Quick Hits

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Quick Hits Archive 1H2025

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Quick Hits Archive 2020

Oct 17, 2025

The University of Chicago has a Department of Comparative Human Development.
Amazon in the UK has altered cover photos of James Bond movies. He no longer holds a pistol.
Philadelphia sports set a record this week. No city had ever seen its NFL team lose, its NHL team lose, and its MLB team be eliminated from the playoffs on the same day.
A Lakers fan is suing Lebron because his silly Decision 2.0 announcement “made him think Lebron was retiring and caused him to spend $856 on tickets to his last game.”
Princeton is going back to mandating standardized test scores for admission. The school concluded that it “found out that academic performance at Princeton was stronger for students who chose to submit test scores than for students who did not.” Generalissimo Franco…dead.
It is legal to own a racoon in 14 states.
U-Michigan’s survey tells us that “sentiment lifted for consumers with large stock holdings and fell for non-stockholders.” Generalissimo Franco…still dead.
There is a PGA caddie with the nickname Crunchy Pete.
The Jets had -10 net passing yards this week.
We once bought heavily discounted “obstructed view” tickets to the Jets game in London. The view was obstructed by the goal post.
Polymarket called the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The winner’s probability/price went from 3.7% to 73.5% within minutes once the outcome had been determined but not officially announced.
The town of Rockport, MA has banned Halloween yard-skeletons that are posed in “seductive, suggestive, or scandalously straddling positions.”
Rockport’s animal control officer has been tasked with enforcing the ordinance. Her response, “Now I have to decide if a pelvic tilt is suggestive? This town needs therapy.” There is a “Skeleton Watch” hotline to assist in cracking down on “problematic posing.” A Macarena-dancing skeleton has been exempted.
Stellantis has a commercial that says something along these lines, “For the Superbowl, we have a jump ball that involves pitches.”
The governor of Illinois won $1.4mm gambling in 2024 according to his IRS return. Apparently, this was from playing blackjack on a single trip to Vegas with his wife.

Oct 9, 2025

There is an ultramarathon in Denver which requires runners to eat at 9 Taco Bells along the race route.
San Diego has banned digital coupons.
Trading Places is based on the real story of Thomas Peterffy. Before he was the owner of the large online platform Interactive Brokers, he was a floor trader in NY. A film producer bet him $10k that his random buddy (also a movie/music guy) could not last as a trader under his watch for a year. Peterffy took the bet and won the bet.
Eastern Michigan University has a new baseball field that has grey turf for the base paths instead of the traditional brown dirt.
Eastern Michigan has a grey football field.
There are more private equity funds in the US than there are McDonald’s.
The starting running back for the Dallas Cowboys was the valedictorian of his high school.
California has made it illegal for hedge funds to buy claims from insurance companies against utilities (typically for fire damage) without disclosing the price to the utilities and giving them the right to match the price. (This effectively will end the quick settlement periods and result in long, drawn-out litigations).
One of the billionaire founders of massive hedge fund Jane Street and chess grand master Gary Kasparov accidentally funded an attempted coup against South Sudan last year.
Jack Nicklaus’s granddaughter is marrying a man named Todger Strunk.
Lehman Brothers’s London division is finally winding down as it exits the court-ordered “administration” after 17 years. The company was able to recoup almost $38b. Most creditors have been repaid in full with an extra 8% interest.
The real Rebbeca DeMornay reused to guest star on Seinfeld.

