Tristan says the same thing every time he’s handed a legal document. Que Sera, Sera. Then he throws it away. In the end, we win.

#BREAKING: States with the most ICE deportations are seeing the largest rent decreases.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang questions whether some of the learning fundamentals are still relevant “Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter? I don't think it does.”

McDonald's is spending 8.5 billion dollars to find out why families stopped coming. I can save them the 8.5 billion. They took out the playground. The plan, announced Wednesday at investor day. Better food, faster service, new equipment, AI tools, hospitality training, and a bigger push into chicken and beverages. They call it Next. The goal, they say, is making customers feel more comfortable. Wall Street loved it so much the stock fell 5 percent to its lowest since 2022. Over five years McDonald's shares are down 3 percent. Burger King's parent is up 14. The owner of Taco Bell and KFC is up 13. This is not a hamburger problem. This is a McDonald's problem. So let us talk about who used to eat there. Parents. That was the whole business. Parents at 5:40 on a Tuesday with three kids in the back and nothing thawed at home. You did not go for the burger. You went because your kids could run screaming through a plastic tube for 40 minutes while you sat with a coffee and experienced silence. That was the product. The food was the cover charge. The first PlayPlace opened in 1971 in Birmingham, Alabama, and for fifty years it did one job. It made small children demand to go to McDonald's. Then 2020 arrived, every play area in the country closed, and a great many never came back. The equipment came out during a remodeling program named Experience of the Future. The Experience of the Future turned out to be a touchscreen. Their own chief executive said he did not know if ball pits were in their future. Sir, you were not selling ball pits. You were selling forty minutes. So now there is no counter, no playground, and no reason for a seven year old to want to go. A screen, a window, and a bag. And for that we pay prices that require a moment of reflection in the parking lot. For thin, overcooked, oddly uniform pucks that taste like a memory of beef. I did not love them because they were good. I loved them because I was eight and there was a slide. And have you seen the new buildings. The old ones were unmistakable. Red roof, yellow arches, legible from a highway at 70 to a child who could not yet read. The new ones are a flat gray box with a small logo and a drive through wrapped around it. A regional claims office with a fryer. They removed the color, the characters, the counter, and the playground, and then hired consultants to find out why it no longer feels like anywhere. Which is why, when I have to eat fast food, I go to Chick-fil-A. Not for the politics. For the competence. They have led the customer satisfaction index for fast food eleven years running, and average 8.5 million dollars per location against McDonald's 4 million. More than double, while closed on Sundays. Fifty two days a year with the lights off, and still double. A seventeen year old hands you a bag and says my pleasure and means it about 70 percent, which is 70 percent more than a touchscreen has managed. McDonald's is spending 8.5 billion on hospitality training. Chick-fil-A earns 8.5 million per restaurant by just having some. So here is my consulting proposal, free of charge, on behalf of mothers everywhere. Put the playgrounds back. Not a nostalgia campaign. Not a retro cup. The structure. Tubes, slides, a door the kids cannot open from the inside, and a bench where a tired woman can sit. And understand what you are buying, because it is not lunch. A six year old does not know your food is bad. He has no basis for comparison and no functioning palate. He thinks the burger is incredible because he is standing in a castle made of tubes. That is the window. That is the only window you get. You catch them before the taste buds arrive, and thirty years later they drive past your sign, feel something they cannot explain, and pull in anyway. That is not a menu strategy. That is imprinting, and you shut it down in 2020 to save on cleaning. Eight and a half billion dollars for AI tools and hospitality training. Or a slide. 🦋

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

What is the Amalgaverse? The Amalgaverse is a fictional shared universe of fictional SF universes that will serve as the setting for a series of missions that will play out as episodic adventures in the style of the beloved ship-based sci-fi shows of the 90's. How will these missions play out? The missions will play out in the form of an online choose-your-own-adventure format with fan voting driving the narrative.  YOU choose the missions.  YOU select the away teams.  YOU make the decisions that shape each adventure. How elaborate is each mission? Each mission has been designed like an episode of sci-fi television complete with twists, turns, shocks, and surprises.  Five acts.  At least five beats per act.  A beginning, middle, and ending.  Just like the old days! How many missions have you designed? Since these missions will play out like episodes from those beloved ship-based sci-fi shows of the 90's, I've structured a similar rollout.  Ten missions to start followed by a brief hiatus after which the back half ten episodes will unfold.  20 missions/episodes in total.  That will be our first season.  And depending on fan response, a second season could be in the cards. This seems like a lot of work.  Why are you doing this? I'm tired of crafting stories (pitches, pilots scripts, series bibles) that never see the light of day, always subject to the whims of gormless executives.  Science fiction is a tough sell.  Far future sci-fi, tougher still.  Far future ship-based sci-fi, toughest of all.  But that's my jam.  And I've missed it.  So this allows me to do what I do best, exercise those creative muscles, and hopefully give SF fans something to look forward to with every mission.  For entertainment purposes only of course. But, characters aside, couldn't you just turn these stories into a script you can try selling or a book you could publish?  Wouldn't that be more lucrative? Yes, absolutely, but, as I said, the prospect of selling a far future ship-based sci-fi series is so remote that I'd prefer the fun and the satisfaction of this exercise over the prospect of writing yet another script that will just end up on a digital shelf.  And, yes, I could write a book - but that would require more time and effort than I am willing to commit at this time. Okay, enough questions.  When do we get started? The adventures begin Monday, September 21st at 12:01 E.T., here on X.  Set a reminder and turn on notifications so you don't miss a beat!