Friday Donuts

Friends, This week, my guilty pleasure has been the Apple TV+ show Severance  (spoiler alert: nah, no spoilers here!). The series explores extreme work-life balance. Severance is a voluntary surgical procedure to implant a chip which limits your access to memories based on location. When at work, you can only access work memories. Exit work and you have no clue what you do for a living. Talk about a huge blank canvas to draw viewers in! Setting aside the possibilities and plot twists available (and there are many), some elements of the show have unsettled me. Not the obvious ones, mind you! The company where the characters work is pronounced Lumen (the fourth letter in the logo is a drop, so my spelling may be a tad inaccurate). Lumen , of course, is the current name for Level 3, the former employer, who gave me a generous Severance package in 2015. Whoa! But wait, there’s more! The department where the protagonist works is called MDR (Macrodata Refinement). Coincidentally(?) Nusp

Friends, Space geeks far and wide have embraced scatological humor this week. The occasion? The planetary science decadal survey ’s recommendation that a flagship mission to the 7 th planet should be NASA’s top priority this decade. That is the 13-ringed sideways ice giant sitting 20 times our distance from the sun. You know, Uranus. A planet about which we know so little. Publications like Wired, The Atlantic and The Verge felt empowered to make infantile puns and jocular references. I will spare your highbrow sensitivities the inuendo, besides, you’ve probably already been exposed. It’s bad enough that the Greek god of heaven’s name is so easily mispronounced, add the word “probe” and it’s nearly impossible to avoid the unintended double entendre. That’s why today I’m steering clear of the topic, choosing instead to focus on a more palatable subject: trash. Did you know my trash is recyclable? Well, the trash itself may not be, but the receptacle is. The big black bin is emblazone

Friends, Matching actor names to faces is a hit-and-miss exercise. Name a celebrity and my eyes may gloss over. Mention roles they’ve played and the odds of recognition improve —of course a picture is worth a thousand roles (thank you Google!). Speaking of which, did you know you can get a celebrity to record a personalized video message at Cameo.com? Want a pep talk from Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek)? $299. How about a threatening birthday message from Danny Trejo (Machete)? $140. You may not be able to get Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), but Lucius Malfoy (Tom Felton) and Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) are $599 and $250 respectively. So, the next time you’re at a loss as to what to give that special person who has everything, why not have Newman from Sinefeld (Wayne Knight) creep them out? It’s probably worth the $330 price. And, if that’s too rich for your blood, Dunkin’ Ducks is only $15. Better yet, a dozen Dunkin’ Donuts is always a welcome treat. Happy Friday!

Friends, Ever been offered a discount on your donation? Silly as it sounds, it happens. Why, just last week National Geographic made me such an offer. Their "member survey” (a not-so-subtly disguised fundraiser) had a crossed-out $35 with a $25 next to the smallest suggested donation (“a $10 savings!” it read). One must admire their cojones. In case you're wondering, there was no gift, incentive or even prepaid return envelope to justify a minimum donation size. So... I checked the “other” checkbox and donated $1 —a $34 savings!!! Now if only I could give myself such a discount on donuts. When the clerk rings me up for $18, I wonder what would happen if I hand her a $5 bill. On second thought, I think I will round it up to $20. Happy Friday!

Friends, Gaining street cred can be elusive. Sometimes it just happens. Take the new Omicron variant: BA.D*… Hello?!? How B.A.D. is that? I mean, the name says it all. How are things going to turn-out, you ask? Well, BA.D, of course! Or Earendel. Located 12.9 billion light years from Earth, it’s the most distant star ever observed! And, as if that were not enough the planets surrounding it (Elros and Elrond*) are also named after J.R.R. Tolkien characters. Props! That said, being evil and distant hasn’t worked for Vladimir Putin. The west can’t sanction his invasion, so they’ve imposed sanctions on the invaders. Ukrainians wonder whether to hold fast or leave fast. Only the ones that haven’t left are left. The winner of the POO-TIN award* deserves no street cred for his narcissistic land grab. On the other hand, the name that does get street cred is Tim Horton’s. I had a chance to sample some of their delicious donuts this week (and that’s no April Fool’s)   Happy Friday. *April Fools!