Good morning, Wiz Gadson. Good morning, world. It's a new day.
Thanks for kicking it off with us right here at 97.5 FM 13.20 AM, WFHR. We are locally
grown radio. Got your host, James J. I am joined by Melissa K. Good morning. Seth Habagger.
Good morning.
And all of you the best listeners in radio. Thanks for joining us everybody. We got some
fun things lined up for you this hour that we like to do. We're going to get into a
little entertainment news in a little bit. We'll get into some other fun stuff too that
we've got to do. But we get good stories of the day, local stuff and all of that. But
it's 9 o'clock hour. We're kicking off right now. You know what that means.
Hello and welcome to the kitchen's open on WFHR. Today we're going to tackle a subject
related to food, food prices. That doesn't sound like much fun.
Oh, we're also going to talk about monopolies. Oh, I like monopolies. But my dad's always
going to be the banker. I don't think she means the game, James. Oh, but they have food
versions of monopoly, man. There's pizza monopoly, chocolate monopoly. There's even a bobsburgers
version of monopoly where I always get to be Louise. You are correct. There are endless versions
of the game monopoly. However, the reason I wanted to talk about monopolies during our traditionally
food related segment today is the ongoing concern about grocery store monopolies and prices
continuing to go up prices are high and that's no joke. I imagine you feel the pinch to your
pocketbook Seth even more with two growing boys at home. Yeah, tell me about it.
Well, since I'm not an economist, we're going to lean heavily on several articles today.
The first is from the Washington Post, published last Friday, February 2nd,
written by Abba Brittelli and Jeff Stein. And the next is from Better Homes and Gardens
that was published on December 27th and 2023 by Abby Wilson. And we'll also pull from a New
York Times article published on February 1st, 2024 written by Jim Tankersley.
The article from the Washington Post titled, Inflation Has Fallen, Why Are Groceries Still So
Expensive, Says Grocery prices have jumped by 25% over the past four years. During that same
period, overall inflation has risen 19%. That's a big difference and tens of millions of people
are struggling to pay for groceries. The Better Homes and Gardens article is titled, Grocery
prices are still set to shift again in 2024. Here's what to expect. It says volatile prices
and frequent shortages made a 2023 a tough year for food shoppers, global conflicts and extreme
weather events also added to the expense and scarcity of items. It goes on to say that the overall
economy impacts food costs as well. Inflation reached the highest level in 40 years in June of 2022.
Since that numbers have dropped slowly, but many prices are still higher than usual. Whether
events have caused supply chain issues and shortages in both labor and product, these factors also
contribute to higher prices. People are hoping that prices will return to what we think of as
normal, but experts don't see that happening. Don Filmini, an agriculture economist and professor
at Colorado State University. She said, with the exception of a few things like eggs,
we're not going to see prices drop back down drastically. She said prices will stabilize,
but that's likely it. Labor shortages are another major reason
prices have been driven so high. Claudia Sham is an economist who worked at the Federal Reserve.
She said it's taken until last year to make big strides on ending labor shortages. That's three
years into the pandemic. She also said drops in prices aren't going to happen in all parts of
the economy equally at the same time. It's hard to believe inflation is moderating, but it is.
Items like gasoline and household furnishings are now cheaper than they were in their post-pandemic
peak, but because grocery store prices are still so high and you usually purchase them weekly,
they play an outsized role in the perception of inflation. Ross Steinman, a psychology professor
at Weiner University, studies consumer behavior. He said that the sheer frequency of grocery trips
make price increases harder to swallow. Even though in frequent expenses like car insurance or
property tax also induce sticker shock, they're not staring you in the face over and over each week.
As expected, low-income families are suffering more by rising grocery prices. In January of 23,
food prices were more than 11% higher than the previous year. Prices rose during the last year
by an additional 5%. Low-income families spend 31% of their income on food compared to 8%
for wealthier families. The high cost of food is putting more pressure on food pantries.
Feeding America published a report this summer that found approximately 49 million people
turned a hunger relief program for support in 2022. That's one out of every six people in the US.
Feeding America also did a food bank survey. It showed that 80% of responding food banks
were reporting either an increase or steady demand for emergency food services.
This is putting strain on their ability to meet the sustained need.
There is some good news on the horizon. Dr. David P. Anderson is a professor of agriculture
economics at Texas A&M University. He says inflation is moderating in many areas.
The Federal Reserve's attempts to reduce inflation will be important for what we see in overall
food prices, as well as the impact of higher interest rates in the overall economy.
Dr. Anderson also said consumer demand will play a large role in prices.
If consumers cut back on their purchases, then that leads to lower prices.
Food prices are predicted to only increase by 2.9% overall this next year.
That's less than last year and a significant drop from the year before.
All this talk about prices is a bit depressing and we have not even touched on monopolies yet.
