Posts tagged “Harrison Ford”

• If you can’t get excited about Jack Black as Steve, you really need to spend more time interacting with elementary school children.
• We need to work on bringing the phrase, “the whole megillah,” back into regular use. I feel like abandoning this wonderful expression was a bad idea, even though I’ll freely admit that I thought it was spelled “magilla” until about ten minutes ago.
• I have started listening to the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast and really love it. Of course, the three episodes I’ve heard so far were ones featuring interviews with Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, and Jeff Goldblum, three of my favorite actors, so my opinion may be biased. But all three had me laughing out loud at one point or another and it’s nice to hear Conan’s voice again.
• A month after the death of his mother, Tiger Woods says he’s recovering after surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles, likely ending his 2025 season.
• An 11-year-old boy who pulled the Paul Skenes MLB Debut Patch card will likely sell it for more money than Skenes will make from his 2025 Pirates base salary. – via @jacksongagne.com
• Tim Walz to launch national tour of town halls in Republican House districts. (Go get ’em, Tim!)
• Madness:
  • The Pentagon Keeps Pouring Cash Into Golf Courses – Even As [Administration] Slashes Government Spending
  • USDA ends program that helped schools serve food from local farmers
  • Department of Justice Official Says She Was Fired After Opposing Restoring Mel Gibson‘s Gun Rights
  • Pete Hegseth is expected in the coming weeks to start a sweeping overhaul of the judge advocate general’s corps as part of an effort to make the US military less restricted by the laws of armed conflict. – via @jamellebouie.net
  • NIH officials have urged scientists to remove all references to mRNA vaccine technology from their grant applications in a move that signaled the agency might abandon a promising field of medical research. – via @kwcollins.bsky.social

• I finally saw Captain America: Brave New World and will say that, at the end of the day, it was a fun movie. I think Anthony Mackie works as Captain America and he’s a fine actor. Harrison Ford is brilliant, of course. The plot is actually great. But — just like pretty much every MCU offering since Avengers: Endgame — I left feeling like I have no idea whether Disney and Kevin Feige have a plan or if they’re just pumping out movies.
• A Cheeto shaped like the Pokémon Charizard sold at auction for over $87,000.
• I cannot imagine a scenario in which Stephen A. Smith is worth $20,000,000.00 per year, but I also cannot imagine paying $87,000.00 for a Cheeto shaped like a Pokémon character, so I guess that’s why I am not in charge of contracts at ESPN.
• Two men were charged Wednesday in the deaths of three Kansas City Chiefs fans whose bodies were found in a backyard two days after they got together to watch the final game of the regular season in 2024.
• I am almost certain that I read Always Go To The Funeral when it was published (or aired on the radio) two decades ago, but it just popped up in a recent issue of Links You’ll Love and it’s worth sharing again.
• I one hundred percent did not see the sudden political twist coming in White Lotus S3E3 but I am f’ing here for it. Kudos to Mike White and HBO for going there. I can’t wait to see the next episode. (And, yes, I know it’s MAX now.)
• In other news:
  • POTUS signs executive order to establish government bitcoin reserve.
    </bangs head on desk>
  • It’s Tax Season – The Perfect Time for POTUS to Sell This “Critical” IRS Computing Center: Last year, the IRS Martinsburg site was “viewed as a high priority.” Now it’s suddenly “functionally obsolete”?
  • The CDC is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links. – via @boghuma.bsky.social
  • Maine officials said the Social Security Administration did not provide any explanation for the abrupt end of the decades old registration process, or for the sudden reversal. – via @crampell.bsky.social
  • I really hope in a hundred years there will still be people left to cringe at this headline: Half the World’s CO2 Emissions Come from 36 Fossil Fuel Firms

• Who doesn’t love making paper airplanes? – via cassidoo
• A “secret study” revealed that as the Florida insurance market was allegedly “failing” and companies were “losing money”, executives distributed $680M in dividends to shareholders while diverting billions more to affiliate companies, while Ron DeSantis focused on legal reforms making it harder to sue insurers.
• The world’s best chess players burn more calories during a match than NBA players like Steph Curry do in a game. – via Links You’ll Love
• Media
  • I am irrationally excited for the Andor season two premier on April 22, 2025.
  • So far White Lotus S3 has been just as great as the first two seasons.
  • I thought Kristen Bell did a fine job hosting the SAG Awards, but – as much as I love and respect Martin Short – Harrison Ford deserved the Best Actor in a Comedy Series win for his performance in Shrinking.
  • Believe the hype. Flow is a phenomenal movie.
• Good News for People Who Love Bad News:
  • Climate change is shrinking glaciers faster than ever, with 7 trillion tons lost since 2000.
  • Flu hospitalizations this year have already surpassed the last “very bad” flu season in 2017-2018.
  • There’s a real-time Project 2025 Tracker that allows you to see just how much of the nefarious plot to destroy the United States has been successful.

