Should you or should you not eat breakfast?

In elementary school I had friends that didn’t eat breakfast because eating that early in the morning "made them sick”. Like, what?? If I didn’t have breakfast when I went to school my stomach would growl embarrassingly loud all morning until lunch. And then I would eat lunch and it wouldn’t be enough food so I would stay hungry all day, come home from school, and DESTROY cookies, worrying my mom that I wOn’T hAvE rOoM fOr DiNnEr.

Breakfast feels like one of those meals where you can kind of get away with eating whatever and then call it “breakfast”:

• Pizza on the counter from the night before - had it for breakfast.

• Loaf of chocolate chip banana bread - had it for breakfast.

• Days old take out fried rice - had it for breakfast.

• Chocolate s’mores Pop Tart - absolutely breakfast.

There’s something to be said about the notion of, as long as you get some food in you in the morning then you can function - which I guess is true? But then how healthy is that really? 

Let’s be honest, we’re all adults here - we know what’s healthy and what isn’t at this point…right??

But did you know breakfast can actually increase your life expectancy? In a world where longevity is becoming a household term - except in my house where my wife definitely does not want to live to 100 - according to longevity experts, starting your day with eggs and veggies can add years to your life. Again, we’re all adults here so we already know eggs and vegetables are good for you.

Or you can eat what they eat in Okinawa, Japan, where it’s one of the more common places on earth to live to triple digits - start your day with a sweet potato. The Okinawan diet is known for being healthy with sweet potatoes being a staple food of the diet, especially with breakfast.

On the flip side eating sugary anything at breakfast can have adverse effects, alongside increasing risks to all kinds of diseases - y’know, basically the same old story, processed sugar isn’t good for you. Heart disease, cavities, blah blah blah…

Also, I hate eggs. Sweet potatoes it is.

This week's issue is a 4 minute read:

🤼‍♂️ Vincent K. McMahon

🐶 Yet another expensive pet device

🚘️ The comical world of NBA players & their cars

Vince McMahon vs Mr. McMahon

If you’re a fan of pro wrestling then you probably already relived the glory years of the WWE with the Netflix documentary on Vince McMahon. Even if you aren’t a fan, it’s still a great story about an entrepreneur creating a universe in his mind and then bringing it to life, while making boat loads of money…kinda like what Stan Lee did with Marvel, but with waaaaaaay less scandals.

Mr. McMahon, as the documentary is so aptly named, takes you through Vince’s life, from a child of a father, who at first disowned him and his mother, all the way to the point at which he leaves the WWE in 2022 because of numerous sex-related allegations made against him. Throughout the documentary, you’re given a ton of behind the scenes footage of Vince building the business juxtaposed with wrestling storylines and what was going on in the world at the time.

The crazy part for me is that you get all this backstage footage of Vince and the wrestling productions while he’s telling a story. And then you get the commentary from one of his wrestlers and that point you can’t help but think, sure the action in the ring was all fake but wtf was going on behind the scenes and how much of the business was actually built on genuine people, processes, and business practices.

Things Vince McMahon did includes:

• Bought out all of his competition and stole their talent to start the WWE

• Portrayed himself on TV as the “good guy” while claiming his rival Ted Turner was the bad guy for stealing his talent years later

• Screwed Bret Hart yet to this day, still denies it

• Took the WWE public in 1999

• Created the Attitude Era of wrestling aka TV-MA rating television

• Faced a steroid scandal in the early 90’s and acted like no one was using them (LOL)

• Faced numerous sexual assault and misconduct allegations - which is why the documentary is sorta cut short

• Started and failed after one season of the XFL

• Won the “Monday Night Wars” against WCW, eventually buying them out

• Created one of the most hated characters ever in wrestling history with “Mr. McMahon”

Throughout the documentary Vince keeps reaffirming that the Mr. McMahon character he created was nowhere near who he was in real life. But right at the beginning about 4 minutes in, Vince says, “I wish I could tell you the real stories”. After watching the documentary and seeing all the craziness that went on in the WWE, while Vince McMahon ran every aspect of the company, it almost feels like all these sexual allegations against him are only the tip of the iceberg.

A talking what now?

Does it ever look like your pet wants to tell you something? And I don’t mean when it starts doing that motion you’re all too familiar with because it needs to pee. I mean, you’re talking to it, its ears perk up, and you’re about to have a Brian the Dog moment, but then it just drools on your couch instead?

Aside from Huskies (see above), I think it’s safe to say you’re probably not going to get a “talking” response if you ever entertained having a conversation with your dog.

But what if there was a tool to help your dog respond back to you, with hooman words!

A company out of Texas might have solved your communication challenge with your dog - kinda. Personifi AI has created a dog collar with a voice embedded in it. For $595 for dogs and $495 for cats (oh yes, you can talk to your cat too as they ignore you and lick their butt) you can talk to the collar on your pet and it will talk back to you.

Within the collar itself is an AI powered chatbot that listens for your voice and then responds accordingly. And so, as much as you want to ask your dog why they have an obsession with licking your bedsheets, the collar will respond in the most appropriate AI way possible. What this actually means, I have no clue. Other features of the collar (yes it does more than just respond to you) include, picking up on sounds of your pet like eating and then keeping track of when/if they got fed, as well as alerts around your pet being lost/stolen or injured from a rattlesnake - yes a rattlesnake.

In reading about this collar all I can think about is Unkie Herb’s baby translator invention…

When you’re too tall for cars

This week Michael Jordan took the keys to a rare, one of one electric hypercar, the Pininfarina Battista Targamerica.

My first thought: how is he going to fit in that thing?

It turns out the car was “coach-built”, which is rich people speak for custom built. From the open roof concept, to the custom body job, to the built in humidor, $2M later, you got yourself an MJ special.

Me being 6’4, in most of the cars I’ve driven in my life, I’ve had to push the seat as far back as possible to 1) get in the car semi-comfortably and 2) sit without feeling like my legs are being compressed. I’m sure MJ’s car was built with his 6’6 frame in mind but let’s be honest, NBA players are beyond average size human beings.

So, how DO they fit into cars??

For a lot of guys, the beauty of playing in the NBA is you’re probably paid really well and so you can afford to customize a car to your liking. In Shaq’s case, whether he liked it or not, he had to customize his lambo by firstly purchasing TWO Gallardo’s, then cutting them in half and essentially super gluing the front of one to the back of another to get it stretched out.

Yet somehow this guy fits in a smart car?

I’ve realized convertibles are one way NBA players can get around the height thing, I mean look at Lebron in this 918 Spyder. He looks like me sitting in one of those Power Wheels kids cars.

“The Unicorn” aka Kristaps Porzingis is 7’2 and although dude is as lanky as they come, that doesn’t help him with his love for older Mercedes Benz’s. You think I was joking about having to put the seat all the way back? There’s no way anyone is sitting behind this guy in the backseat. He’s so far back it looks like he has to look out the back window to check his blindspot.

Now Nikola Jokic is a couple inches shorter than Porzingis, however he’s much, much thicker. Look at Joker as his car tries to eat him. One time our neighbour’s older son was playing with my kid’s Little Tikes red car with the yellow roof and he got stuck in it the same way Joker looks like he’s stuck in his Lambo.

Lastly, I have no idea how this guy actually drives anything. At 7’4, Boban Marjanović literally has to hold and shove his legs across the steering wheel just to get out of a car.