The Sphinx Speaks

I love reading Maureen Dowd. Not because I agree with everything she writes, which is usually a tirade or a disquisition against the Trump administration, but because of the way she phrases it. No one does a one sentence snark better than Maureen. 

Maureen usually leaves me circling a word she's used that I have to look up, but not this time. Maybe I met her match by using "disquisition."

Today's disquisition is about the mystery of why Melania Trump seemed to be motivated to  proactively disavow any relationship with the disgraced, and very dead [Yeah, I know. I modified an absolute. Sue me.] Jeffrey Epstein, whose files are more talked about than the Adams Papers once were, or the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Melania spoke for several minutes at a presidential podium clearly stating that not only did she not have a relationship with Epstein of any kind, Jeffrey didn't introduce her to The Donald back in the 1990s at the Kit Kat Club in Manhattan.

There are  of course photos of Donald and Melania with Jeffrey and his Gal Friday Giselle Maxell, but that's merely explained by attending the same parties and being asked for a photo. Nothing more.

Maureen tells us the Washington press corps was "gobsmacked" by Melanie's soliloquy. No one knew it was coming. Not even The Donald.

The headline to Maureen's Sunday Opinion piece in the Sunday NYT goes: The Sphinx Thinks It Stinks. Maureen has been calling Melania the Sphinx for years because she rarely talks to the public.

An out quote from the piece goes: "A Melania surprise creates another mystery." Who doesn't love a mystery?

"For mysterious reasons, The Slovenian Sphinx stunned the West Wing [not under renovation]. walking into the grand entrance hall of the White House to dump kerosene on the flickering Epstein fire." You gotta love it.

And you gottta love Maureen's description of Melania approaching the lectern: "for the first time the first lady—who glided so serenely on skyscraper stilettos in her infomercial, 'Melania'—looked shaken."

Is Maureen jealous of Melania's ability to wear probably 5" high heels and not fall down? Did Maureen once try it and tumble down a flight of stairs? This could be a woman thing.

The pundits have spent a week trying to figure out what made the first lady talk and deny. No doubt the Sunday news shows will touch on the topic when they tire of talking about the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian war.

But Maureen has probably scooped them all when she tells us that Amanda Ungaro, a model and girlfriend of the man who Melania says introduced Trump to her, Paolo Zampolli, took to X and wrote some nasty. threatening things to Melania, which included the word "bitch." (The Tweet's been deleted.)

The story goes that Paolo inquired to President Trump about his model girlfriend and mother of his child's status. Amanda had been arrested on fraud charges and was being detained by ICE in Miami. Supposedly the innocent phone call lead to Amanda being deported back to Brazil where she surely wasn't going to attending any more parties at Mar-a-Lago.

The fur flies when one female calls another one "bitch." Producers of the "Desperate Housewives" franchise are salivating trying to get at least a Zoom call cat fight between Melania and Amanda as a Netflix special. Amanda further used X to warn Melania that she was going to be dumping dirt on The Donald. Social media knows no borders. Even from Brazil, it's possible to raise Melania's hackles and make the Sphinx talk. 

Since Elon Musk and Trump are buddies, it seems doubtful that Amanda's going to anything on X about anyone. And Brazil is in another hemisphere.

What will the new week bring?

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The Orange Elephant

There's an orange-clad elephant taking over the Alex Trebek studio at Sony Pictures Studio in California, and his name is Jamie Ying, the current Jeopardy champion at 21 consecutive games with $609,000 in winnings. When he's done, he's buying Sony Pictures.

The Artemis II astronauts have returned from space, but Jamie's headed into space. He was most vulnerable on Wednesday night when his game earnings had him in 2nd place going into the Final Jeopardy round.  

Only the middle contestant was ahead of Jamie with $17,600. Jamie was weighing in with $14,400, an unusual place for him. No runaway.  He was most vulnerable to be checkmated. Final Jeopardy clue was a humdinger: "Adopted in 1979, the name reflects his size and strength as well as a promoter's wish to appeal to Irish-American fans."

WTF! Who writes these clues? The 3rd Contestant is mathematically out of it. The leader, Dominex Kovacs, wagers $11,201, the classic cover move to go past Jamie if Jamie doubles his bet and gets it right. Jamie, must not have been feeling it, because he bets a lukewarm $5,199, but a smart bet probably not feeling he was going to answer right, and if the leader bet enough to cover a potential Jamie double and lost, then he'd have less than Jamie as they both didn't know the answer. Result would be Jamie continues as champion. The bed feeling paid off, and the bet was right.

Remember, the bets are made before the clue is revealed. Dominex has no answer. Jamie answers Roddy Rowdy Piper, which at least brings him close to the answer being a wrestler, Hulk Hogan. Hogan, get it? Appeal to Irish-American fans. Huh?

