Skimming the last few issues of The Week, hoping for a laugh or two, I read where pasta sales have dropped six percent worldwide in the last six years. This is because we are eating fewer carbs, like in that Caveman Jurassic Park Diet that KM tried to get me to try. I was on board until she told me it was leafy plants and lean protein, and not a large buttered popcorn and a Coke.
I’ve dropped about six pounds, though, which would be a pound a year since pasta’s problems began. At this rate, I’ll hit my target weight in 2040, when I turn 83.
In other business news, I was a little surprised that Americans have spent $23.5 billion on smart phones the past seven years. That might account for some of the pasta decline, too. $10.7 billion of that was spent on damaged iPhones, mainly cracked screens.
Back to food, while spaghetti wanes, raw fish (a.k.a. sushi) is booming – up 27 percent the last four years, with only five percent of those polled saying they bought their California Rolls at a dollar store and just 0.1 percent getting it at gas stations. That isn’t so surprising; real truckers don’t eat sushi.
In an update on the cracked phones, a study of 210 lads and lassies between the ages of 18 and 65 who use their smartphones to surf the web an average of 23 hours each week were found to be more prone to clumsiness and forgetfulness, like bumping into furniture or walls and forgetting why they had entered a certain room (and perhaps dropping their phones in the process).
Moving on to a huge phenomenon that probably needs more study: A few weeks back, for the first time ever, more than one billion people logged on to Facebook in a single day. That’s one out of seven people on the planet. Sorry, what was my point?
Feel good paragraph. Our GM, Bobby Burton, recently returned from a trip to Yellowstone with more great stories and photos. Another Yellowstone visitor I read about also has a story worth repeating. David Sowers from Denver was visiting the National Park back in July with his girlfriend, Laura, and their Australian Shepherd Jade when they had a car accident. The dog bolted from the scene, and hid out somewhere in the massive expanse of forest. Sowers returned several times from Denver to look for his best friend but there was never a sign, and he was starting to lose hope. Then, when they were back two weeks ago, 42 days after the accident, Laura spotted a thin dog walking down the side of a road. It was Jade, tired and hungry but very healthy. The three are now back home in Denver.
Finally, from our dumber than dirt file, a 23-year-old Chicago man recently made the misdial of a lifetime when he accidentally sexted a potential employer, sending the company’s HR manager a nude picture of himself. Then, the Chicago Tribune reports, he did it again.
Authorities say the manager contacted police after receiving two naked selfies between Aug. 11 and Aug. 13, only realizing the sender was the job applicant when he made a follow-up call the next morning.
According to the police report, officers then “contacted the offender who admitted to sending the photographs, explaining they were actually meant for another individual and were sent to the victim in error.”
“There was a conditional offer of employment made to this particular applicant,” Elmhurst Police Chief Michael Ruth told the Tribune. “My understanding is they’ve rescinded the offer.”
As the Buddha, or someone like him, once said, “In the pinball game of life, his flippers were a little farther apart than most.” (Source: gawker.com)
Jay Edwards is editor-in-chief of the Hamilton County Herald and an award-winning columnist. Contact him at jedwards@dailydata.com.