That's true, but remember these are just predictions. The Economic Research Service of the
United States Department of Agriculture predicts these prices based on a lot of factors.
As a nation, we have less direct control over some of these factors,
like where storms will hit or where drought will happen. Like we said earlier,
weather events and Russians invasion of Ukraine cost some of the spikes we saw in prices.
Those are starting to settle back down.
But one concern that has been on the radar for our current administration is the possible
merger between two large grocery store chains. It's been under discussion for quite some time now
and the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing the deal.
So this is where the talk of monopolies comes in. You got it.
Groger and Albert Sins are looking to merge. Those against the deal say it would reduce
competition and allow them to charge shoppers higher prices. Groger executives insist the merger
will reduce costs for customers. Of course they do. But just two grocery store chains merging
doesn't make a monopoly, does it? Maybe not. But let's talk about the top 10 grocery store chains in
the US. According to food, foodindustry.com, the top 10 grocery store chains by revenue are as
follows. In the number one spot is Walmart. They have over 5,300 stores nationwide.
The Kruger company comes in second with 2700 stores. Number three is Costco wholesale corporation.
And then remember, this is revenue. They only have about 564 stores.
Man, wow. That's crazy. Wow. So they're making a lot of money.
Number four spot is Albert Sins company incorporated. They have a 2,308 stores.
Now the next ones here, we have at A-hole Dalai's USA. This is a Dutch multinational
realtor retailer with over 2,048 stores. I couldn't find what their stores are called.
That might be the IKEA offshoot. Maybe if they carry food, because this is just food.
They yeah, yeah. Okay. And so number six is public supermarkets ink. They have 1,396 stores,
mostly in Florida. The HEB grocery store chain, which stands for Howard E-Butt. They have 325 stores
in Texas. The last name is Butt. Don't name the store after yourself. That's so funny.
Number eight is Amazon, because they now holy integrated whole foods into Amazon. The whole
foods chain is 515 stores. But Amazon also sells. They have many other food things within their
company that they sell food from. Number nine is target corporation. They have over 1,900 stores.
And at least 170 of them are still small formats. So I don't know if they're super targets.
Right. And then the major ink, which has 265 stores in six states, including Wisconsin.
And that is also a Dutch company. Yeah, Meyer. Yeah. See more of those. I know growing up in
Illinois. I see a lot more of those, but there are some Wisconsin. That's a lot of numbers.
But if I'm adding correctly, if Kroger and Albertson's merge, they'll have almost as many
stores as Walmart at just over 5,000. That is correct. But as it stands now, the two combined
together still wouldn't make close to what Walmart did last year just in food and grocery stales.
Walmart and Sam's Club combined account for over 300.5 billion. And together Kroger and
Albertson's made 225.65 billion. However, the merger would put them in second in the ranking for sure.
Foodindustry.com did include a disclaimer on their website that some may disagree with how they
classify retailers. And I quote, we do our best to rank these retailers with the precision
of a cat hurting competition. We think we got the big boys all listed here. But please let us know
if you think we miss something. I thought the disclaimer was so great. That is a great disclaimer.
It's fantastic. So this is this is the kind of stuff that you don't hear really talked about.
When we're not only talking about food, when we're talking about inflation, we're talking about
prices of anything going up. People just want the quick headline. They don't want to read the
article. They just want the headline. Oh, inflation. The current administration is to blame.
And end of story, I can move on with my life. I've got the answers. I don't need to do any
homework or thinking. This is the this is the deal here. I mean, this is where this stuff really
comes in. This is important. Understanding what these businesses are up to, what they are doing
behind the scenes with and not in a public eye. The things that what they rely on is you being
bored by this stuff. They want that. And not digging in and paying attention because if you look at
the names of these corporations that we just lit that I just listed off. I mean, you obviously
recognize Walmart and Costco and Target, but in Amazon. But these other ones like, okay, so what
does the Kruger company own? They own pick and save. They do. They own most of the grocery stores
that we shop at. Exactly. And Albert sends as well, but you don't know all the different grocery
stores that they own. And that's one of the things too with these monopolies. They buy up all
these companies. Well, they don't change them all to say, okay, this is company B now. These are
all company B. They have all these different names. So you don't realize that they're becoming
a monopoly. How many people, if you ask them, what's the biggest of food chain in America would say
Walmart? So this has already happened. This has already, this conglomerate, this kind of thing has
already taken place under our noses without most people even knowing it. Most people, if you ask
them where they get their groceries, first thing they're going to say is whatever their local
grocery store is like us for IGA or something like that. But how many of us in the county market?
Right. How many of actually do the shopping there though? You don't think of Walmart as a
grocery store. This is how they get you. This is how they get, they can lure people in with this
stuff and everything. And they become the biggest fast food, the biggest food chain in the
end of country. Right. So now there is a very likely chance that the Federal Trade Commission will
block the merger between Kroger and Albertsons. But blocking that deal will do very little to address
the current high prices. Is there anything the current administration can do beyond what they've
already done to affect these high prices? According to a White House spokesman, President Biden has
made it clear that as input prices fall, corporations should pass those savings on to consumers.
