From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

I used to think I was the most anxious person on earth, but then I got a bit healthier and realized that what I thought was anxiety was a fear of punishment. A fear that if something went wrong, someone was going to hurt me.

combatdavey.net | from Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue 9/23/2025

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

When people talk about someone having a “good” memory what they’re saying is that person can both remember and recall things. When I talk about having a “good” memory, I am explaining that I am cursed.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

The “endless, always-on emotional support” provided by ChatGPT and the like isn’t actually emotional support but rather the outputs of a machine that most people are not smart enough, emotionally mature enough, or digitally sophisticated enough to use.

From yesterday’s post:

I don’t want this blog to be about the awfulness of the real world. I want to be writing funny things about about dumb stuff and/or linking you to useful, joy-inspiring things. But I am watching all of this crazy shit happen in real time with a horrified look on my face.

Today’s post at combatdavey.net includes bits on Robert Redford, Luigi Mangione, Feist, and David Lynch’s Seinfeld but also this:

I want to put together some kind of course or set of resources that will help people improve their media literacy.

If you want to help me, LMK.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

Our culture is obsessed with being angry. A lot of that anger is a product being sold by bad actors who tell bold-faced lies and make bad faith arguments because their job is to foment and nurture that anger.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

Charlie Kirk just got shot at an event in Utah. I’m adding it here sans link because there is apparently a graphic video going around and I’m assuming that you may want to take steps to avoid seeing it and/or to ensure your kids don’t see it.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

I’ve never been good at sleeping. My mind is an unruly beast that buzzes and squawks and squeals and honks at all hours but particularly after midnight. That’s when I do (and have done) a lot of writing, a lot of reading, and a lot of rabbit hole-ing.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

You can draw a straight line between that last thing and our current moment in which a great many people simply do not trust science, experts, expertise, or education. You can draw a straight line between that and the end of objective reality.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

When you are a person whose brain works a certain way (iykyk), you get bogged down in the details because everything you do is about understanding and then performing accuracy and correctness, which itself is about achieving (earning?) validity.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

LinkedIn is little more than a group of hucksters who change their tune every few years in order to sell courses and ebooks to credulous idiots who think the fifteen minutes they devoted to the Wim Hof Method in 2020 makes them founders.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

Sometimes I just like to talk about things I remember so that I continue to remember them […] and sometimes, like today, I want you to know that if we are friends, regardless of what time does to that friendship, I will still remember you in 28 years.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

Trying, failing, getting up, trying again, failing again, and failing better (sorry for mangling that, Samuel Beckett) is a heroic act — and we sure as hell need as many heroes as we can get these days.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

I haven’t done this here (yet?) for reasons including but not limited to that I don’t use Spotify anymore. Still, I’m considering bringing that kind of feature to this blog. I miss curating something cool and sharing it with people.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

“We are deathly afraid of acknowledging our most passionate wishes,” writes Heather Havrilesky. “We are embarrassed by them. Our desires, no matter how pure and generous they are, feel dirty and unlovable to us.”

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

His point wasn’t “you have to be and think and act and dress differently every day because being the same every day is for normie square losers.” His point was that we cannot be so bound to what we thought yesterday that we refuse to change our minds today.

From today’s post at combatdavey.net:

Those parts were actually pretty close to the surface but obscured by alcohol, illness, and sadness, and the bad choices that precede and follow alcohol, illness, and sadness.

Friday’s odds and ends post over at combatdavey.net included — among other things — another WTF story about AI, an amazing Point Break mural, a ridiculously expensive cocktail, and a tribute to a late, great Montrealer. Give it a read, willya? combatdavey.net/august-15-etc

Keywords from today’s post over at Oddball: cocktail, aesthetics, zero, psychotic, Reddit, sex, and playlist. 🏀⚾

Keywords from today’s odds and ends post over at combatdavey.net (in alphabetical order): cantaloupe, chatbot, death, dogs, gift, MySpace, Queens, sociopathy, Taskmaster, trivia.

