For a lot of male Baby Boomers, our first celebrity crush may have been Hayley Mills, who appeared in a string of very successful Walt Disney pictures during her adolescence

She's aged pretty well, hasn't she?

The experts say most extended warranties aren’t worth the money. Chances are good that if anything is wrong with the item, it’ll break down during the original warranty period. If it doesn’t depreciation on the item may make replacement a wiser choice than the cost of the extended warranty.

One exception: if you have a Smartphone and are prone to breaking or losing it.

It is a lasting shame to Baby Boomers that we have not educated the generations that have come after us about the true origin of the double-decker hamburger.

We heard some Millennial the other day complaining that a burger they were tasting was "just a rip-off of the Big Mac.". Just...wow! Any Baby Boomer worthy of the name should know the Big Mac itself is a rip-off. It's given away right there in its name! 

Enter Bob Wian

Almost forgotten today, Bob Wian ran a diner, Bob’s Pantry, in Southern California (just as the McDonald brothers would) in the late 1930s. Searching for a dish that would separate his diner from dozens of competitors, Wian created the world’s first double-decker hamburger in 1937 to please a now-unknown musician who wanted “something different.” The new burger quickly caught on forcing Wian to come up with a name for it. The Big Boy was born!

As the customers poured in, Wian’s diner was expanded into an actual sit-down restaurant. Then Wian opened more Big Boy restaurants in California.

Finally, Wian become one of the first entrepreneurs to franchise his idea across the United States. What made his pitch even more appealing – local operators could stick their name in front of “Big Boy.” So, each area of the country had their own version.

In a genius marketing move, Big Boy restaurants also gave away a free Big Boy comic book to guests – a new issue arriving every month – ensuring young kids would bug their parents into making as many return visits as possible. The first issue was actually written by comic book legend Stan Lee and drawn by Bill Everett.

When McDonald’s began their eventual takeover of the burger industry in the early 60s, Big Boy was still, well, the big boy of franchise restaurants. So, Mickey D simply copied their rival’s signature attraction right down to the name.

Eventually, America’s preference for fast food caused Big Boy to fade in most parts of the country.

Not to worry about ol’ Bob Wian, though. He sold the chain to the Marriott Corp. in 1967 for $7 million (back when $7 million was real money) and his namesake chain of restaurants are still around in SoCal!

As we head into winter, the experts say turning down your thermostat can cause your body to produce a hormone called irisin that can lead to burning more calories and weight loss!

You don’t have to live in a meat locker. Lowering the temp in your home between 75 to 68 should do the trick!

MEET THE BEATLES - The Beatles (1964)

Any self-respecting Baby Boomers record collection begins with “Meet the Beatles.”

While there are certainly Elvis fans among our generation, most of us didn’t reach puberty until the 1960’s, when Elvis had already entered the Army and would never be as wild as he was before he went in. For most of us, Elvis was the music our babysitters listened to while the Beatles (along with the Beach Boys and Four Seasons) were the first group we could really call our own!

Of course, despite what Capitol Records was claiming on the cover, this wasn’t the first Beatles album. In the UK, that honor belonged to “Please, Please Me.” But Capitol had passed on the opportunity to release it in the States. So Capitol’s parent company, EMI had leased that album and a handful of other early Beatles tracks to the small Vee-Jay label.

Vee-Jay actually released the first American album “Introducing the Beatles” in July of 1963. Without the money or promotion team to push the album, it went nowhere.

As 1963 came to a close, Capitol Records finally gave in to the constant pressure from EMI (and George Martin in particular) and agreed to release and promote Beatle records in the USA. The results were instantaneous and overwhelming.

“Meet the Beatles” was released on January 20, 1964. In less than a month, it climbed to the top of the American album charts, holding down the #1 position for 11 weeks until it was replaced by (what else?) “The Beatles Second Album.”

As we know now, in the early years, the American and British versions of Beatle albums differed quite a bit. One of the reasons was British albums typically contained 14 tracks while the US standard was 12. In addition, American record companies wanted the hit single on the LP while in the UK it was generally considered bad form (figuring the fans already had purchased the singles).

So nine of the tracks on “Meet the Beatles” also appear on the UK’s “With the Beatles.” In addition, Capitol added the two-sided hit single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as well as the B-wide of the British “Hold You Hand” single, “This Boy.” To top it off, Capitol took Robert Freeman’s cover photograph from the British release and added a blue tint to soften the image.

Unlike their first album which contained 50% cover songs, all but one of the tracks on “Meet the Beatles” were written by group members (10 from Lennon-McCartney and 1 from Harrison). The album also single-handedly shifted the paradigm in American pop music away from the hit single, putting the focus on albums.

“Meet the Beatles” has been named to Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, coming in at #59.

To be honest, we still prefer it to the British release.