The headline for Tom Ley’s piece on Donald Trump’s vile threat to Iran really nails it:
I Guess We’re Just Waiting Around To See If This Demented Psychopath Kills Everyone
This is an awful way to live.
Every Day Is an Exhausting New Hell ∞
We could really do with some of that regime change at home.
Tuesday, April 7th, 2026
A Windy Day With the White Clouds Flying ∞
We can still hope for a future of renewable energy.
Monday, April 6th, 2026
I have never understood people who dislike wind turbines. They become a prominent part of any landscape once erected, that much is true. But to me, they are wondrous. They represent the possibility of a better, cleaner future, a future when we are no longer burning a dwindling supply of fossil fuels and polluting the very air we breathe. Aside from oil company executives, who wouldn’t want that?
Regrettably, turbines in Gloucester, Massachusetts, are being decommissioned well before the end of their useful lives. Gloucestrian Sarah Shemkus wrote about the loss.
Molly Went for a Helicopter Ride ∞
And she made some friends along the way.
Friday, April 3rd, 2026
After Jessica Johnston took a terrible fall while hiking, rescuers were able to save her, but they couldn’t find her border collie companion. A week and one crowdfunding campaign later, Molly the dog was located and brought back home in style.
Who’s a good dog? Molly! Also Bingo, a Jack Russell who was part of the rescue crew.
Molly got to take a ride with Precision Helicopters of New Zealand, who had handled the rescue and shared this outstanding photograph. They’ve also got a tremendous video.1
Footnotes:
That video is archived here. ↩︎
Detecting Frustration Using Regex ∞
That’s different from detecting frustration with trying to use regex.
Thursday, April 2nd, 2026
This week, Anthropic accidentally leaked a whole bunch of information about Claude Code. In addition to revealing many of their future plans, the leak showed that the tool uses some rudimentary pattern-matching to detect user frustration.
Claude Code is actively watching our chat messages for words and phrases—including f-bombs and other curses—that serve as signs of user frustration.
The exact regex pattern is a delight to read:
/\b(wtf|wth|ffs|omfg|shit(ty|tiest)?|dumbass|horrible|awful| piss(ed|ing)? off|piece of (shit|crap|junk)|what the (fuck|hell)| fucking? (broken|useless|terrible|awful|horrible)|fuck you| screw (this|you)|so frustrating|this sucks|damn it)\b/
It’s very simple and surely very effective.
Poor Blue Blob ∞
Three liters is really quite a lot of vodka.
Wednesday, April 1st, 2026
Reader Micah C. pointed me to a story from Down Under, where a woman was recently convicted for the addition of googly eyes to sculpture.
While I do think the addition enhances the work, the use of Gorilla Glue is too much. Tsk! Also, recording your own crime and posting it online? Tsk again!
Perhaps It’s Time for a Taking Pledge ∞
Just how evil can you be?
Tuesday, March 31st, 2026
The Giving Pledge is a campaign started by Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffet, intended to establish a norm of charitable giving by the ultra wealthy. Though the pledge has no enforcement, it still seems a wise way for billionaires to attempt avoiding being at the wrong end of pitchforks.
Supervillain Peter Thiel is trying a different route, and is apparently attempting to convince signers to renege on their commitments.
Creepy and Seemingly Inaccurate ∞
Note also that the period in question was during the summer.
Monday, March 30th, 2026
Speaking of license plates, friend-of-the-site Gus M. pointed me to a school district using plate recognition in an attempt to verify residency.
According to the school district, her daughter’s new student enrollment form was denied due to “license plate recognition software showing only Chicago addresses overnight” in July and August. In an email sent to Sánchez in August, the school district told her, “Although you are the owner on record of a house in our district boundaries, your license plate recognition shows that is not the place where you reside.”
It’s understandable for school districts to not want to be burdened with non-residents. This method to avoid it, however, seems well beyond the pale.
Perverse Incentives in License Plates
Or at the very least, a silver lining to bad decisions.
