Should we be concerned that pizza-like Mercury is shrinking?

Our smallest neighbor continues to shrink, like your great-uncle who was 5-foot-4 and 125 pounds the last time you saw him.

No offense to your uncle. There's nothing wrong with being 5-4, 125. But if you used to be 5-8, 175, that's a fair amount of shrinkage. If you disagree, ask Mercury.

The innermost planet in our solar system is not only shrinking (shrinking!), it's shriveling at a faster rate than previously thought. It's like Mercury took GLP-3 drugs and is now back to the same size it was when it was a high school sophomore.

Scientists working at the German Aerospace Center's Institute of Space Research (which those of us in the space game called GACISR, pronounced "Gack-us-sir) – last month said that Mercury was shrinking at as much as a 30% faster rate than previously thought and that it had lost up to 14 miles in diameter. That's the greatest loss in diameter since Adele or John Goodman dropped weight, depending on which offends you less.

Part of the planet's size loss is due to constant bombardment by debris, similar to the plight of bad performers during Vaudeville (a 100-year-old pop culture reference!). But the bigger impact of that bombardment is that it hid the loss of size, kind of like wearing a Mumu after you've dropped 20 pounds on a starvation diet.

Very few spacecraft have visited Mercury, mostly due to the planet's high temperature and concern over getting Mercury poisoning (get it?). To be fair, part of the reason for our lack of visitation is also due to Mercury's terrible tourism advertisements, which proclaim "come to Mercury and see if you can survive 0.000001 seconds in our toxic atmosphere!"

Mercury has been shrinking since its formation, 4.5 billion years ago. That's because it has an incredibly hot core (Mercury's core is the same temperature as pizza sauce fresh out of the oven). The heat isn't what makes it shrink; it's the cooling, which is only due to the heat, so never mind.

As the hot core has cooled over the millennia and megaanna (a new word! It means millions of years), the mantle and crust (another similarity to pizza sauce: Mercury's core touches a crust!) keep tightening, making the planet like someone wearing Spandex pants that are two sizes too small.

The concern is that Mercury could either get so tight that it explodes or shrink so much that it needs help to reach the top shelf to get a Mars bar (planet joke! The first-ever planet column I've written without a "Uranus" joke!)

On the other hand, Mercury is only about 3,000 miles across, so the14-mile shrinkage is the equivalent of a 200-pound person losing nearly a pound. Maybe it's not a big concern.

But scientists seem excited and fascinated. They haven't been this engaged since they kicked Pluto out of the solar system for gambling (I can't remember if that's the cause, but I think so).

An article on Mercury's shrinkage, published by NBC, quoted Japanese scientist Gaku Nishiyama, who is part of a team researching Mercury. “We are quite excited,” Nishiyama was quoted as saying, adding that “we are approaching the reality of Mercury’s evolution.”

Here's the reality of Mercury's evolution: Like most things that get really old, it is shrinking. Unless I'm badly mistaken, I suspect Mercury also is having a harder time hearing conversations in busy restaurants, has to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and often wonders what caused various aches and pains.

I hope Mercury doesn't merely waste away to nothing, but it's had a 4.5-million-year run, which is pretty good. And when you think about it, if you have to lose a planet, would you rather use Mercury or Uranus?

I was so close to breaking the Uranus joke streak!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

El Niño will be terrible. Or not. The story of a 'weather event'

 

As you have heard, we're entering a Super El Niño season, with equatorial Pacific Ocean water temperatures 4 to 6 degrees warmer than usual.

That might cause a significantly wetter winter than usual for the West Coast, based on the history of El Niño events (this is the biggest El Niño since at least 1950!). Unless it results in a regular winter. It could also mean less rain than usual. It's hard to tell, but we know one thing: SUPER EL NIÑO IS COMING.

I'm not here to make fun of scientists (they don't need anyone to make fun of them. Scientists already wear pocket protectors and safety goggles, even when writing an incredibly complex math equation on an old-school green chalkboard, if the cartoons are any indication). Scientists are important. They find cures for diseases and explain how the universe works.

And climatologists – academics who study the weather, as well as those on TV who remind us, "don't forget your umbrella! There might be a few sprinkles during the morning commute!" – have made dramatic improvements in our understanding of and preparation for hurricanes, floods, blizzards, heat waves and tornadoes.

But while doing that, they apparently gather every few years to invent new phrases to describe routine events.

To be clear, El Niño isn't a "routine event," although it's possible that "Super El Niño" is a fake phrase.

If so, it would join myriad wonky weather phrases invented in the past 20 years. For instance, I mentioned to Mrs. Brad during the October heat wave that people were probably wondering when the heat dome would break. She looked at me like I was making up words. She'd never heard "heat dome."

How is that possible? Every time there's a heat wave, journalists and climatologists talk about a heat dome, which apparently means the same thing as a "heat wave," but refers to . . . I don't know, maybe a hot football stadium? Is the Heat Dome the name of the NFL stadium in Phoenix? I definitely hear or read that phrase every time there's a heat wave.

Heat dome isn't alone. Remember when we used to have rainy days? Now we have "atmospheric rivers," which sounds more dramatic. And means the same thing.

More broadly, every time there's a windstorm, rainstorm or heat wave, it's called a "weather event," which means the same thing as "weather." (In this case, "event" is similar to "process," which former Daily Republic ace reporter Ryan McCarthy held in disdain. Ryan insisted "process" was rarely if ever needed. It wasn't "interview process," it was "interviews." It wasn't "budgetary process," it was "budgeting.")

"Weather events" are just weather. And the thing about weather is that it changes. While I appreciate that those who use science to predict the weather have gotten better at warning us of potential dangers (heck, for the coming Super El Niño, I'll probably . . . uh . . . buy an umbrella), the constant invention of more dramatic words to describe things for which there are already descriptors is amusing.

Maybe we should just lean into it. Why stop with "weather event" and "atmospheric river" and "heat dome?" For years, I advocated calling those warm easterly winds we get in the autumn (which are called "Santa Ana winds" in Southern California) "Rio Vista winds." Alas, no one followed my lead.

But as we prepare for the Super El Niño, maybe we should add some other weather phrases. Here are my suggestions and how they would be used:

Windy: "As the high pressure recedes, expect a Zypher wall, with winds up to 30 mph in Fairfield-Suisun."

