A New Goal
We were getting ready to go to the U.S. Open.
"I was going to wear my monster socks today, but I guess they're not clean," I said.
"That's too bad," Eli 25.1 said.
"Maybe better for everyone. You'd be embarrassed to be seen with me."
"Dad, there is absolutely nothing you could do that would make me embarrassed to be with you."
"Challenge accepted," I said.
The U.S. Open is Stupid
One of the best tennis matches in years happened last night. Almost no one saw it.
The U.S. Open, for years, has stacked matches on the court (Ashe) with the largest capacity. They also schedule insufficient time between matches if you consider how variable the length between matches will inevitably be.
Yesterday, there was an almost five-hour men's match followed by an almost three-hour women's match--again, on the same court. This meant that the Alcaraz-Shelton match, scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m. (already too late), actually started at 11:00 p.m.
Are there any other world-class sporting events that have events starting at 11 p.m.? No, of course not. Not even in other tennis events is it like this.
The match, which was absolutely thrilling, ended at 3:30 a.m. By then, eighteen thousand of the twenty-four thousand people in attendance had left.
In the U.S., only in Alaska and Hawaii did the match end before midnight.
It's such an incredibly easy fix: don't schedule four consecutive matches on the same court when you get to the later rounds (this match was a quarterfinal). The next highest-capacity court (Armstrong) still seats fourteen thousand people.
How about using it?
Also, we're off to the other quarterfinals today. The day session, thank goodness.
Happiness
I thought about happiness yesterday.
What makes me happiest? What are the things in life that give me the most lasting sense of well-being? I decided to make a top five.
Swimming
Games
Being in flow state while working on a large project (book/game)
Going out to do things with C
Thoughtful/stupid conversations with Eli 25.1
Those are in no particular order.
Some of those are more accessible to me than others (Eli is much less available than swimming). And some have time limits (I can't play a game for too long or it turns into a negative instead of a positive). And they're not the only things that make me happy. I really enjoy talking to Mom 96.5 every day, for example.
I'm going to try to do these five things as much as I can.
I just wonder if being consistently happy is as simple as deciding what makes you happy and spending as much time on those things as you can.
ALS Ride
Longtime reader Ken P. does an annual ride to raise funds for the
ALS Network. He does it in honor of a friend with ALS and the homepage is here:
2026 Napa Valley Ride.
Please consider a donation and thank you.
Labor Day
Happy Labor Day, everyone! Here's a brief history, if you're interested: Labor Day: From Protest to Picnics.
Friday Links!
Leading off this week, a stunning number: 1 in 4 NFL players who died from 2016 to 2021 had CTE, study finds.
From D.G.F., an incredible miscarriage of justice: The framing of Chris Duncan.
From Wally, and honestly, it's too ridiculously expensive to indulge much: The U.S. Open is now a food festival with a side of tennis. Jimmy John's is not like this: Thank You for Your Reservation. An excellent article about an overlooked sailor: Race in America: Dorie Miller, American Hero.
From Ken P., and it's ridiculous that this only results in a fine: San Francisco’s Hunters Point cleanup scandal leads to major settlement. This is a positive story about NIL, for once: Marquette freshman volleyball player has hot-selling '6 Beers' jersey. How is this not illegal? Alibaba’s AliExpress caught tracking user audio systems. An interesting strategy: Scientists just unleashed an army of 130,000 baby octopuses to fight off a blue crab invasion. There should be stronger laws about this, too (unfortunately, the same people profiting from this would have to make them): The Bulwark Killed an Investigation into Political Fundraising Spam After Its Publisher Took the Consultants’ Side. This is genuinely insane: Police request public's help to find suspect who picked up $30 off ground in Walmart. This is mind-blowing: The Cop Who Took On Flock: After Noel Pichardo called out his city's embrace of Flock surveillance cameras, he was subjected to five internal affairs investigations in less than two years.
The Only Way This Joint Runs
Eli 25.1 said, "Do you have a Post-it note?"
I burst out laughing. I have six packs of them just on my desk.
I have a list of things that must be done on a Post-it note every day. I make it the night before, then look at it before I write. Every day for decades.
I can't imagine anyone being able to get through a day without having a list. My brain can't comprehend it.
I'm very digital, generally, but this is the one way I'm not. I don't like digital calendars or lists because I don't see them unless I specifically pull them up. I like writing things down and then having the list in front of me in a way I can't ignore. Plus it's satisfying when you finish the list and tear off the note.
There's nothing underneath but a blank space.
