Honestly, it’s very hard for me to not share an episode of Hot Ones in this space whenever I find one I like (which is quite often). But I’m sharing this, which is not a full episode, but a 5-minute compilation of 2024 guests’ reactions to Da Bomb, the most vile of all the hot sauces ever used on the show. I actually laughed out loud when Sean asked Lupita Nyong’o the question about … you know, I won’t spoil it for anyone. (video)
I have been very interested in the idea of loneliness lately, specifically the ideas about why middle-aged men have a hard time making friends, or maintaining friendships (I’m doing just fine, by the way). I’m reading Billy Baker’s book We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends as recommended by my friend Mario Fraioli (of The Morning Shakeout fame). And then this Atlantic article popped up in my feed this week, and it delves into why men are bad at texting, and how that affects their relationships. After I read it Wednesday morning, I keep catching myself thinking about it. (Gift link)
I had to watch this very short video twice to make sure I understood what was going on, but essentially this lady had a handsome firefighter show up at her house for a first responder call, and she wanted to get in touch with him but didn’t catch his name, and drew a sketch of him, and then his family got a hold of the sketch and, well, hilarity ensues.
As it is still technically the beginning of the year and many of us are still formulating some goals for 2025, I feel I should mention that this is Year #3 of my Strava club, 100 Grand, which is a very low-key virtual thing you join by clicking a button that says “Join” if you are a Strava user. We don’t have meetings, you don’t have to post anything to the club, but for some people (I guess about 3,000), it is a fun way to motivate yourself to collect elevation gain by human-powered means. If you amass 100,000 feet of elevation gain in any activity (or all activities) by the end of the year, I’ll send you a sticker (if you’d like one). Two stickers for 200,000 feet, and so on. Anyway, this is not a sales pitch, but here’s the link if you’d like to join.
I signed up for the Motatapu 52K Ultra in New Zealand on March 1 (we’ll be there meeting our new niece, who, lucky for us, lives in NEW ZEALAND), and I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a small amount of anxiety about the race (especially since I will have to do 100 percent of my training in Montana in winter). But last week I took a few minutes to use the Fuel and Hydration Planner from newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration, so I could actually for once in my life seek some outside guidance about what I should be eating and drinking during what is probably going to be a 9+ hour effort for me. If that sounds up your alley, you can use this link to use the Planner, and it will automatically apply a 15 percent discount if you decide to purchase anything from the site. (If you’d like the discount but don’t want to use the Fuel & Hydration Planner, use this link instead).
Any time I visit The Pudding, I can pretty much guarantee I’ll find something interesting and wonderfully presented—this piece about the alleged death of the pop love song was really fascinating, mostly because of their thoughtfulness in deciding what actually constitutes a “love song.”
Someone made a DOOM-esque video game, but instead of being a first-person shooter view where you’re looking over a gun, you’re looking over a glass of red wine and cruising around looking at art in The Met.
From a short but brilliant essay titled, “You might just have to be bored,” subtitled, “Or: How to fix an attention span”:
“Not being bored is why you always feel busy, why you keep “not having time” to take a package to the post office or work on your novel. You do have time—you just spend it on your phone. By refusing to ever let your brain rest, you are choosing to watch other people’s lives through a screen at the expense of your own.“
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