In this week's P.O. Box:
Stray thoughts from my orbit
Stream roundup: Pre-Combine week
Book Club: Hooked on Empire Of Pain
I’m loving the offseason right now. Here are ten quick hitters of things I’ve been doing or thinking about recently…
💤 Sleep goalzzz. For the first time in my life, I’m trying to standardize when I go to bed. For the past few weeks, I’ve gone to bed somewhere between 9:30-10:00pm. At first, I felt depressed doing this—as if my days were being cut short or something—but now I’m loving it. The time I’m swapping at night (generally watching TV or sweating NBA DFS lineups) for in the morning (writing, getting ahead for the day) has been a successful trade. Don’t worry, I’m not going full hardo.
🍫 My current favorite Creami mix-in. My mom had given us some of these Ghirardelli chocolate mint squares in a Valentine’s Day package and I’ve been cutting up two of them up as a Creami mix-in. It tastes exactly like mint chocolate chip ice cream. 10/10.
🍺 Non-alcoholic beer alpha. In an effort to reduce my alcohol consumption in the house to zero, I recently went down the non-alcoholic beer rabbit hole as a way to wane myself off the Devil’s juice. I might do a longer post on it later, but my early findings are 1) The Athletic stuff is overrated and 2) the non-alcoholic Coronas are shockingly good. They legitimately taste like a regular Corona. If only there were non-alcoholic Modelos, I’d really be in business.
👟 New running shoes. I had toyed with the idea of an ambitious running goal for 2025, but after trial-ballooning it for a few weeks, I decided I don’t actually want to run that much. I’ve settled back into my “hybrid” “training” routine with more variety (lifting, yoga, sprints/hills, etc.), but I did stumble upon a new pair of running shoes I love in the process. I had always heard good things about Hokas and can confirm they are excellent.
🛀 Took the plunge. I splurged on a cold plunge a month or so ago and I’m finally ready to report back. I’ve been doing it after the sauna most days for 3-ish minutes at 45 degrees. It never gets easier, but I am really enjoying it. I’ll probably do a longer post on it sometime in the future if there’s interest.
📺 TV comfort food. We wrapped up Say Nothing the other night (so, so good) and are currently watching Severance and White Lotus as new episodes pop up. I’m not loving this LOST-like trajectory for Severence where it becomes less about the characters and more about Reddit-driven mysteries that serve as homework. The most recent episode was much better after a rocky start, though. On the other hand, White Lotus is S-tier. No one does a better job casting and digging into characters than Mike White. Every scene with the three cougar friends is electric.
🎧 Servicing the (premium) audio listeners. One of the things that frustrates me about the YouTube memberships is that there’s no easy way to provide people with a podcast version of my After Dark shows. I finally found a decent solve. I created a premium subscription for my In A Vaccuum podcast feed where I’ll post the video & audio of every After Dark/premium show I do. If you don’t care about being able to watch them live (or the Discord access) that comes via a Youtube sub, this is a great alternative for $4.99/month.
🧪 In the video lab. I’ve got two videos cooking in the Youtube oven right now after a hiatus on the Deposit Kingdom channel. I’m very excited for both.
✈ A cross-country trip. Last year, we took April to Colorado and she handled the plane rides pretty well. We’re upping the ante this week, though, with a trip to San Diego. 6 hours and 40 minutes is a completely different beast. The tablet is loaded. Pray for us.
🌴 NBA Dawg Bowl Weekend. The main driver for the trip to San Diego is eating as many Cali burritos as humanly possible for the NBA Dawg Bowl weekend hosted by Underdog. I’ll be doing some shows/content and hanging out during the live final drafts and watch party.
☕ BEST BALL BREAKFAST: The Riskiest Player Is The Best Pick Right Now. Plus, an ongoing battle with an ambient streaming channel…
🏫 The NFL Players Association released their annual report card. So I rounded up all the failing grades.
💪 THE SWOLECAST: Training For The Combine. The one where we explore what it means to be “barrel chested.”
🤓 FANTASY LIFE: Strategy guide for early drafters. 5 quick tips for the Big Board contest.
☣ LOLZ: How Bric Legit Saved A Lost Soul In Madden. Incredible story of Bric interacting with a Madden opponent.
🚢 SHIP CHASING: Early Edges To Attack In The Big Board. Pat and I drafted our first team together with the help of the Sidekick.
⏰ OFF & ON THE CLOCK: A Beginner’s Guide To NBA Playoff Best Ball. Everything you need to know to dive into The Dance contest on Underdog.
DFS After Dark returns tonight with special guest and the award-winning Cooterdoodle from Fantasy Life. We’ll get a full boots-on-the-ground recap from her time at the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
I’ll have Best Ball Breakfast on Monday am, too, but then I’ll be out for the rest of the week—so no LOLz, Ship Chasing, or After Dark next week.
🚂 Book #2 for March (20%): Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe.
Similar to Erik Larson—who we read last year—Patrick Radden Keefe writes my favorite type of non-fiction where the story is so compelling that it feels like a fictional page-turner.
The prologue immediately hooked me and all of the background stemming from Arthur Sackler is perfectly turning up the heat.
I think I could read an entire book about Sackler, a truly self-made man who is simultaneously inspiring and a complete scumbag.
“The Sackler empire is a completely integrated operation,” Blair wrote. They could develop a drug, have it clinically tested, secure favorable reports from the doctors and hospitals with which they had connections, devise an advertising campaign in their agency, publish the clinical articles and the advertisements in their own medical journals, and use their public relations muscle to place articles in newspapers and magazines.
Arthur had also become attuned to the advantages of gaming the tax code, so for tax purposes he declared each donation not at the price he paid for it but at the present market value. It was a classic Arthur Sackler play: innovative, showy, a little bit shady; a charitable gesture in which, considering the tax advantages, he would actually make money. But the museum needed cash, so it agreed.
But way more of a scumbag than anything else…
“Play with me, Daddy,” she pleaded. “I’m going to wait until you’re an adult,” Arthur said. “Then I’ll have a conversation with you.”
🚂 Book #1 for February (FINISHED): The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
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