Quick! Think of something interesting to say at dinner tonight. If nothing’s coming to you, here are your conversation starters for the weekend.
J.K. Rowling ripped off
It seems the creator of Harry Potter should have cast a few protection spells around her finances: J.K. Rowling has fired and sued a former assistant for making £23,696 (about $31,000) in unauthorized purchases, and stealing Harry Potter merchandise, to boot. The alleged fraud spent £1,482 at a luxury candle store, £2,139 at a card shop and £1,636 at Starbucks, the BBC reports. Protego maxima next time, girl.
There’s gonna be a ‘Breaking Bad’ movie now
The creator of “Breaking Bad” has gone back to the lab for another project — and this time, it’s a movie. After the Albuquerque Journal reported the project was going to start filming this month in New Mexico, blog /Film discovered the movie is going to be about Walter White’s sidekick, Jesse Pinkman. It’s set right after the “Breaking Bad” finale, and will track “the escape of a kidnapped man and his quest for freedom.”
Vine is coming back, kinda
Do you miss Vine, the short-lived social network where people could only post six-second videos? There was something about that tiny nugget of looping video that lent itself perfectly to comedy, like llamas running to DMX, Squidward dabbing and of course, WHAT ARE THOSE?! One of the company’s founders says he’s bringing the Vine concept back through a new app called Byte, which could launch in spring 2019.
The digit: $1.002 trillion
That’s how much stuff could be sold by U.S. retailers during the holiday season this year, according to a new study by market research firm eMarketer. That would make it the first-ever trillion-dollar Christmas holiday shopping season. The study predicts big sales for both brick-and-mortar and online retailers, based on low unemployment, solid income growth and higher consumer confidence, CNBC says.
Smelly fruit causes plane passenger revolt
We’ve all been there — you’re on a train and your seatmate is just a tad … ripe. Now imagine yourself trapped on a plane holding two tons of one of the smelliest substances known to humans: durian fruit. Anthony Bourdain — who was a fan! — described one’s breath after eating durian “as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” So it should come as no surprise that passengers on the Indonesian flight staged a revolt, demanding that the airline remove the fruit — and they succeeded! The flight took off with just a one-hour delay, travel blog The Points Guy reports.
bmeyerson@chicagotribune.com | Twitter @bmeyerson