Extra Evil - F1 Roundabout

Today’s Fortune: Your friend's calling in that favor.

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Newsreel

This headline is disputed.

Eight people still want to be Speaker.

Menendez denied serving anyone’s interests.

Iran held passive-aggressive peace talks.

The Times released an editorial note on an editorial note.

The ice shelf now fits in your freezer.

Today's Mood

War Journal

The Gary Oak costume won. My old cohost pitched it as a doubles bit. Bad sign for my local reputation, but a fun time.

The tragedy of cable’s decline: we’ve lost a beautiful scapegoat.

Stupidity? Sitcoms. Hate? News networks. Debt? Infomercials. Every vice had a genre holding the bag, as if Eve stole a remote from the garden.

Yet as ratings fade, our problems remain. And intensify. It seems Law & Order marathons held democracies together. I assume Facebook’s skeleton somehow pushes back WW3.

We got great mileage out of GTA as a scapegoat. I’ll argue for the series as an educational tool, and a conservative one at that.

How so? Vice City pitched linear progress for effort better than any Horatio Alger story, hustle post, or self-help fad. You do a job for a faction. They like you a little better. You inch closer to buying your first strip club, the seed that becomes four strip clubs. Until you’re finally the new Al Capone.

If your kids are sloths, try violent games. The one place hard work always works.

We’ve got our first Mystery Box winner for Extra Evil referrals: Clementine Danger! The box makes life brighter, more meaningful, and longer. Why not become a god?

The Present

Thunderbolt Fantasy spin-kicked my expectations.

I played with 2023’s favorite fable in The New Yorker.

Pre-marital flirting? Have fun in hell, strumpet.

Some fun with Jann Wenner.

Cold copies of Everything Abridged need a home on your bookshelf.

The Past

Meet the presidents.

The Future

The Trap Design Contest results are almost upon us.

The next Amran and Michael crossover is almost upon us.

I’m 3.5K words into the next Expensive Evil.

Not Brought to You By

Hey there, Goal Diggers. Let’s talk about the dark side.

I was wrong to lump all the Match Group campaigns together. One has something like an idea, and gets twice the reaction.

People hate these:

As they should. They’re caramel corn for deluded narcissists. Each line riffs on a generic pun.

But deluded narcissists exist. And the basic insight into them is right on track: “You deserve to date another God.” This works on its audience.

Creativity: D
Persuasion: B+
Sanity: F

One Sentence Reviews

Deload Weeks: Oh, that’s why parts of me kept falling off. (5/5)

Nosferatu (1922): Wonderfully inventive, bizarrely paced. (4/5)

Thunderbolt Fantasy (Season 3): How do I tell dates I’m a karate puppet fanboy? (4.5/5)

Open Question

Signing off

Thanks for reading Extra Evil, the newsletter with infinite answers. Share it to call its bluff.

-DD