Friday, March 27th, 2026
While writing about the 9-9-9 challenge, I learned of the existence of license plates specifically assigned to DUI offenders. These plates are a tool to assist law enforcement in monitoring high-risk drivers and to deter repeat violations. However, they’ve gained the nicknames “party plates” in Ohio and “whiskey plates” in Minnesota. Those names convey an insouciance, rather than intended shame.
There’s also a problem with the visuals. Though the yellow is a bit garish, Ohio’s DUI plate looks markedly better than their mess of a standard plate:
[Photos via Wikipedia]
That’s a bad incentive.
Aramark’s Sham Edition of the 9-9-9 Challenge ∞
In the words of friend-of-the-site Jason S., “This ain’t it”. It really ain’t!
Thursday, March 26th, 2026
While contemplating the corporate edition of the 9-9-9 challenge yesterday, I was surprised that a massive corporation would encourage fans to drink copiously. I should have known better. It turns out the package comes with one (1) single 24 ounce beer. I am entirely unsurprised to find a massive corporation pretending to sell one thing, while providing something much less.
With this promotion, Aramark and MLB have bastardizing to an unforgivable extent the sacred concept of drinking nine beers and eating nine hot dogs over nine innings of baseball. Even if we accept the mini weiners, in no world does 2.67 ounces qualify as “a beer”.
Friend-of-the-site Colin T. pointed me a helpful post from SFGate, which answers most of the questions I had yesterday. It includes an image showing exactly what you get when you buy into this farce:
Aramark, you should be ashamed.
I now know that when you purchase, you do indeed get everything at once. Given that you receive just one beer, it’s surely fewer calories than I estimated, and sales probably continue late into the game. As for selecting your beer, at Oracle Park, fans can have any beer they want as long as it’s Coors Light. Still, my bet that youcouldn’t select your beer wasn’t entirely correct. At least last year, fans in Philly really were given a choice from a range of beers.
In guessing how this all worked, I did get one thing completely right. The phony package you see above costs a whopping $54.99 before tax. That is indeed too much to pay for a completely sham edition of the 9-9-9 challenge.
First 9-9-9, Then 9-1-1
And after that, a personal injury attorney.
Wednesday, March 25th, 2026
Today is opening day for the 2026 MLB season, so let’s talk baseball. Actually, let’s talk food and drink at the ballgame, and the 9-9-9 challenge. This feat requires you to consume 9 hot dogs and slug back 9 beers within the 9 innings of a baseball game. It sounds both awful and incredibly expensive, so naturally, it’s quite popular.
The earliest reference to the challenge that I’ve found is a site called 999AllStar.com, which is sadly no longer online. Fortunately for us all, the invaluable Internet Archive has captures of the site back to 2004. They provide a delightful look into the past, and the site’s Rules page is particularly noteworthy. It contained a thematically appropriate nine rules, including:
Rule #2: You must have a designated driver to attempt the…Challenge.
Rule #4: One beer must equal a minimum of 12oz.
More on those in a moment.
While 999AllStar.com may be dead, the 9-9-9 challenge is more popular than ever. In fact, in the past year, it’s gone corporate. During the 2025 postseason, food service vendor Aramark sold an official 9-9-9 challenge box for Philadelphia Phillies games at Citizens Bank Park.
[Photo credit: Aramark]
In 2026, the company is expanding the package to five additional ballparks.1 The offering is even being promoted by MLB itself.
Naturally, this called for a celebrity pitchman. Who better than hot dog eating champion Joey Chestnut to sidle into Oracle Park, slap on a poorly made Aramark jersey, and scarf some encased meat while chugging beers?
Before
[Photo credit: Aramark]
During
[Photo credit: Aramark]
After…a very different event, demonstrating “The Agony of Victory”
The above promotional photos show full-sized 12 ounce beer cans, but you can see that the actual serving glasses are rather small. Aramark states that their pre-packaged version of the challenge features nine “mini hot dogs”, as well as nine “flight‑sized” beers. I have been unable to determine exactly what that means, except that they’ve watered down the whole thing and broken rule #4. Both I, and the Amarillo Sod Poodles know shenanigans when we see ’em.
The reasons for this bastardization are obvious enough, but the promotion still leaves me with a lot of questions.
QUESTIONS I HAVE ABOUT ARAMARK’S 9-9-9 CHALLENGE
Do they serve you all the dogs and beers at once?
