It's Amazon Primo Fresco Day! |
As we all know, Primo Fresco is a fresh sheep's milk cheese aged for less than a week. The California farmstead cheese has a snow-white interior just like the author of this newsletter, with a delicate and tangy taste and a spreadable, fluffy texture. Fittingly enough, today's cheddlines also begin with the resurgence of Amazon Prime Day, and some of the insane deals you can get on Apple products: Get 'em while they're hot! —Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor P.S. Watch dogs try to figure out their new robotic friend at the dogpark on our 'gram! |
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"For us, it's about blurring the lines between what you're cooking at home and what you're getting in a restaurant." — Marguerite Mariscal |
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1. It's Somehow Amazon Prime Day Again, and the Apple Deals Are 🤪 |
If you can't wait for Black Friday (we cannot), Amazon's holiday shopping season kicked off yesterday with some insane deals on Apple gear. Because I have a journalism degree, I'm overjoyed to report on them for you:
Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022, 13-Inch, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) for $750, down from $850; Apple Watch Ultra 2 (Black Titanium Case, Alpine Loop) for $735, down from $800; Apple iPad (10th generation, 64 GB, 58008 processor) for $300, discounted from $340; Apple AirPods Max headphones: $400, down from $470.
Personally, I'll wait until next year for the new MacBook Pro to come out, and then spend thousands of dollars on an M4 with 32 GB of RAM I do not need, just because I have a fragile sense of self (and an equally fragile journalism degree). I already have the Apple Watch Ultra with a-fib detection because it counts as a medical device and is, therefore, tax deductible. I got an iPad for my kid earlier this year and he never uses it, and I won't buy the AirPods because they seem destined to get lost down a drain somewhere. (That's how I found mine! —ed.) I prefer the old-school white headphones with the wires attached because I'm retro in my iPod mentality. How about you? Read More |
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2. Are You Smarter Than Travis Kelce? No, Seriously, Are You Smarter Than Travis Kelce? |
Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, is set to host a new Amazon Prime game show titled "Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?"
The show was announced by Amazon MGM Studios in April, and now we've seen the first images of Kelce, clad in a cerulean suit on the set. The game show will feature a panel of "celebrity" panelists, including comedians like Nikki Glaser, Natasha Leggero, Nicole Byer, Ron Funches, retired NFL players Ryan Fitzpatrick and Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, reality stars Garcelle Beauvais, Lala Kent, and Sophia Stallone, and actor/host Lilly Singh, to assist contestants in answering a variety of elementary-level questions.
I am honestly telling you I do not know who any of those people are. But! Maybe you do?
"Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?" is set to premiere on October 16 with three episodes, subsequently releasing the rest of the first season's 20 episodes weekly. The show is a spinoff of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" but probably a lot easier. Because concussions. The contestants will work with the celebrity panel to answer questions from elementary-level subjects for a chance to win $100,000. Similar to its predecessor, the show will also feature a "cheat" option for contestants to improve their chances of advancing.
Just in case you want a real Prime Video recommendation (and no, Amazon is not paying for this newsletter, but maybe they should?), I'd strongly suggest checking out "Rubens: An Extra Large Story," presented by iconoclastic art critic Waldemar Januszczak of The Sunday Times. But I won't take it personally if you tune into Idiocracy instead because the people need their bread and circuses. Read More |
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| Walking your dog in 2024 be like. 😅
Watch as real dogs try to figure out their new robotic friend in the park. |
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3. Mega Millions Lotto Tickets Going Up to $5 |
My mate Russ's parents buy a lottery ticket each week because they can't really afford retirement and have pinned their hopes on it. *This is not financial advice.
They'll be disappointed to hear that the price of a Mega Millions lottery ticket is set to more than double to $5 starting next April. The change marks Mega Millions' attempt to create larger jackpots and improve the odds of winning. The price change is the second since the game's inception in 2002; the last increase was in 2017 when the price doubled to $2.
The upcoming price adjustment comes with changes in the gameplay mechanics, specifically an alteration in the number of balls used for the drawing, though further specifics will be detailed closer to the implementation date.
