Last week SmartNews scaled back its business considerably and I was unfortunately impacted so I no longer will be reading as much news as I did (actually kinda glad to give it a rest) so it makes sense to let TWTW take an undefined break.

Thank you everyone that followed along, especially Roberto, Ian, Todd, Gregg Mie & Dav who encouraged me from time to time. It was fun!

Now the news from last week.

Dana White’s “Power Slap” league launch event was delayed one week after the UFC president was caught on camera slapping his wife.

For the second year in a row, NYC’s No Pants Subway Ride has officially been canceled.

JPMorgan Chase is suing the founder of a fintech startup for allegedly lying about its scale and success by creating a list of 4 million fake users.

We still don’t have flying cars but we may get a flying motorcycle.

FEMA fired a California company hired to translate disaster relief instructions for Alaska Native Americans when it was discovered the instructions included such phrases as, “Your husband is a polar bear, skinny”

An employee at a high school in Maryland accidentally emailed explicit photos to the entire student body. “I am asking that all students, as responsible online citizens, not share the photos by email, social media outlets or other avenues,” said the school principal.

Liam Quigley published an exhaustive data analysis of every slice of pizza he has eaten in NYC since 2014.

Thank you Liam for your service.

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Is it just me or does it feel like we had enough happen this past week to last us a couple of weeks? As I write this, just a couple of days after the anniversary of January 6th, Balsonaro supporters are overrunning the Brazilian Congress, Presidential Palace and Supreme Court. Salesforce and Amazon, titans of the internet economy announced massive layoffs. If last week was any indication, 2023 is going to be another year of change and adjustment.

On to some lesser known events from last week.

Local authorities in Scarborough, England, canceled their end-of-year fireworks display so as not to distress a walrus that had taken up residence in town.

Kevin McCarthy finally got his wish and was elected speaker of the House, after 14 failed ballots, in the early hours of Saturday morning. Here’s what he had to concede to get the required votes.

The Mega Millions lottery failed to find a winner so the jackpot rolled over to $1.1 billion, the third largest in history.

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin woke up from a medically induced sedation after suffering a cardiac arrest on the field and asked, “Did we win?”

Adidas is scrambling to unload $530 million in unsold Yeezys following their cancelling of Ye’s contract after his anti-semitic pronouncements.

Rapper Antionne Brodnax, who used a photo of himself at the January 6th Capitol Riot for his latest album cover, was sentence to five months in prison for breaking into the U.S. Capitol.

A Colorado public library closed down for cleaning due to “higher than acceptable” levels of trace methamphetamine found in the air ducts. The source was determined to be from people smoking meth in the restrooms.

The PGA Tour invited the wrong Scott Stallings to the Masters.

Two people in Florida were arrested after one of them made a 911 call to get help moving items from a home they were burglarizing. They also wanted to get a ride to the airport to spend the weekend in New York. “Deputies DID help them with their belongings, and DID give them a ride, but it wasn’t to the airport … it was to the Polk Pokey,” said the sheriff’s office.

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Happy New Year!

As is tradition, the last post for the year highlights the top stories that everyone clicked on from each of the 51 TWTW posts from this past year. Enjoy the walk down memory lane and see you all next week.

Everyone had to read this weird story about the Tyson Foods CFO who was arrested after being found asleep in stranger’s bed. That was in November. We read now that after coming clean but somehow escaping public intoxication and trespassing charges, he will remain CFO at his father’s company.

The second most-popular link was this video of an unexpected touchdown win. Watch carefully, the losing team learns that the game is not over until that final whistle blows.

Marjorie Taylor Greene mixing up Gestapo and Gazpacho was too precious for words. Then there was that time that W. Bush condemned Putin for invading Iraq.

Anyone who watched Top Gun knew this was total bullshit but let it slide anyway when the Air Force claimed ‘no intent by the pilots’ to draw sky penis near Russian base in Syria.

