RMJ

Also love that the final message of the commercial was "come and take refuge in McDonald's during the holiday season." Have you been in a McDonald's lately? 20 minute limit in the dining area and you want to be gone sooner because the vibes are rancid

My first book pubs today, and among other things it is a love letter to Chicago — the city and the communities that have been a tenth muse for me.

Margaret C. Anderson's story is also, I hope, a reminder that good art requires taking big risks.

www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Dang...

why does microsoft outlook make it virtually impossible to find the original email you sent out and not just the replies to that email

A reminder to read Ross Benes’s book, 1999, which includes a great chapter on pro wrestling. kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700638574/

These are not playful seasonal stressors. That woman in the second picture is trapped in the door of a moving train. That’s a whole nightmare. What exactly are you trying to communicate, McDonald’s????

Screenshot of AI McDonald’s ad. A man hanging Christmas lights falls from the roof plummeting to the ground headfirst. Caption: it’s the most terrible time of the year

Screenshot of AI McDonald’s ad. A woman whose coat and packages are caught in a train door panics as the train begins to depart

Screenshot of AI McDonald’s ad. A man puts out a fire at a dinner party. Caption: the roast turned to charcoal

Screenshot of AI McDonald’s ad. An electrical cord lights on fire. Caption: it’s the most terrible time of the year

I like how everyone in that AI McDonald’s commercial seems like they are about to die a very gruesome death

one of the most important things to me in considering candidates for 2028 is their attitude towards regulation of private equity. we have been pretending that these ghouls have our best interests at hearts for decades while they slowly eat away at everything good about this country

Man I love when you can tell it was filmed on a backlot or a sound stage with a real set these days.

The Fugitive, which included an actual real-life train crash as part of their special effects, started filming in February 1992 and was in theaters less than six months later. And yet every shitty tv show needs three years to film and another year for reshoots

i am never again going to let a conservative get away with complaining about the liberal nanny state because these assholes actually *are* the nagging, inappropriately intrusive boogeymen conservatives have been bleating about for my entire adult life, mind your fucking business

I'm not anti Jacob Elordi, I think he's a promising actor, but SERIOUSLY???????????????????????

Golden Globe Nominations: ‘One Battle After Another’ Leads Film Noms, ‘The White Lotus’ Tops in TV Neon scores the most noms of any film distributor, while Netflix dominated the television categories.

DELROY LINDO SNUBBED

www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

it might be 6am but all i can think about is garlic bread

I absolutely took it for granted until I went elsewhere for college!

We called it Great Mall of the Shoes in our house - my mom is a bargain fiend so it was her favorite. I remember browsing the cheap bookstore for hours

A neat thing about birthright citizenship is how it tests whether a person cares at all about the Constitution. There's no argument against it, birthright citizenship is the unambitious text, the obvious intent of the drafters, and the undisputed way it was followed for the past 150+ years.

Yeah it seems like opening up a clinic with the major local hospital is what turned this one around for sure!

I should add - malls can actually be really fun too! I LOVED going to the Oak Park Mall when I was a kid. That's where the Rainforest Cafe lived! And the mark of a good mall was a Disney Store and an American Girl store, it's crazy those locations have all closed.

I'm fascinated to see that the mall which was virtually dead when I lived there seems to be doing a lot better in 2025! www.shoptanglewood.com/store-listing/

Yeah, it's got me thinking about Roanoke, VA, where I lived from 2004-2012 and which has a couple of malls. The one I worked at looks like it's still doing well - though it's weird to imagine it without a Disney store, which was a hallmark of a Good Mall as a child who was an infrequent mall patron.

Wanted to highlight the author of this comment's Instagram, which is also a fascinating trove of mall history. www.instagram.com/ruralretail/

I used to love the Plaza, it felt SO FANCY. My mom painted one of those cows in the cow parade they had in 2000ish and it was such a big deal for us at the time

Now, Mass St has not been unaffected by the national retail downturn, there are definitely some empty storefronts that were well-occupied for a long time. But I'm down there, shopping, all the time, and it's not at all dead. It's charming and fun and you run into people you know. Better than a mall.

This is also like.... why you buy local. 40 years ago, Lawrence, KS refused to build a mall and instead focused on Massachusetts St as our primary retail district. Today it's still bustling, lots of different and interesting retail and dining. We even have an independent department store still!

