Quick Hits

Bitcoin, California, and more!

Quick Hits Archive 2H2025

Quick Hits Archive 1H2025

Quick Hits Archive 2024

Quick Hits Archive 2023

Quick Hits Archive 2022

Quick Hits Archive 2021

Quick Hits Archive 2020

February 5, 2026

As of 1-Feb, 95% of Lake Erie is frozen over.
Update: The San Francisco initiative to establish a reparations fund for black residents has received $0 in private funding. By mandate, it will receive $0 public funding.
Land-use regulation in Housing accounts for about 40% of the productivity gap between construction vs the rest of the economy.
The winter Olympics are considering adding “cyclocross” and cross-country running because of “global warming.”
Microsoft data tells us that white collar workers are digitally interrupted (emails/instant messages/chats/etc) at work every two minutes.
Minute Maid (Coca Cola) is discontinuing its line of frozen juice concentrates after 80 years.
The former CEO of Citigroup has pledged $120mm to the Vet school at UC-Davis. Their dog received cancer treatment at the school’s hospital in 2018. The dog did not survive.
Of the 389 billionaires who have died since 2015, six were in helicopter crashes.
According to X, baby stingrays look like aliens trapped in ravioli.
The world’s largest flower has finally bloomed after a decade in the making. It is the Rafflesia in Indonesia.
There is a website dedicated to the countdown of McDonald’s McNugget-Caviar release.
On Feb 1, Orlando (24 degrees) was colder than Juneau (33).
The US has the largest wild sea scallop industry in the world.
Most of the scallops eaten in the US are imported.

January 30, 2026

Mixue Ice Cream & Tea is the world’s largest restaurant chain (by number of locations).
Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia when Russia invaded (the) Ukraine, was one of the most vocal critics of Russia. It turns out, her husband’s company made over $1.5mm in profits in direct dealings with Russia after her call for cutting off all ties with the country.
Michael Saylor, the CEO of Strategy (fka MicroStrategy…name change!) and resident pumper of Bitcoin, bought the website hope.com.
The sticker price for 1-year tuition to Yale is about $72k. When you add room & board and others fees, it is almost $99k.
3.58 billion people use Facebook (or Instagram) every day.
Patek Philippe watches sell for an 11% premium in the secondary market. This is down from 19% last year and 38% in 2024.
Tik Tokker Khaby Lame (???) signed a $975mm deal to monetize his 360mm social media followers.
When asked why Manufacturing was still showing sluggish activity, Kevin Hassett (director of the National Economic Council) said companies will “turn those machines back on.”
Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East burn 1.8mm barrels of oil per day for electricity.
The Middle East flares (burns for no reason other than to get rid of it) over 5 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas.
2026 will be only the second year in MLB since 1922 without an active player who has won a World Series with the Yankees. 1995 is the only other year.
A Bexar County (San Antonio) judge has been indicted for handcuffing a defense attorney in court. She has previously been reprimanded for decorating her courtroom and for congratulating winning attorneys on social media. Her name is Speedlin Gonzalez.

January 23, 2026

Don Meredith once said about Tom Landry, “He is such a perfectionist that if he were marred to Raquel Welsh, he’d expect her to cook.” (We appreciate his proper usage of the subjunctive “were.”)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures health insurance inflation by how much insurers must pay out in claims…not by the premiums that consumers pay.
Mr. Beast had 68,000,000,000 views on YouTube in 2025 (including more than a few by the Chalk Creek household).
3M once put $3mm in a glass case at a Canadian bus stop. If you could break the glass with just your body, you got to keep the cash. Nobody got the money.
China burns 56% of the world’s coal output. It burns 20x that of the entire European Union and 8x that of the US. China has tripled its coal usage since 2000.
The owner of three Las Vegas casinos in the Downtown area will accept Canadian dollars (CAD) on par with the USD. USDCAD is currently trading at about 1.37 (one dollar buys 1.37 CAD).
International visitors account for about 12% of Las Vegas tourism. In 2024, Canadians made up about 38% of this international total. That is now down to about 21%.
New England typically generates 27% of its electricity from burning oil. This will approach 40% this weekend.