wut

⛏️⛏️⛏️ new macroblog post: the reward for work is more work

😨😱👻 wrote a thing about writer’s block and fear and doubt and you can read it if you want to but you don’t have to okay bye

🔗🔗🔗 I used to write an email newsletter called DMail. I’m thinking about rebooting it. This blog post is similar to what a DMail issue looked and felt like so have at it or whatever: combatdavey.bearblog.dev/links-post-2

I’ve been building a little site over at Bear. It’s still a work in progress (and I still need to map combatdavey dot com to it) but I’d be grateful it if you took a look and read a few things: combatdavey.bearblog.dev

Finally getting around to listening to some actually new music. Will report back. Maybe. 🎵

🚨 Macroblog! Does this links post portend the 2025 return of my newsletter? As per Anna Baragli, only Bobo knows for sure.

On the advice of @cheesemaker I am exploring the idea of writing interactive fiction.

— to congratulate me, press [A] on your keyboard
— to boo and hiss at me, press [B] on your keyboard
— to throw your computer in the river, throw your computer in the river

I’ve been macroblogging again. My attempt at a weekend recap includes but is not limited to:

— my sluttiness (probably)
— a character named GF20 (but not really)
— my mother’s potential immortality (really)
— a show called Farm Crime (no, really)

I don’t work in advertising anymore, but I still pull this out from time to time because David Ogilvy was a G.

I mean… sure. Why not

Want to read something new and fresh? Something published in the last 24 hours? Sure you do. My suggestion: I don’t know why early 2000s internet is suddenly back, but both Ask a Ninja and Homestar Runner have just uploaded new videos by PC Gamer writer Wes Fenlon (h/t Guy @ thingstoclick.com)

To the 4-10 people who will care: I will be rebooting DMail in the next few months.

This is like when Jack Donaghy and the writers endlessly tinker in order to create the perfect microwave and end up designing the Pontiac Aztek. 🏀

Listening to the JENNIE album. There’s more than a little Ke$ha influence in here, huh… 🎵

We started Mythic Quest a million years late last weekend. Last night we watched Dark Quiet Death. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since. 📺

We live in fractious, politically polarized times. And yet I have to believe that we’re all on the same page in thinking that setting public artworks on fire is a bad thing that people shouldn’t do.

Reading the Atlantic piece about loneliness and feeling grateful. Without knowing the power of what I was doing, I spent decades building a life that prioritized a very active kind of friendship. I worried that my way was insecure. Pathetic even. In actuality, I was feeding my brain and my soul.

For no real reason, the two albums I’ve been listening to a lot lately are Is This It by the Strokes and Contra by Vampire Weekend. 🎵

Ah fuck, Val Kilmer died. Gonna skip the greatest hits and fire up The Salton Sea this week to celebrate/mourn.🍿

Bruce Eric Kaplan for The New Yorker.

Just made a bad pancake that was a pretty good pancake, all things considered. (First time vaguebooking on Micro.blog, what a day!)

Saw the first pick and thought it was weird that Amazon was selling a 4th gen. iPod Shuffle. Clicked through. Realized they weren’t.

Amazon is 100% going wreck the James Bond franchise with underwhelming ten-episode seasons about Blofeld’s early years and Q coming to terms with being autistic.

I haven’t written an actual blog post (i.e. over 300ch) since joining Micro.blog bc my thoughts and ideas either come as pithy little asides or strap-the-fuck-in longreads. And I only write longreads when I get paid.

I just started watching Anthony Gramuglia’s video essay/Trevor Project fundraiser titled Elon Musk Doesn’t Understand Cyberpunk | 2025 and Sci-Fi. It’s pretty good so far, and, as you can see, so are the comments.

Some light Sunday reading. 📚

My therapist low-key suggested that I stop reading the news and I think she’s right. On the other hand, I don’t want the money I’m paying for the NYT and Apple News+ to go to waste. #sunkcostfallacy #iknowhashtagsdontworkhere

People who know things about government computing systems are… worried. (The Atlantic)

Didn’t expect NYT columnist Frank Bruni to comment on Cooper Flagg’s moistness today, but here we are. 🏀

I legit think about this Atlantic article every day.

