybe there's an AI out there who can tell me.

Nothing neat about NEETs. (Pretty sad, really.)

The unemployment rate among American's 16-24 years old is running at about 9% - more than double the overall US average. While this is considered normal for this age group, it sounds like a very high number to me. It's roughly what the general unemployment rate was when I got out of business school in 1981, smack dab in a recession. And, take it from one who was looking for work at the time, 9% seems very high. 

I don't know what the unemployment rate was when I was in the 16-24 cohort. I was in school (high school, college, grad school) during most of that period, and whenever I wanted a job - summers, vacations, part time while in school - I found one. When I was 22-23, I worked as a waitress to fund travel. A few months waitressing at Durgin Park funded a couple of months driving and camping cross-country. Another few months waitressing at Durgin Park funded 5 months hitchhiking and camping/hosteling through Europe. At 24, I was doing crappy temp work which eventually led to a more or less real job and the decision to go to business school, which entailed taking courses in math, accounting, and economics so I'd look business-interested enough to get into a good B-school. (It worked.) 

Fast forward, and I'm a) old and b) mostly retired. I hang on to one legacy client and write their blog for them every two weeks. 

But basically, there's never been a time in my life from 16-74 (and counting) and beyond when I haven't been working (and these days, working is mostly volunteering) and/or in school.

Not so with the NEETs - those not in employment, education, or training - who make up a bit over 11 percent in the US (don't know how this squares with the 9 percent unemployment rate)  and about 20 percent of youth worldwide. 

I can't say that Iblame them. 

Young folks in the US have watched the middle class - especially the blue collar, factory-working middle class - crash down around their parents' ears. They're looking at a housing market (rental and purchase) that's pricing out even those with good jobs. AI is looming over even those with good jobs. Many are saddled with college loans that they'll be paying off the rest of their lives without ever making a dent in the principal. They're facing the existenial threat of climate change, and a volatile political environment. They're hooked on social media which, for all its many benefits, can be one big pool of anxiety, inertia, and just plain cess. 

Is it any wonder that so many aren't jumping for joy at the thought of working? That so many are grappling with mental health issues?

Gen Z are nearly twice as stressed out as millennials were at their age; More than a third of 18-24-year-olds are suffering from a “common mental disorder” (CMD) like stress, anxiety, or depression; And Gen Zers who are working are taking significantly more sick leave than Gen Xers 20 years their senior. (Source: MSN)

Anyway, it's pretty sad to think of these millions of young folks hanging around doing nothing - when they should be doing something productive, like working or learning or even (and I can't believe I'm saying this) earning money as influencers. Instead, I'm guessing they're sitting there with their phones, tablets, and gaming consoles, whiling away the hours on the biggest time-waster in the history of the universe: the Internet. 

Young men, especially, are increasingly disengaged, according to Julia Pollak, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter.

“The NEET trend is mostly a male phenomenon,” she said.

Pollak explained that’s in part due to declining opportunities in traditionally male occupations, such as construction and manufacturing, while “women’s enrollment in schooling, education outcomes, and employment outcomes have mostly trended upwards.” (Source: CNBC)

"Young men," you say?

That's comforting. It's not like they'll be happy to hang around Neverneverland with their fellow lost boys. It's not like they're going to become neo-Nazis or the like while scrolling through anti-[your favorite goes here] vids and memes, cooking up ideas on how to get back at [your favorite goes here] - and figuring out how they can get their hands on a high-powered weapon so they can play out their fantasies in the real world. Which may be the only time they enter that world. 

Again, I don't blame them for opting out of an over-rated real world. I admire those who are deciding to live a less aimless consumption, McMansion-crazed life. Who aren't buying into the corporate cutthroat or the corporate hamster wheel. 

But you do have to do something with your life. And doing nothing in your twenties isn't going to set you up with much of a platform for the remainder of your life. 

This is the time to figure it out. If figuring it out means trying different types of work, or going to school: great! If figuring it out means trying to go the creative route, even if you can't (yet) make a living at it: great! If figuring it out means traveling or volunteering: great!