Sunny: "Look for a significant solar event, with our closest dwarf star shining in all its glory."

Morning frost: "We expect plenty of  ground crystallization in the early morning hours, which should give way as we get another solar event."

High humidity: "Expect a sticky wicket Tuesday, as a weather system moves through with remnants of an atmospheric river in the Pacific."

Low humidity: "We face aridity syndrome this weekend, with the possibility of a Super Dry event."

Like it or not, the Super El Niño weather event is coming and atmospheric rivers are possible this winter. Or maybe not. Or perhaps we'll get enough rain to know it's winter, but not enough to determine whether the Super El Niño played a role.

Just wait until next year, though. We may have a La Niña, which means . . . well, it will certainly cause a weather event and likely some new phrases.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

If you're slightly speeding, you're normal(ish)

Congratulations, you're normal.

When you drive 75 mph on Interstate 80 in one of the two "slow" lanes, you're regular.

When you go 65 mph on Highway 12 to Napa or to Rio Vista, you're typical.

Speeding (in certain situations) is normal!

According to a survey from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAAFTS, since apparently every organization needs an acronym), most drivers agree that posted speed limits are appropriate, but they also consider anything within 10 mph of that limit to be OK. (Didn't you think that was the rule, that you wouldn't get a ticket unless you were doing more than 10 mph over the speed limit? I did until about the third time I got a ticket for 10 mph over the limit.)

Furthermore, about half of drivers surveyed think keeping pace with traffic is safer than obeying the posted speed limit. Those people probably yell at someone for driving 60 mph on I-80 as we swerve to get around them. (Did I say "we" in the second half of the sentence? Oops!)

An article about the speeding survey appeared in the Insurance Journal (I have a group subscription to Ladies Home Journal, the Wall Street Journal, Insurance Journal and the official magazine of the Federal Association of Plumbers, the Urinal Journal. Hahahaha. Hilarious!)

The Insurance Journal, of course, was concerned about the fact that most of us consider a 65 mph speed zone to really mean "about 75 mph." And that we want to move with the flow of traffic, rather than slow everyone down.

Insurance people don't like normal people.

However, there was some good news for those concerned about speed: Most drivers are fine with more police presence in areas with a history of speed-related crashes, including the often-maligned traffic cameras. They also like those in-vehicle warnings that alert drivers when they exceed the speed limit.

But staying with the flow of traffic or going up to 10 mph over the limit is OK.

Personally, I wish I had this data when I was in my 20s and 30s, an era in which I received 10 speeding tickets. Yes, 10.

I wasn't a speed demon. Really. I was mostly inattentive in a way that led to me not realizing police were watching me go 35 mph in a 25 mph zone or 65 mph in a 55 mph zone.

Nine of my 10 tickets were for going 10 mph over the speed limit (the exception: I got caught going 40 mph on the 25-mph "Armijo curve" of Texas Street). I was once ticketed while driving on Interstate 40 from by a California Highway Patrol officer who told me he'd been following me for 10 miles and wouldn't have stopped me if I slowed down. I told him I never saw him (likely because I was listening to music or talking with Mrs. Brad, who wasn't amused).

Had this survey been around back in the day, I would have used it in one of the several times I challenged my tickets. "Your Honor, I am just like most people. Everyone goes 65 mph in 55 mph zones, according to a survey. I ask for dismissal."

Alas, that opportunity never came. I lost every appeal (including one where I was ticketed after a plane indicated to an officer on the ground in Mendocino County that I was speeding. What I actually was doing was trying to get around a fully packed VW bus that was consistently crossing the line between the two southbound lanes, making it unsafe for me to slowly pass. Unfortunately, I made my appeal by letter and was turned down.).

I'm not saying speeding is right. It's dangerous and you shouldn't do it. However, the evidence suggests that most of us think it's OK if we're not racing past everyone.

Also, sometimes, the police aren't monsters. They sometimes let you go despite an infraction.

It rarely happened to me, but the last time I was pulled over – about 15 years ago in Suisun City – it did. I  pulled from Marina Boulevard onto Highway 12, heading to work, when there were suddenly flashing lights in my rearview mirror.

The officer came to the window, asked for my license and registration and then asked what they always ask: "Do you know why I pulled you over?"

I was ready this time. "Yeah, I was on my phone. Sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"Oh, you were on your phone? I didn't know that. I pulled you over because you rolled through the stoplight."

Oops.

Amazingly, he let me go with a warning. Perhaps he'd talked to friends who told them about all the times they wrote me up for going 10 mph over the limit Or maybe he knew the results of this survey 15 years early.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

How we survived Hawai'i's Labor Day Storm of 2026

Hawai'i is supposed to be a paradise. It's not supposed to be more blustery than the windiest day in Fairfield and Suisun City.

Well, there we were, Mrs. Brad and I on a trip to Oahu in early September. That's when Hurricane Lowell skated across the Pacific Ocean, narrowly missing Kaua'i, but causing extensive damage to that island.

We weren't on Kaua'i, but we were close enough that we experienced what was then classified as Tropical Storm Lowell – a wild weather event with huge winds over Labor Day night. Spoiler alert: It wasn't paradise.

First, a disclaimer: We aren't victims. We were in Hawai'i, after all – not everyone can do that. Also, we didn't get hurt and have no financial responsibility to repair damage caused by the winds. We were just two Californians who wondered how long the power would be out and whether the windows of our Airbnb home would withstand the winds.

Having lived in Suisun City for three decades, I'm familiar with wind. I'm also familiar with windstorms, which seem worse in Solano County than most places. I have laid in bed many nights, wondering whether my fence would be standing in the morning. We had fences blown down. We had our basketball standard crash forward.

My most compelling major storm memory is of hurricane-force winds in December 1988, a massive storm that roared and shook windows. During the height of the storm, several storefront windows in downtown Fairfield blew out, as did windows at the Solano Mall. The Solano Drive-In's screen was destroyed (and never replaced, unless you consider the Raleys that stands on that site on North Texas Street a "replacement").

Most important to the then-sports editor, the games at the Ed Hopkins Classic basketball tournament at Armijo High were postponed. Trees fell across the roads. A shed near my house in Suisun City was blown into a tree.

It was a whopper of a storm.

