Congratulations to Belgium for their superior football skills and superior taste in early 90s Seattle music.

update, if the USMNT doesn't perform better soon, I can at least comfort myself in my new burgeoning friendship with Buck, aka Floor Dog (who is far easier to see than the screen here as the crowd balloons well beyond fire code standards)

I can see 25% of the usmnt game at the Seattle Armory rn, go sports team

I dusted off an Xbox One X and set it up for a friend's kid today. Attached a Microsoft account, downloaded patches, tweaked settings, inserted disc, downloaded more patches, hit "play." It froze. Everything was okay after a reboot, but, man, I sure worry about this side of Xbox from here on out.

do you ever feel like you might be overusing the 👀 emoji and then, as if by way of cosmic forces, you get a message that is the epitome of the 👀 emoji

I don't have the full picture, but based on what I've heard over the years - and recently - Xbox has been a bizarre combination of two diametrically opposed biz mindsets: oversized budgets and pushes, and underfunded skeleton crews. This "reset," like the others, won't fix that core imbalance.

This is the part that reads to me like "putting financial report docs into Copilot and asking how to make more money," rather than "understanding how and why Minecraft is beloved." If Xbox is in "reset" mindset, then Minecraft's player trust may be doomed. (src: @stephentotilo.bsky.social)

I'm not sure something could be more on the nose than a company's president resigning ahead of Xbox-related layoffs, and the new, immediately installed president is named Jerk as in, Jerk Gustaffson from MachineGames (Wolfenstein), who's taking over the prez role at Arkane Studios (Dishonored)

what I love most about these theories: if any of them were true, then it'd mean Trump was a total loser who couldn't wrest control of any particular snowflake whine du jour

happy dog, big stick

TIL about a putting green in Seattle on the Tangletown outskirts, near Kirkwood and 57th, on the 62 bus line. Sure, why not.

Great speech, which also speaks to the difference between an Internet (a public library you explore and converse within) and an algorithm (a store you can't enter, whose products someone peruses on your behalf, and whose speech is chosen & gamed). Friction can't be A/B tested and sold. Bravo, Alex.

the new Carly Rae Jepsen single has a transcendent Dolby Atmos mix - tasteful, impactful, cool, more grounded than the semi-gimmicky Atmos generally heard on E*MO*TION. this has been your regular "Sam obsesses over surround-sound music" update.

in these tumultuous times, at least we can always rely on the consistency of World Cup refs being as crooked and whackadoodle as the FIFA leadership who installs them

last month, I was condescended to by Ken Jennings, and now I've been reskeeted by Criterion. which means I'm suuuuuper close to a Bluesky Bingo! now all I need is a centrist Dem to unironically show their ass by QTing me, and then I win a 5% coupon off a subscription to an anti-AI podcast

July is all bangers for Criterion. Arguably lost in the lineup is Bye, Bye Love, a fantastic JPN film that went from lost to restored only a couple of years ago; I believe this is its home premiere, but even if I'm wrong, it's an entertaining, moving example of pioneering queer cinema.

pay coaches of women's sports in public schools anywhere near the salary of equivalent boys' sports coaches challenge: still incomplete, still impossible. but sure I buy that these people give a single shit about competition and fairness for women's career athletics

Guaranteed: 1) Black girls will be harassed and demanded to be tested over and over again regardless of how competitive they are. 2) Winners from public schools will be relentlessly hounded by the parents and coaches of losers at private schools, with the goal of making them quit the sport.

a point of data for the few of you who can relate: today's T-Mobile price-hike announcement affects legacy plans, including Sprint's SERO. while we SERO-ines were told our price is going up $6/mo, a T-Mo rep tells me mine is actually going DOWN ~$14/mo. they say to expect email on July 13 w/ info.

