Some Gun Deaths
I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.
Give A Little Bit
So this happened –
University of Illinois alumnus Larry Gies has made a $100 million gift to the Illinois Division of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA). The commitment is the largest gift in DIA history and represents one of the largest single gifts ever received by a college athletics program.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the big time. I believe this $100 million gift by Larry Gies is FIVE TIMES the previous highest ever single donation to Illinois Athletics.
Marketing is...
At its best, marketing is a transfer of enthusiasm.
When you’re truly pumped about what you’re doing, when you’re truly driven by the vision, when you absolutely must make something that you need and want, your enthusiasm leaves a mark. It’s a brand. Not the noun, but the verb.
At its worst, marketing is a transfer of everything else. Your worst fears, your biggest insecurities, the charades you play. False enthusiasm on display, empty promises, and sloganeering no one believes. It quickly makes you a liar.
Just like you can’t not communicate, you can’t not market. Everything is marketing.
The best, and the worst, is always on display, like it or not. You can’t hide from your own presence, however it shows up. Marketing casts, like a shadow casts. Attached to every move.
Think about what someone else is doing that you’re enthused about. Where did that come from? What transferred it?
Of course many things that are great simply work. Nothing more, nothing less. No stories, no excitement, just the snick of a perfect fit. But somewhere down the chain, someone cared enough to make that thing right. And that’s a transfer too.
The Price
Every time I see Trump using his power as president to punish people I think of the time Obama humiliated him at the White House Correspondents Dinner. When I saw it the first time I knew it was trouble. When you’re on top you simply don’t do what he did. It always comes back to bite you in the ass. Obama had every right to be pissed about the birther stuff. But when you’re number one, you can’t do what he did. The president has to be above it. Self-indulgence. Not worth the price we’re all paying.
Time
Frank Chimero –
I asked AI what we do with time, and it came back with words that were commercial and violent. We spend time, save time, take time, and make it; manage, track, and save it; we kill time, we pass it, we waste it, borrow, and steal it. We abuse time and it beats us back up, either in retribution or self-defense. It’s a zero-sum perspective of the material of our lives; it makes us prisoners to our own utility.
The AI said nothing about love, loyalty, or enthusiasm. When you wrap those up, it becomes clear that the best thing to do with time is to devote it. That is how you get time on your side. When you are working with time instead of against it, every bit matters, it all counts, even the fallow times, the empty times, the time off the path.
Surfin’ Safari
I’m playing with Safari this morning. I have no idea why. It’s too slow. I don’t like how it manages tabs. Soooo, back to Chrome. Seriously… that lasted like an hour before I ran back to Chrome.
I wonder if there are tweaks or extensions I should be using to make Chrome a bit zippier?
Machines Will Never Learn To Make Mistakes Like Me
I recently discovered a new folk artist named Will Varley. I heard the track “Machines Will Never Learn To Make Mistakes Like Me,” and thought it was great. Listening to the whole album now.
What a strong and strange message.
Worked hard, got lucky
How does anyone achieve something big? The answer is always, “They worked hard and got lucky.”
Most people emphasize how hard they worked to accomplish something. Others looking at them think they got lucky. It’s never one or the other. It’s both/and. Lots of people work hard and never get lucky. Some people get lucky but don’t put in the work. Those are the folks you don’t hear about.
When you get sucked into our collective fascination with the heroes, champions, geniuses, and creators who have achieved a level of success, don’t forget both the hard work and good luck involved.
I'm Sorry...This New Artist Completely Sucks
Rick Beato breaks down the music of Eli Mercer and explains why it lacks cultural and artistic value. The twist, of course, is that Eli Mercer is entirely an AI/LLM-manufactured artist that Rick has created.
Jack White – Archbishop Harold Holmes (Official Video)
The video for Jack White’s “Archbishop Harold Holmes” is literally crazy. Of course, getting John C Reilly is genius. When I heard the No Name album, this was my favorite track. The guitar tone just grabs you by the collar and shakes you into a frenzy.
Watching this video, I suddenly realized that Jack White’s exaggerated “s” sounds like a snake and is totally on purpose. Subtle.
All-Star Game
I watched the All-Star Game, and aside from a great catch early in the game and some of the players mic’d up, I found it somewhat dull. Initially, I was upset that there wasn’t any All-Star swag for the players. I am an advocate for players wearing their uniforms, but I wanted special caps. I didn’t think they were new, but a closer inspection revealed they were special for the game with different bills and stars.
I have never been really into the ASG, to be honest. At least since the American League started winning almost every year. Whenever that was, I tuned out of watching, and it was fine. I flipped it on last night and was entertained for a bit. Super happy for Brendon Donovan for getting a couple of base hits in the game.