Dust settles, and Jamie has $9,201 to Dominex's $6,398.  The champ wins the decision.

My knowledge of wrestling fans must be outdated, because I thought in New York at least they were mostly all Polish. Killer Kowalski, remember? Monday night was wrestling night at Madison Square Garden and Greenpoint, Brooklyn emptied out as the residents got on the subway to the Garden. 

Jamie sails through Thursday and Friday matches and ends the week at 21 consecutive games with $609,000 in earnings. 

Does a Jeopardy clue writer get a raise when they triple-stump the contestants?. They should. Maybe there's a Hall of Fame, or a plaque. When I saw the preview clue to Friday's final, I thought Jamie will easily get that one. I didn't get the answer, but Jamie has swallowed an atlas and lives to be with us on Monday.

Friday's clue: Around the World  A river named for the sacred lotus flower flows toward this 839,000-square-mike body of water. 

Yeah, sure. Jamie: The Bay of Bengal.

Ding goes Ka-ching again. See you Monday.

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A Celebrity Sighting

Whether you like them or not, it's exciting to be in close—or somewhat close proximity—with a celebrity: a celebrity sighting. Maybe even a photo with, as easy as that is with a cell phone these days.

For myself, I've had a few, but not enough to talk about, and few of whom are still alive. Longevity gets surrounded by death. This is not about my celebrity sightings, but rather my granddaughter's. A far more contemporary sighting.

Having Easter dinner at my oldest daughter's home in Pleasantville, NY. (My wife, has passed the baton on preparing holiday meals.) My son-in law prompted his daughter, my 14 year-old granddaughter to tell me who she saw at the movies the other night at the 7:30 showing of Sinners at the Chappaqua cinema. (She's was off for Easter spring break.)

"Bill Clinton."
"Wow, really, where?"
"At the Chappaqua Cinema on Thursday night."
"Was he with any sketchy females?"
"No, just Hillary."
"Wow."

Clinton sightings are not uncommon, since Chappaqua is the adjacent hamlet to Pleasantville. Chappaqua is in New Castle Township; Pleasantville is in Mount Pleasant. They are the same in many ways, other than the median income. Chappaqua is lots more. Chappaqua is within walking distance of the family home in Pleasantville.

Bill and Hillary were taking in a showing of Sinners. I asked my granddaughter about the movie and she said it's "violent." She and her girlfriend sat close enough to the Clintons in their reserved seats to observe that Bill is wearing a hearing aid. She said Hillary looked good.

A small security detail surrounded the Clintons. My granddaughter didn't get a selfie with the power couple.

I don't remember when the Clintons started calling Chappaqua home. Hillary of course was twice elected U.S. Senator for New York; served as Obama's Secretary of state, and famously ran for president in 2016, only to be dfeate4d by a real estate developer from Queens. The ignominy will never wear off.

I related my story to a dedicated reader who was surprised to hear I had a 14 year-old granddaughter. Perhaps not as surprised as I am, especially when I consider she has an 18 year-old sister who is in her freshman year at Penn State, studying nursing.

Life if full of nice surprises.

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Jamie Ding. Steamroller

Jeopardy Champion Jamie Ding has entered space, just like the Artemis II astronauts.

Wednesday's game saw Jamie become a 14 day champion with $371,600 in winnings. Right out of the gate Jamie blitzed the opening round before commercial, answering or passing each clue. His opponents never even buzzed in! It was a blitz. After the electronic dust settled, and we learned what we good Americans should be buying, Jamie stood there with $45,000 in winnings: his opponents each with $0. Jeopardy needs a Little League Mercy Rule.

It was like Dr. Fager left them standing in the starting gate, or Willie Mosconi ran the table several times and left his opponent glued to their seat. Ken Jennings opened the next round after commercial stating Jamie had "steamrolled."

Jamie continues to sport the orange themed clothing to honor his grandmother with her favorite color. Going into Wednesday's Final Jeopardy, round, one opponent had to be dropped out because they were in negative territory. Jamie had sucked out all the money there was to have.

All the extra money on the board couldn't bring Jamie's opponents any closer. Headed into final Jeopardy Jamie was sitting on $55,800, One opponent was in negative no-mans land. See ya.

Final Jeopardy: "Mark Twain wrote the quip that on this date of the year, we are reminded of what we are on the other 364."

Easy enough to solve if you realize that the clue is being aired on April 1st, April Fool's Day. Of course Jeopardy is filmed in advance; it is not televised live.

So perhaps Jamie didn't have April Fool's Day at the top of his brain. No matter. The only contender left got it, had insufficient money to threaten.

