The easy path to discovering new music has become social media. Which sucks, for so many reasons. It is worth finding your own good sources, for many more reasons. But it’s hard to deny when a jam rolls across my algorithm.
That was the case The Velveteers. A three member rock group from Colorado. A pro skater I follow liked a reel of the song above. I pulled the thread and ended listening to their 2025 album “A Million Knives” on repeat for the past few weeks.
I’ve been in a diorama, mini, and painting rut in 2026. I have a mid-progress project just collecting dust on my hobby bench. Watching YouTube channels dedicated to the craft can often be the spark that breaks the cycle. Credit goes to North of the Border if it is the straw that breaks that camels back this weekend. I’ve been watching his channel on and off for a few years now. But this shark pirate caught me up with just how far along his skills have come.
New entries in the 26 restaurants in 2026 challenge this week.
Tasty wood fired pizza and cold beers in an old service station in Church Hill. That is as simple as it gets. The menu and topping options keep that simplicity and that is maybe our only knock against it. Worthy of a stop in for a meal if you are in that part of town, but for us we wouldn’t pass Zorch to get to it.
There are so many established restaurants in Richmond that it is rare for our challenge to bring us to a new one. This one opened late last year in Scott’s Addition and we were wrapping up the ABCs, but marked it for this year. We were glad we did. We had great cocktails, the pork chop, and the lamb skewers.
I pick and choose my Bullseye listens based on the guest and this was an easy one. Jesse Thorn is a great interviewer. Over my ten years of podcasting I modeled some of my skill set on his. A pale comparison for sure, but I’ll note he is especially skilled at riffing with fellow funny people like Griffin. The Stowaway (Griffin’s book) is sitting next to a pile of comics I need to read, but when I get to it I’ll report back.
This is your reminder that series 21 just kicked off. I don’t know how to keep talking about this perfect show, so I won’t. What I’ll do instead is direct you to this hilarious Jolly episode where Greg and Alex try all the Cheetos.
Tottenham are currently in the worst shape I’ve seen them in since I started following along in 2014/15. They are fighting for their lives in a relegation battle. They broke a club record loss streak that goes back to their founding in the 1882. All of it is depressing. There is zero joy.
Sport is not a pure happiness distraction from real life. There are plenty of past times you can pursue if you want that. Being a fan is suffering. Lows make the highs that much higher…etc. etc. But when the lows are this low, I’ve taken to skipping games and checking box scores. Or in reality, getting real time notifications and quietly mouthing “fuck” for every goal scored against my team. I skip the game recaps too. It has gone from fun distraction to depressing multiplier.
Enter the 2026 MLS season^. I’ve turned to following club legends Hugo Lloris and Son Heung-min at LAFC. Son ended his summer transfer to the club with 30 goal contributions combined with Denis Bouanga in 2025. They are fun combo and I am slowly learning the rest of the roster. This is not a team switch, Spurs are still my club, but I need a little side action while the relationship at home is on the rocks. Let’s just say I am closer to picking up a Son LAFC jersey right now than I am any Tottenham player.
^Apple pivoted in 2026 to including the whole MLS league pass as a part of the base Apple TV price. F1 too! It is a great time to have a subscription.
I’ve been intermittently been following along with Rob Haze‘s stand up since the mid-2010’s, but lost track at some point. Last year and this has been a resurfacing in my weekly media diet of Haze and two fantastic podcast he host.
Standard podcast format of a comedian host interviewing/kicking w/ comedian guest. Haze is hilarious and evokes a chaotic comedic energy out of his guest. He is plugged into some sort of DJ control board (I think?) and occasionally breaks out into mixing music that might have been referenced in the conversation. Some podcast in this genre are highly dependent on the guest, but in this case he tends to get good ones and can carry the whole show when he doesn’t.
Rob and Jamel Johnson co-host a sports podcast where they mostly comment and joke about the recent headlines/results. They tend to stay in the NBA, WNBA, NFL, College basketball and football lane, but dip their toes in other sports too. Sadly Rob seems to have zero time for soccer, and I think Jamel is an Arsenal fan(yuck!). The fact that I tune in for their college football talk is a good sign that the podcast is fun and entertaining despite my lack of time for that sport.
In short time we’ve jumped back ahead of schedule for the 26 restaurants in ’26 challenge.
This was a big hitter on the list of restaurants we did not get to last year. We finally got in a reservation a month out and went last week. Another believe the hype moment. A fine dining experience with nearly every ingredient sourced in Virginia. What that meant was a the menu that changes seasonally, and everything we had was excellent. We had the cheese tray, smoked trout, scallops, charred carrots, and the best porkchop I’ve ever had. Oh the cocktails were killer too.
More fine dining and the day after we ate at Adarra. Still “fancy” vibes, but a bit more casual. Big thumbs up from us and the couple we went out with. The mussels and venison starters were delicious and the ribeye and glazed duck break we had as mains were too. I did not have the heart to put their porkchop up chop for chop with the meal I had the night before. Finally, cocktails were the only shaky ground on an otherwise solid meal. Not a lot of nuance or balance.
Lice is a millennial dad backpack rap super duo. Aesop Rock is my entry point, but I’ve certainly listened to my fair share of Homeboy Sandman tracks. Miami Lice is their fourth record since they teamed up in 2015. It is packed with creative, goofy, and whimsical beats and lyrics you’d expect.
The track The Burgers is a great example, each rapper throwing out a list of ever more hyperbolic ingredients. Reminded me of the Hail Mary Mallon track Whales. Also a Aesop duo.
This years new formula in F1 is under a microscope at the moment. After the Australian GP the style of racing it is forcing doesn’t seem to align with what was intended. It all centers around the unintuitive strategies to regain battery power so drivers can hit a button to pass each other a few turns later.
If we set that aside, I’m still enjoying coverage on the creative design for all new aerodynamic packages. Everyone team has showed up with wildly different setups to try and get an advantage under the new regs. Ferrari has a rear wing that flips upside down! Watching a lot of coverage on the topic likely lead me the video above.
Aprilia’s 2026 bike has a simple, but so far very clever new design. The video explains it better, but basically they are using the drivers natural body position in turns and straights to manage aero for speed and handling. And it’s inspired by early 2010’s F1 design, pretty cool.
180 Lunches 