The thing to worry about is that Lego and Coach are opening brand new stores at Town Center Plaza/Crossing and there’s a decently credible rumor that the Oak Park stores will close once those new locations are open. I’d also worry that Chicos and White House Black Market will not stick around much longer. Both brands are on the decline nationally, have other stores in the market, and no one is ever in their dated Oak Park Mall locations when I walk past. Their contemporaries, Evereve, Ny&Co, bebe, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, and Talbots have left the mall, partially because those brands are also in decline, but also because the wealthier women who visit the mall really leave Dillard’s and Nordstrom to go shop at the other stores. I shutter the day that JCPenney closes. That’s 6 vacant stores the metro will have to absorb in the near future, and we’ve historically had problems filling vacant department stores and so they end up getting demolished.

empires228 What do you expect them to put in there? Out of the stores that have closed since I moved here: Microsoft - closed all stores Payless - closed all stores Yankee Candle - closed a good number of their stores American Girl - closed all but like two stores The Walking Company - closed all stores The Limited - closed all stores Versona - has closed a good number of their stores Evereve - idk. They closed at the Plaza too SoftMoc - closed all USA stores New York & Company - closed all stores

Subway - in a corporate level death spiral GNC - in a corporate level collapse GameStop - has closed a huge number of stores, including almost all mall-based locations Swarovski - they closed a good number of stores and just recently returned to KC with a new store on the Plaza Forever 21/XXI - Closed all stores Fossil - has closed most physical locations The Body Shop - exited KC. Has since closed all stores Icing - Claire’s went bankrupt over the summer. New owners decided to liquidate the entirety of Icing Lady Foot Locker - Foot Locker has been phasing out the brand. Very few stores still exist under the Lady and Kids branding Footaction USA - Foot Locker liquidated the entire chain Brookstone - liquidated all stores Disney - shut down all stores not in outlet malls or Times Square Justice - all stores liquidated in bankruptcy

Vanity: store was built out, but never opened because the chain liquidated before it opened. Space became Vans. Crocs: they closed a good chunk of their stores, but have made a comeback in popularity. They just came back to KC with a small store at the Legends. Going back to just before I moved here: RadioShack - gone except for a few franchised stores Banana Republic - has closed most stores Wet Seal - liquidated in bankruptcy Body Central - liquidated in bankruptcy Ann Taylor - closed all 3 KC stores. Has closed most stores nationwide Foundry - brand phased out by JCPenney Teavana - chain purchased and liquidated by Starbucks Art of Shaving - entire chain liquidated L'Occitane en Provence - closed both KC stores. Has closed a good chunk of their stores in the USA Crabtree & Evelyn - liquidated all stores

Crabtree & Evelyn - liquidated all stores Rainforest Cafe - was not allowed to renew lease bebe - liquidated all stores Lacoste: has closed most stores. Brand is currently making a big attempt at mounting a comeback Tommy Hilfiger - closed all stores Johnny Rockets - poorly placed. Has since closed most locations GAP - this one actually happened like 20 years ago now. GAP wanted to consolidate their brands into one larger space. Copaken wouldn’t work with them. GAP closed. Mall was sold to CBL soon after Talbots - brand had been on a decline for years and has closed a fair number of stores. KC used to have quite a few. Now just one remains Jos. A Banks - has closed a ton of stores. Sister brand Men’s Wearhousr has a larger store in the mall area. We used to have several stores in KC. Only one remains Soma - I actually don’t know. I think it’s hilarious that Mini So took forever to open and didn’t even touch the facade. This store died off at the mall so fast that it’s amazing the store’s facade is even still intact You also have to remember that some of these stores were able to break their leases because they were tired to the presence of Nordstrom and Nordstrom was supposed to build a new replacement store at the Plaza, which is what cost us a few of the higher end stores.

Someone posted a question about the decline of the once-fancy Oak Park Mall in the Overland Park (v wealthy Kansas City suburb) subreddit and I was intrigued by this comment summarizing the decline of American retail via the many familiar stores that have shuttered in the last couple decades (cont)

❤️🪓❤️

Whack Job: A History of Axe Murder A History of Axe Murder

Case one: I have been recommending WHACK JOB by @rmccarthyjames.bsky.social to every cool person I know. (Also, great cover & title.)
bookshop.org/p/books/whac...

Reminder! "Best Of" lists are tied to publicity and marketing budgets, who is able to hire publicists, what books made it to the top of a TBR stack *thousands* of arcs tall, and the shrinking # of outlets still doing book coverage.
Talk about your favorite books!
They likely weren't read. ❤️📚

There’s got to be a specific register that causes quarter-zips to burst into flames