Oct 2, 2025

Scorigami! We missed the opening week with the Bills beating the Ravens 41-40. This was the 1,092 unique score in NFL history.
Scorigami! The Cowboys and Packers 40-40 tie was the 1,093 unique score in NFL history. It was the second highest tie score in league history (the Oakland Raiders vs the Boston Patriots tied 43-43 in 1964).
The same amount of natural gas that can fit into a beach ball can fit into a golf ball when the gas is liquefied (LNG).
There is a lady in California that charges $30k to help you name your kid.
MLB did not have any no-hitters this year. It was the first time since 2005.
There have been 39 no-hitters since 2015. 10 of those were combo no-hitters (more than one pitcher).
There have been 326 no-hitters in MLB history.
Bad Bunny (?) will headline the Super Bowl halftime show. The prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi somehow predicted this (somehow = insider trading).
Some whacky investor has been standing outside of the rapper Drake’s house for over a month (not 24-7). He is trying to get his attention to buy the meme stock Opendoor.
McDonald’s is bringing back its Monopoly game. One of our favorite stories was the rigging of the game back from 1989 to 2001. An insider at the company that made the game pieces just pocketed the winners and sold them to friends. There is a good documentary about this entitled McMillions.
The new MCD Monopoly game will be done through its app. About 25% of MCD’s sales are done through its loyalty program on its app.
Part of Spain is completely enclosed within France.
There is a small island on the Bidasoa River which forms part of the border between France and Spain. The island switches sovereignty every six months. Spain governs it from February through July. France governs it from August through January.
China owns over 277k acres of US farmland.
The NHS, the socialist run healthcare system in the UK, officially says first-cousin marriage is “linked to stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages.”
The NHS does not believe in screening for prostate cancer.
The Yogi Berra quote of the week by Falcons QB Michael Penix, “I gotta throw the ball to the wide open receivers when they’re open.” Yogi would be proud.
Candle wax is flammable as a vapor (after you snuff out a candle, you can light the lingering “smoke” back on fire).
It was illegal to eat meat from land animals in Japan from the year 675 to 1872.
The Detroit Tigers lead the Cleveland Indians 1,168 to 1,167 in head-to-head action after their win today (boo!).

Sept 25, 2025

A plaintiff’s lawyer in the Oregon lawsuit against Big Oil is facing ethical misconduct allegations. He cited independent research against Exxon and the others. He never disclosed that he wrote the “independent” research!
IMDB ranks films and splits the results by gender. Pride and Prejudice (#3), Frozen (#6), and Wonder Woman (#7) are in the top 10 of biggest ranking discrepancies by gender. These three are viewed more favorably by men.
The city of Los Angeles is attempting to tax self-directed equity investors as stockbrokers (which face an additional gross receipts style of franchise tax).
Purdue University is a state school.
Scorpion venom is the most expensive liquid in the world. It is about $40mm a gallon.
Surgical lights do not cast shadows.
The first water slide in Texas was created in 1903.
There is a 58-year-old freshman playing defensive line for Lycoming College.
Amherst College had a 31-year-old defensive lineman in 1991 (not us!).
The day after tomorrow is called overmorrow.
When you combine an exclamation point and a question mark (which we do quite often), it is called an interrobang,
That after-rain smell is called petrichor.
21% of all 60-yard field goals in the NFL since 2014 have been against the Giants.
UNLV won a football game in the Eastern time zone for the first time this past weekend (against our poor Miami (Ohio) Redskins).
When Louisiana legalized online sports betting (OSB), 70% of the first bets were parlays.
Over 10,000 crypto tokens have been launched containing “Charlie” or “Kirk.”
Meta is building a data center in northeast Louisiana. It will boost the state’s electricity consumption by 15%.
The average monthly payment for used car loans in the US is $529.

Sept 18, 2025

The NBA is making a rule change in terms of how statistics are measured. Last second “heaves” will no longer count against a player’s field goal percentage (but it will help it if he makes it). But they will still count against the team’s field goal percentage.
If this rule were applied retroactively, Steven Adams’s career three-point field goal percentage would go from 5.9% to 50%.
The revenues from the “honey deuce” drink at the US Open (tennis) reached about $17mm. This was a 32% increase over last year.
The average “pensioner” in France has a higher income that working-age adults.
19.2% of “TV viewing” (which includes plenty of things not considered tv) is still done through traditional broadcast. Cable is 22.5%. And Streaming is 46.4%.
Rick’s Cabaret, a publicly traded operator of gentlemen’s clubs, is being investigated for improper treatment of government tax auditors. In other words, the company bribed the New York state auditors with free trips and “entertainment” at its clubs. (Side note: Looking at the indictment, it appears the auditor was requesting the special treatment much to the dismay of the Rick’s mgmt. team.)
It took five days for the King of England’s staff to set the table for the fancy dinner with Trump.
When the CEO of United Airlines was asked why he thought Spirit Air would go out of business, he replied, “because I am good at math.”
Tik Tok has a 20% market share of mobile streaming.
The Tulane QB is sponsored by Manischewitz.