Retailers like clothing and sporting goods stores, nonprofit margins jump, just like grocery stores
did in 2021 and 22. Other retail margins have fallen back to more normal levels, but grocery store
margins have stayed elevated. Now it's a complicated problem and many factors contribute to the high
prices, specifically for grocery stores. But some manufacturers are simply taking advantage,
even as costs have declined. Some producers like soft drink manufacturers have continued to raise
prices, leading to heady profit margins. I know President Biden's administration has spent hundreds
of millions of dollars to help companies expand in the meat packing industry to try and help add
competitive competition there. That industry is dominated by a handful of large players and the
meat prices are among several that are expected to increase more than more this next year. That's
true. They've also changed calculations of federal food assistance programs to adjust them
for inflation. This helps more than 40 million families who rely on benefit programs like
SNAP to feed their children. However, this does nothing for the huge chunk of people stuck in the
middle. They don't have enough money to put food on the table every single day, but aren't
poor enough to qualify for benefits. There is an enforcement action the commission is considering.
A nearly 90-year-old law called the Robinson Patman Act requires suppliers of retail goods to
offer the same terms to every retailer they sell to. Supporters of these enforcement actions
say they would drive down prices at smaller grocers by enabling and ensuring that they can buy
items for the same cost as large retailers. The unfortunate reality is that with an issue this
complicated, it's too easy for the other guy to sprout a bunch of nonsense and blame the
current administration for high prices. Not talking at all about how his plan tariffs on imports
would increase costs for items we get from other countries. And his planning, mass deportation of
undocumented immigrants would likely make costs significantly higher for domestic meat products.
But in the interests of not turning this topic even more political than we've already done,
I'll just encourage you to look into what each administration has already done during their time
in office and make an educated decision when you head to the ballot box this year.
There are a few things you can try and do to offset high prices at the grocery store this next year.
Better homes and gardens suggest being flexible and taking advantage of deals.
Keep an eye on prices throughout the year yourself and look into why specific foods go up or down
and price when they're changing. Watch for features at your local grocery store. Many offer loyalty
discounts. You can also get holiday deals that present an opportunity to get something to put in
your freezer for later. And on that note, I think we should close up the kitchen.
Thank you for joining us for another segment of the kitchen's open.
We're here every Monday during the 9 o'clock hour, maybe next week Melissa won't pick such a
depressing topic. Hey, everyone's affected by food prices. It seemed like an important thing to
discuss. You're right, you're right. It might have been a more fun to play bobsburgers monopoly,
though. And I'm not even really, I'm not lying. I think that'd have been a lot of fun, actually.
Yeah, you could be right about that. We are looking for a sponsor for this segment.
If you're interested, reach out to Pam at 715-424-1300. And she'll put you in touch with Ashley to talk
details. That's right. I'd love to promote your business every week. And that's what we do here
on locally grown radio. Buy local support local contact Pam at 715-421-1300.
424-1300. I've built that wrong, sorry guys. That's what you wrote. I run burgundy,
call Pam at 715-424-1300. And with that, we'll close the kitchen.
Great segment. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you so much for that.
As fun, be sure to check out the kitchen's open every Monday at 9. We'll meet you back here next
Monday for another great episode. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back and have some more fun
with some entertainment news for you on the morning show here at WFHR.
Welcome back everyone. Morning show here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
Got Melissa, Seth, and James here with you. And we are joined at the beginning of every month
with our friend Tom Heizer with a monthly veterans update. Tom is joining us right now for that
time. Good to see you. Good morning, James. How are you guys doing? We're doing good.
Good. Thanks for being with us, Tom. We appreciate the time. I don't want to keep you too long
time, and I know we have a list of things to get into. Let's go ahead and dive right in with
our monthly veterans updates. Okay, it's really short this month. Yeah, short month.
That's again, there's no VBA this month and no hero's cafe, but they're both restarting in March.
Yeah, yeah. We're looking forward to that. I'm so excited about that.
A month of breakfast this morning at Graces, and Thursday is the Rudolph American Legion have
their monthly meeting at seven. American Legion post has theirs on February 14th of Wednesday.
VFW is on Thursday, February 15th. And then Saturday, there's the National Guard Armory
right across the street from over here. They're having their dance benefit. Yeah,
encourage people to go check that out. Yes. And then every Wednesday, we've never mentioned this
before, but thought it better bring it up. We have the group of veterans over half dozen from
rapids that drive all the way over to Wapaka to work on wheelchairs. Mobility for vets, wheelchairs
shopping in Wapaka. Wow. It's all volunteer. I hadn't heard much about this group before,
and Tom sent me a link about them, and I did a deep dive into this group and these great amazing
human beings. They're doing some really important work, Tom. Yes, they take wheelchairs that are
somewhat bad, electric wheelchairs, the old-fashioned, non-electric wheelchairs, manually operated.
