Barbie & the Pink Paint Shortage, Jony Ive Releases a Turntable, and it's Free Slurpee Day

Welcome to the Good Times, your stop for great writing, amusements, and fascinating stuff from the last week or so (in 5 mins or less).

Yes, we're doing this to amuse America (and ourselves), but we’ll also donate 10% of revenue to education and housing charities when we start monetizing (not to worry though, this will remain a free newsletter). So kick back and enjoy.

The Good Times Roundup

ENTERTAINMENT: New Barbie movie used so much pink paint they caused an int’l shortage. Director Greta Gerwig recently shared all that went into creating the Barbie sets on a Warner Brothers lot outside of London: pink furniture, a pink waterslide, pink decor, and pink walls (interior and exterior), resulting in an international run on fluorescent pink paint. 'The world ran out of pink,' she laughed. It may be paying off though, early audiences are going nuts for pre-release screenings:

MORE ENTERTAINMENT: In other movie news, 'Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1' scored an astonishing 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the highest rated movies of the year.

EDUCATION: Investment dollars for college students, with a twist. Pick stocks, and don't touch them for 25 years. That's the directive from Thomas Gayner, CEO of Markel Corp, who's donating a total of $1.5M to two college investment funds, one at Delaware State and the other at UVa. Each school receives $30K/year for students to invest only once, come hell or high water, and at year 26, half of the gains will go toward scholarships with the other half reinvested by that year's students. Patience in investing, unsexy as it is, has proven extremely lucrative and Gayner's experiment could set a blueprint for reducing college costs too - big endowments, take note.

SPORTS: NBA Announces an in-season 'tournament.’ Taking a page from soccer, the NBA unveiled plans for a new in-season tournament debuting this November and December. Think mini World Cup: a group stage followed by knockout rounds, with eight teams advancing out of the groups. There's a new trophy involved (the 'NBA Cup,' pic not yet available) and winners get $500K bonuses. TBD whether players or fans will give a hoot.

MUSIC: Jony Ive's turntable. Jony Ive, the Apple design legend behind the iMac, the Apple watch, airpods, and iOS, released a turntable with British audio company Linn, Ive's first product after leaving Apple in 2019. Only 250 were made and unsurprisingly, it looks fantastic. The downside? It retails for $60,000, so save your pennies.

AI: AI used to translate undeciphered ancient texts. Archeologists in the Middle East have unearthed hundreds of thousands of clay tablets inscribed with Akkadian cuneiform, one of the world's earliest languages. Unfortunately fluent Akkadian readers aren't aplenty these days, and most of these artifacts remain unread, so enter AI. A Google engineer and an Akkadian historian have developed a model to instantly translate, and the early results have been promising - a wealth of knowledge could be coming to the historical record.

Take the Day Off 🥤

It's 7/11, National Free Slurpee Day. Impress your friends around the water cooler with some trivia:

• 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools of Slurpees are sold each year.

• 40% of Slurpees are sold in the Summer months.

• Slurpees were a 'happy accident' - when an unlucky guy's soda fountain broke in the late 50s, he stuck the drinks in the freezer and they turned 'slushee.' He served them anyway, they were a hit, and he went on to invent the frozen beverage machine.

With every newsletter we'll run a featured article on topics ranging from kids, dogs, news, sports, or anything in between. We aim to amuse - put another way, if Mark Twain were alive today we'd desperately try to hire him. Thanks for reading and without further delay...  

Today's Article: A Coffee Shop and a Museum

The Atlanta History Center sits around the corner from my parents' house and despite driving past it a million times I'd never ventured in. But on a recent trip, my wife and toddler left for an impromptu playdate giving me an hour or so to do as I pleased.

For any non-parents, this is like a work meeting getting canceled at the last minute, so I went full-on indulge-my-weaknesses and googled for the nearest hipster coffee shop.

Brash Coffee in the History Center lobby, only 4 mins away.

Overpriced coffee and a peek inside the museum?