Perhaps the Oahu Labor Day Storm of 2026 (as I call it) wasn't that bad, but it felt like it.

Mrs. Brad and I knew problems were looming, as residents warned us to store water and have food available in case of a power outage or water shutoff. The latter never happened, but the power went out at about 8:30 p.m. Monday night.

During a major power outage, you realize how much you depend on electricity. It was dark at 8:30 p.m., but we weren't ready for bed. So we stayed up and watched. The winds were slamming our window and getting worse as the night went along. A neighbor's carport roof was screeching as the winds tried to pull it off. Every 20 minutes or so, there would be a loud slam as a large branch (or tree) fell.

Enduring a storm at your own house makes you worry about damage that you have to repair. Enduring a storm at an unfamiliar house makes you worry that a huge branch could come crashing through a window at any time because you didn't pay enough attention to identify nearby trees

Also: A night with a wind storm is a long, long night. On the night of the Labor Day Storm of 2026, neither of us slept well. The following morning, as the winds died down, we groggily walked around the neighborhood and saw the damage. Mostly, it was huge branches that fell, so not bad.

But the power remained out. I worried about the ability to charge my smartphone, which controls my insulin pump (the plan: Use backup batteries to charge it. Use my laptop to charge it. Drive to somewhere with power to charge it.). Fortunately, power came back on about noon, ending the anxiety.

The following days were excessively humid, due to the storm's remnants. But (in Hawai'i, at a rental house, swimming every day in the Pacific ocean while on a vacation), we survived.

Folks in Kaua'i and its tiny neighboring island of Ni'hau weren't so lucky. The saw extensive damage and days without power. Tourists were advised to avoid Kaua'i for the foreseeable future, undoubtedly damaging the island's economy.

Back on Oahu, we endured humidity, had to move some branches and then resumed going to the beach.

What a nightmare!

The Labor Day Storm of 2026 was frightening, but it didn't ruin our vacation.

Now, I guess, I feel like a jerk for overreacting.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Solving an important issue: What is the correct distance to wave at someone?

As they told you in elementary school, it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.

That's true. Within reason. In a way that doesn't make it awkward.

In my neighborhood, a lot of people walk, which means I routinely cross paths with familiar faces and say hello. Not to talk, generally. Just to acknowledge that someone familiar is walking the other way.

Therein lies the problem – one familiar to anyone who sees someone they (kind of) know on a street or in the grocery store or anywhere while walking: How far away should you be from someone when you acknowledge them?

If you think the answer is simple (maybe "as soon as you see them!"), you're either lucky or unaware of the awkwardness that happens if you greet someone too soon.

The scene: You're walking down the street and see someone you casually know about a block away. If you wave immediately, then you're left with a good 30 seconds or more of walking toward each other after the wave, a time that becomes increasingly uncomfortable for both of you. (Should you wave again? Do you need to talk? What if you're in a hurry? What if you don't want to talk?).

The flip side is when you decide to wait until you're right next to each other. That means pretending you didn't see the person as you get closer, closer, closer, closer . . . and then you wave. Did they think you were pretending not to see them? Did you startle them by greeting them at the last minute? Do they even know who you are (in which case, you come across like an overenthusiastic goober who waves at everyone)?

Switch the same situation to a workplace or the grocery store. You're in Aisle 5 and at the other end of the aisle you see a neighbor you don't know well or the parent of one of your kids' friends or someone you know vaguely from work. You have to acknowledge them or you look like a jerk. But if you wave from one end of the aisle, they might not see you. Or worse, what if they see you and then you gradually, slowly move toward each other? Now, do you need to talk, since you waved so eagerly?

Alternatively, if you wait, it seems like you're jumping up to startle them: "Hey! It's me! Brad! Your neighbor!" Then they feel assaulted.

Am I overthinking this? If not, is there a solution? And what is it?

First of all, ignoring others is not the solution. Don't be the person who knows me, sees me and ignores me. Then I think that you think you're too cool for me.

However, being overly aggressive isn't the solution either. There's no requirement that you greet everyone who you think you might know. "Hey, it's me. I saw you at the intersection the other day in your car while I was in my car!" is not sane.

But for the people you know enough that you should greet them? The answer, like most of life, is a math problem. (Example to prove that point: What is the best dessert? Well, would you look at that! It's pi!)

The solution: First of all, the correct time between when you wave and when you pass someone is three to five seconds. Longer than that is awkward, shorter is likely to startle the other person.

If you and the other person both walk at a normal speed (2 mph to 4 mph) and you're coming down a regular city block, my calculations (using an AI tool) is that you should wave when you're about 35 feet apart for there to be a four-second gap.

How do you figure 35 feet? Well, a normal human is between 5 feet and 6 feet (yeah, I said it. People who are taller than 6 feet are abnormal!), so 35 feet is about the length of six people, end to end. When a person is that far away, wave.

Grocery stores are a different matter. We walk slower and often stop. Based on the normal length of a grocery store aisle, it's appropriate to acknowledge the person coming the other way when you're slightly less than a half-aisle apart. That can be four seconds if you don't stop and spend five minutes trying to find the right kind of soup. (Correct answer: Minestrone. Because it kind of has "minus" in it. Again: Math!)

If you really want to get specific, I'd suggest this: Next time you're walking, clock someone coming the other direction. Guess when you're four seconds (the sweet spot) apart and then count. Then make adjustments for your speed. Problem solved.

Next time you wave at someone,  you'll thank me. And if you see me walking, you can tell me that. At the appropriate time, of course.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

The unofficial rules for jumping on another team's bandwagon

We're entering the greatest part of the annual sports schedule. The NFL and college football seasons are under way. The baseball playoffs are almost here. Next month, the NBA and NHL start their seasons.

It's a great time to be a fan, but it's also a great time to decide what to do if your team isn't good.

As noted Raiders fan Scar sang in "The Lion King:" "Be prepared!"

If you're a baseball team whose team won't make the playoffs, do it now. If you're a Las Vegas Raiders fan, know that it's coming soon. If you're a Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings or San Jose Sharks fan, it's never too early to think about what team should you pick in several months when the playoffs finally arrive.

It's confusing, right? Can you jump on the bandwagon of the San Antonio Spurs, who will be good for a while? Can you be a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers or the Colorado Avalanche or the Dallas Cowboys?