Jamie on the other hand went into the round with $55,800, the proverbial royal flush.  He was untouchable. So what did Jamie bet? Certainly not all of it and risk the win. But he's got his eye on a record round and wants to finish with $100,000, a princely sum for a round of Jeopardy. 

Astonishingly, Jamie bets $44,200, that if right, will give him that legendary $100,000 round. In a gambler's vocabulary, Jamie is playing with "house money."

Jamie's answer: Labor Day. Oh boy. Ken Jennings applauds the bet, recognizing that Jamie is aiming to be in James Holzhauer territory, but he fails. April 1 is the answer: April Fool's Day. That Mark Twain.

Jamie of course still wins and advances through the next two days like a hot knife trough butter. He finished Friday's round with his 16th win, with a total winnings of $462,401. He's crawling up the leader board.

How high will the numbers go? How do I bet on Jamie? What's the over/under? Are those prediction markets taking action? You don't need to be in Vegas to get down on such bets. All you need is a phone, which doubles as a computer.

There's a maxim in better: never bet on something that can talk. Since Jeopardy is filmed in advance of its showings, piling in 5 days' worth of telecasts in one day's taping, Jamie has either already been toppled, or is still steam rolling along.

There are several somebodies who know about Jamie's status today, in real time There's an audience of course, and the staff associated with the show, The lag time between a taping and its viewing can vary from 2 to 3 months, or 4 weeks to 5 months! depending on the time of the year. Jamie has either taken up living in California, or he's back at his job in New Jersey. No prediction market is touching Jamie bets.

It's a bit like Joe DiMaggio's 56-day hitting streak, when the daily question in the morning was, "did Joe get a  hit yesterday?"

Although Jamie's fate is probably already sealed, I don't know what it is, and don't have the wherewithal to try and find out. I'll set the over/under at this point at 26 games and take the under.

Anyone interested?

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KitKat

The four U.S. astronauts soon to be launched in the Artemis II mission for a few spins around the moon and back, will eventually be the only people who will have probably not heard about the 12 metric ton heist in Italy of collectible KatKat bars, because they will literally be out of this world. It is world wide news. Outside of newborns, who doesn't know anything about candy cars?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and value is in the hands of the holder. Nestlé is the Swiss company that produces the candy bar, that I only see around Halloween when my wife puts together a variety of mini-bars for what are now the few Trick-or-Treaters we get. KitKat must be popular, because one goblin shouted with joy when I plopped a KitKat in their sack. Go for it kid.

My favorite candies were Canada mints and Mounds bars, those twin chocolate bars covering a coconut filling. Almond Joys with the almonds were okay, but Mounds bars were what I spent my tip money from the flower shop deliveries on.

I may be wrong, but there is something about a heist that grabs our attention. Remember the scene in Goodfellas where the truck driver goes into the diner, leaves the keys to the rig, and Bob's your uncle, his truck is hijacked by the Goodfellas who provide so many story lines to TV and movies. We can't get enough of them, either.

The Wall Street Journal's A-Hed piece, that soft piece of journalism that can be found every day for decades below the fold, now for decades, commenting on silly trends and other quirks of the human race, I doubt is rarely written on deadline. Until day.

The headline tells us: How a Massive KitKat Heist Turned Into Crisis PR Gold

The sub-heading goes: Nestlé response to chocolate robbery shows power of embracing embarrassing news

The WSJ, being a business paper, goes on about how Nestlé and even other companies are trying to turn embarrassment into lemonade.

Details of the heist are limited to the fact that 12 metric tons of the candy bars, 413,793, were "swiped by thieves when they were on their way from the factory in central Italy to Poland. Both the chocolate bars and the truck carrying them remain missing, though no one was hurt in the theft." Pretty dry stuff. They aren't used to reporting on crime. The PR angle follows.

Poland! 12 metric ton of KitKat bars are were headed to Poland. I don't know about you, but I never think of American candy being consumed by Eurozone nations.

The heist details are the truck was traveling on March 26 on a stretch of highway outside Turin when it was stopped by what turned out to be thieves posing as police. (Sound like the Isabella Gardner Museum heist?) The driver was later found, unharmed, but the truck was gone.

That driver will immediately be suspected of being in on it, just like one of the watchmen at the Isabella Gardner museum was. (He wasn't.)

Can you imagine a crew of thieves sitting around sitting around a garage somewhere drinking coffee and annoying each other, waiting for the intel to come through that the truck they want to hit has just left the factory with highly desirable Formula 1 shaped candy bars? Other news outlets carry details of the heist.

According to Forbes, "unlike electronics or high-value components, chocolate requires no technical resale network, It can be moved quickly through informal channels—small retailer, pop-up markets, or even online listings—before authorities can react.

This heist disrupted a carefully timed campaign designed to align with key races, including the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Marketing windows in motorsports are unforgiving; miss the moment and the impact fades quickly."

