On Undecided Voters: “To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

― David Sedaris

Warren Ellis –

Nights drawing in. Dark already. A damp warmth: damp already, damp like those days in March and April when it feels like winter has gone on too long.

Three squares of very dark chocolate and a glass of Sauternes as the light leaves.

Will Leitch in New York Magazine –

It’s natural to focus on successful teams: Winning is, after all, the point of every game, the reason we have scoreboards in the first place. But we remember the truly great teams far more than we remember the regular everyday champions: to be the best at something will make you immortal. It thus stands to reason that being the best at losing is also eternal. Do you know who won the World Series in 1962? Do you even care? The only thing that has lasted from that year is the horribleness of the Mets. Besides being more memorable, losing is more relatable and far more familiar than winning. A finite few of us will ever understand what it’s like to be revered, to have tens of thousands of people chanting our name. But doing our best and falling short? Of being bested by a superior? Things not working out? We all know that feeling.”

I feel for the fans. The Cardinals were not much better.

Illini Football.

Being talked about.

Patrick Rhone –

One of my favorite things is walking around my neighborhood. Especially with my wife. We live in such a lovely place with beautiful homes and wonderful neighbors. All the shops and restaurants are great too. Gratitude overload every time.

I’m lucky enough to have that same feeling. My wife and I walk around our neighborhood in the mornings, and I’m instantly grateful that we live where we live.

Marvel Studios has released the latest teaser trailer for the upcoming Thunderbolts*. It’s practically a full trailer.

The big tease is Bob, who everyone who knows comics realizes is Sentry. I’m looking forward to seeing the Void.

Seth Godin –

A poignant definition of civilization is all the conveniences, courtesies, standards, insulation and tools that we hardly notice now but that we would miss if they were gone.

Will Leitch, writing at his Medium account, outlines his version of civic engagement.

There is something charming, even endearing, to me about a political lawn sign. In an age where everyone seems to be shouting for your attention all the time, a political lawn sign just sits there, lo-fi and eternal, like a scrawl on a cave. I know there are people — you may well be one of these people — who are irritated by political lawn signs, who are already overwhelmed and exhausted by politics and the coming election, who have taken great pains to avoid it and thus who don’t appreciate having to be confronted by it constantly when they’re just trying to drive home from work. I am empathetic to this. Remember, I live in a swing state, which means I currently can’t watch a 20-second Illini football highlight without having to hear about the apparently infinite number of serial killers Kamala Harris has let out of prison or how J.D. Vance is hiding a tattoo of the complete Project 2025 platform under his beard. It’s relentless. I get wanting to have a few minutes away.

But the difference between firing off angry missives on social media and putting up a sign on your front lawn encouraging people to vote for your candidate of choice strikes me as vast. To stake your claim in front of your home, where you live, isn’t tossing more verbiage onto the endless heap like posting on social media is; it’s actively participating in the public square. It is putting your money where your mouth is, or, more accurately, it’s understanding that the political is personal — that you and the people who live in your community are together. Perhaps the candidate whose sign is on my lawn will win, or perhaps the candidate whose sign is on your lawn will. But whatever happens will affect both of us, as humans, as citizens, as neighbors. We have grown to isolate ourselves so much, to stay in our silos, to engage only with those who agree with us, to talk only to people who tell us what we want to hear. To put a sign in front of your house — the place where you sleep, and eat, and do laundry, and all those mundane essentials that accumulate to make up a life — that says “this is what we stand for, we would hope you will consider standing for it too” isn’t cynical propagandizing, or civic pollution. It’s an attempt to reach out. It’s an aim to connect.

I have never had a lawn sign in my yard. This year, I bought a Harris-Walz sign for my front yard. As of this writing, it has not arrived yet, but it was because of Will’s writing that I felt the need to support the campaign publicly.

#WeWillWin

Cards Against Humanity is suing Elon Musk for 15 million dollars.

Why do we need to do this? Even if Musk un-fucks our land, that doesn’t un-fuck the damage he’s done to our reputation. 150,000 people gave us their hard-earned money, and in exchange we vowed to protect this land from racist billionaires and their dumb vanity projects. They trusted us because:

• When we say we’re sending people a box of bullshit, we send people a box of actual bull feces.
• When we say we’re donating webstore profits from forced-birth states to fund abortion access, we donate half a million dollars of red-state cash to the National Network of Abortion Funds.
• And when we say we’re digging a tremendous hole in the ground, we don’t walk away from our promises⸺we dig a big fucking hole in the ground.

