Est. 2026 · Vol. I · The Daily Grievance
Grump News
"The worst thing that happened to me today that you NEED to know about. And some other news stuff."
❖ The Gripe ❖
A Personal Affront, Reported Faithfully
A travel app just got caught sneaking fake charges onto people's bills, a 'tip' and a 'VIP' fee ticked off for you ahead of time so you'd pay without noticing, and now it has to hand back thirty-five million dollars. Thirty-five million. That's how many people they got. And the punishment is that they have to start telling you what you're paying for, which used to just be called selling something. I've squinted at every receipt for years over exactly this. A court just confirmed I wasn't paranoid. I was right.
❖ The Damage Report ❖
Today's News, Ranked By How Much It Ruined My Mood
🔥 Most Enraging
Google will happily sell you its best artificial intelligence for a couple hundred dollars a month, with cheaper tiers underneath for the merely curious. A couple hundred dollars a month, for a computer that talks. That's a car payment. That's most of my grocery bill. People are signing up in droves, and I still can't get the one already on my phone to set a timer without a fight.
😩 Most Exhausting
Scientists finally filmed a goblin shark alive in the deep sea, a pink thing with a jaw that shoots out to grab its dinner, and it's been down there unbothered for a hundred and twenty-five million years. A hundred and twenty-five million years old and it looks like that. I've had a rough couple of decades and I look about the same. Some things the ocean should just keep to itself.
😤 Unreasonably Annoying
A ninety-three-year-old in Iowa is about to be named the world's oldest truck driver, still hauling loads down the highway. Ninety-three, out in traffic, on purpose, for a living. My family staged something close to an intervention when I renewed my license last year, and I only go to the pharmacy and back in daylight. He's got a commercial license. I've got a note on the fridge that says call before you drive.
🤷 Somehow Also Happening
Scientists say the only reason the whole planet doesn't dry out at the same time is that ocean temperatures wander around and keep the droughts from lining up. So the thing standing between us and a global dust bowl is the ocean being moody. That's it. That's the plan. My smoke detectors have more of a backup system than the entire climate, and they still go off at three in the morning for no reason.
❖ And Some Other Stuff ❖
Briefly, And With Limited Enthusiasm
▸ Scientists rewrote how the sharpest part of your vision forms before birth — Scientists worked out that the sharpest part of your eyesight gets built before you're even born, when certain cells switch color jobs on a vitamin A signal. So the good vision was installed decades ago and has been winding down ever since. I now hold the menu out at arm's length like I'm reading by candlelight. Somewhere a scientist just pinned down exactly when the trouble started.
▸ Ancient DNA reveals the collapse of Europe's megalith builders — DNA from a Stone Age tomb near Paris shows the people who built Europe's giant stone monuments got wiped out and replaced by newcomers around five thousand years ago, and nobody's fully sure why. A whole civilization that could stack forty-ton rocks, gone, and we still can't say what happened. We can barely keep a Blockbuster open. I don't love our odds.
▸ A Yale study finds nearly half of older adults improved with age — A Yale study followed thousands of people for years and found nearly half of older adults actually improved with age, which flies in the face of everything I've felt getting out of a chair lately. Half of us are apparently getting better. I'd like to be in that half. I'll let you know the moment I remember to check.
See you tomorrow. Lower your expectations.
— The Grump · (and Larry)
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