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I hope this Sunday is going smoothly for you, {{first_name | friend}}. You’ve probably driven past one of these without a second thought: white steeple, shiny cross, maybe a little stained glass doing its best. Very small-town postcard perfect. But since the early ’90s, wireless carriers have noticed something holy and highly practical. Churches are tall, central and already grandfathered into the skyline. Blessings and bars, if you will.

⛪ What did one church build to collect a monthly check from T-Mobile? A) Parking garage with antennas on the roof, B) New bell tower with the bells removed, C) 100-foot cross made entirely of cell phone antennas or D) Drive-thru confessional with really strong Wi-Fi? Keep reading, the answer is waiting at the end like a very patient deacon.

🍵 My morning secret is out: Before email, before the show, before anything, I make the same drink: premium grade Japanese matcha, a squeeze of real lemon and electrolytes over ice. Steady energy, zero crash, no 2 p.m. slump. Now I want to turn it into a single packet. Add water, add ice, done. Would you buy it? Tell me here. Lemon, matcha, ice. It’s a matcha made in heaven. — Kim

🤯 WOW! A man who hadn’t really spoken in years heard Cab Calloway through headphones and began to sing, answer questions and talk about love. Doctors filmed it, and brain scans back it up: The regions music lights up are among the last that Alzheimer’s touches.

The Short Version: Build a playlist from the songs when they were ages 10 to 25, play it through comfortable headphones and follow their lead. Steps below.

📖 Read time: 2.5 minutes

This one starts with a note from my inbox:

Julie, I’ve got you. My grandmother had dementia, too. There were hard visits. But boy, she loved her Elvis Presley, and Elvis could find her when we couldn’t.

In the documentary Alive Inside, a man named Henry, in his 90s and barely responsive after a decade in a nursing home, gets headphones playing his favorite, Cab Calloway. His eyes fly open. He hums, sings, then talks, in full sentences, about music and love. 

The late neurologist Oliver Sacks said Henry had been “quickened.” Watch Henry’s story here. Have tissues ready. That’s not a miracle. It’s repeatable.

University of Utah researchers scanned the brains of Alzheimer’s patients while they heard songs that mattered to them. Personal music lit up regions the disease touches last. One researcher: “Music is like an anchor, grounding the patient back in reality.” 

And a Brown University study found nursing home residents with personalized playlists were more likely to come off antipsychotic meds. Music, doing a pill’s job.

The catch: The songs must be theirs. The music we hear from ages 10 to 25 is welded in deepest.

Straight talk: This isn’t a cure, and the door doesn’t stay open. But it costs little to nothing, has zero side effects and can hand you a real visit with your mom. Take the minutes, Julie.

My grandmother’s song was Elvis. They say Elvis has left the building, friend. For three minutes at a time, my grandmother didn’t.

🎯 Send this to someone who says, “Mom doesn’t really talk anymore.” Give them a different kind of visit.

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(Starts at 57:54) A listener says ChatGPT has completely changed the way she does her job as a small city manager. She’s missing one thing. An official AI policy from her city council. We help her out.

Listen on Komando.com →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

🚨Grandson-powered sting: This elder fraud case ended like a low-budget Batman origin story. Crooks posing as fraud investigators took $100,000 from a 69-year-old grandma, then demanded $50,000 more. So she drove to the drop-off with one grandson hiding under a blanket in her car and the others staked out nearby. The bagman bolted, a fight broke out and everyone got arrested. The alleged scammers face felonies. The grandsons face assault charges. Justice is complicated at the Family Dollar.

New gene therapy that restores hearing, and it's free: Regeneron's Otarmeni is the FDA approved first-ever gene therapy for genetic deafness, and the company is providing it in the U.S. at no cost. Kids born unable to hear may grow up hearing their parents' voices. Some weeks the future actually shows up.

🚨 Update Chrome right now, this is not a drill: Google patched yet another zero-day flaw, one hackers were already using in real attacks, and it affects billions of users. Just visiting a booby-trapped webpage can let crooks run code on your machine. Your move: open Chrome, click the three dots > Help > About Google Chrome, let it update, then relaunch. Two minutes beats a hijacked computer.

