In a world where handheld consoles now outnumber passports at most border crossings, ASUS just lobbed another plastic rectangle into the global carry-on luggage wars: the ROG Ally X. The sequel nobody asked for—except, apparently, every commuter from Lagos to Lisbon who has discovered that a 90-minute metro ride is the perfect span to finish…
**The Tiffany Paradox: How a Little Blue Box Became the World’s Most Expensive Security Blanket** In a world where nuclear codes change hands like baseball cards and democracy itself seems to be having a midlife crisis, humanity has found its true north: a robin’s-egg-blue box that promises everything will be okay if you just pay…
**The Last Suit Standing: How David Gandy Became Global Capitalism’s Reluctant Pin-Up Boy** In a world where algorithms determine desire and artificial intelligence generates our fantasies, David Gandy remains stubbornly, inconveniently human. The 44-year-old British model—perhaps the last of his species—has spent two decades selling a fantasy that even Silicon Valley hasn’t quite managed to…
Pets at Home’s Lyssa McGowan: How a British Petting-Zoo CEO Became the Canary in the Global Kibble Mine LONDON—In the grand casino of late-stage capitalism, where even hamsters have subscription boxes, Lyssa McGowan’s resignation as CEO of Pets at Home is being treated like the fall of Rome—if Rome had been built on chew toys…
Ticketmaster UK: A Global Parable of Gouging, Glitches, and the Glorious Collapse of Consumer Hope By Our Man in Queue 7B, Somewhere Between London and Existential Despair LONDON—Across the planet, the queue has become the great leveller. From the breadlines of post-Soviet Vilnius to the feverish snake outside a Dubai Apple Store, humanity stands in…
Costco’s New Shopping Hours: A Global Power Play in the Aisle of Civilization By Our Jaded Foreign Correspondent, somewhere between the rotisserie chickens and the abyss SEATTLE—In a move that has sent shockwaves through suburban cul-de-sacs from Tacoma to Tbilisi, Costco Wholesale has tweaked its opening schedule by a staggering thirty minutes. Effective immediately, doors…
Apple Pre-Orders: The Annual Global Pilgrimage Where Your Wallet Gets Lighter and the Planet Gets Warmer By Dave’s International Bureau of Ritualized Consumerism Every September, the planet tilts ever so slightly—not on its axis, but on its credit limit. From Jakarta’s flood-prone malls to Oslo’s fjord-side glass cubes, humans form what marketers politely call “queues”…
Rhode: The Lipstick Empire the World Never Knew It Needed By Dave’s Foreign Correspondent, still jet-lagged in Terminal 3 Somewhere between the collapse of the Turkish lira and the quiet implosion of another crypto exchange, the planet has paused to obsess over Rhode—an American cosmetics line whose name sounds like a mispronounced Greek island but…