They tear them down, repair them, and then they resell them. Wow. Yeah. So they've got some people
that are technicians to work on those electric units, and they literally salvage what they can
and build new ones, and then turn them back over. And they also do take donations. Yes.
Keep that in mind, everybody, especially if you have a wheelchairs. There's one of those things
that you don't have a lot of use for, and they're just going to sit in the basement, or in the garage,
or something. Get it to these guys. They can do some good with it. Exactly. Get the dust off of it,
and get it into back in the circulation. And you just give them a call, 715-281-
617-5, and they will set something up. They travel Appleton. Yeah, they travel pretty far for
these things, from what I was reading, and the testimony, and a lot of that stuff, and again,
mobilityforvets.com is the number four is the four in there, so mobilityforvets.com.
Exactly, and then Saturday, I know it's in the future, May 25th. We have the all female quilts of
valor. Very exciting. Yeah. The research that Bill Hack has done on that is this could be the
first one in all the United States. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And for everything that I found too,
it does seem like it is. I don't want to say for sure it is, but it really does seem like it.
And even if it isn't the only one, it's one of few that there are for something like this.
Leave it to our local vets. Our people here that to figure something like that out and
doing something like this, a big shout out to everybody behind that. Exactly, and I think there's
around 30 leading veterans that are receiving quilts, and what Bill has also done is he has contacted
the former female vet recipients to come as well. I didn't know that. Wow. That's awesome.
It's huge. Yeah, big thing. Yeah. That is very cool. Tom, we appreciate these updates. We'll
be talking more about these as we get closer to them. Always appreciate the time for me, sir.
If people want to know more, if they is there a way to reach you, a way to reach our VFW.
Right. Just give the VFW. We'll call at 715-6000-0401. And our Senior Vice Commander Sean Plant
answered the phone and answers all the questions that you have. We're very much in the community.
We just had the state mid-winter conference in the VFW here at the Mead. Yeah. Yeah. How'd that go?
Very well. From what I understand, very well. Yeah. Yeah. It seemed like it.
Booked up all weekends, so I wouldn't need to see the end, but see a lot of good things on Facebook
and hearing all of it. Yeah. All right. Yeah. And we encourage people to keep up the data and all
of these things. We'll help you do that. We'll be touching on these things as we get closer and
closer to them. Tom, we'll talk real soon. I'm sure we, you and I, talk all month long. But you'll
talk with our listeners at the beginning of next month, all right? I sure hope so. Yeah.
You know, thank you, Tom. We appreciate the time, sir. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you very much for doing this. Really appreciate getting the information out there.
We'll be talking again real soon. We'll do what we'll do right now is we're going to take a,
we'll get right to our news. We'll take it to our news a little bit earlier than usual. We'll
dive into that. We'll come back and we'll talk about a little bit of entertainment news for you.
Right here on the Morning Show, WFHR, where we are locally grown radio.
Welcome back, everyone. Morning show at WFHR.
Melissa, Seth and James here with you. We hope you're having a good one out there.
Everybody, thanks so much for joining us. A little super tramp to play us in.
Good fun stuff lined up for you. Touching on a little entertainment news after that,
we're going to get into this best snacks to eat after midnight, all right? Got that one coming
up for you and plenty more. I'll get to the local good stories of the day before we wrap up.
Big shout out to Tom Heiser with a monthly veterans update. Big thank you to Tom for that. We
appreciate you, Tom. Diving into entertainment news. We'll get into the Grammys in a moment here
in the Grammy winners and all that. But first, a Melancholy way to start off with saying goodbye to
a great Carl Weathers past away. Less Thursday night in his sleep. He was 76 years old.
Carl's most famous role, probably Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky movies. His other credits,
of course, include Predator, Happy Gilmore, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Most recently was
a heavy Emmy nomination for being on the Mandalorian. Chicago Fire, Chicago PD was on there.
And the hilarious underappreciated cameo on a recent development where Carl Weathers was
playing himself, but a very cheap version of Carl Weathers. He was always telling people how
you could save a couple of bucks here. You could see a couple of bucks. The gimmick of his
character was like he was really nitpicky or really like penny-pinchy. It's just a weird
grip. Yeah, it was just really, and he played himself. But it was interesting because especially
for this role to happen late in his career, Carl Weathers known as an action star. For a
little reason, many people might not know this, but Carl Weathers was an undrafted football player
for the Los Angeles, or for the Oakland Raiders at the time. Played eight games for them,
then went on to the Canadian football league for a little while. Actually, played college ball for
San Diego State was a part of their last undefeated season. It had a great career,
allegedly. So he was an athlete. He was an action star, but his acting was great. Like a
Apollo, like look at the difference of Mr. T. Hal Cogan and then Carl Weathers with the villains
in the Rocky movies. Even Dolph Lundgren's character who could act, Dolph Connect, the difference
of that. And having an act, it's actually where we were going with the Marvel Universe and the DC
universe, bonafide actors playing action roles. That's what Carl Weathers was. Yes. And he was that
before many others were. I always like his role in Predator. He was his good predator.