Hanging around doing nothing all day: not so great!

I have no solution for this, other than get off your arse and do something. 

Good luck, NEETs. I think you're going to need it.

How 'bout them cowgirls?

Well, it's football season.

Not that I'm paying it much mind.

My primary sporting allegiance is the baseball in general, and the Red Sox in particular. So, until late October/early November, that's where my sporting attention will be paid. 

I do keep a vague eye on the other teams in Boston's Big Four - Bruins, Celtics, Patriots - and I do read the sports pages pretty regularly. (I also read the Irish sports pages, but that's another story.)

So I know it's football season. Mostly that's a meh/yawn. If and when the Pats return to their glory days, I will watch games, but, when it comes to football, I'm a total band wagon-er. 

If I pay little attention to the Patriots, I pay even less attention to their cheerleaders. Just now, however, I did pay them a tiny bit of attention, and checked them out on the Pats' website. The team has the requisite long-haired, long-legged, pretty young women - all named Megan or Mallory or Kayla - and, surprisingly (to me, anyway) a couple of good looking young men. 

The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (or, the DCC) also have the requisite long-haired, long-legged pretty Megans, Mallorys, and Kaylas. But unlike the Patriots, DCC is decidedly not co-ed. 

And, having watched the Netflix America's Sweethearts documentary, I know a lot more about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders than I do about the Pats' squad. After all, the DCC are America's sweethearts. And the Pats' cheerleaders, alas, are not. (Let's face it, no group of women from New England are going to be called anyone's sweethearts, no matter how pretty, leggy, and sweet they are.)

Anyway, America's Sweethearts is riveting. It follows the women from trying out for the tryouts to making the team to marching on field to the tune of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck," shaking their booties, shaking their poms, showing off their assets - both naturally and unnaturally (all those "blondes?" come on!) endowed assets in their white cowboy boots, skimpy white shorts, skimpy blue blouses, and skimpy starred and bedazzled white vests. 

The first couple of takeaways, once you get beyond the obvious prettiness, are that these women - it is so damned hard not to call them girls! - are exceedingly hard working and amazingly talented. They're incredible - and incredibly athletic - dancers. 

They're also a pretty educated and intelligent bunch, with off-the-field accomplishments. Most seem to have degrees in dance, communications, or business, but the recently retired lead cheerleader, Kelcey, was a pediatric RN. And one of the women trying out was an orthodontist. 

I was expecting there to be a lot more bitchier, cliquiness, and backbiting showcased, but for the most part the cheerleaders come across as decent, and supportive and fond of each other. I thought they'd come across as phoney, nasty sorority girls. While I'm guessing most of them were sorority girls, they come across as genuinely nice. (I could have done with a bit less of the cloyingly sweet and unimaginably naive Reese, but other than that...Not that we'd ever be besties, but I could imagine having a convo with most of them. Many came across as very self-aware and funny.) Maybe the bitchery was edited out, but that's how they came across to me.

The one problema sweetheart was Victoria, who didn't seem to have any friends on the squad and whose efforts to demonstrate leadership - she was a veteran hoping to be tapped as one of the leaders of the lines - were unsuccessful. Victoria was a legacy - her mother had also been a DCC - but she just didn't seem to easily fit in with the other girls cheerleaders. She wasn't as pretty (to my eyes, anyway). She didn't have any post-high school education, which set her apart. She tried to damned hard. It's not that the others shunned her, exactly, but...

Victoria was also open about her mental health issues. She'd taken some time away to get healthier but, in the end, when the boss lady, Kelli, delivered the crushing news that she wouldn't be considered for a leadership role, she decided to turn in her poms. (Last I heard, Victoria was in NYC, living her best life and trying to make it as a Rockette.)

Much of the drama - beyond who was going to make the cut, and what was going on with Victoria - was provided by the focus on women who run the squad. Boss-lady Kelli is an alum who's run the show for years. She comes across as a bit too hardboiled, a bit too drill sargenty, a lot too arbitrary. (I don't make the rules. I just make them.) Kelli's there on the sidelines - and studying the "game films" afterwards - looking for every hair out of place, every smile that's not gleamy enough, every step a nano-second off. But that may well be what she and her minions need to do to keep the cheerleaders looking purdy and high-kicking to perfection. 