January 16, 2026

The share of Americans taking a GLP-1 drug (for diabetes or weight loss) has doubled from 6% in May of 2024 to 12% in November of 2025.
According to data firm Circana, GLP-1 households spend more money eating out than non-GLP-1 households…25% more!
DraftKings just lost a Massachusetts Gaming Commission ruling that forces it to pay out ~$930k in baseball bets to a single bettor. This bettor discovered that DraftKings did not price different “total hits in a playoff series” separately. That is, DraftKings did not think if a player had seven hits in a series, then that same player would definitely have six hits in the series!
Propane production in the US has almost quintupled in the last 15 years (500k bpd to almost 2.5mm bpd).
Amazon is suing Saks and trying to stop it from getting new cash. Amazon invested $475mm in Saks when it bought Neiman’s.
Matthew McConaughey has trademarked himself (eight specific trademarks have been approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office…these include short video and audio clips).
U-Haul has a Growth Index which tracks which cities see the most inbound moving trucks. Dallas, Houston, and Austin were the top three in the country in 2025.
Stan Kroenke, owner of the Los Angeles Ram, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, and Arsenal FC, is now the largest private landowner in the US after buying over 900k acres in New Mexico recently. He owns a total of over 2.7mm acres. This is twice the size of Delaware.
Part of California’s budget to rectify homelessness includes about $10mm a year on alcohol.
The former mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot is being sued by JP Morgan for an unpaid credit card balance of $11k.
This season the Chicago Bears are 3-3 when down by 10 points or more in the final five minutes of the game. The rest of the NFL is 3-158.
Kurt Cobain loved Weird Al Yankovic’s parody of Smells Like Teen Spirit.
In a game of chess, there are approximately 10^40 possible board outcomes.
Puissance means “raise to the power of.”
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has fined FanDuel $350k for failing to identify “match fixing activity” in the Czech Table Tennis Star Series.
Scientists have determined that people with peanut allergies should “microdose” on peanuts to build up tolerance.
The Oakland A’s, who are moving to Vegas, have been denied the trademarks “Las Vegas Athletics” and “Vegas Athletics.” The names were deemed to be too generic.
Winston Churchill was allowed to drink alcohol in America during Prohibition because he got hit by a car on Fifth Avenue (he looked the wrong way!). His doctor prescribed him alcohol which was a legal exemption in the Volstead Act.
The Indianapolis Colts ran fake punts on back-to-back plays. After getting the first down on the first fake punt, the Colts left the punt team out there and ran a play. They caught the Texans defense with too many players on the field.
Trader Joe’s tote bags can sell for as much as $10k on eBay in Korea (according to the WSJ, but we are skeptical).

January 9, 2026

The Seahawk’s beat the Rams with the first 2-point conversion in overtime history.
China has increased its auto exports from about 300k in 2010 to about 7mm in 2025.
The Fairmount area in Fort Worth is considered the largest “bungalow-neighborhood” in America.
10,000 people showed up at Ryan’s Place in Fort Worth in 1911 to witness the city’s first airplane landing. The pilot was named Roland Garros. The French Open tennis center is named after him.
Roland Garros was a rugby player…not a tennis player.
Jim Beam is shutting down its main bourbon distillery indefinitely. It accounts for about 33% of the company’s total production.
The production cycle of a bottle of Jim Beam is about four years.
The US Postal System introduced the zip code in 1963.
The Boston Bruins players that climbed into the stands to fight the Madison Square Garden fans after a game against the Rangers in 1979 were fined $500.
There are no bridges over the Amazon River.
Gulf of America oil production has almost doubled since the dip in 2020.
No hurricanes made landfall in the US in 2025.
There are 36 candidates to be President of Peru.
American households currently have an average of 2.8 subscriptions. This is down from 4.1 in 2024 and 4.4 in 2023. This category includes streaming, delivery, apps, and more.
The kicker for San Diego State had the highest accuracy rate of any kicker in history earlier this season. His nickname is “The Hefty Lefty.”
There was a previous player nicknamed “The Hefty Lefty.” It was Jared Lorenzen (a quarterback who had a cup of coffee with New Jersey’s Football Giants).
Nevada passed a law that eliminates the mandated middleman rule in disseminating horse racing data. Bugsy Siegel started this government enforced grift back in the 1940s.
New York has banned single-use Styrofoam coolers.
Pets can be included in restraining orders in Pennsylvania.
California has changed the law pertaining to plastic bags at grocery stores five times in the last 11 years.
Plastic waste increased by 47% in 2024 because of one of these California laws.
A new law in California allows you to return a rental car whenever you want (within a few days).
Another new California law: Pets must be at least one year old to be sold.
And another California law: Corn tortillas must contain folic acid.
And another: Declawing cats is now illegal.
And one more: Diwali is now an official holiday in California.
Virgina’s 6% sales tax now goes to 10% in restaurants or on other prepared food.
Video Killed the Radio Star was the first and last song every played on MTV.
Jim Harbough has more career rushing yards than Bo Jackson.
About a third of all college football players entered the transfer portal on the first day.
The Boston Marathon did not allow women to run the race until 1972. In 1966, a woman jumped out of the bushes and unofficially ran the race. In 1967, a woman entered the race with her initials. When she was discovered, an official tried to tackle her. Her friends fought him off, and she finished the race.
First-cousin marriage is legal in New York and California (among others).
Austin has 19 buildings taller than 492 feet. In 2017, it only had three.
There is a golf course in South Dakota that abuts a school football field. There is a track around the field. There is a fence around the track. The end zone of the football field is considered “in bounds” on the golf hole.
A $400k shipment of lobsters was recently hijacked in Massachusetts.
The term “Dixie” comes from the $10 bills issued by Citizens Bank in Louisiana in the 1850s and 1860s. “Dix” is the French word for 10. The bills were not legal US tender. But they were widely accepted in the riverboat trade.
Airport rides account for 15% of Uber’s mobility bookings.
Utah allows AI to renew medical prescriptions.
Barnes & Noble is looking to become a public company again. It has 721 stores in the US.