Mega Millions, managed by a consortium of state lotteries, is raising the price after research indicated that players are already spending an average of over $5 on various lottery games, suggesting the increase might be acceptable to the consumer base.
Despite some historical backlash to price increases, enhancements in jackpot sizes — such as repeated billion-dollar prize pools — have been a significant draw for the game. Mega Millions has said the changes are driven not by changes in market conditions, like interest rates, but by a desire to satisfy and attract players.
If you really want to play a lottery, though, send me $500, and I'll send you a bar of chocolate. One of the bars of chocolate contains a "golden ticket," which includes a tour of my "chocolate factory," which is (I swear) the bodega downstairs (and that's not a euphemism). Bonus points if your name is Charlie, and your grandparents really want you to win. I promise not to make it weirder than it already is the Roald Dahl novel, although I can try to at least live up to the Oompah Loompah thing. *This is not financial advice. Read More |
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4. David Chang Is Bringing the Momofuku Experience to Your Kitchen |
We spoke with Momofuku CEO Marguerite Mariscal about how David Chang's line of "restaurant grade" products are attracting new consumers. She's a former intern at the company who climbed her way up!
"When Momofuku opened with Dave, there was this perception that good food meant white tablecloth," she said. "Dave, when he opened Noodle Bar in the East Village, showed that good food could exist at multiple price points, good food and kind of the intentionality can exist around something like a pork bun or rice cakes the same way as it could around cacio e pepe or steak frites. And I think that was, at the time, a novel concept. But now today, obviously, these flavors and these dishes you see, you know, are everywhere in the States."
The firm's new products include Korean barbecue sauces, chili crisp, noodles, and are all about adding "something unique," Marguerite said. The firm's noodles are "air dried, not fried. So the idea is that they're more like a pasta almost where you're drying them and then you're boiling them in water. They only take about 3 to 4 minutes, but you're getting a chewier texture from the noodles. And that, for us, I think makes a big difference on flavor," she said.
There are rice cakes with spicy sauce, too. During the pandemic, Momofuku set the goal of being 50% non-restaurant over five years. "Our path to getting there is we really felt consumer packaged goods and being able to provide products for people cooking at home made a lot of sense," she said. "Of all of our followers, which is over 2 million people, 80%, didn't live in a city in which we had a restaurant."
The firm sold $2 million of its products on a DTC basis fairly quickly. They've now moved into retail, and are going to be in 11,000 stores by the end of 2024.
"For us, it's about blurring the lines between what you're cooking at home and what you're getting in a restaurant," she said. Read More |
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5. Have Ozempic & Wegovy Helped the Obesity Rate Drop? |
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that the obesity rate among U.S. adults has leveled off for the first time in over a decade, remaining around 40%. According to the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, there has been a slight decrease from the 41.9% obesity rate estimated in 2020 to 40.3% in the period from 2021 through 2023. Although the change is not statistically significant, it breaks the trend of increasing rates observed since 2011.
The news coincides with a Senate hearing on the pricing of weight-loss drugs by Novo Nordisk. The availability and affordability of these drugs, such as Wegovy, could potentially impact public health significantly, with estimates suggesting over 40,000 lives could be saved annually if such treatments were more accessible.
Without insurance, Wegovy typically costs around $1,350 for a 28-day supply, or over $16,200 per year. Novo Nordisk is worth almost $400 billion, and its stock price is up 355% over the past five years. The CEO is paid $10 million which, actually, seems pretty reasonable, but then again, it's a Danish company and they're basically communists over there.
I asked my mate Croydon Matt (I'm from Croydon, too, but I'm not Croydon Matt), who went on Wegovy to shift some weight, via WhatsApp: "how much did you take and did it help?"
He did all the doses from 0.25 to 2.4, he said, and lost 30 pounds in six months, down to 204 from 234, then he plateau'd and went off it. The weight has, miracle of miracles, stayed off!
So that's all you get to know about weight loss drugs, for the time being. This is Matt from Croydon—the one with a reasonably high-quality journalism degree—signing off. Read More |
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