They started the game with the Automated Ball-Strike system, which I had hoped would just be implemented for the entire game. Unfortunately, it was just there as a challenge tool, which is fucking stupid. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he plans to introduce a proposal for implementing ABS as early as next season, but I only agree if it actually calls balls and strikes and not as some challenge system. Just have it do its job. We’d have way less griping about calls from managers and home plate umps. It would also call a lot more strikes and speed up the game.
Understandably curious to see what the Cardinals do at the trade deadline.
Apparently, there was a swing-off at the end? I went to bed.
Foggy
It was incredibly foggy this morning. Mondays are also a bit foggy for me. I don’t always remember where I left off on Friday. I have a list and know my jobs and projects, but getting into work and figuring everything out at the start of the day takes some time.
And coffee. I can’t forget the coffee.
Brake Lights
This past weekend, Brynne put new brake light bulbs in my car. Over the last week or so, both bulbs had burnt out, and I just knew I was going to get pulled over. I’ve now changed the bulbs in my brake lights more times than I’ve owned cars.
Unfortunately, it is a difficult chore unless you have tiny hands. Brynne is able to swiftly get the bad bulbs out and replace them with the new ones. The hard part is getting the whole assembly back in. She actually climbed into the trunk to do it. There doesn’t seem to be an easier way. I thanked her a lot for doing the labor.
I purchased Long Life brake lightbulbs this time, so hopefully I won’t have to ask Brynne to do this again anytime soon.
Riding the Storm Out
There’s some weird shit on YouTube, and I’m here for it.
I’m obsessed with these three-hour storm videos on the Silent Field channel. I like how this is real, not produced in a studio. It makes all the difference, as I can almost always notice the loop. The six-hour one I started today is perfect.
Goodbye, Twitter
Elon Musk first bought the site in 2022. It’s now July 2025, and I just don’t know how else to ask this but: what will it take to get you off Twitter? Because the third thing I see, despite all the fascists and slopsters and antisemitic artificial intelligence, despite the cliff-like drop-off in engagement metrics, is people I know still going through the motions and using the site like it was 2017.
I refuse to believe there is anything you are getting there, whether it be social or professional, that is worth the constant exposure to and indirect support of an outwardly fascist social media platform. Like, read the paragraph above this one back to yourself, and tell me honestly if it’s worth all of that just so you can continue to try to post some anime memes or catch some sports highlights or talk to the other three people you’re still talking to who haven’t deleted their account or moved to Bluesky because “I’m just tired of making new social media accounts, man”.
He’s not wrong.
I haven’t posted in a couple of years now. I go there out of habit. I really, really shouldn’t.
I loved Tweetbot. It made the platform so much better. Post-Musk-Takeover, I’ve had to use the official Twitter account and I hate it. I hate it so much, I pretty much never use it. In the meantime, I’m over at Bluesky and waiting desperately for the upcoming Bluesky Client for iOS/iPadOS & Mac from the makers of Tweetbot called Phoenix.
Today, I spent more time than I should have trying to do some migrating to Bluesky. Most, but not all, of the accounts I followed on Twitter have migrated over. There’s never been a better time to simply delete Twitter from my phone, my computer, and my life.
So here I go. Buh bye Twitter.
That Kind of Writing
Jim Shooter is gone. Cancer.
He was the first writer I ever recognized by name. As a kid flipping through my Dad’s old Silver Age comics, it was his stories that stuck with me. Even then, something about his voice on the page just landed.
He was just 13 when he sent in stories for the Legion of Super-Heroes at DC Comics. At 14, he wrote the story in which Ferro Lad died – the first “real” death of a Legionnaire (although Lightning Lad had been believed dead for a while before) – and introduced the Fatal Five.
Looking back, I think reading his stories helped me understand the role of the writer. Comics are known predominantly as a medium for artists, but if the story is crap, it ultimately doesn’t really matter how good the art is. A writer has to collaborate with the penciller to make magic.
I always found that collaboration invigorating. When I was making Slip Kid, I loved the interaction I had with my penciller.
Maybe someday I can get back to that kind of writing. But first… I need a story to tell.
The Summer of Second Chances
There’s something about July that suggests possibility. Maybe it’s the heat, the long days, or the way the world seems to slow down just enough to notice the cracks in our routines. For years, I’ve thought of summer as a time to reset, to try again at the things I’ve let slip—unread books, unwatched movies, neglected friendships, and this blog. The myth of the “second chance” is powerful, and yet, as I get older, I realize how rarely we grant it to ourselves.
Yesterday I blew up the blog. I deleted every post. I still have everything as Markdown files, so I didn’t lose anything. Still, it’s all gone.
Time for a new beginning.
Second chances aren’t about erasing the past; they’re about carrying it forward, learning from it, and daring to hope. The world doesn’t always offer do-overs, but sometimes, in the quiet of a summer evening, we can offer them to ourselves.
The world is crazy. Get the popcorn.