Casey Common

When I was in college I worked as a student manager for the men’s basketball team. One opposing team, every year, when they left the visitors locker room they would leave all the showers on. So we had to roll up our sleeves and turn them off. Every year.

You are not forgiven, Michigan.

1987-91.

They lost me at Almoravid Empire.

Please excuse your Gen X colleagues who are unable to focus today

Priceless.

The Chicago Rat Hole Was Not Made by a Rat A statistical analysis of an infamous indentation in a sidewalk suggested a 99 percent likelihood that another rodent made the mark.

A team of researchers analyzed the anatomical dimensions of an infamous imprint on a Chicago sidewalk, sifting through photos and measuring mammal specimens in museum collections to put what they were seeing in context.

Their conclusion? The Chicago Rat Hole was not made by a rat.

Next up for me: colonoscopy 😬 🤞🏻

95.7 BIG FM - Milwaukee’s Best Variety of the 80s & 90s 95.7 BIG FM. The Dave Michaels Radio Show in the Morning, Milwaukee's Best Variety of the 80s and 90s all day!

Which is perhaps understandable 957bigfm.iheart.com

Was listening to KOOL 108 this afternoon (don’t @ me) and I can’t swear to it but fairly certain I heard the DJ say “Milwaukee’s Best Variety of the 80s and 90s”

Oh yeah… I’ve made plans for a few ticketed events but I’ve been mostly AWOL this year otherwise.

But it’s been a year and we have reasons and we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves. At least that’s what I’m telling myself 😕

Yeah I’m not privy to those details but I wouldn’t doubt it!

It is a subsidiary, although we have a self-funded plan and UMR is the administrator. Used to be HeslthPartners but switched to UMR several years back in a cost-cutting move.

Yeah basically you’re just supposed to say “everything’s fine, no complaints.” Here I was just informing the doc of a recent diagnosis which … any responsible patient would do? Instead it got listed as the reason for the visit.

UMR and HealthPartners

Oof I’m sorry. That is several orders of magnitude beyond my situation!

Just got off a conference call with an insurance rep and my health provider’s billing department because another preventive checkup was mistakenly billed as an office visit. Stay vigilant people!

Never had a problem either this until the past few years. Now it’s happened multiple times.

It was definitely a Gen Z crowd over there!

(Shortly afterward I decamped for the tavern next door)

When the lights came up after the show, I lingered at the back for a few minutes, apparently conspicuously, because a staffer approached me and said, “Let me guess: not your genre of music. Are you here for a kid?” 😂

Molly Grace at the 7th Street Entry

Bob Mould, Martin Zellar and Tina Schlieske are playing in town tonight. But I volunteered to drive some teenagers home from the Laufey concert so I’m at Molly Grace at the Entry across the street.

JOE BUCK: Welcome to the top of the 47th
[Sun rises]
[Sun keeps getting bigger]
BUCK: yes
[World engulfed by flames]
BUCK: oh god yes

ST: TNG didn’t become the ST: TNG we remember until Season 3

We watch mostly the breathless and formulaic NBC Nightly News in recent years so I’ve been unaware of the unprecedented dominance of David Muir.

News: Bari Weiss just sent a memo to staffers at CBS News asking them to produce a memo explaining "how you spend your working hours—and ideally, what you've made (or are making) that you're most proud of."

One CBS News staffer puts it like this to me: "We just got Elon Musked."

In college I took a sociology class which I mostly blew off. But I showed up for the final, and the TA who was handing out blue books looked at me and said, “There’s no way you can pass this class.” I said, “I know,” and held out my hand. The recurring nightmare, but I lived it. Without AI.

NEW: L.A. Times journalists just voted to authorize the newsroom’s first open-ended strike.

Eighty-five percent of the @latguild.bsky.social voted to support the strike. Just over 200 workers — 98% of members — took part in the historic vote.

Ah yes, famously uncool singer Johnny Cash. I am glad noted arbiter of cool the Wall Street Journal is willing to reconsider his case.

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

Proof the Internet really does benefit society.

It’s three syllables for me: nickel-it.