Well, I'm here to help with a series of rules. When you consider a team, answer these questions. If the team you picked passes a series of tests, you can choose them.

There are eight steps to the Stanhope Sports Fan Bandwagon Rules©. When it's time to pick a team to follow (hey Giants and A's fans: It's time now!), follow this path by asking the following questions.

1. Is the team from Los Angeles? If yes, stop now. You cannot be a fan of this team. Not the Rams, not the Lakers, not the Dodgers, not even the Kings, Stars or Clippers. No Los Angeles teams. If the team is not from Los Angeles, they're still alive, but otherwise, start over.

2. Is the team the Dallas Cowboys? No. You can't be a fan. Pick another team (not from Los Angeles) and start over.

3. Is this team a rival of my favorite team or a local team? If yes, you cannot be a fan. If you're a Raiders fan, you can't jump on the Chiefs or Broncos bandwagons. If you're a Giants fan, see question No. 1. If you're a 49ers fan, see questions No. 1, No. 2 and exclude the Seattle Seahawks. If you're a Warriors fan . . . uh, the NBA doesn't have many bitter rivals over the years, so you're probably OK if your bandwagon team fits the other qualifications.

4. Is this team the Raiders? If yes, God bless you. That's not a bandwagon; that's a dump truck. Please seek counseling.

5. Is this team a long-time powerhouse in the sport or does it already have a national following? If you want to jump on the bandwagon of the Yankees or Celtics or Cowboys or Steelers, the answer is no, you cannot be a fan of this team. Start again. Those teams already have plenty of front-running, glory-hogging fans (no offense). Pick another team.

6. Has this team broken your team's heart at some time in the past? You cannot become a fan of a team that ripped out your heart at any time. If you're a Giants fan, for instance, this rules out the Anaheim Angels, who beat them in the 2002 World Series. It also rules out the Colorado Rockies, who couldn't beat the Atlanta Braves in 13 tries in 1993, allowing the Braves to edge the Giants by one stinking game! If you're a Raiders fan, it rules out the New England Patriots (Tuck Rule Game) and Pittsburgh Steelers (Immaculate Reception Game). If your bandwagon team broke your real team's heart, start over.

7. Does this team have a shameful past that it hasn't addressed properly? Consider the Houston Astros with their cheating scandal; the New England Patriots having Tom Brady all that time; the Indianapolis Colts moving from Baltimore in the middle of the night. You cannot be a fan of those teams, so pick another one and start over.

8. Is this team from your geographic area? A surprise twist! This is the reverse of the others, because if the answer is yes, you can absolutely become their fan. I'd even waive the first and second rules for residents of Southern California and the greater Dallas metro area. In fact, the best bandwagon to join is the "local" team that is doing well.

So maybe the approach is to consider No. 8 first and pick a local team. If not, you're free to pick a team that isn't from Los Angeles, isn't the Cowboys, isn't a rival of your favorite team, isn't a longtime powerhouse, hasn't broken your team's heart and doesn't have a shameful past.

Good luck. There aren't many out there, but feel free to jump on a bandwagon. Last year, my Seattle Mariners almost made it to the World Series and my New York Knicks won the NBA championship.

It's fun to be on the bandwagon if you follow the rules.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Nostalgia for past includes missing record players and more

They just don't make nostalgia like they used to.

Remember when old people talked about listening to "The Lone Ranger" on the radio? Or recalling when they paid 10 cents to go to the movies on Saturdays? How about when they romanticized played kick the can or stickball?

Ah, the good old days.

They're still here. If you talk to enough older people, you'll hear about playing outside until the street lights came on (not possible where I lived, since there were no streetlights. As far as I can tell, my fellow neighborhood kids are still out there playing, now in their 60s). You'll hear about black-and-white TVs and three TV networks. You'll hear about cars with manual transmissions and people smoking in movie theaters.

Those were the days, my friend.

But listen to people who aren't quite old (a generation younger than me) and you'll likely hear laments about bygone technologies, some of which they're fighting to bring back. Nostalgia now is for how the world operated around 1980 or 1990.

Example No. 1: People miss record players or stereo systems that play vinyl records (spelling challenge for me: I know there's a "y" in vinyl, but often try to put it after the "v." It might be vynil? Vynyl?). According to a recent survey by the YouGov folks, 42% of Americans miss vinyl records and want to use them again and another 27% miss them, but don't necessarily want to do them again. That's 69% of respondents!

Vinyl records are missed. However, they're still available for sale – not just at garage sales and used record stores (arguably the greatest stores of the 1980s). Many artists release new records on vinyl, too – hoping to catch the part of the market that thinks they sound better that way (do they? I have no idea. What I do know is that you can't leave a vinyl record in your car on a hot day without it warping. That's a lesson I learned after ruining three or four albums that cost $7.99 or $9.99 each).

Technology moves very fast: We went from vinyl records to cassettes to CDs to streaming back to vinyl in about 30 years. Other technologies (smartphones, cars) advance even faster. Nostalgia now comes quicker than it did for the kick-the-can generation (who would also tell you about carhops and ration books and World War II).

Life in the 21st century, as Ferris Bueller said 40 years ago (!), moves pretty fast.

Want more insight? YouGov's survey asked what we miss and what we don't. For simplicity sake, I'll combine the figures of the "I miss it and want to use it again" and "I miss it but don't want to use it again" into a catchall category I cleverly call . . . "I miss it."

Using that metric, 59% of us miss CD players (still available at second-hand stores!), 58% of us miss digital cameras, 57% of us miss DVD players and 57% of us miss film cameras.

They all seem great if you don't remember CD and DVD players skipping or when half of your photos were out of focus (in film cameras) or the extra work (carrying around a digital camera).

Some other technologies are missed by more than half of us. At least 50% of the population misses iPods/portable mp3 players (53%), handheld video game consoles (51%) and cassette tape players (51%).

The point isn't that all technology used to be better. It wasn't. Technology almost always advances because we find something better. That's true even if years or decades later, we consider the original better than the replacement.

However, there are some technologies that people are happy to leave behind. It's unsurprising that dial-up internet service, floppy disks and pagers are technologies we're most happy to be rid of, with 81% of us glad to be done with dial-up, 68% of us happy to not have to insert floppy disks or and the same number happy to see a number on a pager, have to find a pay phone and call the person to whom we're selling drugs (I'm guessing here. The only time we used a pager was to know when our first son's birthmother went into labor.).

