The Gru Clue

Cardboard cutout of Gru (Advanced Graphics)

North Korean scammers have infiltrated the American work force. One of the crooks' distinguishing features is a fondness for the fictional "Despicable Me" villain Gru.

The FBI believes thousands of North Koreans have infiltrated the U.S. workforce by assuming the identities of Americans to secure remote jobs. Many of them, investigators have found, are bound by a few defining characteristics: total devotion to Dear Leader Kim Jong Un, a penchant for stealing cryptocurrency and an obsession with Minions, the cuddly agents of evil from “Despicable Me.”

The North Koreans’ love of the animated movie franchise has become a recurring, if slightly baffling, joke among the security researchers who investigate them.

Many of these fake workers use Minions and other “Despicable Me” characters in social-media profiles and email addresses. Some investigators initially thought their use of “Gru” was a reference to Russia’s famed GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Instead it was a tribute to the Minions overlord, Felonious Gru Sr., the Steve Carell-voiced animated character who tries to steal the moon.

My 2025 bingo card didn't have the Gru clue as a scam detector.

Elemental Thoughts

Last Saturday's water shutdown in our neighborhood caused us to repair to the Hillsdale shopping center.

Unlike the emptying Westfield in San Francisco, Hillsdale is one of the Bay Area suburban malls that is experiencing growth and attracting investment.

The mall is safe enough that parents are comfortable bringing their children. (San Mateo County has a homeless population of about 1,000, and the City and County have improved security recently.) Disney set up a colorful display next to Macy's to advertise the new animated film Elemental.

The film on the whole has garnered moderately favorable reviews (WSJ: "marvelous imagery"; SF Chronicle: "absolutely gorgeous rendering of a half-baked idea").

Good special effects, plus a new, creative world of "elemental" tribes: that's enough to make me want to check it out on the Disney+ streaming service when it arrives, perhaps in September.

Postscript: I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the movie when I was a kid. I liked to keep reality, e.g., real science, separate from fantasy, e.g., cartoons and fairy tales. When I learned that Aristotle, one of the greatest Greek philosophers, declared the basic elements to be fire, air, water, and earth, this fourth grader thought that was pretty dumb. Today I would be kinder--some of the greatest fiction has been spun from premises that are entirely false.

Mickey Mouse Technology

They were cute and once upon a time ubiquitous and cheap. I even had one.

The old mechanical Mickey Mouse watches, which were on display in the Walt Disney Family Museum, are passé, superseded by high-tech wrist devices.

If the kids must wear watches with cartoon characters, they seem to favor ones that are popular from this century. Despite their current lack of popularity, I know several of the over-40 set who refuse to part with Mickey Mouse timepieces though they no longer wear them. Such is the powerful hold of nostalgia.

Another vestige of earlier days is our Mickey Mouse dial telephone, which I first mentioned in this journal in 2010. We keep it and our landline as insurance against natural disaster:

Mickey Mouse survives because it's our one phone that can operate if the power goes off say, during an earthquake. As long as our landline has tone, we can dial out ("dial" for once may be interpreted literally).

Many in the younger generation don't have landlines, because cell phones and router-plug-in phones are sufficient for their needs.

It's long been rumored that AT&T will abandon the pulse dialing technology that once powered everyone's phone. When it pulls the plug on that, I'll pull the plug on them.

Still Funny After All These Years

One of his most famous cartoons

Gahan Wilson, 89, died on Thursday. In the 1970's and 1980's he was at the top of the cartoon profession, on par with Gary Larson (The Far Side), Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), and Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury).

His drawings and humor were distinctive; he would take an ordinary subject--driving a car, a grandmother in her living room--and insert a macabre and humorous twist. Unlike other cartoonists who often mail it in, Gahan Wilson's single-panel creations were always imaginative.

After learning about his passing, I perused a couple of volumes that I had not looked at this century (!). They were still funny after all these years.

Write Your Own Campaign Commercial

(Cartoon by Jack Ohman, Sacramento Bee)

Warning Sign

For years coyotes have been a real problem in the coastside city of Pacifica.

The warning sign (right) posted on Mori Point is fake, however.

Says the sign, some behaviors “are cause for alarm.”

The list includes behaviors of the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, including such worrisome activities as “Coyote dropping an anvil from a hot air balloon” and “Coyote in possession of a catapult.”

Another warning sign: if you see a bird with a "long tail and expressive crest" running toward you at high speed, get out of the way.

A coyote is likely to be chasing him; worse, explosions could soon follow.