Sept 11, 2025

The quarterback for Duncanville High School (TX) is legally named Maximus The Great King Denson. King is his middle name.
The government is making changes to regulations for autonomous vehicles. These include getting rid of gear shifts sticks, windshield defrosting and defogging systems, and some pesky ‘lighting systems.”
Friday was national cheese pizza day. We never had cheese pizza until college.
Pete Twonsend’s famous line “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” from Won’t get Fooled Again was inspired from the Who’s Woodstock performance. When the professional protester and felon Abi Hoffman rushed on stage to deliver a political speech during a break, Townsend hit him in the head with his guitar while chasing him off the stage.
A German journalist was arrested and has been sentenced to seven months of probation for posting a satirical meme about the lack of free speech in Germany.
The Church of Latter-Day Saints is the fifth largest private landowner in the US.
Dairy Queen invented the Slurpee, but 7-Eleven licensed the product and created the brand name.
The Syracuse football team had to run sprints on the field after a narrow win over UConn.
A D3 matchup between Rowan and Case Western ended in a 17-14 tie (not a typo).
A caddie at the famed Cypress Point Club on the Monterrey Peninsula lived on the course for eight months back in the early 1980s. He built a hut in the woods with a mattress and a hibachi. He is still a caddie there after 43 years.
Texas has a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Arnold Palmer was one of the two co-founders of the Golf Channel.

Sept 3, 2025

3400 college football players changed teams via the transfer portal for this season.
Box turtles are notable for their ability to completely enclose their bodies within their shells.
Chalk Creek’s father once made us late for preseason football practice when he stopped to rescue a box turtle in the middle of the road.
A former Premier League soccer player is trying to be a pro golfer. He shot +34 over par through two rounds in a qualifying tournament. He did not qualify.
Dollar General reported an improvement in margins partially because of “shrink improvements.” Dollar General recently ripped out their self-check-out kiosks.
Sam Altam, the self-anointed king of machine learning and thinking, recently blamed human error for inaccurate charts and numbers in a presentation. (We do not know if this is our chartcrime, of if there isa whole proliferation of bad charts from the geniuses at OpenAI.)
Tough Mudder, a series of grueling races in bad terrain with physical challenges, has incorporated an electric shock obstacle involving dangling wires that deliver 10,000-volt electric shocks.
A single bet of $550k on Texas +1 moved the line against Ohio State to Texas -1.
The five most-bet games in college football all lost against the spread.
The Australian bank ANZ accidentally sent an email to the 100 staffers that were about to be fired. The bank apologized and offered to pay for “psychological counseling.” The workers were still fired.
The Limbo was created in Trinidad and Tobago as a funeral ritual.
A chipotle pepper is just a jalapeno that has been smoked and dried.

August 27, 2025

The first commercial flight in America was between St. Petersburg and Tampa.
Customs officers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport have recently discovered imports of primate meat and rodent meat.
There are now more ETFs (exchange traded funds) than publicly listed companies.
10 biotech companies have pivoted to “digital assets” in 2025.
The largest holder of “Taylor Swift and Travi Kelce get engaged in 2025” contracts accumulated his position on Sunday and Monday before the Tuesday announcement.
80’s hip hop band De La Soul is currently exploring legal options against the author of a book chronicling the band’s life story. They call it an “unauthorized” account.
De La Soul was the first band to be sued for sampling another artist’s work (The Turtles). The band had initially tried to pay The Turtles $1,000 for their unauthorized use of their work. De La Soul lost $1.7mm in a settlement.
The platypus does not have a stomach.
China’s Three Gorges Dam has increased the length of a day by 0.06 microseconds.
Jerry Rice had 27 dropped passes in his 20-year career.
Switzerland has 400,000 safety bunkers.
Cut and Shoot is the name of a city in Texas (Population 1,158).
A fire in Turkmenistan has bene burning for 54 years. It is known as The Door to Hell.

