As an adult you like to think you know what’s going on in the world - y’know, paying attention to what’s cool, what’s fashionable, what’s “hip”. OK I know no one uses the word “hip”. But when you have kids it’s a whole new world.  You want to stay up to date on culture and trends so that you have a sense for what today’s youth are into.  Luckily the world is going through a shift into 90’s era trends and so it’s pretty easy to understand what’s going on.  But every so often I glance over at my kid’s iPad as they’re on YouTube and I get a nice little WTF moment.  

During the pandemic it was screen time everyday.  Which really isn’t all that different to my childhood but I suppose us millennial parents are now making a conscious effort to minimize screen time when we can for...well, the betterment of our kid’s health?  We’ll go with that.  And while they were on screens I saw ALL the random sh*t they watched.  

One YouTube niche that kept popping up was mini cooking.  

Mini cooking is exactly what you think it is, miniature cooking of things that look like the life size version of it.  Imagine Two Bite Brownies (*Homer drool*) and now imagine them on steroids, with frosting, and homemade butter cream.  Mini cooking is this MASSIVE niche within the YouTube Kid’s world where creators have actual sets with mini appliances THAT ACTUALLY WORK, mini cutlery to chop up the ingredients, and legit mini pots, pans, and ovens to cook the food.  

And these YouTube channels do REALLY WELL.  Take “Mini Cakes” as an example.  The channel launched in May of 2022 and has already accumulated 986K subscribers and 245M views, doing an average of $1K-$10K in revenue daily according to Social Blade.  And then compare this to one of the OG mini cooking channels like “Tiny Cakes” (you see the trend yet?) which has 6.1M subscribers, over 2B in views, but was launched in May 2010.  “Tiny Cakes” does roughly the same revenue numbers as “Mini Cakes” and frankly speaking, if you watched one or the other, you’d have no idea which one is which.  

Forget Easy Bake Ovens, the real money is in making mini tubs of ice cream!

This week's issue is a 5 minute read:

🤖 The initial chipping of brains is starting

🏆️ The NBA Cup

🌴 Fast food restaurants can be nice too

Who wants to be a cyborg?

When Elon Musk announced in 2017 that he formed a company called Neuralink to install computer chips in people’s brains, I’m pretty sure there was a good chunk of the population who thought he was batsh*t crazy. I mean, I’m sure there is still a decent sized portion of the population who thinks this. But fast forward to 2023 and Neuralink has now been cleared by the FDA for human trials and the company already cannot keep up with the demand for people wanting to be part of those initial first trials.

Neuralink is officially ready to have a robot remove a piece of your skull and replace it with a computer chip implant behind your ear. The company is looking for participants who have paralysis in all four of their limbs because of a spinal cord injury, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis aka ALS or formally known as Lou Gerig’s disease, as well as those with blindness, aphasia or the inability to speak, and hearing impairment.

The procedure itself is a couple of hours for a surgeon to open up your skull and then another 25 minutes for the robot to insert the device in hole they create in your skull along with 64 ultrathin threads that connect up into the brain. Who would’ve thought that within about 3 hours you could go from human to cyborg?

The study itself is slated to take place over a period of six years with patients expected to participate in weekly two hour long research sessions. Currently the company is looking for 11 participants in this first trial but by 2030 it expects to have operated and implanted their T-1000 err… computer chips in 22,000 people. I’ll be back in seven years to see when it’s my time to get cyborg-ed up.

The new NBA tournament

So are we going to have to start referring to November as ugly basketball court month? I turned on the Denver Nuggets game last Friday and I was so confused with why the court was covered in this weird blue. I only clued in after shutting it off (for the sake of my eyes) that it was the first ever in-season tournament game.

You see, the NBA did a little thing.

This season the NBA is running its inaugural in season tournament called “The NBA Cup” where teams play group stage games in November followed by knockout stage games in early December with the championship game being held on Saturday December 9th at 8:30PM on ABC. I wrote that out partially to just make a mental note for myself.

And why did the NBA do a little thing, you ask?

Well for starters, unless you’re a fan of the game, November is a hella boring month to watch the NBA. Between random matchups of teams playing each other that no one cares about to star players sitting out games for “rest”, the early part to the NBA season tends to be a snooze fest…again if you don’t care that much for basketball. And so the in-season tournament was meant to spice things up a bit as players win money for making it to the quarterfinals all the way through to the championship game.

It also gives players a chance to compete for something during the season that actually matters as winning the cup means winning MONEY. Of the 438 players in the league, 283 of them make less than $10M a year and so if they were to win the NBA Cup, which comes with a $500K payout per player, that could result in a 5% raise for the year for a lot of players.

Group stage games for the tournament are held on Tuesdays and Fridays all throughout November. But if you’re ever in doubt as to when these games take place, just look for the ugly looking court.

Fast food but make it nice 

You’ve most likely been to the BK Lounge. Actually I’m almost certain you have been. Dane Cook has a famous stand up joke about it. But what if fast food chains actually aimed to turn their locations into the most pleasant experience you could ever find…instead of the sticky floored, noisey rooms they typically are. What if a fast food restaurant looked nothing like a fast food spot?

My local McDonalds was the one at Queen and Spadina in Toronto - here I’ll save you the trouble of searching for it. Now imagine your local McDonald’s was actually the one below in Guatemala. Let’s take a look at a few dream locations for food that ain’t great for you.

lonewilhem

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Starbucks tends to offer somewhat of a comfortable setting to sit and socialize or work but this location in Kyoto takes the pumpkin spice latte to a whole new level.

And what if you wanted to practice a bit of self care before or after you fill your body up with processed salty food? Burger King offers you the ability to enjoy a sauna at one of their Helsinki locations.

Now imagine you could enjoy a 7 layer burrito with fries supreme alongside the sounds of waves crashing as you looked out at a beach sunset. A dream for most I’M SURE. But what if I told you this was reality at Taco Bell in Pacifica, California. Yes the bathroom experience the next day is the same no matter which location you go to but at least you can enjoy that Pepsico processed cheesy goodness with an ocean breeze.

We can’t have a list of fancy fast food without recognizing what The Donald did at the White House a few years ago. Nothing gets fancier than McDonalds on literal silver platters.