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Game nights!

TGIF!

For us, the only difference is that we get together with friends (online) to play games after the kids are in bed. 🙂

If you’re social distancing and need some games to pass the time, this Google Doc has a list of online versions of various games you play. There are board games, drawing games, puzzles, you name it. Pair with Houseparty and you have yourself a little bit of quarantine fun.

This next one is not exactly the type of hustle I appreciate (it’s more like street hustling, where you trick people) but still a fun read.

Gem Fatale: The frenzied hustle of the jewelry business [Book Forum] – “There are a lot of hustles in the jewelry business. It’s a cash business with big numbers and independent spirits, and that creates a kind of pure capitalism, with all of its flaws. The great Ronnie C., the Texan who taught me the jewelry business when I was a teenager, and once the king of the jewelry business in the American Southwest, got his start as a small-time coin dealer in San Antonio. The coin business was not well-regulated and it was easy to make newly printed silver coins, with counterfeit dates and stampings, look old by putting them in a paper bag and blowing cigar smoke over them, before repackaging them in sealed plastic. Like most short-con games this had a problem—eventually, anyone who was a real collector was going to want to have the coins appraised, verified, insured.”

Here’s something a little wild – have you researching buying a mattress online? A lot of those companies will let you try a mattress for free for like a hundred days. And with so many providers, one dude got a year of free mattresses. It’s both terribly wasteful but kind of funny.

My year of free mattresses [Curbed] – “Companies like Purple, Casper, and Nectar say lying on a bed in a mattress store, staring up at fluorescent lights, and imagining how well you’d sleep isn’t the ideal way to find the perfect mattress. Instead, through the magic of the internet and U.S. shipping infrastructure, these companies will send you a slab of foam rolled up in a nearly person-sized box. You unroll it, let it magically expand into a mattress, and try it out in the comfort of your own home. The best part? Almost all of these companies allow you to return the bed free of charge after 100 nights—or about the same length as one of my academic terms.”

I wouldn’t do this now (I’m nearly 40 and can afford a nice mattress) but I’m not sure 20-year-old me wouldn’t have. 🙂

Have a great weekend!