August 21, 2025

A Philly man who was awarded $4mm for being wrongly convicted and jailed for murder is back in jail for…murder.
Flamethrowers are illegal in Maryland.
The NBA is looking to expand (yawn).
Roblox is banned in Qatar.
Phil Mickelson has never been ranked #1 in the World Gold Rankings. He has been #2 for 270 weeks. The same player was ranked ahead of him for every single one of those weeks.
Downtown Dallas has 9x more crime than downtown Fort Worth.
Sound Hound revenue jumped due to its recognition of “unbilled receivables.”
The Texas Rangers (2023 World Champions) bullpen has the second lowest ERA in the league. It also has the second-most blown saves.
The number of adult conversions to Catholicism in the US has more than tripled in four years (after collapsing for 20 years).
Six former presidents of Peru are or have been in jail (this includes former president Garcia who killed himself before actually going to jail for corruption).
The permit to build the new stadium for the Cleveland Browns has been denied by the Ohio Department of Transportation. The height of the proposed building is too tall given its proximity to the airport.
The stock of Dominoe’s Pizza has outperformed Google since the latter’s IPO in 2004.
Trains in New Jersey face disruption at a rate 6x of those in New York and Connecticut.
Bed, Bath & Beyond is back. When the meme stock went bankrupt a few years ago, Overstock bought the brand name. Overstock changed its name to Beyond in an effort to boost the banner. Now Overstock is changing its name to Bed, Bath & Beyond and will be opening up brick and mortar stores. (Name Changes are one of our red flags.)
Bed, Bath & Beyond announced it would no longer be operating in California.
The king of the junky SPACs is back. Here is how Chamath sums up the risks in investing in his latest self-enrichment scheme: “If (retail investors) lose their entire capital, they will embody the adage from President Trump that there can be no crying in the casino.”
The son of the crown prince of Norway has been charged with 32 criminal counts including four rape charges.
When asked about Fed Governor possibly committing mortgage fraud, St. Louis Fed President Schmid said filling out a mortgage application is too difficult.
53 batters hit over .300 in major league baseball in 2000. This year there are only eight.

August 13, 2025

McDonald’s will be testing a new drink this fall in the category of “dirty sodas.”
Boyd Gaming recently sold its 5% stake in FanDuel back to its parent Flutter. When combining licensing income on top of the sale price, Boyd made about $2b. They bought the stake for $10mm.
The running tally on federal money spent on EV chargers is $19mm…for each one. 384 have been rolled out.
Two members of the band The Chainsmokers, are private equity investors. We have talked about this one before (and others like it). They have just raised a third fund with $100mm. Total AUM for the firm is $225mm. Apparently, these guys are real investors unlike most celebrity pitchmen. We still would not give them any money.
A two-year-old in India killed a cobra by biting it in self-defense.
New York City is creating a Department of Sustainable Delivery.
High Noon, an alcoholic seltzer drink, accidentally put some of its product into Celsius energy drink cans (nonalcoholic).
The giant dam about to be built in western China (otherwise known as Tibet) will supposedly use the amount of cement equivalent to a two-lane highway that would circle the world five times. (Technically it will be a string of five dams which will incorporate a 2,000 meter drop in the river over a 50km stretch…we apologize for the silly use of the metric system).
China accounts for 30% of the world’s hydroelectric power.
China’s Three Gorges dam took over 18 years to bring to full operating capacity. The communists “relocated” over 1mm people during its construction.
The Netherlands use to have a water slide at an amusement park that kept riders/swimmers/divers submerged underwater for 15-20 seconds. It was decommissioned in 2010.
Sam Snead’s record-setting tournament win tally includes a tournament that had four participants.
Chevy Chase was in the predecessor band to Steely Dan while in college.
The most used word on the New Jersey Wikipedia page that does not appear on any other state’s page is Forms.
Two almost identical Roberto Clemente baseball cards sold over the weekend. One went for $9k. The other went for $1.15mm. (Clearly, we will never be PSA graders.)
Yemen has the second highest gun ownership per capita in the world.
It cost more to build Grand Theft Auto 6 than to build the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa).
Calvin Peete only hit one ball out of bounds during his 1200 rounds on the PGA Tour.
There is a new world record for smashing walnuts in 60 seconds while holding a raw egg in the crushing hand: 293.