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​Friday Inspiration 507​
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“Who’s gonna watch a senior citizen grandmother do jigsaw puzzles on a platform where people are competing playing Warzone?” Apparently a lot of people. (video)

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This math about budgeting at the bookstore of course makes no sense but is exactly what most of us do when we want something, and that is why it is an example of a well-written joke.

I finally subscribed to Blackbird Spyplane yesterday after Hilary sent me this piece about creativity and AI and making birthday cards for people, as there were so many good lines in it, but especially this one: “‘You can get rich if all you want to do is get rich,’ my mom, a law-school dropout, told me, but I’d only be happy if I did something that really mattered to me.”

The folks at Injinji are sponsoring this edition of this newsletter, and it’s kind of great timing, because it’s starting to get cold here in Missoula and I’m just going to keep running through the winter again like I did last year and the year before. And: Injinji just introduced a Snow Crew sock for winter running, same five-toe design but with Thermolite EcoMade fibers for insulation. I wore them on my run yesterday, which was 28 degrees (Fahrenheit) at the beginning, which felt way too cold right now but that I bet will feel balmy when I’m wearing these socks in January.

I saw this puffy jacket Aldi made to look like a giant baked potato on Kottke .org and immediately thought Hell Yes That’s Great, and then I clicked through to the website and saw the silver rain poncho it comes with. I hope some people who really, really love baked potatoes end up with these jackets.

In 2025, four of his novels and two of his short stories were adapted into shows or movies, so Stephen King wrote about that for LitHub, and of course he said a whole bunch of really thoughtful stuff and never once said anything about the money he’s made, which, when 100-plus movies and shows have been created based on your work, is probably quite significant.

I assume, maybe not incorrectly, that if you subscribe to this newsletter, you appreciate the diversity of links I dig up every week—short videos, microblogs, long essays, and the occasional piece of internet media that only takes 1.5 seconds to appreciate, such as this post in the oddlysatisfying Subreddit titled “My Neighbor’s Tree Fits Perfectly In My Window.”

Austin Kleon recommended in this piece George Saunders wrote about the dilemma we all (probably) have with art made by people who are or have become problematic, and I found it thought-provoking but also comforting, in some way. It’s worth a read. This was one of my favorite bits: "I find that my life is simplified if, when I’m tempted to have an opinion, I ask myself why I need one, and what I aim to do with it. If there’s nothing to do with it, I try not to get too worked up."

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