Hello, good morning, happy Friday. Remember when I said last week that I hoped the snow would wait to start until I got home? Well, it did not, I got caught in the blizzard going both to and from a work social event. My head looked like a snowy little mountain. And it is still snowing, for some reason. Snow? In the winter? In Chicago? Hm. Seems fake. But at least I can walk to the train. Here’s what Canadians are contending with:
Woof.
Tomorrow I’m going to both 1) meet some lovely internet friends who are visiting Chicago and 2) make dumplings for Chinese New Year with one of my best friends that I’ve known since high school and his fiancée. It should be a banner weekend, really.
Brewing up trouble
Remember the beer thing I mentioned last week? That’s happening today! It’s going to be incredible! Look (click to expand):
I’m just going to enjoy the absolute hell out of these delicious draft-only variants, it’s going to be great, you should consider joining me at 3340 N. Kedzie. This is not SponCon, I just love Revolution Brewing and their very good barrel-aged beer.
It’s also the last of Rev’s barrel-aged releases for this season, which is both exciting and sad. It’s exciting because now I’ll have tasted the whole lot of them, and I have cans saved of everything but Cafe Deth. (I drank Cafe Deth when it was fresh, as instructed, and it was so good.)
But that’s only good for you if you get some content out of it, right? Yes, well, there will be some content in the near future - a subscriber requested that I do a write-up of my favorite beers! I don’t know when I’ll have time to do a tasting session and take notes, but it’s on my agenda, and you can look forward to it. I’m also going to try and ask a few special guests to join me, but no promises. This year’s Deep Woods overview page has some short descriptions of each beer as a preview, if you’re curious. I’m also going to throw in some appreciation for other, non-barrel-aged stuff I’ve enjoyed throughout the year, too - but these bad boys will be front and center.
I giggled all day, it was awesome
This is the best thing I saw on the internet last week.
Define special mouse. I don’t know what a special mouse is.
I just can’t stop watching it. (If you’re confused, don’t worry, just keep scrolling. But if you absolutely must understand the context, it’s explained in the replies.)
“I will never log off”
This is absolutely bizarre. It reads almost like a fever dream? A former Kimmel writer apparently upset Michael Che, who is a head writer for SNL, and the ensuing drama is just… it’s so weird.
Che was fixated on me for the rest of the day, sending out another Instagram Story with an absolutely baffling dunk about how I hate dodgeball and “restaurants where you have to take off your shoes.” His posting culminated in a mantra I’ve seen repeated time and time again. In block text, he wrote, “im always baffled by comics that publicly shit on comedy jobs. here’s some unsolicited advice for people who wanna work in comedy, lol don’t do that. I mean, unless ‘twitter personality’ is your professional ceiling.. it’s a bad idea.” This is a common refrain from bosses in entertainment when they get called out online, but the fact is, Michael Che is probably right — if you’re looking to get hired on SNL, you probably shouldn’t do a bunch of posts about how SNL is bad. I am, of course, not trying to get hired on SNL, which rendered his point moot.
If that paragraph is not enough to grab your attention, I guess don’t read the story. But I hope it was, because my reaction as I kept reading this story was just “WHAT” over and over again. And I love a little bit of owning your bullshit:
Had I not been so resolute in talking shit, Che probably would’ve stopped. Alas, I was,
Good shit.
Give us Sky High 2 you fucking cowards
No one understood why I was so obsessed with Sky High when it first came out. I was in middle school, I think? I could not get enough of the soundtrack, I loved the movie, and I desperately hoped there would be a sequel. Alas, no such luck thus far, but maybe in this brave new world of reboots and reimaginings it’ll someday get the sequel it’s long-deserved.
Thank a furry
I was having a conversation on the Do By Friday Discord with some folks about the internet and furries, and remembered this incredible tweet thread. One of them dug it up for me. You should click and read it. It’s all true. I’m not a furry, but I respect the hell out of them. They’re good people. They got a lot of hate on the internet in the 2000s, and a less-but-still-significant amount of hate in the 2010s. I hope the internet is nicer to them in 2020 and beyond. They raise a lot of money for charity. Kind of a ridiculous amount, really.
For the love of God, do not invoke the wrath of The Hon. Frank H. Easterbrook
We have never before encountered defiance of a remand order, and we hope never to see it again.
That is from Baez-Sanchez v. Barr, in an opinion issued Thursday. If you ever hear or see this sentence from any appellate judge, much less The Hon. Frank Goddamned Easterbrook of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, may God have mercy upon your soul. For the non-lawyers in the room, Judge Easterbrook is an extremely smart, extremely well-respected federal judge who has written some very important and very impressive opinions over the last few decades. He is, notably, quite conservative. A pro-immigration outcome may not be what you expect if you know that Judge Easterbrook is conservative. But then, if you read the opinion, you’ll understand very quickly how we got here. Just incredible. Inexplicable.
And, by the way, the oral argument is also unbelievable. (It’s where the subtitle for this week’s newsletter - “some absolutely irresponsible behavior” - is sourced from.) You should listen to it.
We don’t have a rule of endless remands. Usually one remand to do it right should be quite sufficient!
And:
The Board chooses to give us the bird. What are we supposed to do next?
Goodness. It goes on from there, and it does not get any better for the government.
Through it all, the rise and fall
Please watch this TikTok, oh my god. I wish it were longer.
We are the warriors that built this town
The LCS 2020 spring season starts on Saturday!!! I’m SO EXCITED!
The first match of the season is Team Liquid versus Cloud9. Team Liquid is my favorite team, Doublelift is my favorite player. I’ve also historically been a huge Cloud9 fan, but I’m sad that one of my other favorite players, Sneaky, isn’t competing for them this split. It’s still likely to be a great match, and I’m looking forward to enjoying LCS on weekends again.
If you’ve never played League and want to learn, or if you just want to learn enough about the game to be able to watch and enjoy LCS, let me know! Maybe I’ll do a separate ‘splainer about it sometime. Believe it or not, there are a number of fans who watch pro play without playing the game themselves!
Here’s some good Doublelift content while we’re at it:
Union strong
You know what you absolutely love to see? Like it just ignites a viscerally satisfying feeling, deep in your bones?
You love to see Dave Portnoy, a union-busting, law-breaking asshole, get fucking owned.
This is Dave Portnoy getting fucking owned. You love to see it. You absolutely, positively love to see it. Sucks to suck, my dude! (Also here is some context and here is some more context and commentary.)
You deserve some good animal content
So here it is:
Alright, let’s go make it through the day. When we make it to the weekend, we will certainly have earned it. See you next week!