Then there's the boss-lady's boss lady, Charlotte Jones, the 60-ish daughter of owner Jerry Jones. Charlotte has the plum nepo position of being in charge of the Dallas Cowboys brand. And those sweethearts are a big part of that brand. I found Charlotte even less likable than Kelli, but that may because she's tainted by being the daughter of the outrageously foul and unlikable Jerry Jones. 

It's very hard to watch America's Sweethearts and not come away feeling a tiny bit disheartened by the retro, sexist nature of the entire enterprise. Couldn't we have cheerleaders who were just a notch or two toned down on the sexpot-tery? This is, of course, countered by the fact that the cheerleaders are a) very talented; and b) doing something they love doing. What could be more feminist than that?

Well, I'd like the situation a lot more if the DCC were a bit better compensated for their work. It's hard to get a handle on what they do make. And the Dallas brigade, because of their worldwide brand (thanks, Charlotte, I guess), do get to make more compensated appearances than other NFL cheering squads. But they still don't make a lot, and all seem to juggle their cheering work with full time jobs that pay the bills.

Not to mention that all that high-kicking, strutting, and doing the splits takes a toll on their health. They may not end up with CTE like their male comrades (and no, they're not allowed to date players) taking a brain-pounding on the field, but many do end up with orthopedic issues galore.

I've never been to an NFL game. And it's not on my bucket list. So all I'm ever going to see of America's Sweethearts - or New England's Non-Sweethearts - in action is going to be whatever I glimpse while half-paying attention to a game I have on in the background.

But I did enjoy the behind the scene look at what goes on with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. 

As Texas troubador George Strait sings, how 'bout them cowgirls?

Check, mate!

When it comes to wasting time, I take a backseat to nobody.

Sure, I try to be productive - if productivity has any meaning when you're retired - but it's not all reading great books, rewriting my final wishes, keeping an eye on the price-of-cherries war between Whole Foods and Roche Brothers. (Sorry, Roche Bros, love you guys but your cherries cost twice as much as those at Whole.)

Once in a while, I play online TaiPei. Or WordZap.

I do offline Sudoku, and crossword puzzles.

I'm certainly capable of sitting through two hours of House Hunters on HGTV, and especially love the Americans who want to enjoy a real Parisian city experience, only they want their flat to have an eat in kitchen, en suite bathrooms, a home office, and a media room. Plus outdoor space for the dog and/or the kiddos.

I like to doomscroll through Twitter.

I like to nap.

But most of my fritter-the-time-away time does involve using my brain just a teensy, tiny little ol' bit. Why, even House Hunters has me guessing which house the hunters are going to choose. And even when I'm napping there's always the possibility that I'm putting my mind to work dreaming.

Pure, 100% brainless time wasting isn't so much my jam.

Other than when I get something from Amazon cushioned in bubble wrap and I get to break up all those lovely bubbles. Even then, after a few, I do tend to lose interest in the manual pincer crush method and move on to the more efficient stomp 'em out process.

So I'm not all that sorry that I missed the One Million Checkboxes fad earlier this summer.

In case you missed out, too, back in its heyday (June/July), One Million Checkboxes, the brainchild of game developer Nolen Royalty who introduced it on Twitter, was a pretty rudimentary game - without any of the usual cool graphics and/or challenges and/or strategies and/or all the whatever that typically comes with even the most rudimentary of online games.

Rows of unchecked squares sat tantalizingly against a pale gray background, an unexplored Minesweeper field. A visitor to the page checked one box. Then another. Each time a person checked a box, it was instantly filled in on everybody else’s screens, like a kind of collaborative grocery list accessible to anyone with a phone or computer. (Source: NY Times)

The gamification aspect pretty much entailed pitting the checkers, racing to check off as many boxes as they could, against the uncheckers (those nihilists, those meanies!) who were hell bent on undoing the "work" of the checkers.

