Florida State is in the midst of an epic FAFO.

After beating a total of 5 teams that finished above .500 this year, they…

convinced themselves they were national champions victimized by a rigged system…

which made some players think they might be better off elsewhere

1/

https://twitter.com/mzenitz/status/1739364853532246088

…which contributed to 20 players bolting for other teams or the NFL

And then, having shot itself in only one foot, FSU picked an expensive, losing legal battle with its own league… while alienating their best remaining quarterback - which made him decide he’s done there.

2/

On the morning of 9/11, a casual friend of mine was on a high floor of the World Trade Center above where the first plane struck. He called another friend of ours to tell him he was trapped and it didn’t look good. He didn’t make it out.

There is a 9/11 memorial near me…

1/ It has the names of everyone who perished on 9/11 etched in marble.

The memorials sits high on a ridge with sweeping views toward New York City twelve miles east.

It’s a beautiful spot. I used to park there at sunrise with my son when he was a baby.

2/

Y’all… I just went down the rabbitiest of rabbit holes into:

1) how the technological brain of Twitter worked pre the new guy

2) what changes were made by he and his acolytes

The punchline: I now understand how he broke the engine. And he assuredly does not know.

And…

1/ …he didn’t just break it; he did so irrevocably.

He bought a social network and then effectively… erased it.

He thought the original architects and on-staff engineers were just lowly mechanics.

2/

So, I’m in a notorious mob hangout today. An Italian-sounding place. Panera. And there are two older guys about 5 feet away. Straight in front of me.

It isn’t entirely unheard of in my area to cross paths with some goodfellas. I live in Sopranos Country. It ain’t fiction.

1/ So, I’m trying to write but my table is facing theirs and I can’t help but overhear (mostly because I was eavesdropping, but still) and these two guys are talking about “The Chin” which I cleverly deduced was Vinnie “The Chin” Gigante from having watched quite a bit of cable.

2/

If I had a nickel for every person who angrily flamed me throughout 2021 for saying this, I’d have enough money to buy Jupiter.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1670777366560354304

I entirely understand people’s beef with “Do Something” Twitter.

However, there is a difference between screaming “DO SOMETHING” and agitating for our federal government to do *some specific thing*.

The last line of this is the one I’ve been thinking about.

The encounter left a couple marks. They didn’t register as anything other than an unintended effect of someone’s personal crisis.

The worst parts of this country seem to have lost all empathy…

1)

https://twitter.com/therealhoarse/status/1655640411635871747

Large portions of the population have entirely lost even basic humanity.

They don’t see other people as people first. They see strangers as threats; and see any even perceived trespass as a crime committed against them.

2/

I was caught up in a moment recently where a man who was clearly having an episode of some kind suddenly grabbed me. Didn’t know if the root was drugs, mental illness, or both.

I did not strangle him to death.

1/ There was one other person there.

She and I each just acted calm as could be. Spoke in lowered voices. No panic. No overreaction. Just calm and patience.

2/

Every time a mass shooting occurs, people insist we should release the pictures to “shock the country.”

Their basis is always Emmett Till and the effect of his mother’s decision to show what had been done to him.

That was 1955. This is not 1955.

1/ In 1955, most people got their news on the radio or in black and white newspapers. Literally, the handful of pictures in the paper was all they saw of the world outside their own.

You will see more images of the world today on Twitter than people in 1955 saw in whole years.

2/

So, I’ve been trying out a cool iPhone trick I learned to take long exposure pictures.

Cool, right?

1/ How to take long exposure pics with an iPhone:

1) Set the camera mode to “live” by clicking the little button in the upper right that looks like a bullseye.

2/

So, the conversation about Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark went from 0-60 mph awful fast.

I watched both the Louisville game where Clark made the hand-waving "You can't see me" gesture and yesterday's game when Reese did the same.

I thought the latter was poor sportsmanship.

1/ I watch a ton of sports. Major sports. minor sports. Things that aren't even sports. Darts. Tag. Cornhole. Whatever. If it's competitive, I'll watch it.

Trash-talking is and always has been a part of sports. I think folks would be shocked by how much goes on out of mic range.

2

Thanks the responses, folks. Very helpful.

I got a little more color on the first week’s format. It’s a bit better than described.