At least half the population is also happy to be done with fax machines, rotary-dial telephones, non-smartphone cellphones and payphones – a category I call "dumbphones." We love the advance of the smartphone, which is also arguably an improvement over vinyl albums and record players for music. Modern smartphones also address the lack of CD players, DVD players, handheld video game consoles, cassette players, digital cameras and nearly everything else on this list.

I get the nostalgia. Record albums (and used record stores!) felt more real than a streaming device. Digital cameras felt like they gave us more control over our photos.

But when it comes down to it, I'll take my smartphone. To the others? As John Waite sang on a vinyl record that I had and ultimately used a special device to transform into an mp3 for my iPod, "I ain't missing you at all."

Then I left the record in my car and it got warped.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

We're on the brink of the world's most popular holiday

Labor Day is called a lot of things. The unofficial end of summer. The least patriotic of our three major summer holidays. An overlooked holiday and perhaps the most expendable of the "most people get a day off" holidays.

Here's what most people don't say about Labor Day: It's the most popular holiday in the world.

That's based on the number of people living in countries where variations of Labor Day are a federal holiday. In other words, the first Monday in September isn't the most popular holiday, Labor Day is.

Labor Day topping the widest-celebrated holiday list may come as a surprise in a world where Christmas dominates an entire month and Thanksgiving ushers in what we call "the holiday season." But Thanksgiving and Christmas aren't the most popular holidays in the world. That becomes obvious when you recognize the purpose of each of them.

Thanksgiving is a strange attempt to celebrate thankfulness (a noble cause) by pretending to imitate a meal eaten over a long weekend 405 years ago that was nothing like what we do now. I'm not sure what exactly happened on that first Thanksgiving, but I'm certain the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys didn't have home games that day.

Christmas isn't the most popular holiday because so much of the world isn't culturally Christian. China isn't. Most Arab countries aren't. Just take China (population 1.4 billion) out and you eliminate 17% of the world's population. (Side note: Did you realize that India surpassed China as the world's most populous country? It has 1.5 billion people and moved into the top spot in 2023.)

Anyway, when considering the most popular holiday it's Labor Day. Which is Monday. Except . . .

Well, for most of the world, Labor Day isn't the first Monday in September. For most the world, Labor Day (or Labour Day in places where they spell things wrong) is May 1. May Day.

May Day is a holiday for 5.8 billion people across the globe, edging out Christmas, which is a holiday for 5.5 million people. Add our Labor Day to the May Day total and you're past 6 billion celebrants.

So Labor Day is the biggest holiday in the world. Here in the United States and in Canada, it's celebrated in September, while England doesn't celebrate it at all, apparently still in the clutches of the pre-conversion Ebeneezer Scrooge's business plan.

In case you're wondering, New Year's Day (4.3 billion people) is third and no other holiday is celebrated by more than 4 billion people. Not even Pi Day (March 14) and May the 4th (be with you!), which are celebrated by English-speaking nerds.

Another thing I learned in an article about holidays: Most countries have 12 to 14 public holidays and the United States has 11. We're in the middle.

Two nations – Somalia and Uruguay – have less than five and a few (including Japan) have 25 or more. The biggest holiday-granting government? Nepal, where I had several jokes available before the late-August floods. Trust me, they were funny, but not appropriate now. Suffice it to say, Nepal has 31 national days off.

So how will you mark the most popular holiday in the world? A barbecue? A picnic? 

Personally, I think the best way to celebrate the world's most popular holiday is to do what people in the rest of the world do.

Dance around a May pole. Crown a May queen. Hold a massive military parade to commemorate the power of the Soviet Army. We may celebrate Labor Day on the wrong day, but there's no reason we should ignore the traditions that make the holiday so popular.

I bet people in Nepal get a week off for Labor Day and workers in Uruguay and Somalia probably have to work double shifts.

We live in 11-holiday America, so be grateful for our final holiday of summer, even if we celebrate it four months late. And enjoy your May pole dance.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

Counting down the greatest mascots, including Crazy Crab and Mr. Met

Earlier this summer, Jimothy became an internet star. He is a short-bodied, hunchbacked raccoon filmed in a Seattle neighborhood by a woman whose video generated millions of views.

She named him Jimothy because "he looks like a Jimothy," which is as good a reason for a name as any.

Jimothy was a big thing, but I wasn't aware of him until the Seattle Mariners added "Jimothy" to the "salmon race" they hold at every home game and several of their players began wearing "Jimothy" T-shirts emblazoned with his image.

I thought Jimothy was a new mascot, but it turns out he isn't. However, he got me to thinking . . . even without Jimothy, what are the greatest mascots in sports history?

A local angle: When the Solano Steelheads minor league baseball team played in Vacaville, "Sammy the Steelhead" was a good mascot. Daily Republic writer Jess Sullivan donned the costume for reasons I don't remember (was it for an article? Probably, but knowing what newspaper reporters earned, it could have been a side gig). After the Steelheads folded, the Solano Thunderbirds collegiate team came to town and their mascot (Travis the Thunderbird? Something like that) was a step down – particularly because the kid in the uniform would walk around with the mascot head thrown back so he could breathe, leaving Travis looking like he'd been decapitated. I suspect there were children who were traumatized by Travis (if that was indeed his name).

However, this rabbit trail led me to this point: What are the greatest mascots in major league sports history? Here are my top eight:

8. The Coyote. Ever since I heard someone say that the San Antonio Spurs mascot looks like a guy who is paranoid because he's high on drugs, I've been amused by this mascot. His bug-eyed look draws you in and keeps you watching him, despite the action on the court.

7. King Cake Baby. The New Orleans Pelicans mascot is the stuff of nightmares, a baby that looks like it comes from a horror movie. He's based on the plastic "babies" found in king cakes during Mardi Gras. In a world filled with puppet-looking mascots, King Cake Baby looks more like an old-school baby doll: One that would threaten to kill you right after your parents went to sleep.

6. Gritty. The Philadelphia Flyers mascot looks like a crazed Muppet, one that might pull out a switchblade and stab, then mock you. Something about Philadelphia makes for great mascots and Gritty – who debuted in 2018 – is the best recent addition to the mascot world..

