In my father-in-law's workshop he writes the year he bought machines in black sharpie right on them (lathe, drill press, etc.) At some point he carried the practice over to his home, and frankly it rocks to know that his Bose CD player is from 1998 or his toaster is from 2004. Good shit.

Wrote about prediction markets and gambling for @thenation.com Yes, obvious moral hazard and arena for fraud, but also, turning every second of life a betting asset is a gross mutation of Attention-Capture Economy. (Quoted @chrislhayes.bsky.social twice, duh) www.thenation.com/article/soci...

by far the biggest difference between my own childhood and my 6-year-old daughter’s is the status and cultural footprint of the axolotl

The Washington State cheese can + box of triscuits is also one of the coolest things to bring to a party. Better than a bottle of wine by a factor of 10.

I like that criterion channel‘s collections will be, like, ”Italian pulp noir, 1962-67” or “the hottest day of the year” and then they’ll throw in one that’s just “we have five movies right now with Ben Whishaw in them 😏”

This is a lovely interview with Richard Maltby. I cannot believe that he has been writing the cryptic crosswords for @harpers.bsky.social for FIFTY years. They are one of the highlights of my month going back for two decades now, a world unto themselves on the back page: harpers.org/2026/01/gene...

They become automatically less dangerous to society by being civilians that don't have police unions protecting their indiscreet firearm use? Also I'm not a cop but I've been laid off 3 times in 6 years and am doing fine so like, they can deal.

The worst value in all of dining is a menu cocktail at a fancy restaurant, where some bar manager has added, like, allspice dram to a classic cocktail, making it worse, and the bartender has only actually made the drink a couple dozen times. Just get a Negroni!

Me kicking it with my daughter in the heated kids' pool at the Y

if I woke up a billionaire, I'd simply start an A24 or Blumhouse type production/distro company and run it like the only goal we have to make cool shit and break even. give every cool indie artist the biggest budget they've ever had, pay your employees a good wage, pocket $0, become a hero to all

Hi, I’m a seasonal worker at “Gimbal’s“ in New York City, and I am very willing to accept that a man I’ve never seen before, wearing an elf costume, is a coworker in my department. My manager does not know this man’s name but also broadly assumes he works here. We are the most credulous people alive

it's such weak shit to cast about for blame in this way; part of "being a writer" in quotes is always blaming yourself for your near-misses and complete failures. it's your *duty* to be like, "i had the SAME idea as the tv show GLOW YEARS ago" and be weird about it while people's eyes glaze over

Learned a few years back that I'm bizarrely good at Etch-a-Sketch and the most common response is asking how I might monetize it. Disregarding that you cannot sell one without considerable effort (taking the thing apart, magnets, etc), it's so wonderful to only be able to do a thing for its own sake

my guys

Immediately after enjoying ROOFMAN, which is terrific, my wife and I threw on the first act of PLACE BEYOND THE PINES, and I'm here to say (probably uncontroversially) that I didn't recall Ben Mendelsohn's performance hitting so hard but MY GOD does he steal the show

This is a good piece; it’s frustrating that my cited post resonates beyond the bubble of people who like my work & yet that resonance will not, cannot, move the tech people actively making things worse. Not one of them cares. Their vision of the future is “we make more money.”

For @thenation.com I wrote about the hideous AI Slop advert that Mickey D's had to pull, and why the collective immune response is the only normal and good reaction to slop (also got to call Jimmy Fallon "feckless" and quote a @themountaingoats.bsky.social post) www.thenation.com/article/soci...

TIFU by entering my salary into an inflation calculator

thanksgiving take #2 is that Knives Out movies should drop on streaming for thanksgiving, not christmas, this goes against all my beliefs in theater supremacy etc, but I just think it would be lovely to put Wake Up Dead Man on tomorrow night!

my yearly thanksgiving take is "i wanna be able to see the ridges from the can" cranberry sauce people are annoying. making your own is objectively better! get that "we used to drink from the hose" shit outta here.

there’s no way Trump knows the price of milk but there’s also no way David Brooks knows the price of milk and tbh I’m not sure I would pass a milk price quiz myself

The US state closest to Africa is Maine

Just thinking about how Trump called himself the "father of IVF" while campaigning. The father of IVF!

My 6yo daughter is having a friend sleep over tonight, is It finally time to introduce these kids to TENET (2020)?

The best revenge is the simplest. Avenge your teammate for the previous HBP by hitting the ball into the pitcher.

I wrote about the oyster farmer, kept a 41-year streak alive of not "well actually"-ing nazi iconography, and Chris Lehmann at @thenation.com threw out the best headline I'll ever be attached to www.thenation.com/article/poli...

If you have friends who have a baby, just drop off food. Don’t ask them what they need, just find out that they are home, and drop off a lasagna or a big soup or whatever you know they like. Take the mental energy of arranging your visit off the table and just hand off a meal.

Annual post to mark the start of old-man pickup basketball: there’a nothing better than still having your touch

This costume is the formerly hipster dad bat signal, I’m casting about for my people. Excited to meet 3-7 Halloween Bobs next Friday out with our kids trick or treating.

me running errands in my Maine town today and I see Platner yard signs

Even when it’s used for everyday/personal projects, GenAI “art” just plain stinks. why do the skeletons have flesh arms?

“Earn 3% back in bitcoin on every slice 🍕”

for the rest of my life now I'm going to say I've had "a few small beers" whenever I've had a few small beers

Realized a life goal I didn't know I had, by getting the words "Glup Shitto" into a piece. Wrote about the $1000 LEGO Death Star! www.gq.com/story/why-le...

Remembering Some Guys: Movies

Measles looking at the FL congressional map like it's a battle plan

one of the only kinda-good things to happen as a result of the 2008 financial crisis is that a half-generation of college graduates (elder millennials) got to/had to eat shit in the service industry, at least for a little bit. it's maybe the only kind of shit-eating that actually builds character

i don't wish to be famous but i do wish i had a profile large enough to be asked to go talk on mic about Eddington for 45-75 minutes

hunter biden showing up on god's internet doing the arsenio whoop for immigrants and a thought experiment where he is prez and invades el salvador while calling the pod saves guys coattail-riding losers vs rahm emmanuel on megyn fucking kelly butt-fumbling the answer to "are trans people real"

Alien sequel: now there are hundreds of them Terminator sequel: now there's just a second one and he can run and do impressions

I’m the guy who invented telling your wife to calm down when she’s angry. It works for me every time, you’re obviously just not doing it right.

Oh, you're too good to talk about the weather? You're too good to talk about the massive waves of diffusing atoms that permeate our surroundings and define the rhythms of our lives? Are you some sort of asshole?

I love Luthen’s ISB informant Lonni, who always looks like he’s about to shit himself from fear. I wonder who the mole could be, is it the 12 guys who look like Palpatine, the 10 chiseled-jaw Nazis, or perhaps it’s the mustached redhead with a sweaty forehead and eyes darting like a nervous bird?

In all fairness, Pete Rose *did* serve the lifetime ban

MY mission should I choose to accept is is to not give a biplane wing walking fuck what the reviews say, Tom's earned my ass in the seat and I will clap like a seal when he does the runs and jumps

daughter told me that she heard “a bunch of women went to space” and when I told her one of those women was Katy Perry, her jaw quote literally dropped. The only person this stunt worked on was a six year old, for whom “Katy Perry in space” was the coolest thing she’d ever heard. Lol.

Tariff roll-over on the anniversary of Confederate surrender?