To have the optimism of the person who wrote "To re-subscribe, reply START."

"The 45-second film, made around 1897, was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot" HELL. YES.

Parenting protip: You don't need to watch terrible children's movies, just pick some fun-sounding titles, turn them on and leave the house. I've got a few lined up for tonight - "Life is Beautiful," "Kids," "Funny Games" - it's going to be great!

I mean, it's not rocket science.

Sam Altman looks like someone freeze-dried Rod Blagojevich.

It's not an eclipse, people. If you skip the State of the Union tonight, you'll get another chance to watch the president mother-bird a microphone with hatred, gibberish and lies in like nine, 10 hours.

I sleep in a big bed with my wife.

My kingdom for a goddamn alt weekly chock full of classifieds and event listings.

Me in 2020 grabbing a face mask before I go out: "Man, can you imagine anything more depressing to have to carry with you all the time?" Me in 2026 grabbing a whistle: "Oh."

Every so often I just think fuck Jay Leno. He had a market share any modern show would murder for and he used it to punch down - no, fucking jackhammer down - against Monica Lewinsky, Lorena Bobbit, that coffee lady who sued McDonald's because she couldn't pay her medical bills, etc.

The LA Times article is paywalled, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the reason is "the ocean."

I really thought they would chicken out. Good on ya, Chicago.

Still weird that Laurel and the Beatles had an overlap.

The Supreme Court:

The bear also dines on "More of a comment than a question" people.

I mean, I wouldn't be able to resist either. via @xkcd.com

There is no reason this should have made me laugh as much as it did, but it did. www.samandfuzzy.com/3733

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

I used to quote this cartoon when I was doing boat tours, although I misremembered the punchline as "tries to finish the job." I half convinced myself I imagined it.

Two options: 1. Abolish ICE is named a winner. 2. They pull a Boaty McBoatface wussout* and quietly cancel next year's contest. *The Brits named the boat the RRS Sir David Attenborough and tried to get away with calling one of the submarine drones Boaty McBoatface but we know better, England!

I will not support any funding deal that puts money in the hands of Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and this violent agency. Defund and abolish ICE now.

Team USA Curler Rich Ruohonen: "We'd be remiss if we didn't at least mention what's going on in Minnesota...I am a lawyer, as you know, and we have a constitution... and what's happening in Minnesota is wrong. There's no shades of gray. It's clear."

Teaser for my next freelance story, but also why isn't Donovan bigger? There's a hell of a lot more to his reperoire than Sunshine Superman and Mellow Yellow. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU35...

I'm going to ride one like I'm car surfing in Teen Wolf.

Ah, so that's what the Space Invaders look like from the front.

So even Trump didn't watch that Kid Rock thing.

Macbeth: SHIT

Spent too much of this week joining online arguments about voting guides and endorsements. That was dumb and I regret every moment of it. Every argument about local endorsements boils down to someone saying "Please tell me how to vote but not like that."

One under-mocked aspect of this is that every town and neighborhood in America has at minimum one local ICE watch Signal chat and these chucklefucks were only able to find 200.

The Girl I Guess guide is valuable, important and impressive as hell. Two people put out a 90-page, single-space voter guide out of sheer civic engagement. I agree with like 80% of their picks. The other 20% I just don't vote for without acting like the free, optional guide is somehow bad or wrong.

The absolute best thing about the "Girl, I Guess" guide is the personal nature of it. It's not just a bullet list of talking points, it's a painfully detailed walk through a person's thought process, messy but open, and fully footnoted! The absolute worst thing about " " " etc etc

I, a middle-aged man, just about two minutes ago realized painstaking is pains-taking, like "taking pains to do something," not pain-staking, like... "staking pain" I guess?

Okay, now that he's managed to destroy a great metropolitan newspaper can we finally admit Bezos is Lex Luthor?

I like that curling was the very first event. They have their priorities in order. Except for, like, supplying power.

Someone said Kid Rock is just a trashier name for Epstein Island, and now I can't think of it any other way.

Fitzgerald's Nighclub in Berwyn saying what we're all thinking.

Trying my hand at a meme.

I wonder if we need separate Blueskys for news and "Hey look at this weird fish"-style posts. The leap between American atrocities and casual chitchat is giving me whiplash.

"We cannot allow colleagues to be subjected to spurious and unwarranted arrest for committing acts of journalism." @blockclubchi.bsky.social is proud to join newsrooms across the country in condemning the arrests of journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon.

Roses are red, The lovelorn are Venus's...

He was found not guilty, so they are deporting him. ICE is made of venal, petty and truly broken people. A broken, venal, petty monster is still a monster.

Before Herb Kent “The Cool Gent,” Don Cornelius and so many others, there was Jack L. Cooper, who pioneered a Black radio empire in Chicago.

I'm just a poor, anonymous, behatted fish, but whoever wrote this new article for the Vintage Tribune is probably really cool and quite handsome. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/01/v...

RIP Catherine O'Hara. SCTV, Beetlejuice, Home Alone, Nightmare Before Christmas, all the Christopher Guest movies, Schitt's Creek - she literally could not go a decade without making at least one comedy classic.

I am looking forward to ignoring David Brooks in an entirely different publication.

My dearest, I write to you with heavy heart. We have suffered huge losses across the theater. There have been multiple whistlings and Bobby was... asked to leave Shoney's! Oh my love, when will it end! The drum circle outside the Minneapolis Hilton makes it hard to hear Top Chef! War truly is hell.

I didn't know what Stephen Miller's actual job title is and it's vague enough that I have concluded his actual job basically Jafar from Aladdin