My Minute of News with Jeff Caplan

It’s been years since American Idol actually mattered.  In my mind… it’s a show full of warbling wannabee divas … who can stretch out the word you… and make it last for 10 seconds of scales and trills and drama …and okay whatever.  But this season was different. 

Iam Tongi is from Hawaii… moved to Seattle… and then straight into the hearts of viewers… because his talent isn’t flashy finesse.  It’s the emotional connection he creates.  This was his audition…  a little biography…
…and then this.

Just 18 years old… With his simple singing voice… he left the celebrity hosts in tears… 

On social media .that clip is the most viewed audition in Idol’s history.  And in a season where this Tv show that’s way past its’ prime.  Where they’d resort to any trick to build interest…   for goodness sake… King Charles did a cameo the day after his coronation… 

Nice down-to-earth fella… right?
Contrast that artifice with the joy of Iam Dongi singing straight from his soul…. and you have American Idol’s new champion.  He doesn’t look like a star… he doesn’t sing like a diva… but for authenticity… he’s off the chart.  And on the chart.  This afternoon he's #1 on iTunes.

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.

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. 
 — 
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
  —
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.

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.

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.

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

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.

—

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.

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!
— 
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.

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.

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.

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?"

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.   

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. 

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.

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.
<clears throat>
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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

—

That is a standing ovation for a celebrity with 150-million dollars… who’s lookin for a Sugar Daddy.

Here is a campaign commercial from 1952.  It helped Dwight Eisenhower… better known as Ike… become President Eisenhower.

——

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.
——
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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.  

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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…”

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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"

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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?

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.

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.