Friday Inspiration 425



Friday Inspiration 425

After 45-ish seconds of this, I was kind of thinking, “Is this just a video of a guy running to my favorite The War on Drugs song?” and then at exactly the 1:44 mark, which I have been long convinced is the greatest “woo!” in the history of recorded music, I was like Yeah, this is a video of a guy running to my favorite The War on Drugs song, and that’s why it’s so great. It’s very simple, but captures the feeling of running in a city, and I think that’s why I like it so much. (video)

ANNOUNCEMENT: There’s a longer story about this on the DFTBA store page, but we are putting my “Periodic Table of the Elements of Adventure” on a LIMITED EDITION Nalgene bottle. You can order one from right now until midnight Mountain Time on April 5th (next Friday), and that’s it. Order now or live a life of regret. (Here’s a short video of the whole bottle so you can see the whole design)

If you own more than one mug, and you click on one thing in this list today, let it be this brilliant piece about the worst mug in your cupboard. I was going to include a quote from it, but I couldn’t decide on one. And for the record, my current favorite mug in our cupboard is actually Hilary’s, and the worst mug in the cupboard is probably one I brought to the relationship.

I love many things about this story, including but not limited to the fact that it’s about the guy who picks up dog poop on our local trail up Mt. Jumbo here in Missoula and leaves passive-aggressive (or maybe just aggressive?) notes for people calling them out, but also that it’s 6,000-plus words, which, given the average reader’s attention span nowadays, is really going for it when you’re writing a story about a guy who picks up dog poop on a trail in a town of 75,000 people. To be fair, there’s a lot there.

Payson High School, where Footloose was filmed in 1983, is scheduled to be demolished after the end of the 2023-3024 school year. Students wanted Kevin Bacon to come back to the high school for prom, and he told them he would, via a video call into a school assembly (that was broadcast on the Today Show).

Sure, this is a map of the internet in 1973, but how does it make you feel? Because I have feelings about it. Like nostalgia, but not?

This is a super-fun idea, and I think needed for a lot of people who enjoy creating things: A free (or pay what you want) zine, How to Keep Your Hobby From Becoming A Job.

This short blurb of a blog post is kind of all over the place, references a Slate article from 2014, and also the Emily Dickinson poem “That Love is all there is,” all to say: We’ve only been roasting vegetables since 1980? How is this invention younger than I am?
[RELATED: I have made this Brussels Sprouts Roasted with Kimchi and Scallions recipe at least 15 times since I found it in November 2022, and I can all but guarantee it help you win friends and influence people]

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Semi-Rad

Writer, artist, filmmaker, columnist for Outside Magazine. My newsletter about creativity, adventure, and enthusiasm goes out to 15,000+ subscribers every week.

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Friday Inspiration 540 My favorite part about this beekeeper who works in NYC (!) and is allergic to bees (!) was actually the quote (which might only make sense if you watch the 3-ish minutes leading up to it: "These are our little boxes. Do what you can to make it a nice box." (video) I don’t know if I have the words to describe how powerful Come See Me in the Good Light was for me, but I thought it was a masterpiece of documentary film work, and Andrea Gibson was a truly unique person who...

at the dump

We Go To The Dump Seagulls, my brain announced, as I stared out the window of my little old Toyota pickup, waiting behind another truck at the entrance to the dump. Seagulls, at the dump? I asked myself, and then when the truck in front of me moved, I pulled ahead to check in with the lady at the entrance building. At the drive-up window, they weigh your vehicle, and you have to tell them what you have in your truck. This time, it was some old plywood, some chunks of foamboard insulation,...

Thumbnail from The Accidental Brilliance of Makeshift Signs | Kate Canales | TED

Friday Inspiration 539 I haven’t watched that many TED talks recently, but the title of this one pulled me in and I have to say it did not disappoint: The Accidental Brilliance of Makeshift Signs (video) So basically this guy posed a question about highway design on Threads, and almost no one even attempted to give him a legitimate answer, but the comments just keep delivering more and more jokes, which are I think even more rewarding (my favorite is probably the cardigan with one giant...