5. Crazy Crab. The anti-mascot, created for the San Francisco Giants, with the idea of him being terrible. It worked. Crazy Crab would come on the field in the mid-1980s and fans would boo and throw things at him. Kudos to the Giants for opting against mimicking what the Padres and Phillies had done (see below) and choosing a road less traveled. The Giants now have Lou Seal, who is a pretty good mascot, but a pretty average mascot.

4. Mr. Met. An original member of the organization, created shortly after the Mets joined the National League in 1962. Mr. Met is a large baseball with a cap on his head. The name is brilliant, as is the fact that there is also a Mrs. Met. Earlier this year, Mr. Met won my heart by doing goofy moves behind a sportscaster who was sharing somber news that the team fired manager Carlos Mendoza.

3. San Diego Chicken. The O.G. modern mascot. The chicken originally worked for San Diego radio station KGW, but soon was present at nearly every pro sports event in San Diego. The man in the suit (Ted Giannoulas) was fired by the radio station, lawsuits followed and the character (performed by Giannoulas) was reborn as "The Famous Chicken," appearing at games and on TV shows. The chicken was a master of physical humor and was the precursor for modern mascots.

2. Phillie Phanatic. He was San Diego Chicken 2.0, arriving two years after the chicken broke through. The difference? The Phanatic is still here, 50 years later. He's funny and likable and absurd. Also, it's not clear what he is. Well, maybe it is clear: He's a phanatic.

1. The Tree. Leave it to Stanford University to have the most nonsensical mascot of all – a tree. However, its googly eyes and the fact that it was involved in the greatest mascot brawl in history (in 1995, with Oski the Bear, the mascot for the University of California) gives it street cred. Stanford's team are called the Cardinal (after the color, not the bird) and the mascot is a tree. Of course it doesn't make sense.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

The secret way to bring joy to your job – at least for me

The old saying, "find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life," was likely spoken by someone who never worked. However, if you can find a part of your job you love, that makes it seem less like work.

At least that's my philosophy. I've been fortunate enough to have jobs I've like since I landed my first newspaper job at age 21 – and really, I liked most of my jobs before that. But newspapers and writing (even for a non-newspaper) are fun to me.

But you know what's more fun? And you know what I've been doing since I landed my first newspaper job?

Pasting heads of people on other people's bodies in photos. Over and over and over.

If my LinkedIn profile was accurate, the first listed skill would be, "pasting co-workers or friends' heads on the bodies of people in photos." I'd have 40 years' experience, using scissors and tape; Photoshop; the Microsoft Paint app; Copilot and whatever else is needed.

Few things make me laugh more than a ridiculous image where a co-worker's head is pasted on the body of a 3-year-old blowing out candles to celebrate a birthday. Or pasting a friend's head on a body in the background of a crowd celebrating Richard Nixon's election. Or pasting a photo of my head as a child on the body of Black Panther Party member protesting in the late 1960s.

I was a sports writer for 20 years. I was a news writer for an additional six years. I've been a business writer for nearly 12 years. I've been a columnist for 40 years.

But ask people who work with me what I do and one of the first things they'll tell you is that I make ridiculous images by placing the heads of people I know on bodies in photos.

Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.

I got my start doing this as a boy sports writer, with Ted and Mike – my first two professional co-workers and mentors, who were amused by the over-enthusiastic guy who added their heads to black-and-white photos that came off the printer from The Associated Press.

It continued at the Daily Republic. In the sports department, I hung a huge poster of the cover of The National, the short-lived national sports newspaper, with my head pasted over that of legendary auto racer A.J. Foyt. The reason? The headline said, "The toughest SOB in sports." It remains in my possession.

When my son Chad (who is now 35) was a baby, I'd routinely add his head to bodies of politicians – Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton and other 1990s figures. Lil' Chad would be speaking to Congress or shaking hands with the Senate Majority Leader.

I have no idea why this so amuses me. I know it also amuses my co-workers, but they get nowhere near the joy out of my shenanigans as I do. I suspect it sometimes irritates them.

But . . . man, it's funny to put someone's head on a body that doesn't belong to them. AI makes it simpler, which somehow makes it less satisfying. Still, I've created images of co-workers that way (my favorites include one of a friend wearing a superhero cape and another with former Daily Republic writer and current co-worker Nick DeCicco hugging the American flag like Donald Trump did several years ago.)

For someone who is fortunate enough to spend more than 40 years doing something he likes and being paid, it's curious that pasting heads on bodies brings me so much joy. It wouldn't be enough to make an untenable job fun – something I know from experience – but in my 60s, I'm as amused by my own stupidity as I was in my 20s.

It just goes to show you: Things tangential to our jobs – relationships, problem-solving, moments of unexpected fun, organized non-work activities (early in my days as the DR sports editor, we would have nightly, wild chair races around the building after deadline, something that surely violated OSHA rules but hopefully is beyond the statute of limitations), pasting photos of people's heads on other photos – are often what we remember the most.

As we always say, find a job that lets you do something that regularly amuses you and you'll still work a lot, but you'll have more fun.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Wading into the food wars on whether hamburgers are sandwiches, other hot-button issues

It's perhaps the most divisive issue in modern America society, more so than whether we should defund ICE, whether Hermione Granger should have married Harry Potter or if there should be rule changes in baseball to re-emphasize starting pitchers.

The divisive issue, of course, is whether a hamburger is a sandwich. You've probably heard the arguments on each side. 

On one side, you have, "Of one side, of course it's a sandwich, since a 'sandwich' is portable food made up of two slices of bread with a filling between them. That describes a hamburger!"

On the other side, "It's not a sandwich, because it's a hamburger. They're different things, you nitwit."

The good news for the pro-sandwich group: A significant majority of Americans surveyed (73%) agree that a hamburger is a sandwich. The bad news? Only 40% of those surveyed say a hot dog is a sandwich –  and what is a hot dog if not a hamburger with a frankfurter substituted for a hamburger patty?

Great food debates are fun, because we often have strong feelings that are backed by such facts as "it has its own section in most menus," or "if you'd never heard of it before, you'd consider it a sandwich" or "they're different things, you nitwit!"

