I'm always surprised by this one. I love it so much, and people I recommend it to have NEVER heard of it.

I want to read something that tastes like white cheddar.

DUDE. 😳

The lid of a faded, rusty tin labeled Paradise Fruit Cake.

The interior of a tin filled with old wooden stamps; one sits upside down, showing a large numeral 2 in reverse.

Cleaning out things from my dad's place this weekend, I was amused to find a fruit cake tin from the 20's or 30's and laughed again when I opened it to find a gorgeous collection of wooden stamps, mostly numbers in various sizes.

Looking into the tin, I can see his satisfied smile at a new hobby.

I saw them in concert once; I was really impressed with how well their energy and charisma filled the room.

I'm not the only one!
I think I was planning a paper arts project that never materialized.

Cover photo of Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone (1983) with Peter Strauss and Molly Ringwald

Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone

One of the purest examples of a moral panic in our time. A clinic that had years-long waitlists and required an average of 7 appointments before providing transition care smeared and shut down for being reckless.

ATM, mostly functional. I'm a therapist in a Minnesota suburb. I have had weeks and months when I was too angry to sleep. Lately, for whatever reason, I am mostly managing.

"...but I didn't do it right / can I try again? and again...."

I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it.

I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.”

1/

Strict adherence to principles is an economic privilege. Relevant here: can you set principles aside to survive until you have the $ to live by them?

I was wondering about this too. Without getting into any of the specific people, if you NEVER had principles, you can't compromise them so you can't be a sellout. You're still making a moral choice (maybe a catastrophic one).

As a lawyer who works on child welfare cases, I have long hated the overuse of the word pedophile, and now I have a *new* reason to hate it. Let me explain: it is extremely rare that we encounter actual pedophiles in Juvenile Court ...

I want to talk about how junk science ruins innocent lives.

The criminal legal system is overwhelmed by junk science.

IT IS AN OUTRAGE.

If you're not deeply disturbed by what's going on, I need you to pay close attention.

Let me explain. 🧵/x

Dragonslayer

Tempura House was The Fancy Chinese place in my town of 20,000 when I was growing up. Getting to go was a Big Deal.
They served a spicy, crispy orange beef with whole dried chilies and lots of seared orange peel. It was delicious and I have never found anywhere else that makes it that way.

An announcement from Noah Wyle and the CDC:

Unarmed woman executed by state may have been on committee to fight against unarmed women being executed by the state

Is there a generic term for a wonderful experience that stays with you, changes you in a good way? Like, an opposite of "trauma?"

I don't have a need to use it right now, just wondering.

Decolonising the Dungeon Crawl---

Like everything else re: decolonisation and TTRPGs discourse, this is a solved problem. There's only metric that matters:

How many creators from the colonised world are participating in and able to make a living from their games?

That's *it*.

1/

"On your souls, do not shed blood in the house of God!"

Hi, I'm a scree slope above the Mississippi River bluffs.

7 Podcasts for Bookworms In a world filled with digital distractions, these shows will help you indulge, develop or rekindle a love for reading.

This delightfully snarky, deeply researched series delivers takedowns of the kinds of nonfiction best sellers you might pick up at the airport, focusing mainly on self-help, financial advice pop psychology and political punditry like “The Secret” and “The Rules.” “If Books Could Kill” is hosted by Michael Hobbes (a journalist well known to podcast fans for You’re Wrong About” and “Maintenance Phase”) and Peter Shamshiri, a lawyer. The duo project infectious joy in deconstructing the appeal of these mass-market juggernauts despite being laden with pseudoscience, oversimplifications and questionable data. Alongside a breakdown of the flawed arguments and ideas in each title, Hobbes and Shamshiri also explore how these books have fed into false and harmful cultural narratives, championing critical thinking skills in an entertaining and persuasive way.

My takeaway is that we have not been mean enough to the New York Times this year
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/a...

Kid, you can't kiss every girl
You gotta trust me on this one
You gotta trust me on this one

Soft in the Center by The Hold Steady

Challenge: you are stranded on a desert island and you can only watch movies about a single kind of animal for the rest of your life (so if you choose "pig", you can only watch the Babe movies, Charlotte's Web, Gordy, Nic Cage's "Pig", etc).

I'm torn between Birds (The Maltese Falcon, Black Swan, arguably Solo (maybe? Haven't seen it yet), The Parrot Sketch, etc) and Fish (Jaws, A Fish Called Wanda, Finding Nemo... The Fisher King is probably a stretch).

This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Deer
Swan
Fox
Muskrat
Mole

The thing about Better Off Ted is that as soon as I think about it I have to rewatch it.