Thinking of rebooting an old newsletter and I’m wondering if the Micro.blog Premium plan is right for me. If you’ve moved your newsletter to Micro.blog from Mailchimp, Substack, Ghost, etc, can you give me some feedback and/or show me what the finished product looks like?

Draymond would kill it on LinkedIn.

I co-wrote a sports trivia newsletter with a friend for a few years but eventually life got in the way and we had to go on hiatus. This weekend we’re meeting up to discuss a revival and I couldn’t be more excited.

I’m wondering if the When Harry Met Sally Super Bowl ad (Hellmann’s) will resonate. I like the nostalgia hit, but given the state of cultural literacy and the changed attitudes and politics in re: sex and sexuality I’m not sure it does enough, or much at all.

In re: the current New York Magazine cover story and the attendant social media commentary, a friend said something trenchant and worth sharing: “A good reminder that, for most people, politics are just a personality.”

In case you were wondering why TikTok users are suddenly posting about “cute winter boots.” (via Taylor Lorenz’s User Mag)

Finally got around to reading Ed Zitron’s Never Forgive Them, an astounding and searing piece of writing that gets to the heart of how being on the internet is painful, harmful, and anti-user — and why.

😐😐😐

Amidst all the doom and gloom (and brimstone), a ray of light: Robert Eggers is making a sequel to Labyrinth.

This is real. Dick Wolf is going to accidentally make NTSF:SD:SUV:: someday.

Currently reading: Ruined by Design by Mike Monteiro 📚 (which was published in 2019, by the way)

Everything feted as original in advertising has been done before and that’s okay. Ads don’t need to reinvent the game to be good or effective. There are only a handful of story archetypes and yet we still watch and read. Knowing the tropes of dystopian sci-fi doesn’t make me not want to watch Silo.

I joined micro.blog in December and this week I started posting a lot, like I did back in the day (real heads know). And the more I posted, the more I wanted to post. This felt odd; I retired from posting when social got really awful. Today, the penny dropped. I want to actually write again.

Somehow, losing Bob Uecker and David Lynch on the same day makes thematic sense. Both were true originals who coloured outside the lines and not only were they not punished for it, they were celebrated. There’s a lesson there, but I’m not sure it is applicable to our terrifying present.

RIP David Lynch. 🍿

Good posters write perfect little jokes that become part of the fabric of cultural reality (online and offline) while remaining niche enough to be a shibboleth for and between the right people. It’s actually pretty magical when you think about it.

Reading the Atlantic piece about loneliness and feeling grateful. Without knowing the power of what I was doing, I spent decades building a life that prioritized a very active kind of friendship. I worried that my way was insecure. Pathetic even. In actuality, I was feeding my brain and my soul.

I stopped posting on Twitter forever ago but can’t seem to delete the app or my 50,000+ tweets bc of all the bangers I’ve liked/RTed over the years. I basically only it for dynasty basketball research reasons, but, while there, I check the temperature of the zeitgeist. (Spoiler: it’s bad.)

A relatively minor gripe considering everything else that’s going on but when did we decide as a culture that literacy didn’t matter?

The singer whose most famous track is about a cheater singing at the Trump inauguration is wayyy too on the nose. The writers are getting lazy. This show is probably about to get canceled if they’re doing stuff like this.

Pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed that Mark Carney interview on TDS.

Rickey played a cautious sport with abandon. Rickey played a timid sport with flash. Rickey irritated and thrilled and frustrated and dominated and left us all wanting more.

If you’re also bummed about the death of best leadoff man ever, read what Joe Posnanski wrote and reminisce. ⚾

Finally looked at my Spotify Wrapped and it really seems like the only thing this thing remembers is that I was mainlining Andrew Bird while working a terrible job for a few months in the summer. 🎵

If you’re like me, when you get near the end of a series you are really enjoying, you delay and delay and delay and stretch those last few episodes out over a few months. If you’re not like me, and don’t do this, what’s it like having a brain that works properly? 📺