I grabbed the keys.

Brash sits in a lobby with two-story windows right next to the museum gift shop. A friendly hipster took my order (so far, so good) and while my drink was brewing, I perused books and tasteful tchotchkes. And once the coffee was ready, I wandered back into the museum. Unclear if this was allowed... but nobody stopped me so I motored on.

I'd always heard the museum's headliner was the DuBose Gallery, the largest private collection of US Civil War memorabilia in the world (7,500 pieces total). I was grade school friends with big man DuBose's grandson, and I remember touring the collection at his house (before it moved to the History Center) in a series of basement rooms jammed so full no spot of wall was visible. It was incredible even to my 11-year-old eyes, and more memorable than the artifacts were the stories, like how DuBose snuck onto golf courses with metal detectors in his collecting days searching for buried treasure.

And whaddayaknow, I turned a corner and there it was, the DuBose Gallery on my left.

I paused. Should I go straight to dessert or scope a couple other things first?

I glanced at the clock, I could push it. I once ripped through the Churchill War Rooms in 45 minutes so I felt up to the challenge.

I turned right and there was 'Black Atlanta,' a series of photographs of the black community through history. A wall-sized shot of Clark Atlanta cheerleaders from the 40s (the cover art for the whole exhibit) led the way, and deeper in, I stopped at Henry Aaron, my favorite, hitting his 715th. The caption quoted Andrew Young who told him, 'What you were doing on your end was much bigger than what we were doing on our end.' Hadn't heard that before.

One exhibit deeper was 'Fair Play. The Bobby Jones Story' with Masters green jackets from decades ago + personal invitations from Bobby Jones asking famous golfers to play in the tournament (one on display may've been to Ben Hogan, but don't quote me). And a personal favorite, a worn-out Augusta National ballcap from the 30's.

Time check again. I was cutting it close, but no texts from the wife meant I was still driving with a green light - the coffee was fantastic too, so on I went.

The DuBose Gallery. I was steps away when a question I'd hoped to avoid halted my progress.

'Excuse me, can I help you?'

A young guy with a beard and a name tag was asking. I should've noted that I was the only soul wandering through these exhibits and of course, I hadn't bought any ticket. Junior looked nice enough though - eviction didn't seem on his mind, so I smiled and tried some unassuming charm.

'It's my first time, and I've never seen this collection here.'

He lit up. 'Oh, it's incredible. And what's on display is only 1/6 of the whole thing.'

'Really?' I asked. The gallery appeared about 1/2 the size of a football field.

'Yep. What's here is the choicest stuff. Multiple floors in our basement house the rest. Tons of cannons and guns.'

We paused. Junior noted my interest and warmed up further.

'There's some crazy stuff too. Like Jefferson Davis's underwear.'

Apparently Mr. DuBose was a very thorough man.

We talked further, and I shared my past experience with the collection, and I asked about the metal-detectors-on-the-golf-course.

'Is that true?'

'Hadn't heard that but certainly could be. He mostly collected from people who kept this stuff as junk in the attic.'

Junior (not his real name) never asked to see a ticket. Enthusiastic, he just wanted to talk and I thanked him for the chat which, looking back, will stick with me more than any single thing from the museum (never found the underwear - I never sought it out either).

My wife's text came in when I was finishing the exhibit's last room.

'Headed back.'

How bout that for a wrap on a hell of an hour. Cannons, coffee, and green jackets occupied my thoughts on the drive home, and still do apparently.

I suspect Junior took it easy on me and I'll need a ticket next time, so I'm hanging this coffee run in the rafters. It was an all-timer.

More Good Stuff

• 9 best whiskey cocktails to drink during the summer

• Bull Durham turns 35: revisiting the most famous mound visit in baseball movie history 

• Gustav Klimt painting sells for $108M

• The world's oldest active McDonald's turns 70

Lastly, a Bit of Comedy

George Clooney pulls one of the funniest pranks in history.