Think of how well loved Rocky was. Yes. Rocky, one of the more lovable good guys or good, you know,
heroes in movies and all that in history. But Carl Weathers, quote unquote, villain was so likeable
that they end up turning him into a good guy eventually by the end of the series and everything.
Getting to see him like in the arrest of development role where there's no action. He's not
fighting anybody. He's not showing up his biceps like he doesn't predator or something like that.
He's just being comedically funny and he's killing it. He's doing great in it. He was awesome in it.
Very underrated actor I thought. Yeah. Yeah. And I was really happy with what he did on the
Mandalorian. Again, it showed how good of an actor he was. In fact, he even got the chance to direct
an episode if I remember correctly, which I know he was really excited about. So, yeah, I'm really sad
because I really like Carl Weathers. Yeah. Yeah. Some really nice notes about him being done by
Robert Rodriguez and Pedro Pascal and a lot of his castmates and everything. He will definitely
be messy. He will be looking at the Grammys early in that in the night, Taylor won her 13th,
Taylor Swift won her 13th Grammy for Best Pop Vocalist. That's Taylor's lucky number, of course,
and during her speech, she dropped an announcement on us. She's a brand new album on the way.
It's called The Tortured Poets Department and it drops April 19th. Taylor also became the first
person win album of the year four times when she won for midnight's Celine Dion presented the
ward and she looked and sounded great despite her health issues. So, to me, more importantly,
Celine Dion doing better. That's good to see. Nothing against Taylor Swift. A person's health
is higher to me than somebody winning a war. Yeah, exactly. One thing Taylor did not do last night
was mention Travis Kelsey. She also didn't perform, but there are some amazing performances. If you
have not gotten to see the Tracy Chapman, Luke Comet's version of Fast Car Played a little
bit on the sunrise show for people. It brought the house down. It was the performance of the night
and as somebody who's watched the Grammys on and off, pretty much my whole life. Top 10 performance
all time on the Grammys. Cool. Miley Cyrus seemed to have be having the time of her life performing
flowers. She even gave the song a little Tina Turner style to it. Interesting. And Annie Lennox was
also part of the memoriam package, delivering an emotional tribute to Shenatal Connor in calling
for a ceasefire in Gaza. Billie Eilish won for a song of the year, what I was made for, which she
also performed. Wow. Joni Mitchell won Best Folk album. Wow. Still going strong, Joni.
She and performed on the Grammys stage for the first time ever. Joni Mitchell has never performed
at the Grammys. Really? Well, that's interesting. At the age 80s, first time she's ever done that.
That's pretty cool. That's awesome. Lots of ladies. A lot of ladies. Yeah. Big night of that.
And looking at your list of big Grammy winners again, Elma, your Taylor Swift,
record of the year, Flowers to Miley Cyrus, song of the year, Barbie, what I was made for from
Barbie, Billie Eilish. Best new vocalist. A lot of people thought Jelly Roll was going to win that
Victoria Monet did. Best let's see here. Any surprises, not really. Best metal performance,
72 seasons from Metallica. That's an actual, that they did win. And Killer Mike had maybe the best
speech of the night. Killer Mike won Best Rap Performance, Best Meleratic Rap Performance
and Best Rap Album. So they kind of swept that category and great acceptance speech by Killer Mike's
awesome. Best, yeah, big fan of his. Best music video. I'm only sleeping from the Beatles.
Oh, wow. Interesting. How many people knew that that was even a category of the Grammys?
And Best Music Film. Again, I did not know this was a category of the Grammys. The David Bowie
Documentary Moonage Daydream. Oh, yeah. So that was your big winners from last night's Grammys.
Cool. And I think anybody that got to see that performance might have been one, two.
Yeah. It's a Monday. I feel it. I feel a little fluffier than usual, a little furrier than usual
on Mondays. It's a Muppet Monday, everybody. Encourage you to check out what the Muppet, the
wonderful podcast done by Brio Hoyt and James Meloof. Meloo. Melah. Melah. Meloo. I don't know
how to pronounce that. Anyway, these two do a great job with this podcast every day. They drop
the new episode for you. You can check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Also,
encourage it. Check out the video on YouTube. It's great. It's a great watch. It's about a half an
hour, 40 minutes. Go ahead and jump on there. Your YouTube page and type in what the Muppet and
subscribe to the page. This week, we're privileged to be joined by Rhett. Rhett is the,
Rhett Saffernick is the record holder for the large collection of Muppets Memorabilia. Oh,
yes. Rhett showed us a little bit of his memorabilia. He was on the show with us. Did an
actual episode with us and everything. We had a real fun time talking with Rhett. Nice.