The Senate campaign in Pennsylvania was ugly and both candidates played all sorts of games but we all smiled when the Fetterman camp strategically called out his opponent Oz for being a Cowboys fan right outside the Linc.

Sarah Palin caused quite a stir when she visited NYC and refused to follow the mask mandate. After her visit, the Mayor’s asked all New Yorkers to get a COVID test if they were anywhere near Palin.

Early on in the year quite a few of you took interest in the little reported news of the first man who’s life was saved by a drone that dropped a defibrillator from the sky.

Hard to believe but indicative of the growing wealth gap in America, yep, there are more AirBnB listings that rentals in NYC.

If you didn’t read this story when it came out, you must read it now. The crazy story of how a women, fleeing an attacker, ran into a restaurant full of Power Rangers who jumped up to her rescue.

Have a wonderful holiday, stay safe (and warm) and see you on the other side.

Now on to the news.

Congressman-elect George Santos of Long Island helped Republicans clinch a narrow majority in the House and was put forth as the “full embodiment of the American dream.” Turns out vast swaths of his resume were made up. His office issued an apology and closed with a quote attributed to Winston Churchill, which was incorrect.

Russia announced it will deploy musicians and singers to the front lines of the war to boost troops' morale. The "front-line creative brigade" would also include circus performers.

Remember the original financial bubble? Coming full circle, a Dutch engineer is using the heat from cryptocurrency-mining rigs to warm his tulip warehouse. Sourcing power from solar panels, the project is actually carbon negative. Oh, and you can also buy tulips from him with bitcoin at Bitcoin Bloem.

Police broke into a gallery in London to help an ‘unconscious woman’ only to discover a £18,000 art installation. “The work is to provoke and it’s definitely achieving that,” said the galley shop owner.

Police in Kentucky responded to a call about "a male standing outside with a robe covering part of his body and exposing himself with a hose between his legs." What they found was a Christmas lawn display depicting Cousin Eddie from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

A Twitter mob did good for once and convinced the owners of Don Quixote, a Japanese discount chain, to save the cute, blue penguin mascot, Donpen, from getting replaced.

Heard on the streets of NYC

“Alright people, Zeus is back. Jesus isn’t going to save you anymore because Jesus doesn’t like Zeus but Zeus is back!”

“My best friend went to Bali and then he came back to the United States, then he went back to Bali again. He said, I lived so well there . . .”

“I’m not senile honey, not yet!”

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The man who purchased Twitter for $44 billion to make it a platform for free speech, banned several journalists from said platform.

A man dressed like a Christmas tree slashed the tires of 21 vehicles belonging to a meat warehouse at a village in northwest Poland.

Police are investigating the suspected domestic terrorist attack which took out power in North Carolina. Meanwhile, authorities have located the culprit of a large scale power outage in Florida, an iguana.

Donald Trump licensed his name to an NFT trading card company which sold out a limited edition run and raised over $5 million. I’m not sure how long the website shilling the cards will be around but I recommend you experience it in all its over-the-top glory.

Construction workers working on the roof at the Virginia fire station knocked on the door of the station to tell fire fighters there their fire station, was on fire.

Timothy Ronoh, the official pacemaker for elite runners at the Abu Dhabi Marathon, found himself alone at the 35km mark so he pressed on and won the race.

A teenager is riding his unicycle from Maine to Key West (he’s now in North Carolina) to raise money for a bike path.

The largest freestanding cylindrical aquarium in the world, centerpiece of the Radisson Hotel in Berlin, burst in the early morning hours. The 10-story tank spilled 1 million liters of salt water and 1,500 tropical fish into the lobby, through the doors and into the street in front of the hotel.

Argentina beat France in penalty kicks and Messi finally hoisted the trophy after winning the World Cup final, as predicted by two giant pandas.

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A Florida man chose the wrong day to shoplift from Walmart. The St. Cloud store was filled with police as part of the annual Shop with a Cop event for community children. The sheriff’s office called the attempted stealing a “bad idea.”

