Granted I live in a weird place—Harvard and MIT kids don’t have normal age-appropriate part time jobs—but the bar staffing pipeline seems so dry. I don’t know if the youth have stopped going to bars to the extent some claim, but they do seem to have stopped working competently in them.

Raising kids seems very awesome and gratifying. Alternatively, my buddy rented the AmVets and hired southern New England’s premier AC/DC tribute band to play his 50th birthday. Lotta joyful life paths out there!

A real lobster roll doesn't always need an Instagramable claw sticking out of it. Gimme that knuckle meat.

Can’t Maine just make this Noah Kahan kid be senator? He seems very popular and reasonable enough.

The oyster nazi divide was never "saw it coming" vs "didn't." Everyone who cared enough to consider it knew some shit like this was coming; the divide was and remains "gives a shit" vs "doesn't."

Sucks, but we were never going to beat Cabo Verde in the final anyway.

If we win we get to call ours lambic, too

It's a shame we didn't host the World Cup last time he was president, because now that he's got a taste for it I can see the big guy happily settling into a stint as the most corrupt FIFA head ever instead of running again.

Wait, they let even the England dudes walk out with otherwise unaccompanied minors?!

anyone who thinks I need a window into how or why FIFA overturned Balogun's suspension has greatly underestimated my spite and moral flexibility. things went right and we've got some Belgians to destroy, no further questions your honor

Finally fulfilling my destiny as a bring a koozie to the bar guy.

Googling “can Michelle Wu subpoena Brad Stevens”

Celtics fans are pissed because this is a bad trade by any measure, but also we’re disinclined to hear about “analytics over eye test and counting stats” because that got us a lot of short, slow baseball guys these past couple years.

“New Bruce Hornsby’s pretty good,” he told the cat, youthfully.

I imagine a lot of cis girls will drop out of sports in states with crotch-check laws not out of solidarity or specific personal fear but also just “wait, what? That’s fucked, no” vibe rejection.

Every local newsletter is always about traffic, fascinating, and I wonder how pissed readers with real jobs get around the hot dog holidays when they quote some traffic expert about how you should head to your long-weekend beach house on goddamn Monday.

This month's exclusive is up for patrons!

Never thought I’d see Grayson Allen traded for someone *way, way* more unlikeable.

One of the neighborhood eccentrics is in the mental joint against her will (probably medically reasonable to keep her) and fuckin Emily has of course made it our problem to help a friend in need. What if I’d rather have a couple beers and read my book, anyone think of that?

Mandatory sick day for any Masshole with love for their neighbors

These guys, some with extremely tasteful first names, who seem good overall but post way too much and too manically: is that drugs or just weird wiring or what?

Song of the summer is Allagash Blueberry Ale with a small squirt of gin.

Great couple days in Portland but didn’t love that everyone’s hot there now. You shouldn’t need to be hot to have an 11am beer at the Thirsty Pig.

They've been here nearly a week and I still haven't heard a single outlying or even b.s. contrarian report about the Scots being anything less than entirely delightful at all times.

Gladwell must be furious

The louder parts of my family tree are the Irish (imagine that) so I forget I’m also 1/4 Russian (never met the guy) and 1/4 possibly Scottish (hell yeah, I guess?!). I recoil from “where your people from?” talk but it might be time to declare myself “basically Scottish.”

Tried to impress Scottish guys by ordering Tennent’s, instead they’re breaking my balls for paying $9.

Curious to see how the Bones(aw) Brigade responds to this Uruguayan dissent.

First time trying the Tartan Army rations. Not bad!

If you wore a Jalen Brunson jersey at any point in the last month you never get to complain when a guy lies about being 6'2" ever again. That's the deceit of a champion now.

Watching outside next to a bunch of friendly Dominican dudes, one says “Scotland got no culture, far as I know,” and another answers “Drinkin!” and the rest give disapproving “mmmmHMMMs.” They’re all at least 7 Coronas deep. I love my neighborhood.

Whole gangs of kilt-wearing beauties walking around with morning beers 11 hours before kickoff. Haiti/Scotland watch party at the park next door shaping up to be the rowdiest night imaginable (appreciatively and trepidatiously).

Man, is this an unpleasant vibe. Dude, people are trying to support you despite you being a documented liar, cheater, and eager mercenary who has never held any job relevant to being a US Senator. Maybe don't lead with how much everyone in DC thinks you are unqualified

I’m less confident than the median guy on here re crowd reaction at MSG tonight. Folks who buy 4 and 5 figure sports tickets might not like the taste of this particular boot, but they might reflexively understand it as the cost of doing their kind of business.

My most shameful fantasy is I want to buy a whole day’s worth of Keno at South Station at 5am, take the train to NYC, mess around for the day, and manually check the results on the red-eye back home.

Last night Em asked a bartender how he thought the World Cup games here would go. Being a filthy American she meant $; being a right-minded Brazilian he talked about actual soccer. She was duly shamed and might finally go full commie.

Wemby should start wearing goggles. They would look cool on him.

This is very good and I like that it brings up the secondary issue of how do these freaks think people behave in bars?

This implies that Platzo has a well established record of gaining yards on the oligarchs. Do one fucking thing well once before you ask us to balance out your sins, dickhead!

I look forward to Moulton/Markey coming down to whether the Red Sox should trade medium-high on Jarren Duran.

Wait wait wait, Platner is a creep who disrespects his wife? The slur guy? The mercenary? The guy who loved doing imperialist violence? Are you sure? The guy who pretends to be a working class common joe whose excuse for his nazi tattoo was that he's very stupid? That guy? No. Don't buy it.

The spelling bee is whack optimized travel sports for dorks. Dorks deserve whack optimized sports wins as much as the next guy, I don’t hate it, but let’s relax a bit.

I’m sure this is great but have they considered instead reopening the fucking libraries??

Em and I do pretty decent (thanks, Em) but our financial planning is based exclusively on worst cases, because it feels insane to start a serious adult sentence with “OK, assuming I keep this good job in this relatively stable industry, in 20 years we’ll have …”

Every single one of these stories starts with “Love it or hate it,” it’s correct to be reflexively defensive about your bullshit takes but maybe instead try not having bullshit takes

Need a midlevel Marriott search function for “beers in the tampon and hot pockets nook or nah no beers”

I love a pedestrian party night in Worcester for so many reasons but “everyone has warrants so they stop at crosswalks” is way up there.

My taste buds have lost track of Miller Lite because it’s never the cheapest beer at bars near me (we have Narragansett for that) and I can’t imagine another use case. Respectfully!

Yesterday I met a 6th grade public school teacher who makes $130k; it’s dual language in a rich town, and I know plenty of people who make more to do dumb jobs, but still … better than I was aware.

I’m not too opposed to cars philosophically—most people need them and I wish that weren’t the case but here we are. But it sucks that we give like 1/3 of the city over to car storage and yet it stills seems like a hassle for drivers, such a shitty return for everyone.