Our longstanding reputation as a company that makes outrageous promises and actually keeps them is on the line! We promised we’d use every legal tool at our disposal to protect this land from bullies like Trump and Musk (who’s spending millions to get Trump elected and also wants to build the stupid wall). If we don’t take action now, why would anyone ever trust us again?

Los Angeles Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani entered last night’s game in Miami with 49 stolen bases and 48 home runs for the season. Only five other players in MLB history have ever hit 40 home runs and stolen 40 bases in a season. No player had ever achieved a 50-50 season.

On September 19, 2024, Shohei Ohtani made history.

Ohtani went 6-for-6, hitting 3 homers, stealing 2 bases, and knocking in 10 RBIs — thus breaking 50 in both categories in the same game.

He had arguably the greatest day in baseball history.

Bill McClintock’s latest mashup is titled “You Make Me Feel Like Stayin' a Rocket Queen." It combines the Guns N' Roses song “Rocket Queen” with “Stayin' Alive” by the Bee Gees and “You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'” by Leo Sayer.

Of course, it’s magic.

Writing in AlterNet, Carl Gibson has an incredible story about a data scientist who has successfully predicted the last few elections.

Data scientist Thomas Miller of Northwestern University correctly predicted the 2020 Electoral College map, with the exception of Georgia. He also accurately forecasted Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, defeating then-incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

Now, he’s anticipating that Vice President Kamala Harris will not only defeat former President Donald Trump in November, but will do so by a significant margin. Fortune reported that Miller is predicting that Harris' electoral map may resemble the 1964 map in which President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) with a whopping 486 electoral votes, or President Bill Clinton’s 1996 victory over Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas), in which he secured 379 electoral votes.

“It’s gone from a drastic landslide in Trump’s direction to a drastic landslide for Harris,” Miller said of his forecasting model.

Sounds good to me.

J.P. Hill, writing at Viva El Birdos, has a decent breakdown of how he thinks the St. Louis Cardinals should handle the upcoming off-season.

Entering 2025, the Cardinals should not bother merely tweaking or retooling their roster as they have done in recent seasons. It’s not working. They also don’t need to start tanking or hold a firesale and gut their roster. That’s an unnecessarily extreme course of action.

The Cardinals should rebuild. They should commit to making some significant and painful changes to their roster both to clear salary and roster space and to better position the MLB team and the farm system for the future. Yes, the approach that I am suggesting will almost certainly impact their ability to contend in 2025. But doing this now will help prepare their roster for a return to contention in 2026 or, more likely, 2027.

I like a lot of what he has here.

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This made me laugh so hard.

Over 40 years ago today, KISS had a special on MTV where they appeared for the first time without makeup. I did not see it live.

However, I did leave my high school at lunch (there was an open campus back then) to go to the local record store a few days later, buy the album Lick It Up, and see the photo on the cover. I’m sure that was the first time I’d seen the band sans makeup.

The video for the song “Lick it Up” received decent play on MTV, and I remember seeing it several times during normal viewing.

It’s strange now to think about how that event was such a pivotal part of my high school years.

Austin Kleon –

Your word of the week is “verbify.”

Nicholas Bate –

1. Your career. What are you doing this week to make it sustainable, enjoyable, and still viable 2 years from now?

2. Your wellness. How much are you simply moving? What's the quality of your nutrition? Sleeping sufficient? Taking some time out?

3. Your finances. A focus on quality of life? Or an addiction to stuff?

4. Your relationships. Quality vs. quantity?

5. Your fun. Not deferred. Combined with 1. Maximised because of 2. Not driven by 3. Supported by 4.

6. Your contribution. Giving back to stay grounded.

7. Set your direction before someone else does.

“To all the guys out there, here’s my life hack. Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them and you’ll do just fine.” — Tim Walz

He’s absolutely correct.

World Liberty Financial is the name the Trump family has given to an obvious cryptocurrency scam. Trump himself doesn’t have any idea how it works. Questions have arisen about what Trump is even doing with his new crypto company.

Whatever you do, don’t invest any real money into this “endeavor” and learn more about cryptocurrency and the scams associated with it. Seriously, you will lose all your money.

As they say in that world, NGMI.