The story of the cat found in a bag at New York’s JFK Airport’s TSA x-ray checkpoint didn’t make the cut last week but now that they’ve found a dog in a bag at a Wisconsin airport this seems like something we need to keep an eye on.

As the new congressional class moves to Washington DC to look for housing, the incoming 25-year old Florida Democrat, Maxwell Frost, found his credit score (ruined because of the debt he took on to run his campaign) was too low to secure a place to live.

People are flocking to see the lava flow from Mauna Loa in Maui. A local mayor pleaded with tourists to be respectful of the volcano, considered a female deity, and stop throwing marshmallows into the lava.

In an unfortunate sequence of events, Billboard Magazine awarded Kanye West Top Gospel Artist of the Year the same week he was also awarded Antisemite of the Year by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism.

Tens of thousands of fans looking for an illegal stream of the World Cup games were duped into watching a blurry representation of the game played on the FIFA 23 video game.

The Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia posted on Facebook a list of their most wanted fugitives. Christopher Spaulding, who did not make the list, commented on the post, asking why he did not make the list. Police corrected their oversight and promptly sent someone to arrest Mr. Spaulding.

Overheard in NYC

An occasional collection of snippets overheard while walking the streets of NYC.

• “I feel like my dad knows the law better than all of you.”

• “Yeah, her whole thing is she’s a vegan who eats eggs.”

• “Are you sure you’re going to be hungry after eating five dumplings?”

See you next week ✌️

So NYC is looking for someone to deal with their rat situation and they put up a job posting that’s about as cheeky as you can get on a government website. I couldn’t help but annotate its brilliance.

Yesterday I was on the subway and the train stopped in between stations. Here’s is what the conductor said over the intercom:

1. “We have a report of an unauthorized person on the tracks ahead of us. We’re stopping here until they retrieve this person. Welcome to New York!”

2. Later he came on to report is that it was some “kids” and that they are being chased off.

3. After about 15 minutes we start rolling again. The conductor comes on once more with a sigh, “Never a dull moment as they say. For those of you who are concerned, the kids are safe, they were spotted up on the platform. Now, let’s get you home.”

Life in the big city.

On to the news.

After a raucous meeting, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a controversial directive allowing the SFPD to use armed robots against criminal suspects “after evaluating alternative force options or de-escalation tactics.”

Robot lawn mowers are industrial Roombas for your yard. The prices have come down to about six grand and Yarbo’s 3-in-1 Yard Robot comes with attachments so that it can serve as a snow or leaf blower. Because it’s modular, you can “upgrade the Yarbo for more purposes when you have the money or inclination.” Home sentry perhaps?

A Florida woman filed a class action lawsuit against Kraft, makers of Velveeta microwavable Shells & Cheese cups, claiming the additional steps such as removing the lid, adding the water, and stirring in the cheese render the ready in 3½ minutes statement on the box “false and misleading.”

Four Buddhist monks from a temple in Thailand have been shipped off to rehab after they all tested positive for meth.

It was a shitty day in Wisconsin.

The Brooklyn art collective MSCHF (the same ones that built Spot’s Revenge shown above) installed an ATM at Art Basel Miami which takes a photo and posts the customer’s account balance on a leaderboard for all to see.

Australian big wave surfer Matt Formston is taking on the world’s largest waves in Nazaré, Portugal next week. “Like his counterparts, the Sydney-born surfer has been in the water for decades, winning national and international titles and riding some of the best waves in the world. But unlike his counterparts, Formston is blind”

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We also took time out to head to an Irish bar at 8am and see Japan heroically beat Germany in their opening World Cup match (and made the local news) and later cursed the soccer gods (and muttered under our breath to the Japan coach) as we were lost to Costa Rica.

Lots of incense will be burned hoping for things to go our way on Tuesday so that we can hopefully make it out of our group. Gambare Nippon!

On to the events of the week prior.

