Trump Selling NFTs
Molly White of Web3 Is Going Just Great had the right take on Trump's "major" announcement"
Trump supporters got all excited when Trump posted on social media to tease a “major announcement”. Was he going to run for speaker of the House? Return to Twitter? Unveil a presidential running mate?As always, Trump never fails to disappoint. Such an obvious grift.His supporters were surprised — and not exactly thrilled — when the announcement turned out to be a collection of 45,000 NFTs (sorry, “digital trading cards”) featuring artwork of himself in heroic outfits and poses. The NFTs are “just” $99 apiece, and money goes to Trump, not his campaign.
Even some of his strongest supporters were nonplussed. Steve Bannon said, “I can’t do this anymore,” and opined that he should fire whoever advised him to make the collection.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Official Trailer
Here’s the trailer for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
They just nailed the tone and aesthetic with these Spider-Verse movies. The first one was the best superhero movie of all time (IMHO).
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is coming to theaters June 2023. Really looking forward to seeing this one.
Every Star Wars movie and TV show, ranked
Joshua Rivera, Pete Volk, and the Polygon Staff, writing for, you guessed it, Polygon, created a ranking of the best Star Wars movies and TV.
I thought I might not agree here, but surprisingly, it maps out pretty much the same way for me as well. Granted, I have not seen all the TV shows, but I have seen most of them.
In The Long Run, We Are All Dead
David Roth has an extended essay about Major League Baseball’s free agency.
There are three types of Major League Baseball teams where free agency is concerned. There are the ones that try to sign players, and ones that do not try to sign players, and then there are the teams that sort of try to sign players but mostly want it to be known that they were also in on a player that some other team signed. The membrane between these types is thin and highly permeable. Teams that signed players will reassess and decide to become the type of team that doesn’t, generally for reasons having to do with a plan that an executive the owner hired away from the Astros will hint at without ever really quite laying out in a legible way.
The rest is equally that much fun.
Good Stories
Seth Godin on stories and how they relate to facts.
The thing is that facts almost never get in the way of a good story.Good stories are so powerful.Because a good story feels true.
A good story resonates.
A good story is based on our feelings, long-held and hard-earned.
A good story sticks with us, regardless of the facts.
If I bring facts to rebut your story, they will fail… unless the facts I bring are the foundation for a new story, a story about doing something smart, based on evidence or simply more effective.
But facts alone have little chance in a battle with a good story.
Part of the job of making change is working to make sure a bad story doesn’t get in the way of good facts.
The Choice
The Choice is a three-minute video from Project Better Self.
Small choices become actions, actions become habits, and habits become our way of life.It is devastatingly simple, the choices we make determine how we live our life. Watching this is a great reminder.
The Game’s Afoot
Ken White, writing for The Atlantic sums up your weekend read:
The president said on Twitter that Friday’s news “totally clears the President. Thank you!” It does not. Manafort and Cohen are in trouble, and so is Trump. The special counsel’s confidence in his ability to prove Manafort a liar appears justified, which leaves Manafort facing what amounts to a life sentence without any cooperation credit. The Southern District’s brief suggests that Cohen’s dreams of probation are not likely to come true. All three briefs show the special counsel and the Southern District closing in on President Trump and his administration. They’re looking into campaign contact with Russia, campaign-finance fraud in connection with paying off an adult actress, and participation in lying to Congress. A Democratic House of Representatives, just days away, strains at the leash to help. The game’s afoot.
Ain't Talkin' 'bout Feliz Navidad
José Van Haliano - “Ain’t Talkin' ‘bout Feliz Navidad”
So good. The best mashups on the internet. That last “Yeah!” made me laugh.
Start Small
Shawn Blanc on creating habits.
When you begin a new habit and you’ve started taking action, only commit to it for 30 days or so. And then commit for another 30 days. Then commit for 90 days. Then commit for 6 months.Some good advice for me specifically in the new year as I’m embarking on a few major changes.At first it’ll be fun. But then it will be hard and mundane.
If you start out by committing to do something for the rest of your life you’ll never make it. And how many people can say they woke up at 5:00 am every day for their entire life? Seasons change, needs change, things change, you change. So your daily habits will change, too, and that’s okay.
Start with something you know you can do. And then do it again. And again. Not only is this more realistic, it also is a way to build up trust with yourself. You will feel confident deciding to get up early every day for the next six months because you already did it for 30-days in a row.
Santa visits Horizon Hobby Headquarters
I wrote this for Horizon Hobby, and I can be seen in a couple of shots.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Here’s the teaser trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure about this movie and now color me excited. My humble prediction… looks like they might be going after the Nazi Bell.
