An Incomplete List Of Things I Am Thankful For Right Now

We will be back to our regular twice-weekly schedule next week. For this week, though, we're doing one blog. It's this one. You probably figured that out already. Look at you, like a detective. Before we dive into this list, let's get some business out of the way: You still have three days to sign up for a paid subscription at the two-year blogiversary discounted rate. I wrote about it all here, but I'll also pop the signup link below if you don't feel like reading all that.

Off we go.

Keith David thriving

I don’t know why it took me until 2025 to realize how cool Keith David is but the important thing is that I’m here now. It started with Duster, the short-lived HBO Max series where he played a 1970s crime boss who wore cool suits and strutted around in slow motion a lot. God, he was so good in that. I liked the show, too, and was bummed when it got canceled, but upon review, I think I mostly just liked this character a lot. Much to consider. 

Then he popped up in The Lowdown, my favorite show of the year. He played an investigator and got to pop off lots of cool lines and basically stole every scene he was in. I don’t know if this show is gonna get a second season either. I hope it does, for a lot of reasons. If it doesn’t, I hope everyone keeps casting Keith David as cool dudes in shows I like. 

Ramps

Ramps have two primary uses:

• Assist wheelchair users like me (and people who have difficulty with stairs) in getting into buildings and other structures that would otherwise be inaccessible 
• Launch thrill-seeking X-Games athlete-types into the sky to perform dangerous tricks and stunts

Lotta range there. Good for ramps. 

Space things (???)

I have not, historically, been a big fan of science fiction stuff that takes place in space. Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. Then, this year, I found myself enjoying the following:

• The Murderbot books and TV show, about a security robot that hacks its own operating system and becomes kind of obsessed with watching his soap operas
• Project Hail Mary, a book — and soon to be movie — by the author of The Martian about the sun dying out and a high school science teacher zooming into the cosmos in an attempt to save humanity 
• The thing where 9-1-1 sent Angela Bassett to space

I suppose that last one isn’t science fiction. I truly believe Angela Bassett could be an astronaut if she wanted to. 

Heists, generally

I don’t remember when exactly I started writing about goofy heists. It was many years ago, I know that. It's been going on long enough that it’s become a whole thing. Every time there’s a weird or notable heist, my inbox and social media mentions start filling up with people sending me the story. It makes me very happy. I click on all of them. I clicked on so many things about the Louvre heist that I wrote a newsletter about it to justify the amount of time I was spending. Also, because I loved it. A lot of reasons. 

I saw another one this week. A guy plopped a toupee on his head and tried to steal thousands of dollars' worth of wine by swapping out the fancy bottles with cheap screw tops. A waiter and the sommelier chased him down and caught his accomplice before he sped away. I have already started my screenplay for The Sommelier’s Revenge. 

Tramell Tillman calling Tom Cruise “mister” in Mission: Impossible

Favorite part of the movie, easily. Guy showed up as a submarine captain and kept calling Ethan Hunt “mister,” but not like “Mr. Hunt,” more like “I don’t know what you’re up to, mister.” It was great. You could put this character in every action movie and no one would complain. Tramell Tillman is a star.

Patti Harrison

If the only thing Patti Harrison ever did was appear in ITYSL sketches and shout about Charlie Brown, that would be fine. She’s that good at it. 

But then she popped up as a recurring character in the second season of Poker Face and got to be a complete maniac over the last chunk of episodes. It was delightful. Good for Patti, man. And for the rest of us. Let her and Keith David do a show together. That seems like a reasonable request. 

Charity

Here’s a suggestion: Next time you’re having a crappy day, one of those where everything goes wrong in small enough ways that it’s not life-ruining but just defeating and endlessly frustrating, go online and find some charity that does something you think is cool and give them $25. Or $50. Or $10,000. The amount isn’t really important. It’s the act of doing it. It just feels really good, man. You can do it anytime you want. You can do it right now. 

YouTube videos of my beloved local sports teams having success

There are a lot of things about the internet that stink. I don’t have to list them all, which is good because I really do not want to. But it’s also really cool — in a way I try to focus on periodically without taking it for granted — that I can open up YouTube and type “allen iverson 60 points” and just watch the whole game where he scored 60 points. I literally did it last week. I might do it again this weekend.

The future is scary, sure. But it's also incredible.

Pie

My social media feeds were flooded with people yelling about pie this week. Pies they thought were good, pies they thought were bad, etc. I was just happy people were talking about pie. I love pie. There’s a pumpkin pie with a walnut crumb topping in my fridge as I type this and I have been thinking about it for hours. Reasonable arguments can be made that I typed out this whole blog to distract myself from thinking about the pie too much. I failed miserably but I’m okay with it. 

Happy Thanksgiving.