I volunteered at Mt. Baker Pride today, and I cannot find my denim jacket that I left in the volunteer booth for only about an hour. it has buttons and pins from old friends that I'd really like to get back. I sincerely doubt its taker is on Bsky, so I guess I'm just mourning here.

happy Mt. Baker Pride from Seattle's @councilmember-amr.bsky.social who asked the crowd to vote against two bigoted bills on the November ballot

hmm the weather sure seems similar to the White House UFC fight from the other week... I guess this means Trump doesn't own stock in Vanilla Ice

The pose he struck in this image was in protest of violence in the Congo & his overall tribute is a protest against imperialism. His very presence opens minds & raises important questions so I’m disappointed but not surprised that he is not welcome in the current imperial core. No doubt targeted.

we either get every state AG to sue on citizens' behalf, or we legislate the ever-living fuck out of the ways licenses are advertised, sold, and rescinded. also hi how do I run for a relevant office on this and other fronts

more of this public-space activation in Seattle, pls!! also, happy Regnbue (Nordic for "rainbow") from our Ballard neighborhood!

I wish I'd gotten a picture of a Fox News ad on a world cup pre-show broadcast with a frozen closed caption from a prior ad over Sean Hannity and Candace Owens that read, "TROLLI, EAT ME!"

...and now I'm daring seattle's skies to pour down rain

indoor footie day in Seattle

yuck. this seems like a good time to work up a Backrooms-styled film pitch, guarantee funding, and (CRUCIALLY) keep a cohesive video-production crew together to make something rad on the cheap. IF ONLY THIS TEAM WAS PREVIOUSLY OWNED BY A HOLLYWOOD STUDIO CONGLOMERATE IN NEED OF HITS *forehead smack*

four employees (three anon) are cited, but I've heard this story from at least two others. it's one of the Seattle game dev community's most open secrets: if you follow all formal HR channels at Xbox to file complaints, you're writing your own pink slip.

I'm so fucking tired of hearing that trans kids need to eat shit. That we need to let lawless bygones be bygones. That data centers get all our water and we just need to adjust to the future. That the Supreme Court is static and we just need to sit there and not have rights.

hi from the world's largest coffee carafe, touring through Seattle right now as part of a Bosnia World Cup celebration, and I gotta say, this cup wasn't shabby. I'm also never falling asleep tonight.

fyi my session of Gunsmoke (Capcom, 1985) via RetroTink 4K would be a CRIMINAL ACT if I played it overseas

Mabel would like the World Cup more if every match had a bright yellow bird to chase

Steam Machine is a fascinating device with a fascinating price, but it skips past a much bigger conversation that Valve *could* be engaging with right now. Thus, I have ~16 minutes of thoughts/analysis on Valve's possible (and seemingly delayed) future with ARM chipsets.

Supergirl meets a super girl

happy father's day to everyone who has to brush an unwilling dog's mats out today

If you publish a sentence that starts w/ "But some people online criticized [person/thing]" , you are peak unserious. Did you know abolition has been criticized by people online? Does that make it a good idea to print 4chan's thoughts in the paper of record every Juneteenth?

I finally saw Backrooms, and maybe this is an accidental connection, but it's the best film adaptation of Half-Life's narrative appeal I've ever seen

these absolute YouTube ass clowns, where in the anus is the "never suggest I talk to a text extrusion system as if it were a person" setting

yes that IS a naked man sunbathing on top of the Cal Anderson fountain today, which I believe means Seattle's hot rat summer has begun

Seattle's @punkrockfleamarket.bsky.social is the org's best yet, open today through Sunday. Phone photos can't do it justice, but the vendors, staging, and crowd flow are all great this year!

the Kurt bench is still cool to visit, you'll never convince me otherwise

we cheered when the tv showed Marshawn Lynch and booed at RFK, small victories for USA allegiance on game day

could explain the dip in momentum by a certain visiting squad roughly 90 mins after kickoff today

I'm at a pretty quiet bar for #usmnt except whole crowd booed at the sight of RFK, louder than our cheer for the first goal, Seattle stay winning

I was so happy for him that his Doom MIDI soundtrack made the Library of Congress recording registry this year. It’s an absolute classic.

okay now I just need plane tickets to Kyoto and a family

a nephew after my own heart