Extra Evil - Evening Edition

Today’s Fortune: Panic early to beat the rush.

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Newsreel

North Korea launched balloons full of sewage, to collective relief.

Israel left the ICC on read.

Indian voters prepped for Earth’s biggest foregone conclusion.

We’ll probably get a sequel to the GameStop movie.

Putin made a celebratory purge.

Google’s AI says Yahoo made it.

Today's Mood

War Journal

Campaigns should lean in and sell jerseys. Other apparel has the same spirit and function, you’re just putting a ceiling on sales for optics. And optics have been dead for longer than we’ve been declining.

You know how I feel about stock jokes by now. Not memes—those are closer to a community pool. Especially given how quickly the occupants cycle out, and how much of it is waste from children.

But tapping one is helpful here. Forgive the hypocrisy. Most of you vote, so you should be used to doing that anyway.

I need a vacation from my vacation.

It was a great trip (the half I was able to get to, at least). But I’m still trying to catch my life up to the lag Frontier Airlines created. The gap’s getting tighter—hence this only being seven hours late. But this newsletter is never late, so that’s still pretty wild. Deadlines and breakfast are my only consistent traits.

The State Department needs to do something about American tourists. They’re a diplomatic biohazard.

The Present

We need to talk about Bernard the Bee Boy. [1900HOTDOG]

Man vs. Gravity is history's finest conflict. [1900HOTDOG]

Cue "Love is a Battlefield." [Exclusive Evil]

Hopefully we can give our next life to IBM too. [1900HOTDOG]

Everything Abridged keeps me solvent. [My Book]

The Past

The previous hotdog theme week was one of my favorite volleys.

The Future

The next Expensive Evil is in its larval outline form.

Not Brought to You By

New York’s in the middle of a slapfight over casino quantity and placement. The vice team has this three-panel spot up by Times Square:

Terminally bland, which feels like an immense waste of money. It’s essentially a logo gallery, attached to the abstract promise of money trickling down. The latter is a fine underlying theme, veracity aside, but the ad’s meant to jazz it up.

I get the respectability dance—I have a whole newsletter section dedicated to ads falling on their face. But paying this much for a spot and doing nothing with it lets gambling addicts down. Look how boldly DraftKings said “this is our world now.” That’s the attitude aspiring kingpins need to survive.

Creativity: F
Persuasion: D
Sanity: D+

One Sentence Reviews

Frontier Airlines: A flying enema. (0/5)

Pistol Whip 2024: This update feels very illegal, and awesome. (5/5)

Sexyy Red - Hood’s Hottest Princess: The stealth midpoint of crunk and shock rap. (2.5/5)

200 Stab Wounds - Slaves to the Scalpel: Band name technology continues to evolve. (3/5)

200 Stab Wounds - Hands of Eternity: Cover art technology continues to evolve. (3.5/5)

Planetary: Still inimitable. (5/5)

Second Wind: I hope you like it, it’s the last gaming outlet. (4/5)

Open Question

Signing off

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