Really appreciate him showing us around and being on the show with us. It was a lot of fun.
Very cool. Check out Muppet Royalty, the episode 28 of What the Muppets. 28, man. Holy cow.
That is incredible. I can't believe that. That is really wild. Keep on keeping on. Yeah,
I encourage you to do that, everybody. And we have another week of rehearsals over at
Wisconsin's Rapids Community Theater Studios for the Glass-Managerie. We do?
I'm only bringing this up to remind you guys. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to
remind you guys. That's it. Now we can move on. Sorry Kevin, I got to drop to Rapids tonight.
The Glass-Managerie in production directed by Seth and Beth Habhacker. I encourage you to
check this one out. Everybody get your tickets at wrctheater.org. So you guys got this week
I have filming to do. Today is the big day. Okay. Filming day today. It's the big day, Melissa.
Are you ready? Are you ready? Yeah, except for my right eye. Everything else is ready.
Oh, okay. All right. That's good. Well, we're going to film everything from the left.
Yeah. For profile. That's what we'll do. We might have to.
So yeah, so we actually got a lot. We're filming tonight. We're actually doing cast interviews
as well tonight and yeah, we got a few of the film bits that are going to be going to be put in
hopefully wrap everything up for tonight. So then I can start working on the production on that
stuff and got all getting our voiceover things done. And so it's coming together. It really is.
So it's very cool. Melissa has Kevin been helping you learn your lines.
You know, he's not the best at holding the script steady.
So it was. I was worried about this. I was worried about that. Every time I try to prop it up on him,
he's like, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He's not very helpful.
Well, we know you're going to you're going to do a great job. And you guys are going to have a great
week of rehearsals. We're looking forward to talking more and more about this. We'll see how things
are going on Wednesday show. I believe we got you guys together on Wednesday again. We'll talk
about it on Wednesday. Indeed. Get your tickets and and make plans. March 1st is the premiere of
the glass of an ashery, the winter production for our friends at Wisconsin Rapids Community Theater.
Buy local support local go to WRC theater dot org right now. Get your tickets.
Mm hmm. Take it a commercial break. Come back. We'll ask some more fun on the morning show at WFHR.
Welcome back everyone. Morning show at WFHR.
Melissa, Seth and James here with you. We hope you're having a great Monday out there. Happy
week to you. Happy week. Happy week. Happy start of the week to you. I meant just forgot the
start word. Start of the week. Happy week, everybody. But Monday it's a week. I sound like
somebody who's just learning English. Happy week to all for our computer that this is the
AI system. It's just happy week to you. I've taken over for James. Yeah. Oh no. He's AI. I got
admitted everything I've said today. Yeah, everything. Everything. Everything I've said.
Here are some great late night snack ideas. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the
night starving? Maybe you grab a donut or handful of chips before you go to bed. Luckily,
there are dietitians out there who can help us make not those make some better choices.
Okay. Are they there in your kitchen? Right. Yeah, it's where they would have to be to stop me
from the donut. Agreed. Agreed. About a thousand percent with you on this one. Melissa,
especially at that point of the night, like 72 slices of American cheese.
Yeah, just drooling eating the food. So here are some of those snacks that those
dietitians are recommending, like sliced turkey breast. The protein should hold off your
hunger till morning. Plus, there's a triple fan. The stuff that makes you sleepy on the
Thanksgiving. True, true. Come on. Sometimes they say it does. Sometimes they say it doesn't.
Which is it? Yeah. I think it depends on who you ask. I don't think I eat. I have to eat a
lot of it, I think. Yes. I think so, Melissa. Yeah. Yeah. Does this ever seem to happen to me?
I don't ever seem to have those the the the the the sleeps of the itis as they used to call
my neighborhood. James, you don't like turkey. And you don't eat it at Thanksgiving. You eat
spaghetti. Yeah, there's probably part of the recent. But oh, Rigatone. Sorry. But all foul have
have tripped a fan in them, including chickens. So it's it's it's anything like that. It's the
amount. Yeah, you'd have to eat a whole bunch in order to do something. I didn't know that. Wow.
Cheese and crackers. Any combo of protein and fiber is a good thing. There you go, Seth.
Cheese and crackers. Yeah. Cheese and crackers. That's such a great that like that's a great like
a I feel weird calling it cuss words. But I know it's like it's a replacement cuss word.
Oh, cheese and crackers. Yeah. Vegetables and hummus. Oh, it's an especially a great snack if
you forget your veggies during the day and hummus makes everything taste better. That's Beth's
one of Beth's go to his hummus. Yeah, I like the red pepper flavor. Oh, yeah.