Within a few weeks, the 1,000,000 boxes had been filled in and the game was end-of-lifed. But not before Royalty intervened and put in some algo to keep the uncheckers from overwhelming the site and preventing the checkers from reaching the million box goal. 

While it was the buzz, though, it attracted hundreds of thousands of users, and became something of a temporary "it thing" on the net. 

Users on X describe the project as “strangely compelling” and “torture for people with OCD.” A Washington Post newsletter called it “the most pointless website on the planet” — which it seemed to mean as a compliment.

Some users went creative, and "began filling in boxes to illustrate hearts or, in more cases, crude drawings of male genitalia." (Duh-bros, anyone?) Others went tech, with bots furiously unchecking boxes. Many saw it as a metaphor for the possibilities of human collaboration. 

Royalty claims no higher purpose.

“I just wanted to make a website that is fun and silly and useless.”

As for end-of-lifing, One Million Checkboxes is only kinda-sorta EOL'd. Last time I checked - hah! - it was still up and running, inviting the most time-wasting OCDers among us to "play alone if you'd like."

Oh, I checked a few boxes just to get a feel for it. Without the competition of a bot trying to uncheck my efforts, it was way too boring. Nowhere near as satisfying as pinching the air out of bubble wrap. And completely brainless. Plus you'd have to check 1,000 boxes a day for 1,000 days to fill in all those boxes. Blech to that. 

Guess I like my time-wasting to have a bit more heft.

Have I got an idea for these passengers.

It happened earlier this summer.

While still on the tarmac in San Francisco, a laptop stowed in an overhead bin started smoking.

"Everybody off the aircraft, let's go," an American Airlines employee can be heard saying over the intercom for the Airbus A321.

"Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going," a woman can be heard saying as passengers in the back of the plane seem to have difficulty exiting.

...A woman appears to point to something in an overhead bin, tying up traffic when "Go, go, go" can be heard in the background.

"Leave everything behind," one flight attendant says.

At least one carry-on bag can be seen sitting on a plane's seat abandoned during the evacuation.

"Come this way, leave everything," another flight attendant echoed. (Source: Fox Business)

Glad that one passenger came to their senses and abandoned their carry-on bag, but the fact (recorded, naturally, on video) that there were multiple folks trying to retrieve their belongings rather than just get the f' off the plane is disturbing. 

I'm sure they weren't thinking clearly, and I do understand the impulse to grab your stuff. I understand it so well that of late I've taken to hanging a small cellphone pouch around my neck that holds my phone, ID, and credit card: all the stuff you'd want to have with you in case of an emergency evacuation - and the kind of stuff that most men will have in their pockets (and most women will carry in their pocketbooks). So I do get the impulse to try to not leave your important things behind. And even your unimportant things like a change of clothing, the latest People magazine, a couple of granola bars. Sure, that change of clothing includes a sweater you just bought and really, really, really, really like - and haven't gotten to wear yet. But here's the deal: they're just things. They're not people, actual human beings, which would be the folks in the rows behind you who may not make it out if you're futzing around trying to dislodge your wheelie bag from a chocked-to-the-gills bin while smoke is filling the cabin and flight attendants are hollering for passengers to go, go, go. (Fellow passengers were hollering as well.)

Fortunately, SFFD was quickly on the scene, and only three people experienced "minor injuries." (No word on whether it was smoke inhalation or being clunked on the head by their own or someone else's carry-on bag.)

I've got an idea on how to handle those passengers who decide that they really need to make sure their bags are evacuated safely, and who prioritize those bags over the safety of others:

Have the attendants announce that those who want to retrieve their bags should stay seated (squinching their legs up to allow others in their row to depart) while those passengers willing to leave theirs behind get to exit the plane first. Then and only then can they grab their bags. 

Sounds fair, and absolutely works for me! (I'll be the one blissfully exiting with my phone, ID, and credit card hanging around my neck in a little pouch.)

Now that's a slimey business

I don't have much experience with slime.

It just wasn't a thing when I was a kid.