• What beats rock?
• Pope Francis denounced the current administration’s plan to carry out mass deportations of migrants in a letter to U.S. bishops Tuesday, while appearing to take a direct jab at Vice President JD Vance.
• For decades, casinos scoffed as mathematicians and physicists devised elaborate systems to take down the house. Then an unassuming Croatian’s winning strategy forever changed the game.
• Why is Hawaii the rainbow capital of the world?
• Is gold hidden under a California peak? This treasure map says so.
• These JETech iPhone screen protectors are a great investment.
• Forensics Experts Challenged the FBI. So the FBI Tried to Censor Their Conference. This story includes a timely reminder that — with the exception of DNA matches — most of the highly-regarded techniques used to put people away (fingerprint examinations, ballistics and toolmarks comparisons, blood pattern analysis) “were developed by law enforcement agencies for law enforcement, and not by scientists first subjecting them to standard, rigorous testing processes designed to ensure they stand on a solid scientific foundation.”
• How did a life-saving pediatric drug – discovered and developed using money from American taxpayers, and spurred by the grassroots fundraising of desperate parents – end up costing $2,000,000 per dose?
• In the span of just weeks, the U.S. government has experienced what may be the most consequential security breach in its history – not through a sophisticated cyberattack or an act of foreign espionage, but through official orders by a billionaire with a poorly-defined government role.
• Harrison Ford said the recent California wildfires burned several Shrinking sets.

• Plenty of excellent stories from Longreads: The Most Popular Editors’ Picks of the Year and Our Most Popular Stories of the Year
• My friend Steve the Bartender recently did a Christmas Cocktail Special livestream!
• Brilliant: ElevationLab has created an AirTag battery booster that lets you replace the default CR2032 battery with a pair of AA batteries instead, theoretically extending the charge of an AirTag for a decade.
• You’ve got less than a week until the big day, so don’t forget to check out my quick list of easy Christmas gifts for parents.
• This short video on the effects of a smartphone on your child is painfully accurate.
• I know you’re getting tired of me talking about Shrinking, but I think it’s important to note that in a series featuring freaking Harrison Ford giving the performance of his career, it’s Ted McGinley – who plays Derek, the neighbor of Jason Segal – who rules the show. (McGinley was also in Happy Days, The Love Boat, and Revenge of the Nerds!)
• A Tiny Christian College in Michigan Is Infiltrating Florida’s Schools
• My son and I just happened to be watching TNF and were able to see the NFL’s first successful fair-catch free kick since 1976.
• I adored Don’t Bleed on the Artwork: Notes from the Afterlife. Just astounding writing. Beautiful in the best way, including the gut-punch, “In Memory Care, one sees and hears many things one wishes to forget.”

• Shrinking (Apple TV+) is probably the best show on TV right now. Jason Segal and Jessica Williams are phenomenal in it and — as impossible as it is to believe — it might be the best work Harrison Ford has ever done on screen. The show was co-created by Brett Goldstein (Roy Kent from Ted Lasso) and the theme song is Frightening Fishes by Tom Howe & Benjamin Gibbard.
• Engineers found a bottle with a 132-year-old message deep inside the walls of a lighthouse in the south of Scotland. – via The Curious About Everything Newsletter from Jodi Ettenberg (threads / bluesky)
• Is there anything better than college football bowl season?
• ProPublica has an online tool that will format a letter to your US health insurance company to demand the records behind a claim denial, which the insurance is then legally required to provide in most cases. – via @broingerm (threads / bluesky)
• Rare baseball stats are my jam. When I was an early teen I watched Roger Clemens mow down sixteen Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park and was bored out of my mind. I wish I’d appreciated the feat as much as I did the mini batting helmet ice cream. (I still have the helmet.) It’s wild that there have been fewer 20-K games than perfect games.
• On Sunday, December 8, 2024 — in a loss to the Los Angeles Rams — Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills had the best fantasy football performance ever by a QB. – via The Athletic (threads / bluesky)
• Over 21 months, Taylor Swift‘s culture-dominating Eras Tour brought in $2B, more than double the gross of its closest competitor, according to ticket sales figures confirmed for the first time. – via Crooked Media (threads / bluesky)
• Staffers at roughly 600 booksellers are receiving $500 holiday bonuses from James Patterson, the bestselling novelist who has been awarding independent store employees since 2015. – via @abcnews
• You can find something for everyone in The 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide.

• When Indiana Jones tells you he needs your help fighting Nazis, you help Indiana Jones fight Nazis. – via @laurenthomanwrites (Vote!)
• If you’re looking for some good news: The population decline of honeybees has actually reversed! – via @dirtyrealism42
• In 2034 people are going to rediscover these unhinged John Mulaney musical sketches and realize they were incredibly brilliant and hysterical. #SNL – via @gatordavid
• The Boss opening his show in Montreal with a cover of Ghostbusters makes me really happy. – via @coachbennett
• I wonder how many of the rabid anti-immigration folks in the US could pass a citizenship test?
• Learn programming by playing games! – via @denicmarko_
• I’m no rocket scientist, but this headline seems bad. The International Space Station Has Been Leaking for Five Years – via @laura.helmuth
• The Athletic just published a great article about sports video game soundtracks that’s worth a read.
• “Can you imagine the beautiful chaos if LinkedIn allowed commenting on open job positions?” – via @regina.thequeen.bee (I love this idea! Couldn’t someone make a browser extension for this?)

I saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last night and absolutely loved it. I thought it was a fantastic film and was very satisfied. Five stars.