TBOY Newsletter · Thursday, July 23, 2026

Your Buddy Timmy moved from Manhattan to Miami during the Pandemic? But update: Miami now costs more than NYC. MIA costs of living are up 39% since 2019, putting pricing pressure on Pitbull. Yet we found surprise Hidden Costs of Miami too:

• $50 for alligator removal calls

• $8K hurricane windows

• $2K swimsuit budget

Oh, and there are more tanning salons than McDonald’s in Miami. No income tax, plenty of bronzing tax. Dale.

Welcome to the nuclear club. Trump just approved a 30-year deal for the US to build Saudi Arabia's nuclear infrastructure — And America’s Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor is the $10B headliner. Congress can still block the agreement with a 2/3 vote, but if it clears, Saudi becomes the world's 32nd nuclear nation.

Westinghouse goes back to 1886, when the founder was racing Thomas Edison to invent electricity. Today Westinghouse is the only company that still builds conventional nuclear power plants. In fact, 60% of America's nuclear power plants in operation are Westinghouse made. But there’s an explanation here straight outta The Simpsons:

• The US doesn’t want Homer Simpson running Saudi’s nukes (incompetent) or Mr. Burns (scary)

• So this Westinghouse deal is "black-boxed": 1 American biz builds/controls the tech, ensuring it’s not mis-used by Saudi Arabia to build a weapon.

• But Congress is worried about Saudi enriching their own Uranium - that part of the plan is most vulnerable to potential bomb development.

After Three Mile Island, America took a 40-year nuclear pause. But Nuclear’s back for 2 reasons: it's carbon-free & AI data centers need a ton of juice. So here’s the new menu of nuclear investment options:

This stat is more heroic than that Cyclops scene: 53% of Odyssey viewers said the #1 reason they showed up wasn't Matt Damon's beard or Tom Holland's not-beard. It was Christopher Nolan's name on the poster.

• Damon got paid $15M for the film, but Nolan got $20M.

For the last 25 years, we lived in the Franchise Era… 3 Lord of the Rings, 8 Harry Potters, 47-ish Fast & The Furious. But Franchise Fatigue has led to the Dawn of the Director. Obsession’s Curry Barker got Gen Z butts into the box office, while Sinners’ Ryan Coogler got the rights to own the film in 25 years. And now Nolan’s got a blank check-style budget and full autonomy from Universal Studios… because the Nol-Fans show up for him (us included).

Twenty years ago it happened in restaurants: Diners followed the chef —Bobby Flay, David Chang, Ina Garten — not the restaurant brand. Ten years ago it hit sports, with fans today following Messi instead of Inter Miami. Now it's movies: audiences follow the director more than the franchise, the actors, or anyone else in the credits.

Delicious, yet humble origins… Nissin invented instant ramen in 1958 to feed post-war Japan — the breakthrough was flash-fried noodles that cook in 3 minutes with hot water, and that now sells 100B bowls a year. Its newest trick took 5 years of secret R&D: a cold rehydrate method that cooks noodles in five minutes… of cold water.

The timing ain’t no accident — Japan just logged a record number of heat strokes. No joke, Japan’s weather agency invented a new word this year for days over 104°F: Kokushobi = "cruelly hot day." So Nissin is dropping a cold noodle at the ideal moment… and charging 15% more for it.

"It's a seasonal business" is an easy excuse for why sales fell this quarter, but it doesn't hold up. Coffee seemed seasonal, until iced drinks became a majority of Starbucks sales. Aperol built its name as a summer spritz, but now markets the same bottle to ski resorts. Sometimes killing seasonality takes new tech, like Nissin's cold-rehydrate patent. Sometimes, just different marketing.

If your buddy burned their tongue on a hot noodle last week, forward them today’s newsletter to help cool it off