The U.S. Open
Eli 25.1 is here until early tomorrow, so I'm scrambling a bit because we'll be gone most of the day. Here are a few bits about the U.S. Open, though.
I've never been to a Grand Slam before (Eli's been to various ones five times now), so it was a brand new experience for me. I didn't realize that Grand Slams are like a sports theme park. There are rides (courts), some huge ones and some small ones, and you just ride the vibes between various matches, never staying at one for longer than a set because so much else is happening.
It's fun--unbelievable fun, really--and seeing world class athletes up close is incredible. On the outer courts, we were watching matches at distance of less than fifty feet.
Some of the physicality of tennis comes through on TV, but man, it really comes through in person. High-level tennis is incredibly physical, and it's easier to under how quickly players can fatigue. Particularly on high heat or humidity days, because it was a swamp on Tuesday, even though it was overcast most of the day.
The other thing that stood out most keenly was the serve. Players go multiple games cranking in a high percentage of their serves, looking utterly comfortable, but when a particularly important game comes around, their motions start to--ever so slightly--fall apart. All those first serves that were going in easily suddenly go two feet long or hit the net. For some reason, it was particularly pronounced when you're watching in person.
These events are almost festivals. There's so much to do besides watch matches. Lots of vendors, lots of food (at the U.S. Open, it's comically expensive), lots of fan stuff. It's a blast.
Oh, and I learned that having a reserved seat for one of the big courts in the early rounds is totally unnecessary. There are so many courts with open seating that you can have a great time with a day pass, just wandering between the outer courts and going to the best match currently happening. Cheaper and every bit as much fun. For the U.S. Open, at least.
Names, In Three Steps
I went to the U.S. Open with Eli 25.1 yesterday.
I'll have more about the event tomorrow, but today, I want to talk about names and how I mangle them. It's a very specific process.
First, I'll hear a new name. In this case, it was a female tennis player: Harriet Dart. We briefly watched part of her first round match and jumped on the hype train after her hitting partner showed up next to me (with a tennis bag and racquet) and said, quite politely, "Come on, Harriet."
Phase one: Harriet Dart.
Phase two begins when I say the name wrong for the first time. "I really like that one player--what was her name--Hailey Dash?"
Eli started laughing. "You're doing it," he says. "Harriet Dart. But you'll call her Hailey Dash forever."
"You forgot the third phase," I say. "That's when I mix up the wrong first name with ANOTHER wrong name. I'll call her Halley once, then go, 'Wait, that's not right. Her name is Hailey.' That cements the wrong name in my head forever and convinces me it's absolutely correct."
And that's how Harriet Dart becomes Hailey Dash. Forever.
A Fond Farewell
Peter Cullen, the beloved voice of Eeyore, passed away last week.
He may be gone, but this line will never be topped:
I found an anchor over there
Now it's on my derriere.
Pop Goes the Weasels
I was at PT on Tuesday and a pop music loop was playing.
These were extremely popular songs from the last few years. I recognized most of them, even though I don't listen to pop music.
What I noticed for the first time, though, because they were back to back to back, was how incredibly algorithm-driven they were. They all used the same elements with only slight variations. They all sounded incredibly artificial.
They didn't even sound like songs as much as an amalgamation of desirable characteristics as determined by analyzing other successful pop songs.
Lots of pop songs are like that, really. Not driven by the artist, but by the producer or the record label, with teams of writers providing lyrics. It's always been that way, but with the rise of sophisticated computer-driven production features, it's even more so now.
Everything gets fixed. Nothing is real.
That's when it hit me: this is where AI is going big.
Top pop songs already sound so artificial that using AI to create the entire song isn't going to sound much different from what's already topping the charts.
I'll put a stake in the ground here: within the next 24 months, fully AI-generated pop songs are going to be heavily represented in the charts. No artist to manage, barely discernible difference in quality, exponentially lower production cost--it's a record label's dream situation.
I, for one, doubt I'll be able to tell the difference unless the songs are identified as AI-created. I doubt many other people will, either.
Here's the other possibility, and I bet this is already happening: record labels feeding all their most successful pop material (and that of the other labels) into a custom LLM that then creates songs. If they don't want to say it's AI, they then hire someone to sing the song. Technically, that's not AI. Or is it? Who knows?
Praise Be
ESPN is removing the bottom line ticker from their college football broadcasts across all channels.
It's not an exaggeration to say I've bitched about the ticker from the day they added it (bitching often in this very space), and then went supernova when they started using it to promote upcoming entertainment programs.
I've been complaining about this for almost half my life.
And now it's gone. The hills are indeed alive with the sound of music.