It sure seems like it, so I hope you’re ready to enjoy some cold dogs and warm beers after about inning number four.
What’s the total calorie count on this package?
Even if “mini” means half-sized, that might be 1000-1500 calories for the hot dogs. Add in another 500-1000 calories for the beers.
Do they stop selling it after the first inning?
Probably not. So just how close to the end of the game do you think you can buy nine beers at once?
Do you get to select your beer?
Also probably not, though surprisingly, Coors Field does sell many non-Coors beers. That even includes arch-rival Budweiser.
Can you at least select a non-alcoholic beer?
Hey, teetotalers deserve the chance to overdose on sodium and nitrates too.
Do you get to keep the glasses?
I imagine you do. I cannot imagine what the hell a person does with nine miniature beer glasses branded with the logo of a single baseball team, adorable though they may be.
Just how much does this all cost?
Whatever it is, it’s too much.
Given the newly commercial nature of the 9-9-9 challenge, the folks behind the defunct 999AllStar.com really ought to consider making it refunct.2 I doubt they sold much merchandise back in the day, but in 2026, they could clean up. Who wouldn’t want to wear this lovely t-shirt?
Or, ya know, one with a better design.
You can take a gander at their old Merch page, but because it was 2004 and bandwidth hadn’t been invented yet, the images on it are hilariously small. If you squint, you may be able to make out the other items they had for sale, which included a baseball hat, a BBQ apron, and a baby bib. More than two decades on, I can still recognize the stink of CafePress. I’m shocked they weren’t selling thongs, too.
Anyhow, as a grassroots stunt invented by fans, the 9-9-9 challenge was good-if-inadvisable fun. I’m quite surprised to see a business getting in on it, however, even a business that makes its money selling food and drinks. They may have shrunk the portions, but it’s still some very excessive consumption.
Given MLB’s successful efforts to speed up the game, it seems particularly unwise to encourage fans to down nine beers, “flight-sized” though they may be. Unlike 999AllStar.com, Aramark has no rule requiring a designated driver. I punched some fuzzy numbers into several different BAC calculators, and they all showed that most people who complete this challenge would still be over America’s .08% legal limit to drive at the end of an average length game. But hey, maybe those tiny hot dog buns will soak up some of that alcohol.3
I’m calling it now. In a year or three, I’ll be here reporting on a wrongful death lawsuit against Aramark. When that time comes, the only surprise will be whether it relates to drunk driving, choking, or a heart attack.
Update (March 26, 2026): Then again, maybe it’ll be a class action lawsuit for deceptive advertising.
Footnotes:
In addition to Citizens Bank Park (Phillies):
[Photo credit: Aramark]you’ll find Aramark’s 9-9-9 challenge package at Citi Field (Mets):
[Photo credit: Aramark]Coors Field (Rockies):
[Photo credit: Aramark]Daikin Park (Astros):
[Photo credit: Aramark]Kauffman Stadium (Royals):
[Photo credit: Aramark]and Oracle Park (Giants):
[Photo credit: Aramark]These promotional images were edited down from massive 30+ meg files which Aramark provided via Dropbox. I am delighted to think about someone staging this little tableau for a team, replete with a napkin of the proper color, then resetting the entire arrangement five more times. The least I could do was to include all six delightful images here.
I’m afraid I must issue two demerits, however, because the Mets and the Astros images contain 10 beers, rather than 9. MLB’s social media post for this even notably excludes those two clubs. ↩︎
A hat tip to my friends Todd R. and Rich W., who played bass and drums respectively in the late-aughts Cambridge band “Refunct” that inspired this dumb joke. Click here to stream a track. ↩︎
Because my high school driver’s ed class needed to fulfill the “health” portion of the state-mandated curriculum, it contained a fair amount of information about alcohol. The intent was to discourage drunk driving, which is laudable. Still, our teacher Mr. Wilkinson was fully aware that many students were going to imbibe, so he shared the sage recommendation to avoid doing so on an empty stomach. His counsel was along the lines of “Eat some bread to slow things down”. It’s not the worst advice. ↩︎
