The Morning Briefing - December 18, 2015
PATERSON – This drug dealer may have missed his true calling in advertising. Instead, the 26-year-old man is behind bars today after getting busted with 89 glassine heroin packets that he peddled under the street name “ISIS,” NorthJersey.com reports. There's no evidence the alleged dealer has any links to jihadist terrorists, but city police director Jerry Speziale says drug dealers often stamp their inventory with catchy names as a sales gimmick. For the holidays, street drugs might be labeled “Christmas Crank” or “Santa Smack.” Deep discounts on “Halloween Heroin.”
ATLANTIC CITY — Big business – not “Big Brother” – will be closely monitoring you on the boardwalk next summer in hopes of selling you everything from Taylor Swift tickets to fresh raw oysters. An $11 million deal the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority struck with NeXomedia means 230 new high-tech surveillance cameras will be installed on the 4½-mile boardwalk this winter, the Atlantic City Press reports. Cops and casino security can monitor 170 cameras, but the feeds will also gather marketing data from tourists and enable NeXomedia to instantaneously target them with digital-display ads. Curious who is running ad campaigns for $1 hot dogs.
AT A CUBICLE NEAR YOU – Dig out your most hideous holiday sweater; today is National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. Created in 2011 as a workplace diversion in the season of relentless shopping and nightly holiday parties, it's evolving into a charitable endeavor for “Save The Children.” After you make your coworkers try the cinnamon-scented scratch-n-sniff reindeer on your pomegranate-and-lime sweater, learn how you can brighten the holidays for needy kids at www.nationaluglychristmassweaterday.org.
WYCKOFF – It’s a tough life being a 21-year-old paperboy, who shares the route with his mom. Assume this guy is driving a 1988 Toyota Tercel and lives in the basement with his 13-year-old brother, who somehow earns more than him. But all this misfortune did not give this guy the right to steal packages off his customers’ stoops. The Record reports that a paperboy (er, man), who delivers the Record, was nabbed yesterday morning for stealing packages. Cops pulled over his mom – who apparently was the get-away driver – and found the paperboy cowering in the back seat. Cops didn’t charge mom, although they have their suspicions. (A friendly message to Record readers: The Record would like everyone to know, for the record, that the thieving paperboy is not employed by the Record, but with some outsourced company that has a contract to deliver newspapers.)
EDISON — How do you get to St. Peter's Basilica? Practice, practice, and plenty of fundraising. That's how 25 students from St. Helena's Catholic School's choir are getting to perform for His Holiness on New Year's Day at a World Peace Day Mass. Youngsters held two years’ worth of poinsettia sales, raffles, candy drives, pancake breakfasts and benefit concerts to raise $50,000 for their Vatican visit, the Home News-Tribune reports. The choir's acclaim has been growing in New Jersey, spurred by its notable past performances at New York's St. Patrick’s Cathedral and at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C.
AT THE STORE – What a horrible time to be selling winter coats for a living. With record temperatures, and overflowing inventory, merchants are getting antsy to push the cold weather clothes. Macy’s already has 75 percent off on kids’ coats. Meanwhile, you can pick up a puffy jacket at Kohl’s for 60 percent off, while Sears – get this – is pushing its outdoor grills. At this rate, Lord & Taylor will be offering a “buy one, get 13 free” on its scarves by mid-February.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – Kind of annoyed at mom this morning, as apparently all she needed to do was sink a half-court shot to score our college tuition. Hats are off to a Minnesota mom who sank the killer shot to win thousands of dollars off her daughter’s private school tuition at Bethany Academy. One winning shot was worth $4,000. The pair was in New York yesterday, appearing on “Good Morning America” for mom to discuss her shooting technique. Perhaps the Nets (7-18) should take note. See it here.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1898 that the automobile set a new speed record, hitting 39 mph and creating a whole new niche for fledgling companies that sell “Speed Limit 35” signs.
WORD OF THE DAY
Barla-fumble – noun
Definition: A wrestling term that means to call for a time out.
Example: “Barla-fumble!” shrieked Mel, his legs wrapped like a thick Bavarian pretzel.
(Barla-fumble also means to tumble, like in this 1751 rhyme:
“When coach-men drinks and horses stumble, It's hard to miss a barla-fumble.”)