Lauren Goode: I think do have the sponge. It's all white and one side is soft, squishy white, and the other side is like this clearish kind of scrub. Is that the sponge? No, let me Google this.
Jodi S. Cohen: It's a kitchen sponge. It has a smiley face in it, and it comes in different colors. So mine is yellow. So I'm not sure if the white one is the same thing, but this is a very happy sponge, but it's not just looks good, it's really super, super practical. So it's really good with cold water and hot water, and it dries quickly so it doesn't smell bad. And also it has a smiley face, so it's just a great sponge. It was on Shark Tank. That's how it first got known.
Lauren Goode: Wow.
Jodi S. Cohen: But now you can find them pretty much anywhere. In fact, I just got a pack of them at Costco.
Lauren Goode: Nice. It's qualified as America's favorite sponge. That's according to their marketing. That has not been independently verified.
Jennifer Smith Richards: Look, I concur. We should just point out, the smile is not just cute, it's also functional because it fits a spoon, the curve of a spoon perfectly. And so when you're trying to get that curve of the spoon clean, you can just drag it through the mouth of the Scrub Daddy.
Lauren Goode: Oh, I see this now.
Michael Calore: Also, if you have a faucet handle that's like a single faucet handle that's shaped sort of like an upside down tongue, you can just stick the sponge right on the end there.
Jodi S. Cohen: Exactly.
Michael Calore: And dry them.
Jodi S. Cohen: Do you have one of these? You know it?
Michael Calore: I do know it because a friend has one. But no, I'm a Jetz-Scrubz with Z man. That's my loyal sponge brand.
Lauren Goode: I'm thinking now that my sponge is probably some eco fiber, all natural dye-free version that I got at the local store in San Francisco. Because that would be very San Francisco.
Michael Calore: Yes, probably.
Lauren Goode: And it's probably got a grim expression rather than a smiley of the Scrub Daddy.
Jodi S. Cohen: It's a sad sponge. It's sad.
Lauren Goode: The sad sponge. These are great recommendations. Thank you for this. When you're done scrubbing, you should go relax on a hammock.
Jennifer Smith Richards: That's a deal.
Jodi S. Cohen: Exactly.
Lauren Goode: Mike, what's your recommendation this week?
Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend a newsletter. It is the Longreads' top five weekly newsletter. The folks at longreads.com basically track all of the big in-depth feature reporting and feature length essays and long profiles done by all of the big publications on the web and many of the small ones that you have never heard of, which is why I would recommend this newsletter. It arrives on Fridays. It gives you the five best long reads that were published that week, which you can go read. And there are always one or two in the list from a publication that I had not heard of or that I was unaware did long form journalism. And they are delightful stories. The topics in the top five are obviously they're all... There's not really a theme to them, but sometimes there can be, especially when something big is happening in the world, a big news event that a lot of people are doing in-depth reporting on. But most of the time you get a really nice mix of news stories, profiles of people in arts and entertainment and science stories. There was one in particular last week, Jude Isabella writing in Hakai Magazine about an island in Alaska that is populated by a herd of feral cows. And there are problems with the cows, like there's aggressive rutting and there are ecological instabilities happening on the island because these cows are absolutely everywhere. But also it's just a story about how to get to this island on a sail plane, or boat, or plane.
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