Still, Harrison Ford is 20 years older than Sean Connery, when he played Indy’s dad in The Last Crusade.
See You On The Other Side
I’m taking a sabbatical from posting on Twitter for December. I still like using and reading Twitter, but I’m not sure I want to remain there. On January 1, I’ll evaluate how I feel and what Twitter looks like in the new year.
In 2023, I’m rethinking my social media presence. I barely use Facebook and Instagram anymore. I looked at other microblogging sites, but no. Twitter is curated to work how I want it to work, but things are changing rapidly in a direction I can’t really support.
I’m not looking to replace Twitter with another microblogging platform. I honestly don’t need to do so. I have this blog where I should post my “microblogging” thoughts, photos, and other things I want to share. It just makes more sense.
So, 2023 might be the year I put my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts into cold storage. I would not delete the accounts; I’d simply delete everything on them and lock them down.
Now I have a month to decide.
Christine McVie, Hitmaker for Fleetwood Mac, Is Dead at 79
Christine McVie has sadly passed away.
She leaves a legacy of amazing songs. I love so much of her writing, but “Songbird” is my favorite Fleetwood Mac song of all time.
The Mystery of the Vanishing Blockbuster
Jamie Lauren Keiles, writing for The New York Times, has a piece on Avatar.
A franchise is an ecosystem oriented toward an infinite horizon, in which a common set of characters and stories are constantly refreshed and reworked across platforms.
The whole piece is filled with interesting ideas. The concept of franchise IP is fascinating.
I was not very enamored with Avatar when it came out, and I don’t really care about the sequels. I’m sure they will not be flops, but are people really excited to revisit Pocahontas with giant-size Smurf people?
Lux Æterna
Metallica’s official music video for “Lux Æterna,” from the album 72 Seasons available April 14th, 2023.
I’m not a massive Metallica fan, but the fact that they just dropped this out of nowhere makes it that much sweeter. It’s the Best Christmas carol I’ve heard this season.
For my money, when a new song drops and immediately there are reaction videos (Justin Harkness Rides Again and Rick Beato), you have absolutely made it.
The Liquid Death Story
I love this marketing masterclass video that CNBC has put together.
Liquid Death founder and CEO Mike Cessario spent years figuring out how to make water cool. Now his brand is valued at $700 million. After attending the 2009 Warped Tour, Cessario realized bottled water lacked irreverent marketing like that of energy drinks. With about $1,500, he created a commercial before he had an actual can of water. It went viral and investors saw the potential. Liquid Death has raised $195 million and is on track to reach $130 million in sales by the end of 2022.
I never knew any of this.
The Lovable Douche
Anne Victoria Clark, writing for Vulture, has a great profile of AEW wrestler, Maxwell Jacob Friedman (a.k.a. MJF).
In the world of professional wrestling, shoot is a term for a performer going off script — usually in a very bad way. When CM Punk, star of three-year-old wrestling promotion AEW, decided to start hurling insults at AEW management during a press conference in September and followed it up with a very real locker-room altercation, it was a shoot — one that would get Punk indefinitely suspended and his AEW World Championship title vacated. This kicked off a tournament to crown a new face of the promotion, during which one of the company’s biggest villains, Maxwell Jacob Friedman (a.k.a. MJF) has emerged as its biggest hero.
Friedman’s persona in the ring is, to put it bluntly, that of an asshole. He wears a Burberry scarf all the time. His tag line is “I’m better than you, and you know it.” He calls people “poors.” He constantly refers to himself as a “generational talent” and “the devil” (his fans are “devil worshippers”). And perhaps worst of all, he’s proudly from Long Island. Parents bring their children to gleefully be insulted by him, fans wait in line for him to scowl in photos and call them names, and people deliberately troll him and bring him homemade gifts to ruin. (In one video, after he drops a fan’s autograph sheet and storms off, the fan yells out, “That’s better than an autograph, bro. You’re the man!”)
I was lucky enough to have met MJF when he was out of character and I found him to be a delightful, smart, and charismatic individual. He was very high on AEW and what the company could create.
Detonation by Design
Ian Douglass, writing for The Ringer, has a great profile on Tony Khan and AEW.
I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Khan several years ago, right when AEW was just getting started. He was as enthusiastic and excited then as he is now.
Back to the Moon
Writing for The Atlantic, Marina Koren wonders where the fanfare has gone for the first uncrewed trip to the moon.
She has a point, but I’m happy we are returning to the moon. I think it’s all pretty exciting and I’m really looking forward to the crewed missions.
Maybe I’ll get that For All Mankind moonbase in my lifetime.