Banana and nut butter. Potassium helps you relax and complex and complex carbs help control
blood sugar spikes. Oh, okay. That's not interesting. And I actually do something on this list.
I didn't think I would have anything. Cereal and milk.
Well done, James.
It's so sad. That's so sad. Yeah. Cereal and milk as long as it's whole grain and low sugar cereal.
Okay. Fail. Fail. Fruity petals don't count. Yeah. Dang it.
So Captain Crunch, oops, all berries is a big note. No, no, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Not quite there. Yeah. I thought, all right. I knew it was too good to be true. Anyway, let's
do it. Get your horken fiber chunks out. And you can start. There you go. Nice. Nice.
Just dump some wheat germont having a good look. Oh, I'll never forget.
People telling me how healthy like rice crispies could be and rice crispy treats and some
healthier cereals and stuff and seeing my dad trying to make the effort to get healthier.
And he grabs the rice crispies and he's got it up there. And he's like, uh, you see,
yelling at my mom, I mean, I mean, I mean, I'm just yelling at him that he doesn't eat him.
And as he's saying this to her and shouting up to her that he's eating healthier,
he is just just dousing it and sugar. Sugar, yeah. Just pouring sugar on top of it and everything.
Okay. But the best part about putting sugar on top of rice crispies is the shape of the rice
crispies. Because when you get to the bottom of the bowl, they can't soak up all that sugar.
So then you've just got a lovely, delicious spoon full of un, you know, melted sugar in the bottom
of your mouth. Sugar. Yeah. Yeah. It does seem really good. That does seem really good. You know
what I call them? I call them rice crepes. Oh, oh, really? Really? Not a fan. Is it the sound
they make? No, it's just it's the texture, I think. Because I like other rice cereals,
but not the hat. Not right, nice, rice crispies, no. Says got a big thing. He's only got one
requirement with his breakfast foods. Don't talk to him. Now, he doesn't want breakfast food to
talk. He talks back to me, the back of my hand. I like this list. I like it. Let's go ahead and
take a call from one of our listeners. Good morning. What's in your mind? Yeah, I agree with
you. Cheese and crackers with crackers, but I would omit the crackers because that would leave
your mouth a little gritty and you have to get up and brush your teeth before you go back to bed.
Oh, there you go. Yeah, there you go. Just grab a block of cheese. Get that cheese.
Do you? Are you a knight? I buy those cheese sticks and I have. Oh, there you go. Oh, that's a
good. Don't even have to cut it. Yeah, you just bite it. Are you a midnight snacker, sir?
Are you a late snacker? No, but you're a guy on Saturday morning. Terry kept
sufficient. He mentioned that you should do that once or all, too. Yeah, okay. Terry, that's
mentioned that. Yeah, I appreciate you, sir. Thanks so much. Have a good morning. Yeah, thanks.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'd be sure to check that. Terry does a really good great job with
that. Not only that show, but covering a lot of those things kind of topics too. Terry talks
nutrition every Saturday, right here at WFHR. We'll take a quick time out. We'll come back
and more fun is on the way, right? We'll get into our, that ain't right story of the day.
We've got a list of the weirdest things left behind in hotels on the last week. We made it.
We finally got to talk a lot of more. Come on up on the morning show.
Welcome back, everybody. Morning show here at WFHR. Locally grown radio. It's not live. It's okay.
It doesn't matter. Yeah, it's. It is live. It is live. Okay, never mind. Welcome to the show,
everybody. Got Melissa, Seth and James here with you. We're going to take it to the top of the
hour with the Van A Wright story. We'll touch on some good stories of the day. Got some great
local things going on in our area. We want to touch on and our schedule for the day.
But right now, a travel company has released a list of the weirdest items left in hotel rooms
over the last year. And that is our Van A Wright story. Let's see here. So just some of these
items, prosthetic limbs. Yeah. How did they leave? That's my question. How do you forget that?
It seems like really important. Like literally how do you forget that? Like how could you actually leave
the room? Let alone the hotel. Yeah. And I've only known a handful of people in my life that
have had artificial limbs. But I've never known anybody who has a backup artificial limbs that
they carry with them. Yeah. It's like a spare tire. Like I just got to, you know, no, no,
that doesn't. I don't know how that happened. A glass eye again. How did this happen? Yeah.
Well, to be fair, you can't see out of it. So it's not like it. That's true. But you think
like you could feel it in your face, you know, in your eye socket. A clown costume. And I mean,
a full on clown costume shoes with red nose, everything. They decided they had had enough of
clowning. They're like, I'm done. I'm done. I'll leave it on here. I think what's interesting
too about this list is these are things that were left and never reclaimed like at months later.
