I may be late to the party on this, but Robin Sloan’s Moonbound is a terrific read. It’s like he took several shelves of adventurous genres at a bookstore and whisked them into a cauldron to brew a remixed elixir of everything we love about high-spirited, whimsical, fantastical fiction.
Target’s timing for refocusing its food supply chains for in-house/private label nicely corresponds with consumer spending shifts (frozen foods) and its new ‘chef series’ partnership via the Good & Gather brand, kicking off first with Minneapolis' own Ann Kim (of Young Joni).
While a tad dramatic, it’s wonderful seeing a mainstream piece on the metroidvania sub-genre, one that thrives in the corners of the modern gaming era. By far the most impressionable type of game growing up (and my favorite), it was perfected by masterworks Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night.
False spring came early to the midwest. Had to dig quite a trench out of this heavy, semi-wet hazard in the morning. Also nice to see Noah Kolina, photographer up in Lumberland, NY, saw a similar “ice storm”.
The precursor to capitalism’s demise may have just begun…
A moviegoer from Bangalore became so vexed by the trailer marathon to which he was subjected that he filed suit against the cinema chain in question and won. The court awarded him the equivalent of 450 quid for having his time wasted and another 45 pounds for mental agony… this precedent is going to bankrupt not just every cinema chain on earth, but pretty much everything on earth.
Discussed on The Monocle Daily (timestamp), which, as a podcast, can be hit or miss, but 100% represents the international pinnacle of snark.
John Siracusa released a clever Mac app today that uses APFS file clones to reclaim disk space without actually removing them. I also dig the commercials:
Hyperspace is a free download, and it’s free to scan to see how much space you might save. To actually reclaim any of that space, you will have to pay for the app.
A brilliant Timberwolves win over OKC tonight. This team steps up for the most challenging teams in the west, but continues to fall against mid teams everywhere else. Still in a promising position for a playoff run.
Came across this old gem in the battery box — Apple’s Rechargeable AA pack. It was a great solution for back in the day when using AA batteries in mice was more of a thing. Having both the batteries stack in the same polarity orientation is also neat.
God knows what the coffee sludge was made from. They prepared it in a way that I didn’t have to get in it. But of course, I did anyway. It’s all really silly. The world is so dark now…
I’ve tried all the Mac launcher utilities over the years, including the legendary Quicksilver (RIP, even though they still seem to have a site up for it…), and keep coming back to Launchbar, currently in its sixth version. It’s a complete package — buy once, has all the features it says it has, no AI (a bonus), and is exceptionally fast with file/folder actioning. Comparatively, Raycast is bloated and burdened with a focus on enterprise accounts. Alfred is suitable, but feels archaic and neglected in 2025.
Continued discourse from The Atlantic on the deficit in ‘marriage material’ in the US. As has been the case for a while…
Coupling is declining around the world, as women’s expectations rise and lower-income men’s fortunes fall; this combination is subverting the traditional role of straight marriage, in which men are seen as necessary for the economic insurance of their family.
This correlates to an abundance of research we’ve been discoursing related to American social isolation, which oftentimes grows alongside romantic isolation, and in the end, this eventually becomes a conversation about a widening class fissure since so many of the extremities in value perception correlate to social and financial wealth.
If you know, you know. Minnesota’s legendary dive bar frozen pizza brand of choice › Racket has a piece on how Doug Flicker builds new installments for Heggies pizzas.
…the brand-new Italian Beef pizza that’s already hitting bars and grocery stores? Flicker says he perfected it over three months, toying with five or six different beef brands, several cheese blends, and a handful of giardiniera recipes. The standard-issue Heggies sauce got tweaked “a tiny bit, but not too much.”
Kottke has a rundown on the recently released 4K restoration of Seven Samurai. Funny he mentions getting a Blu-ray player and returning to physical media… I just bought a handful of favorites from Criterion a few weeks ago. Feels good to have a real backup in case, you know, the worst happens.
Bryan Hansel talking sea smoke off Lake Superior, including some new shots of that and pack ice. I was lucky enough to see this happening when driving north this past weekend, and it haunted the drive in a spectacular way.
As an idiotic champion of my favorite bag brands, I have to acknowledge the new 420D Spectron line from Tom Bihn, a modern take on their previously discontinued 400D Halcyon material. Spectacular.
As an “elder” millennial, Lindsey Adler’s piece is a refreshing reminder that the 2012-2017 era truly existed for us, but serves it through a lens akin to a eulogy on creative journalism:
The death of “websites” and outlets that value true creativity and diversity in coverage — largely at the whims of ghoulish executives and private equity vulturism — has created in me a stinging grief that I cannot seem to shake.
RIP, David Lynch. Too soon, dreamer.
The Midwest will likely benefit from “farm productivity, economy and in overall comfort” as a more habitable place to live than anywhere else in the US. It’s sad to say, as so many live elsewhere, but it looks to be a bastion of safe haven if climate change continues its inevitable march.
Derek Thompson’s interrogation into adult loneliness corresponds with a wavelength that connects to what’s going on politically, with capitalism/branding, and probably the future of the human race. It’s an astounding change in our species.
Rewatched Twin Peaks: The Return and can reaffirm, it still operates on its own masterful level of cinema.
It’s David Lynch’s magnum opus, and it will stand the test of time as one of the absolute best films/shows ever conceived.
A trend that’s been seemingly happening across culinary, beverage, and other cultural lines: a return to standards and simplicity. A hope I have for 2025 and beyond: fewer exuberant menu declarations, more refined classics. Welcome exceptions, obviously, but know your audience.
New Year’s Eve surf and turf, the only way to go (if you’re so inclined).
Buckling up for some relaxation and reading this holiday week. (Creation Lake / Julia) 📚
Parasocial relations, persons vs brands, and, I suppose, the future of media, via Ed filling in for Galloway:
The implication is simple: Whether they know it or not, near everyone you know is craving a friend. The best visualization of this subconscious craving is the internet, which has been overrun by billions of people in search of other people.
Succinct ode to the ideation and evolution of the backpack, heralding back to the 1960s with JanSport.
Some used bags, sure. They probably called them satchels—a word my dad would say. But many still wandered the halls and the quads in ignorance. Like fish in water, they probably thought nothing of it, just as their forebears thought nothing of life without electricity.