Random Thoughts

I know a few people who are rich and/or really smart. None of them ever brags about how rich and/or smart they are.

I was happy to see that the ratings for the premiere of the 30th season of "The Amazing Race" were so good last week. My wife and I have watched every episode of the series and still get a kick out of pretending we're taking on the Detours and Roadblocks, not to mention Phil Keoghan's eyebrow.

The same idiot who went bust with Juicero -- the $400 machine you didn't need to squeeze juice out of a bag when you could do it with your hands -- is a major investor in a raw water company. That's unprocessed water (supposedly) straight out of the Earth, which means it's full of all sorts of stuff that can make you sick because it's not filtered like the stuff coming out of your tap. I wouldn't send this stuff to residents of Flint, Michigan.

Perhaps after you drink it, you can clean out your system with one of Gwyneth Paltrow's $135 coffee enema devices, her latest completely unnecessary health scam. After all, your body already has something that cleanses everything you put in it -- it's called a kidney. I keep two of those with me at all times. Not only are they very good at deciding which things I put in my mouth are good for my system, they dump the bad stuff out of the same place Gwyneth puts her coffee in.

I'm a fan of "The Profit," the CNBC show where Marcus Lemonis buys into small family businesses and tries to steer them towards success, despite always encountering one member of the family who's keeping the company from moving forward. But I've really liked the special episodes he's done the last two weeks about the American crisis in Puerto Rico and his visit to Humboldt County, California, to investigate the marijuana business (both legal and not-so-much). Lemonis has such a likable personality that he gets people to open up to him as well as any reporter I've seen. His commentary about how Puerto Ricans are being ignored by the federal government in a way they never would be on the mainland was heartbreaking.

Until last week, Oregon and New Jersey were the only states where it was illegal to pump your own gas. Several Oregonians posted comments on social media saying they were outraged they had to do it themselves, including one who was afraid of possibly encountering "transients." My colleague Josh Gilbert wisely asked whether any of them had ever taken a road trip to another state (say, Washington or California) where they couldn't just sit in their cars and wait for a cheery attendant to come out to fill'er up. But the best quote on the subject came from Declan O'Scanlon Jr, a Republican assemblyman from New Jersey. When asked about his state's new status as the only one banning self-serve at gas stations, he remarked:
The only thing you could argue is that New Jerseyans are more flammable than people in the other 49 states. Because we eat so much oily pizza, funnel cake and fries, maybe you could make that argument. Otherwise, it’s simply ridiculous.