We had modeling clay, which came in dull colors - brick red, battleship grey - and wasn't all that pliable. So while Auguste Rodin, or a professional potter, might have been right at home with it, I remember finding it hard to work with. The best I could do was roll it out into a string and then coil it around to create something boring or other.

Play-Doh, in comparison, was a revelation. When colored Play-Doh was introduced in the mid-1950s, I was all in. I loved pretty much everything about Play-Doh, including the memorable smell. I loved the fact that, with just the basics - a can of red, yellow, blue, and white - you had the entire rainbow, plus - with that white - the ability to create pastels. And it was a lot easier to work with. My favorite thing to do was make fruits and veggies with it. The only downside with Play-Doh is that, if you let it dry out, it developed a crystaline coat and was useless. The trick with Play-Doh was to dismantle your project and stuff it back in the can, where it inevitably dried out anyway. (Oh, you could pour warm water on it, but that wasn't a perfect solution.) Plus, once you made purple, there was no magic to unmix the mix to get it back to red and blue. 

Whatever its deficits, I adored Play-Doh. 

I also loved Silly Putty. You didn't make anything out of it, but you could stretch it, knead it, punch at it, scrunch it, hurl it...And, most wonderously, if you pressed it against a newspaper comic strip, the comic strip panel was transferred to the Silly Putty. How about that?

But, alas, we didn't have slime, which I know I would have fully and unreservedly embraced. 

So if I envy kids of today anything, slime might be it.

Thus, I was interested to learn about the Sloomoo Institute, a place in NYC that promises:

Escape! Get off your screens and immerse yourself in our mesmerizing world of #satisfying joy. The Sloomooverse is full of never-ending, hand-crafted slime, yummy scents, vivid colors, and soothing ASMR delights.

What? You don't know what ASMR is? Tsk, tsk! It is, of course, this:

An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Personally, this sounds more like nerve damage to me, but it's supposed to result in a feeling of moderate euphoria. 

Contributing to the experience at the Sloomoo Institute is the crazy variety of slime available to play around if - a variety that Sloomoo is always expanding on.

Twenty-year old slime "savant" Chase Kellebrew is one of the folks that the Institute counts on to come up with new slime versions. 

He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 2022 and said that he earns “a very comfortable salary” as a full-time employee of the institute, which is within walking distance of Stuyvesant Town, where he lives with his mother.

“It’s easy to create a prototype,” he said. “But it can sometimes be a long, hard process to figure out how to make all this in bulk. We make about thirty-five thousand gallons a year. Each time I create a new slime recipe, I write down everything I’m using.” He has his co-workers test it out. “On any given day, there are one to two running the mixers and anywhere from five to fifteen packing the slime,” he said. (Source: New Yorker.)

We're not just talking about slime that smells like lemons, or is the color of a maple leaf. We're talking wild combos. For The New Yorker visit:

That day’s prototype was geared toward the spring holidays. Kellebrew removed some yellow cellophane from a plate that had six circular indentations, each filled with a different slime. He explained that it was a Seder plate, with the six traditional Passover foods translated into slime: haroseth (“peach clear slime with small foam cubes, apple scent”), horseradish (“dark-red snow-fizz slime, with a lemon-ginger scent”), parsley (“light-green clear slime”), an egg (“clear slime with one yellow felt pompom to represent the yolk, unscented”), bitter herbs (“light-green butter slime”), and, not to be forgotten, a shank bone (“made out of clay”).

And, in case you're wondering, this slime is K for Kosher. And because the Institute is equal opportunity, Kellebrew also came up with slime that smells like honey-baked ham in time for Easter. 

You can buy all sorts of the Insitute's slime in their gift shop or online. For $35 a month, you can purchase a subscription box full of surprises. 

Slimes can be pretty, and they can smell good - peach, pineapple, watermelon. And some of them can even make sounds:

Kellebrew is an expert at giving his slime sound effects, “gorgeous pops” being the most requested, with “fart sounds” a close second.

I searched their site and couldn't find any "fart smell" slime, which would likely be a best-seller with little boys. Bet Kellebrew could come up with that if he put his mastermind to it. 