President Joe Biden celebrated his 80th birthday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 82, announced she would step down from her leadership role and Senator Chuck Grassley, 89, filed to run for reelection in 2028.

The organizers of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar banned the sale of alcohol inside the stadiums just days before the first game. After initially tweeting, “Well, this is awkward” Budweiser, the primary drinks sponsor, pivoted to announce that it would award all the beer it shipped to the tournament to the winning country.

After losing his reelection to the presidency of Brazil last month, Jair Bolsonaro has not been seen in public. We finally found out why. He has a skin infection that prevents him from wearing pants.

People in Woburn, Massachusetts have been subject to a barrage of attacks and intimidation by five wild turkeys, forcing some to take up improvised weapons and residents reporting being trapped in their homes. The leader of the gaggle (sounds too friendly), the flock (sounds too docile), the rafter (too esoteric) the pack (yeah, that’s it) is named Kevin (not exactly terrifying).

The Belgium customs agency has been doing such a bang up job seizing cocaine at its ports that the government has run out of incinerator capacity to destroy the drugs.

A 68-year old suspect using a walker to get around robbed a Fresno, California bank of $200. He did not get far.

During an Indiana high school law enforcement training class the instructor confused his training weapon for a loaded firearm and shot one of his students. After putting the school on lockdown (as is customary when shots are fired on campus) police arrived to investigate and take care of the student who is, thankfully, recovering from non-serious wounds and probably re-thinking their future career in law enforcement.

What’s happening on Twitter you say? Welp, Kyle Rittenhouse is selling a video game called Turkey Shoot where you battle the Fake News.

The water source for a community of homes in the foothills outside of Scottsdale, Arizona is due to run dry by the end of the year.

An event in England designed so that members of the public will be able to find out how to “keep their homes and properties as safe as possible from flooding and what to do in the case of a flood” was cancelled due to rain.

Ye announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election and asked Donald Trump to be his running mate.

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I’ve been wearily eyeing the dumpster fire over on Twitter and putting the pieces in place to jump ship if necessary. I requested an archive of my tweets (which go all the way back to 2006) then added a profile on Mastodon so people can follow me there (if you’re curious on the how & why, here’s my post).

This email is the next step. Instead of using Twitter’s newsletter platform Revue, I’ve moved the list over to Substack which is why this week’s email is from there. Tell your friends and, as always, TWTW can always be found on my site at everwas.com.

Onto the highlights of the week prior.

Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon, announced that he plans to give away most of his fortune. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, lost 94 percent of his net worth in a single day. If you need a refresher on what happened at FTX, this 90-second Tik-Tok is all you need.

Steve Jobs’ worn out Birkenstock sandals sold for $218,000 at an auction.

The head of Amazon’s hardware division, Mr. Limp, announced business was softening so there would be layoffs.

San Francisco opened up its long awaited Central Subway line that will take you from the 4th Street CalTrain terminal straight up to the Moscone Center, Market Street and all the way into Chinatown. The project kicked off in 2010 and was four years behind schedule.

The global population ticked over to 8 billion souls this past week. The last billion were born in the last eleven years, the same time it took to build SF’s Central Subway line.

Tens of thousands of weasels were liberated from a fur farm in Ohio.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo discovered that when you play Lady Gaga, lab rats will bop their heads to the beat with an “innate ability to groove.”

Meta mothballed its large-scale AI model after just three days in the wild as it had trouble distinguishing between fact and fiction. Galactica was trained on 48 million scientific papers and was supposed to “summarize academic papers, solve math problems, generate Wiki articles, write scientific code, annotate molecules and proteins, and more.” Instead it was used to write convincingly about Space Bears and other “hallucinations.”

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of The Play which put the UC Berkeley Bears over their rival Stanford in what was “The most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heartrending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football.” More on the backstory of Joe Starkey’s famous narration and, yes, Cal beat Stanford yesterday as well in the 125th playing of The Big Game.

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