- a little warmup time
- long stretch and loosen up
- all-out sprints of varying lengths at 100% effort for 45 minutes or so
- cool down

1/

https://twitter.com/therealhoarse/status/1641092146928254977

The sprints were full-on foot races.

Some of the kids hadn’t been conditioning for anything prior.

My son is in really good shape but still pulled up with what the trainer thought might be a stress fracture. There were five other kids waiting in the training room.

2/

In the last couple days, I’ve seen people:

- take the only of 20 open tables that was next to me and then put on a video at full blast
- make a protracted call from a lightly attended park port-a-potty
- shout over the music in a cafe for a solid hour on a conference call

1/ - sit among five tables of people reading, studying, and working and decide it was THERE that they should FaceTime someone louder than even my noise-canceling headphones

I don’t know. If this keeps up, teenagers are going to have stop giving their parents phones.

2/

With my optimism about this site fading, I am sliding toward making a concerted effort to distribute my time differently.

I have a Mastodon account but haven’t used it really. I plan on spending some time dipping my toe in the water there.

1/

https://twitter.com/charles_gaba/status/1640526511571623939

If terms of the overall landscape of Twitter alternatives, I found this write up by @Teri_Kanefield to be thorough, thoughtful, and helpful.

2/

terikanefield.com/socialmedia/

Finishing up my week of writing about father stuff with a post that starts with not my best moment.

1/ Five minutes later.

2/

Whoa. My gym is canceling men.

They gave some nutso excuse about “renovations”. Like, I can’t see through that. 🙄

Obviously, George Soros is trying to keep me from working out so I can’t protect myself against people I don’t know just living their own lives somewhere. They’re trying to lure men into a women’s locker room.

“Oh, we switched them while re-tiling the showers.”

HAHAHAHA. IM NOT STUPID. I SEE WHAT YOURE DOING. THERE ARE NO URINALS IN THERE. MEN PEE STANDING UP. SITTERS ARE QUITTERS.

I’m getting changed right here in the hall.

Overheard two guys talking about their preteens and their phone use.

One said he downloaded an app that he thinks can monitor everything his kid does. The other was all eager to download it too.

Oh, you sweet summer children.

1/ That’s like saying “I came up with an idea on break that will keep the inmates from ever escaping!”

My son had a workaround so he could text me through a gaming app when he eight and years from a phone.

2/

I wrote something about the things our kids pour their hearts into and how that pulls in ours too.

1/ It’s about stubborn genetics…

2/

This is true of everyone I know with ADHD including me.

The worst time in an ADHDer’s life is when they are young and most of the system is browbeating them over how they should do things - as if it were just a matter of choosing effort or none.

1/

https://twitter.com/adhdjesse/status/1635564700053430272

Teachers, schools, parents… all heap increasing pressure on young people with ADHD to “just buckle down” and “get organized” using systems that only work for them because they don’t have ADHD.

And that pressure feels shitty and makes the kid then feel shitty…

2/

Overheard a conversation today that was straight out of Seinfeld.

My son tweaked his ankle yesterday. Took him to urgent care today mostly to just clear the first appointment obligatory x-ray and position him for a quick move to MRI if not improving in a few days.

1/ So, there we were in urgent care in a waiting area only screened from the adjacent one by a curtain.

(Sound of curtain sliding open and then closed)

Health care professional (HCP): Hi there, so, we got the imaging back…

Patient: Oh…

(sound of HCP showing something)

2/

I've been thinking a lot lately about the vast and growing division in this country and why it exists.

Basically, why don't we see things the same way?

Wrote a three-part piece about that...

Part I is about how we see. Literally. How we see the world.

1/ Part II is about the flaws in how we see and the ways they mess us up.

2/

I imagine this car came to be after a meeting with the design team that went something like this:

“Research suggests there’s a market for a vehicle that is just straight ‘conspicuous consumption’ and nothing else.”

“How absurd are we talking? Three teacher’s salaries?”

1/ “No! Four! A quarter-mil vanity box.”

“It should probably be good at SOMETHING for that kinda money.”

“No, no, no. That’s the whole point. It needs to be so ludicrous, it’s clear the person only bought it to show they’re rich.”

2/