My wife tells me that in CVS she's seen KatKat bars in the shape of Easter bunnies for the soon-to-arrive holiday. The day after Easter an Easter bunny shaped candy car is just another candy bar, and can be ignored.

Will this heist be like the Quebec maple syrup heist? They made a NetFlix movie out of that one. Will it be solved, or will it go ice cold like the missing Rembrandts and Vermeers from the Isabella Gardner museum?

The perpetrators of the recent Louvre heist have been caught (save one, I think.), but the jewels have not. There was just a heist of three paintings from a small museum in Parma Italy. A Matisse, Renoir and Cézanne were all taken in three minutes, the thieves racing away as the alarms kicked in.

But candy bars? Who do you fence them to? Who is going to absorb over 400,000 candy bars, no matter how you split them up? Is there a European bodega network that will snatch them up and put them next to other candy offerings?

For their part, Nestlé says the candy bars all have identifying codes. Maybe AI will crack its first case.

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Renewal by Andersen

I need another house.

Not necessarily a vacation home, just another house that needs to have the windows replaced. How else can I take advantage of the affordability that will let me go without paying for 18 months? No money down: Zero, Zilch, Nada. 

I feel like I'm keeping people out of work since there are no windows in my home that need replacing. That's been done decades ago. I feel I'm keeping people out of work.

No design consultant to greet at the door. No expert measurer; no certified installers, no customer service team. I'm keeping a small platoon of people from invading my home. It's the advertising campaign that must have an end. But when?

An invitation size envelope lands in the mailbox Friday.  "Our neighbor at..." is the addressee. It's okay they don't know our name. It's better that way. Open the envelope and there is a card telling us about the offer that you'd have to be in a coma or in prison (maybe at the space station) not to have heard by now: 

"This month, take advantage of our special financing! No Money Down...No Payments... No Interest....with trailing smaller print: "if paid in full." Well yeah. No free lunch here.

Huge phone number, and of course a QR code to scan and schedule online. We all know how to do that, right? What the hell does QR stand for, anyway? Two years my friend and I were at a table in the Fourstardave Sports Bar at Saratoga Race Track and in the center were instructions to scan the QR code for the menu.

Not knowing at all how to do this, I had to ask the waitress to verbally give us the menu. It's not extensive, so this doesn't take long.

The following year we were at the same table and there was a print menu on the table and no QR code. Know your audience.

I have to say, I am a bit envious of anyone who might be needing and ordering new windows these days and having the choice to pick out window trim in a variety colors. Designer colors of course. Black does look nice. Up to know it was the Henry Ford marketing maxim: Any color you want, so long as it's white.

Who gets to stuff newspapers with Renewal by Anderson inserts? Is this a job I might get paid for in retirement? I'm sure the publishers are not spinning newspaper copies off the presses with these nuggets tucked inside the sections.

The back of the mailed invitation to redo my windows and take advantage of the special financing might give a clue as to when Renewal by Andersen might be disappearing, somewhat like Mikie Sherrill's ( I was a Navy pilot.) ads for running for governor in New Jersey this past November. There's an expiration date of  the renewal campaign: 3-31-2026, looking like it's handwritten by the person stuffing these inserts in envelopes to "Our Neighbor At..." Auto pen, definitely.

Will the campaign end and another one follow? Only time will tell.

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On His Way

Jamie Ding, now an 8-day Jeopardy champion, is headed for rare air. His streak is now approaching double digits, and he seems like he's permanently at the champion's podium.

His winnings are approaching "real" money, something Ken James slyly alluded to after Jaimie's 8-day total of $222,203. Financial advisers are circling,

Jamie has cracked the 5-game ceiling and is now eligible to compete in the Tournament of Champions, whose 2026 Champion is Paolo Pasco, a crossword puzzle creator, 

Jaimie explained the persistent orange themed outfits to having something to do with his grandmother who was asked what her favorite color was. Orange.

The bureaucrat moniker is not so clear. It has something to do with his job, which is also not so clear. Given that his father is a neuroscientist, and the family moved from Australia, where Jaimie was born,  to Nashville, and that the parents made their way out of Communist China, there is my suspicion that they are connected with classified U.S. government work. Just speculating.

Jaimie hails from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, which is a stone's throw from Princeton, and where Einstein finally came to rest at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Think the movie Oppenheimer. Just saying.

Jaimie is also described as a law student. He is near 30, his exact age not revealed. He looks near 30 anyway.

Most of his games are runaways where he is monetarily over 2x ahead of his nearest challenger. That's when you're holding 4 aces, or a royal flush and can only be beat if you're crazy.

I'm looking forward to seeing how far Jaimie will advance in the game count. He's hot yet in double digits, like Harrison Whitaker, but he's getting close.

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