I simply cannot imagine purchasing a home on Squirtle Lane. And yet, that’s just one of the ridiculous names Andrea Miller came up with for Serenity Place, a housing development where the streets are named after Pokémon.

There may be a bit of marketing genius at play here, however. Upon visiting the Harmony Homes website, I was able to take a look at their interactive sales map.

This screenshot shows that they’ve already closed several dozen sales, highlighted in blue. But a close inspection shows that while “Jigglypuff Place” bisects the development, all the houses front two streets with much more standard names: “Watford Place” and “East Sunset Road”. It seems likely that while residents may find themselves traversing some ridiculously-named streets, their actual home addresses will not prompt disbelief or ridicule. It’s rather clever.

“We’re working on one project right now where we’re naming streets after characters in the TV show Yellowstone,” she added. “And we did one after Mortal Kombat, the video game…I never thought something like this would end up drawing so much attention, so it’s been really interesting and fun to see the reaction to it.”

You have to admit, “Scorpion Drive” is a great name for a desert street.

On August 4, 2022, Amber Escudero-Kontostathis was part of a group of four people who were victims of a lightning strike. She was the only one who survived, and just barely:

The Secret Service agents who reached Amber first said her skin was dark purple and gray, and her mouth strangely locked open. They had small defibrillators but couldn’t get them to work in the rain. A doctor from the White House and two passing tourists who work as ER nurses kept her alive with CPR.

The first time they resuscitated her in the park, Amber recovered just long enough to squeeze one nurse’s hand and lock eyes with an agent. Then her heart stopped again for 13 minutes. But because of that squeeze, they told her later when she met with them, they didn’t give up.

It’s been ten months, and Escudero-Kontostathis is still recovering. William Wan’s piece is an inspiring read.

The next time you’re having a rough day, say a 5 or worse on the Rubber Duck Scale:

Why not take a look at these fantastic pictures?

If you’re anything like me, they’re sure make you smile.

If you’re looking for a fun and fascinating activity to do with your father-in-law, you could apparently do worse than visiting a federal courthouse.

We already know that ChatGPT is a liar. Part of the problem with it is how authoritative it sounds. Despite being frequently wrong, it states everything with extreme confidence. This flaw is perhaps most obvious when seeing how ChatGPT flounders with something simple like tic-tac-toe.

Thanks to machine learning, there may soon be yet another Beatles song. But rather than something awful like ChatGPT writing lyrics, this is just using advanced technology to clean up old audio.