I REFUSE to believe this

It was old news - and most certainly fake news - but I was startled a while back when I saw this float into my Twitter timeline. You probably won't be able to read the map, but how in the world did circus peanuts come up as the most popular movie candy in Massachusetts?

Other than gag-inducing horehound drops - which I sampled as a kid on a trip to Sturbridge Village where they were sold as the type of treat that kids in the 1820's apparently grooved on - is there a worse candy than circus peanuts. Circus peanuts. Mother. Of. God.

No state's favorite comes near on the abysmal scale, although NJ (Banana Laffy Taffy), NY and LA (Pixie Sticks), GA (Smarties), and  CO and FL (Dum Dums) comd close. I'd rather have a Dum Dum than M&M's said no kid ever. 

At least, I will note, there were no candy buttons anywhere to be seen. 

I could understand it if Massachusetts went with NECCO wafers, as Utah did. I'm not all that partial to NECCO wafers, and certainly would never buy them at a movie theater. (I would accept one if offered, but since I don't play Holy Communion any longer, I have no need for a NECCO wafer. They were good for that one thing.) But NECCO wafers would make some sense, as they're a native Massachusetts candy. 

Baked beans would make sense here, too, even though they were invented in Chicago. I'm assuming that the map means to say Boston Baked Beans, i.e., candy-coated peanuts, are the fave for North Dakota. They can't possibly mean Boston banked beans, as in B&M out of a can and served with franks on a Saturday night. I'd rather have a steaming bowl of baked beans - espeically if I get the yummy chunk of pork fat - rather than a handful of Good 'n Plenty said no kid ever. 

(God knows what to make of Kraft Cheese Singles being the most popular movie treat in Wisconsin. I know Wisconsinites are called cheeseheads. Still...)

But circus peanuts! Never in my life have I ever seen circus peanuts in the candy counter at the movies, let alone bought them.

Mostly, I'm a popcorn kind of girl. If I buy candy, it'll be M&M's or Twizzlers. Something edible.

Of course, circus peanuts have a particular meaning in my family.

Way back in the wayback - that would be 1963 - my father and the Big Three (me, Kath, Tom) drove out to Chicago for a family wedding/vacation. My mother and the Little Two (Rick, Trish) flew.

It was broiling hot and the car was, naturally, not air-conditioned.

Day One was an especially tough one, as we got a flat outside of Buffalo, which meant my father had to change the tire - and doing so meant lightening the load (the car was piled high with most of the suitcases for a family of seven for a two-week trip that included a wedding) so that he could jack the car up. 

On Day Two, my father was hell bent on Chicago. I don't know whether my father was familiar with the Irish battle cry faugh a ballagh - which means clear the way - but he was sure putting it into action on pedal-to-the-metal Day Two. 

We had breakfast at the motel in Erie PA (or Ashtabula OH; one or the other on the way out, on the way back) where we stayed - a HoJo's or Holiday Inn, which I thought was incredibly elegant: those tiny wrapped Ivory soap bars - and then it was non-stop to Chicago. We took one break for bathroom and tank fill 'er up, where my father bought a couple of giant bottles of Pepsi and a ginormous bag of circus peanuts. 

"Don't tell your mother," was the byword of the day. For the remainder of the trip, we gorged on circus peanuts. Admittedly, at the time, I enjoyed them. Today, the very thought makes my stomach roil. And circus peanuts have, of course, become an ongoing family joke.

Anyway, I refuse - make that REFUSE - to believe that circus peanuts were ever the favorite movie treat in Massachusetts, even way back in the wayback of 2019, the date of this travesty.

I'm much more inclined to accept the "results" of a 2022 survey, even though it's based on purchases at Cinemark Theaters. There are only two in Massachusetts, and they're in the western part of the state, so I'v never been to one. But, kid allergies aside, Peanut M&M's make a lot of sense.

And it's gratifying to see that the Cinemark list doesn't have any Smarties, Dum Dums, Laffy Taffy (banana or other), or Pixie Sticks on it, either. 

Circus peanuts!!! NFW!!!