Yeah, right. It isn't something that, oh, I forgot in a couple days later, I go there or I call
the hotel to see if it's still there or something. These are things that months and years later,
nobody has. You're getting ready for your next gig. Where's my clown costume? I thought, oh,
man, it's a great. That you just put together a generic clown costume. Now,
bedsheets, inflatable boat. Okay. Oh,
great. Okay, why did they have it in the room in the first place? My question. That is going to
be, unless they were in Florida, that is going to be a really boring clamp camping trip. That
camping trip just got the inflatable boat. Who are we going to get to the site?
Caviar. All right. Oh, caviar. Oh, interesting. Okay. They did taste it didn't like it at all.
Yeah. No kidding. A lot of common things like clothing, wallets, keys, a lot of wedding rings.
A lot of wedding rings get left behind. That's what you get for taking them off.
You know, I know people who take off their wedding bands to wash hands or stuff like that,
and it's easy to forget sometimes that you leave them. Yeah. Or for women, if they have a stone
in them, I would always take it off at night. Right. Let's stab yourself in the face with it in the
face. Yeah. Yeah. It's not the one I want it anyway. We're.
Then nice. Wow. Nice. So big. Sorry. I have feels about that. So bitter.
A denture. Dentures. Oh, wait. Seriously. I don't have any teeth. I mean, come on.
That's what you notice. You don't have any teeth. So anyway, that's a hard one. That's a hard one.
That's just more comfortable that way. I guess so. And grandma's lucky tea cup.
It's unclear if the lucky thing was written on it or if it was just considered a lucky item.
That was that one. Why did you bring it in the first place? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
If it was a lucky tea, what are you doing? It doesn't sound like grandma got it back either.
No, she did not. That's right. They were too embarrassed. Well, but not to nitpick here,
but how lucky was it if they didn't remember it? I mean, true. Maybe they got rid of a bad luck cup.
I mean, you know, it could very well be. Maybe, you know, I don't know. I don't know.
They're rid of all that bad luck. It doesn't have to be at a hotel, but have you ever left anything behind
that you're like, oh, well, I remember leaving that behind or losing that or whatever.
Anything like that. Had an almost very traumatic weekend because two things got left behind.
We left Barbie with the blue hair at the party. So we had to turn around and go back.
And then on the way home, we left Black Panther. Oh, no. Oh, no. Black Panther.
Black Panther at home. Yeah. It's a new one. Yeah. And so we had to have a very long conversation
about our feelings and then tried it to make it better with, oh, Kevin and Black Panther
having adventures. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Well done. Well done. Okay. Black Panther will come home
today. All right. Good. The only people who spin more than politicians are people in
a list of situations. Yeah. Right there. The work that your imagination does in those moments.
Instant. I mean, and it's like right on top. You got to be good, man. Yeah. And you have to
believe it. Sell it. Yep. You have to sell it on your face because they will see right through
you. But you know, honestly, and this is this is the truth. I think the best thing was, you
know, it's okay to feel sad. Yeah. It's okay to cry about this. Take a moment and be sad.
It's okay. Yeah. And then we'll work through that. And then we'll talk about the other things and
and we'll make it better tomorrow. It's not everybody that can turn those moments into learning
moments. Nicely done. Nicely done. Well done. We got some good stories of the day to get to.
One of them being, of course, the best listeners in the radio. Thank you to all of you that called
in today to join the conversation. Want to send a big thank you to all of us that mail us stuff
and send us things. Yeah. All that postcard was so great. Thanks so much for this postcard.
Made Brittany's day. Yeah. That was awesome. Thank you for doing that. We always appreciate
you helping our staff smile around here. Thank you to the best listeners radio. We got good
stuff on our radio dial tonight this afternoon at three o'clock. Join us for playmakers.
Seth and I will be hosting the show together today. And you, Seth, us and you, all of you guys out
there. You call up and join the conversation. We'll be looking forward to talking with you and
talking to some sports. Nothing but hot takes. Yes. Yes. Nothing but hot takes all over the place.
Joe Montana is better than Tom Brady. There. Hot take. The great guard show is on tonight at
605. Be joining us. Join us for that. It's going to be a good one. We got great stuff going on in
our area as well. We have the Wisconsin Rapids Community Media is presenting the 2024 Merrill Forum.
This will feature our Merrill candidates Tom Hughes, Nicholas Palmquist, Preston Cites,
and Matt Zacker. This is going on tomorrow at six o'clock live from the council chambers.
You can get kind of a preview of that tomorrow as we will have our guests, our Merrill candidates,
on the air with us during Midday Magazine throughout the week this week. We have 10 minute,
15 minute interviews with each of them. We'll start this tomorrow with Tom Hughes and Nicholas
Palmquist in Midday Magazine and then we'll wrap up on Thursday with Matt Zacker and we're still
hoping to hear from Preston. I'm about to get Preston on with us. But we have reached out to all
the candidates. We're hoping to have them all on the air with us. Yes indeed. Have a great show.
Have a great day everybody. You too. We'll be back with more here at WFHR, locally grown radio.
