Friday, July 3, 2026

Well, I have to admit it. Despite my deep moral qualms about FIFA and the current United States federal government, I have been enjoying the World Cup – and have even been rooting for the United States Men's National Team. I know at this point we are probably seen as the Evil Empire by most of the world, and I know any success we have (either as a team or as a host nation) is basically sportswashing for a corrupt, cynical, anti-immigrant, anti-freedom government. I'm also sure that 90% of the feel-good social media content of the "Bulgarian child discovers funnel cake" variety is fake. So I feel guilty and dumb to take any joy from this event. But at the end of the day... man kick ball!

Item 1: a link

Speaking of a strange stew in which the unholy and the divine intermingle, I was amused by the fact that there's a whole thing where the Despicable Me / Minions franchise backed itself into a situation where a reasonable interlocutor had to conclude that the titular Minions probably worked for Adolph Hitler.

The short summary is that the whole concept of these characters is that through some eldritch power they are drawn to serve the most evil person in the world (apparently – I've never seen any of the films). Naturally, World War II wasn't the focus of any of the movies, but it's not the largest logical leap from "they work for evil dudes" to "hmmm, who was the evilest person in modern history?"

Understandably, the creators of this light children's entertainment wanted to distance themselves from this massive buzzkill, coming up with the pretty simple solution that "uh, the Minions were all in a cave from 1812–1968". Great – no further questions!

Well, one question, I guess. Why did you subsequently make a movie about another group of Minions who are very obviously not in a cave during this horrifying, brutal epoch? You could have just not done that.

Anyway, the director of this new movie has a simple explanation. He says they didn't work for Hitler. Maybe they should have tried that answer the first time this came up?

Item 2: a list

Toes, ranked:

1. Big toe
2. Second toe
3. Little toe
4. Fourth toe
5. Third toe

Item 3: a media recommendation

Item 4: word of the week

Pertinacity

Some people would have changed course or given up. But she, notorious for her pertinacity, wasn't going to let a little thing like a flat tire; a canceled train; a mandatory curfew; a witch's curse; a classic sitcom farce where she has to go on two dates at the same time without the dates finding out about each other; a wish granted ironically by a very literal genie; and another flat tire stop her from standing outside of Madison Square Garden hoping to catch a glimpse of Taylor Swift, who unfortunately turned out to actually be getting married at EuroDisney.

Item 5: an image

See ya!

Thanks for reading. I hope you're also enjoying the World Cup – or enjoying hating the World Cup – or both at the same time. See you back here in a couple of weeks. Now I'm off to watch all the Minions movies.