There are, of course, debates that go beyond the Great Sandwich Divide. And of course the people at yougov.com asked Americans about them. I'm here to settle these issues once and for all, regardless of whether my view is popular. Being right isn't always popular and being popular doesn't make you right. Remember that tanning beds were seen as healthy, that "Out of Africa" won the best picture Oscar the same year "The Color Purple" was nominated and that Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota. Temporary popularity does not translate to being correct.

Anyhoo, back to food. let's start with the first question: Are hamburgers and hot dogs sandwiches? The correct answer is no, you nitwit. See above.

Another issue is whether sandwiches should be cut diagonally, horizontally or neither (another argument against hamburgers as "sandwiches." Only a sociopath would cut a hamburger in two). A plurality of Americans choose diagonally, which makes sense if most Americans are 4 years old. (When my youngest son was 4, he cried when I gave him a sandwich cut horizontally and wanted me to cut it "like Connie," who watched him two days a week and apparently cut it diagonally. My stance may be rooted in the trauma of that event).

Another issue: Do you like ketchup on eggs? Ketchup is our greatest condiment, despite another survey in which deranged Americans picked peanut butter for that honor. However, ketchup is not appropriate on eggs, which don't need additional flavor. Fifty-seven percent of Americans agree with me (the first time that's been true since I argued in 1977 that "Happy Days" was the greatest-ever TV show) and only 32% like or love ketchup on eggs. Not coincidentally, that's roughly the same percentage of people who think the moon landing was staged (and it may be the same people. No offense, of course, you nitwits).

Whether leftover pizza needs to be reheated is another issue on which we lack unity. Should you eat leftover pizza cold, straight out of the refrigerator, or must you heat it up? This one has an easy answer: You can heat it up if you want, but it's fine (better) cold. I'm right on this for two reasons: I worked at a pizza parlor for nearly five years, making me an expert on the subject. Also, there was the old ESPN morning show, "Cold Pizza." The show wasn't great, but the name was a nod to the fact that leftover pizza can/should be eaten cold. My opinion is not mainstream – two-thirds of respondents have been influenced by Big Microwave and reheat their pizza, a gigantic waste of energy.

There are plenty of other issues discussed in the survey, including whether cilantro tastes like soap (correct answer. No. Soap tastes better). 

But we'll conclude with a question I've never considered and one that shows that there is a certain percentage of Americans whose brains are wired wrong. The survey-takers asked in what order you should fill a bowl while having cereal and milk. Shockingly, 4% of us put milk in the bowl, then add cereal. Do those same people put Parmesan cheese on a plate, then add spaghetti? Do they put salt in a bag, then add French fries? Do they put cookies on the counter and then pour milk over the top? Do they put ketchup on a plate and then dump scrambled eggs on top?

Perhaps most importantly, do they consider hamburgers sandwiches, cut them diagonally and then reheat them with their pizza?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

 

(Irrational) confidence and the ability to escape a sinking car or score a World Cup goal

I first heard the phrase "irrational confidence" about 15 years ago, from famed sports writer Bill Simmons, who used it describe NBA players who assumed they could make any shot, often without solid supporting evidence.

J.R. Smith was irrationally confident. So was Nick Young. Trae Young remains irrationally confident.

Irrationally confident players have a swagger. They're charming because they're sure they're the best player on the court, regardless of evidence. One of my favorite all-time irrationally confident players was former Celtics forward Antoine Walker, whom a sports writer once asked, "Why do you shoot so many threes (three-point shots)?" to which Walker replied, "because there aren't fours."

There are many irrationally confident humans beyond the NBA. To no one's surprise, most of them are male.

A recent YouGov survey asked Americans how well they think they would do in various challenging situations: Could they pass the U.S. citizenship test, perform CPR on a person whose heart has stopped, survive a week alone in the wilderness or safely land a passenger airplane relying only on air traffic control assistance? You know, the type of situations that have been the plot for hundreds of movies and TV show episodes over the years and are ridiculous every time.

In virtually all those situations – particularly those that involve something that 12-year-old boys pretend to do – men were far more confident of their ability to succeed than women. Compared to women, men were 10% more confident that they could do a stranger's job for a day. They were 23% more confident (more than twice as much) that they could escape from an underwater, sinking car. They were 15% more confident that they could survive a week being lost at sea on a life raft.

Let's be clear: This is not suggesting that 41% of men could successfully escape a sinking car or that 46% of men could survive a week alone in the wilderness.

That's the percentage of men who think they could. Because most men (including me) have an unearned confidence in our ability to do hard things, mostly because we've watched someone do it on TV and have critiqued their performance from our couch. ("You have to give the plane plenty of runway to land, dummy!" we shout at an actor pretending to land a plane.)

I've broached this subject before and I don't know the correct takeaway. Are men are absurdly self-confident? Should women should be more brash in their assessment of their abilities?

In the survey, there were a few situations where women were more confident than men. More women thought they could perform CPR on a person whose heart stopped. More women thought they could deliver a baby in an emergency (still, 27% of men said they could, which seems absurd).

Some of the options seemed like they were dreamed up by a 12-year-old boy (or me): Could you hotwire a car in under a minute? Could you beat a chimpanzee in a fight if you were unarmed? Could you successfully navigate to a destination using only the stars?

Of course, more men than women thought they could do each of those. (I'm not sure I even want to talk to the 12% of men who thought they could win a fight against a chimpanzee.)

The YouGov people also broke down the information by different demographics. Unsurprisingly, Republicans were more confident that they could perform most challenging tasks (MAOA: Make America Overconfident Again). Older people are more confident that they could perform emergency medical tasks (a Heimlich maneuver or perform CPR), likely because we were trained on how to do that 40 years ago and still think we could do it.

Confidence is a strange trait. It's painful to watch someone who lacks confidence, but it's irritating to watch someone who is overconfident. I love watching irrationally confident athletes or kids (I'm forever amused by 10-year-olds who think they can do things that they clearly are incapable of doing), but am bugged by overconfident regular adults.

While my confidence level is admittedly closer to irrational than underconfident, when I look at the list of options provided in the survey, I suspect the only ones in which I could succeed are doing a random person's job for a day (presuming it was something easy) and beat a chess grandmaster in a single game.

Explanation of the second point: I don't play chess, but that question doesn't say the "game" is chess. I think I could beat a chess grandmaster in a single game of Uno or Trouble, if we played enough times. (An area in which I have supreme confidence: The ability to find loopholes in phrases that allow me to succeed.)

