August Useless Observations
Hello,
I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, but today is the last day of July. This past month has been the hottest month for the entire globe! I can’t wait for the summer heat to move on, so this is one of the few times I’m happy that 2023 is still flying by. I’d like to take a brief pause to reflect on another edition of my Useless Observations newsletters. The previous installment can be found here. Let’s dive in.
UO #1: I don’t know who needs to hear this, but pickleball is dumb. I need this “sport” to stay in 2023, and I hope we can all move on past this fad.
UO #2: Also, since I’m speaking about things that are not good, that new Jason Aldean song sucks. I don’t care about the music video, the controversy, or the performances. It’s objectively a bad song. There’s a very thin line between being patriotic and being idiotic.
UO #3: As someone who grew up in Virginia, I would always be asked if I thought Virginia was the North or the South. I’ve always felt that we didn’t belong in either grouping, but after spending some time there earlier this month, the perfect description finally came to me. We have Northern pacing, tempo, and sensibilities but the South’s weather. Basically, Virginia is the South without Southern hospitality.
UO #4: Speaking of sensibilities by region, I always enjoy hanging out with low-maintenance people that go with the flow. I call them chill people. I’ve found that there are four different types of chill people. There’s Southern or Midwestern chill, which involves creative hobbies to pass the time and keep boredom away. Then there’s coastal chill, where every activity somehow involves being in or near a body of water. There’s stoner chill, which is self-explanatory. And last but not least, there’s Pittsburgh chill. I don’t have the words to describe it, and I hope someone from Pittsburgh can help me out here, but everyone I’ve ever met from Pittsburgh has a chill that’s unlike any other chill I’ve experienced.
UO #5: How are humans such an advanced species but we can choke if we swallow down the wrong pipe?
UO #6: I hate every social media account with “hood” in the title.
UO #7: Business professor and economist Aaron Levenstein said one of my favorite quotes, and I’ll share that with you today.
Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.