My Favorite Things This Week #104

The Friday High 5: D&D, murders, music, and Moneyball

Yes, Moneyball again. No, it’s not what you think. Yes, I probably need help. Sony Pictures

Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High 5. 🙏🏻

I didn’t really plan on sending a High 5 today as I’ve already invaded your inboxes twice this week, which is probably two more times than you’d prefer. But given one of those pieces was me publicly mourning the Detroit Lions, I figured I owed you another pop culture adjacent article.

Given I waited until Friday to make this decision, this is going to be on the shorter side.

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The Dungeons and also the Dragons

I spent most of last Saturday braving dangers and generally being a Big Damn Hero. The all-day session ended in a harrowing battle with our party sandwiched between a band of blood-thirsty giants and an elder dragon. We escaped to fight another day.

January - April is prime time D&D months. I mean, all months are theoretically prime time D&D months. But due to a quirk of chance—or perhaps it was fated—the first 4 months of the year have the birthdays of two of my friends, my adult son, and yours truly. One birthday each month.

Being grown men, we naturally celebrate by playing pretend elf games.

Next on the docket is my birthday game in February. We’ve been playing the same game every year for about 10 years. At this point, the players have amassed enough influence that they’re barons and kings and such. That’s one thing missing from modern D&D—the idea of characters becoming major figures in the world. Gives the game an extra bit of verisimilitude.

Plus it’s just hilarious to me that one of my players is King of the Shire.

Only Murders In the Building: Season 4

We’ve been slow-playing this show for months. Not exactly to savor it. More like I never felt all that compelled to see the next episode. The Oliver Putnam of it all is as enjoyable as ever—in fact, Season 4 might be peak Putnam—but Martin Short’s shoulders are only so big.

Part of the show’s charm has always been its blend of murder, mystery, and generational hijinks. But it turns out the half-life of that special blend is about 2 seasons. After that, you risk tipping completely into parody. It’s already begun.

I’m not sure how much longer I’ll keep watching, though I’m morbidly curious to see if the show will literally kill everyone in the building in order to satisfy its dark hunger.

Getting my crap together

I spent much of the week trying to get organized, or at least less chaotic. I’m not really a planner. I prefer letting spontaneity guide my calendar. But sometimes crazy is just crazy and you need to bring in reinforcements.

This week I spent time corralling all my digital resources—emails, open tabs, scraps of brilliance or nothing masquerading thereas—into digital pens. I’m following the PARA system, which I discovered last year. I have the guy’s book because buying stuff remains a fool-proof way of procrastinating, but really you just need to watch one 11-minute video to get the gist.

PARA stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archives, and is just a light methodology for keeping your ducks in a row. I’m using Apple Notes for mine and it works super well.

This effort ties into my larger plan to re-read Digital Minimalism and dust-off my bullet journal, all with the goal of being more orderly and thus productive in 2025.

Moneyball

Long-time readers may recall that I have an unhealthy appreciation for the Brad Pitt vehicle about baseball statistics. However, in this case, I’m referring to the book.

I’ve been curious to read Moneyball since completing Michael Lewis’ MasterClass on writing. Last night was an impromptu date night that ended at the library. Just like in all the rom-coms.

I’m three chapters in and am absolutely delighted that the movie scenes where Billy Beane (Pitt) meets with his scouts is true to life. These professional appraisers of baseball talent really did get enamored with a player’s body, and say stuff like, “he’s got good body.” In fact, that’s pretty much all they said.

My delight in discovering that Beane’s reply—“we’re not selling jeans”—is also real, and not a bit of script doctoring, goes beyond words.

My YouTube Music Mix

I am a total luddite when it comes to AI because AI is an acronym for theft. But sometimes a clever bit of programming creates something indistinguishable from magic, and I’m forced to briefly lower my defenses.

Today I discovered My Mix on YouTube, which is a tailored list of songs I’ve enjoyed on their platform. 100% bangers.

Barracuda goes so hard.

YouTube makes it impossible to find this. I still am not sure how I found it, I just randomly clicked on something. There’s no way to save it as a playlist. And, in fact, YouTube constantly refreshes it—Hey Man Nice Shot was originally 8th in the list. It’s a perpetual music motion machine.

Anyway this browser tab will now remain open until the heat death of the universe.

You can thank My Mix for this:

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What brought you joy this week?

Drop some recs in the comments. Have a great weekend!