🧊 Cooler flip than a pancake: File this under things you feel in your stomach through a screen. A massive iceberg off Greenland decided to roll clean over on camera. Quick science: about 90% of an iceberg hides underwater, so as it melts, the balance shifts until the whole thing somersaults with zero warning. That wave can swamp a boat, which is why tour captains keep their distance and you should watch this one from the couch. Somewhere, a penguin gave it a 9.5. You have to watch this short.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: One in five cars on the road has a recall nobody ever fixed. That’s 58 million vehicles, and the repair is always free. Don’t assume yours is in the clear. Head to the NHTSA site and search your license plate or VIN. Two clicks. You can check car seats, tires and other equipment there, too. No one wants that plot twist at 70 mph. 

📘 Stop feeling confused by AI: It’s moving faster than most people can keep up with. Don’t get left behind. Try NetSuite Next for free. If your revenue is at least in the seven figures, go here.* 

🔌 When Wi-Fi taps out: Storm knocked out the internet? Your phone can keep the computer online through a plain USB cable, and it’s faster and safer than a hotspot. Turn off Wi-Fi on the computer, then plug the phone in. On iPhone, open Settings > Cellular > Set Up Personal Hotspot. On Android, go to Settings > Mobile Hotspot & Tethering > USB Tethering. If Kenny Loggins forgets his Wi-Fi password, Ken he log in?

😒 Nobody asked for the trailer: Turn on a Fire TV, and it starts blasting a movie preview at you before you’ve even picked up the remote. Kill it. Go to Settings > Preferences > Featured Content and switch off Allow Video Autoplay and Allow Audio Autoplay. You get quiet still images, and your Fire Stick may feel faster, too. 4K Plus models are about $50. 

🪄 The great Windows vanishing act: Screen full of apps fighting for your attention? Grab the title bar of the one window you actually need, then give it a quick shake with your mouse. Everything else minimizes instantly. Shake again, and they all come back. If nothing happens, turn it on under Settings > System > Multitasking > Title bar window shake. Feels like a magic trick. 

💥 Your hard drive is going to crash. It’s not a matter of if, it’s when. Data recovery for a dead drive starts at $300 and can top $3,000. That’s why I use Carbonite. It backs up everything automatically to the cloud without you lifting a finger. Get 50% off now.* 

👀 Instagram knows what you did: Those “quick scrolls” add up faster than anybody wants to admit. On mobile, tap the menu, open Settings and activity, then Time management. Averaging more than an hour a day? 😏 Tap Daily limit and set it to 15 or 30 minutes. Instagram nudges you to close the app when you hit the cap. The memes will still be there tomorrow. 

Most people blame their internet provider. Sometimes it’s just your refrigerator or your bathroom walls that seem to be made out of dark matter. 

One guy made NetLens, a clever hacky app that overlays your Wi-Fi signal directly onto your home using augmented reality, so you can literally see where your connection gets stronger or falls off a cliff. 

The Android app also maps nearby networks, measures congestion, lets you import floor plans and exports professional-looking reports, all reportedly keeping your data stored locally.

Check it out.

🎓 What you learned today: Music can reach loved ones in the grip of dementia when it seems nothing else can. Google may owe you a few bucks for being nosy. Protective grandsons get rough when scammers take advantage of Grandma. And you can douse Fire TV when it’s being obnoxious. More great stuff is coming tomorrow. Free streaming has improved. Before shelling out big bucks for your entertainment, check out these services. 

The answer is C) A 100-foot cross made entirely of cell phone antennas. Yep, Epiphany Lutheran in Florida built a 100-foot cross made entirely out of cell phone antennas and collected about $1,800 a month from T-Mobile for it. 

Sound crazy? They’re not alone. Carriers have been tucking antennas inside steeples and bell towers since the early 1990s, because height plus a central location plus quiet neighbors equals great coverage. 

Rents run $1,000 to $3,000 a month per antenna. One California pastor said his church nets $30,000 a year. The catch? That income can cost a church part of its tax exemption.

One for the road: Two cell towers got married. The ceremony wasn’t great, but the reception was perfect. (Yea that was so bad. I’ll do better tomorrow!)

🚶🏼‍♀️ Take me on a walk: Click to listen to my latest show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I also make chores go by faster!

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE: Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.

Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Anker, @metav3rse via Instagram

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