Oh, and a few weeks after the first survey, YouGov released another survey at the end of the World Cup, asking whether people thought they could score on a penalty kick in a World Cup match. The survey revealed that 24% of men believe they could accomplish that ridiculous feat, while 15% of women thought they could.

The most confident group? Fifty-eight percent of Republican men under 45 said they could score in that scenario. I can only assume they would do so after landing a passenger airplane with air traffic control help, then escaping a sinking car on the way to the World Cup match.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

In an era of social isolation, board games are still popular

I've never finished a game of Monopoly. Maybe I'm impatient. Maybe I'm a bad landlord. Maybe I'm opposed to evaluating property based on its cash value.

Maybe I don't really understand the rules and can't strategize properly. But across decades of life, I've never fully finished America's most popular board game. Like Teddy Roosevelt (I'm interpreting history loosely here), I just want to break up monopolies, not try to build one.

Fortunately, I'm not as strident about other board games. Trouble? Sure, I'll play it. Scrabble? I'll try (and lose to Mrs. Brad). Checkers? Of course. Yahtzee? Absolutely, so I can yell "Yahtzee!" even if I don't get one. Sorry? I would if I ever had the game, just to say "Sorr-rry" to my opponent.

It turns out that most Americans enjoy board games. Or tolerate them, with 21% saying they love board games and 44% liking them. That's according to the folks at YouGov, who should get paid for being sources of numerous columns for me each year.

For those of us who think of "board games" as an old-fashioned form of entertainment, there's a counterintuitive result: The older you get, the less likely you are to say you love board games. The people who love them the most are those under 30, the people who love them the least are 65 and older.

Of course, the survey also asked about other ways to play games, including on their phones or video games (either on a computer or a console). All of those were more popular than board games, which are, of course, played on a 2-by-4 piece of wood if I understand correctly correct. That's why checkers is so hard: Balancing the game board on a 2-by-4 is a challenge!

Anyhoo, far more Americans say that winning board games is "somewhat important" than those who say it's "very important." That's a distinction that might be handy to know before you play Candy Land or Battleship with someone, right?

(Side note: While I'm not super competitive–which is what super competitive people always say, I guess–I tend to subscribe to the philosophy that President Obama shared with NBA star Anthony Edwards on a video promoting his new library: "What do you call someone who doesn't mind losing? A loser.")

When it comes to what board games Americans play, it's good to see that the traditional games remain the most played. Among those that have been played "many times" by people, the leaders are Monopoly (again, I've never finished a game), checkers, Scrabble, Connect Four and Yahtzee. Also in the top 10 are Battleship and The Game of Life, both of which have tiny plastic pieces that are easily dropped and lost forever to the vacuum.

A few games have big differences in how popular they are with older and younger people. The games that are much more popular with older Americans include Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit and Backgammon. Games that are much more popular with younger Americans include Snakes and Ladders, Mancala and Codenames, none of which I know (although I'm now learning that Snakes and Ladders is a more lethal version of Chutes and Ladders).

In many ways, the survey results should be good news. During an era when we're constantly told that people are becoming more isolated and there is less social interaction, a majority of Americans like playing games that require you to sit with someone for a while, talk and consider strategy.

Of course, some are really a waste of time as you roll dice and keep landing on some old-timey property name that your cousin knew to buy and has built a bunch of homes (hotels? Something), making it cost more to stay there than you have left in your bank account.

I presume. I've never played long enough to get to that point, because Monopoly is stupid.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Colons: A useful tool in writing or a canary in the AI coal mine?

 

Artificial intelligence may need a colonoscopy.

Not the kind you think of that involves the nasty preparation. I'm speaking about the punctuation mark: Two periods, stacked on top of each other to indicate that you're introducing a list, an explanation, a quotation or are giving examples.

Let me talk out of school (a saying I've never fully understood: I know what it means, but I don't know why "talking out of school" would mean sharing insider information. Were we supposed to never talk about school subjects when we were outside of the school walls? Was learning about the 50 states or how to determine the area of a triangle or how to conjugate verbs some secret that we were supposed to keep from our parents? "Talking out of school": Weird saying).

Anyway, let me get to the point on colons: At my workplace, I often review work done by others (not professional writers) and I can tell when they used the company-approved AI tool. People smarter than me (definition of "people smarter than me": Nearly everyone) probably have other examples of how AI writes, but the most obvious to me is the love of colons in writing headlines or subject lines (one possibility: It's informed by the other work done within our company, so colons are already prevalent).

The AI tendency echoes the growing trend among media companies, who have learned that colons can save space in headlines – or make something seem more dramatic. If the president says the economy is doing well, one headline could be "President says economy is doing well," while another seems more dramatic: "President: Economy doing well."

At newspapers, colons are handy because you limited space (measured by columns) to write headlines (A favorite headline as a sports editor: "A's/tip/M's." You could use large type for that one, even over one column!) But more and more media sites are online only and they have more room for headlines (or "titles" as nonjournalists will often call them. When that happens, journalists snicker and mock you. Journalists: Snarky jerks).

I'm not opposed to colons, because they're handy. But when I look at an article with a series of subheads that all have colons, I suspect that person used AI to write the subheads.

When it comes down to it, colons are handy and are easy to rewrite. You can take the colon-filled title and just add a few words and make it work. Again, I'm not opposed to colons.

Now time for a side trip: I'm strongly opposed to semicolons, the shape-shifters of the punctuation world. There's an official purpose for semicolons: Linking two independent sentences that are closely related or to separate items in a list that already has commas.

The second one is obvious: "He eats peanut butter, banana and jelly sandwiches; jelly beans; pizza; cheese and crackers; and cold cereal." The first? Who determines whether the sentences are independent and closely related? Not me.

The official Stanhope System for Semicolons: Use semicolons on lists that already have commas. Use long dashes to set off independent sentences that are closely related.

Merriam-Webster gives an example that I can also use to support the Stanhope System. They provide an example: "Semicolons are useful; they show that clauses are related in meaning." I would rewrite that as "Semicolons are useful – they show that clauses are related in meaning." Stanhope System: Dashes are better than semicolons.

Back to AI in writing. I presume some AI writing is good (my guess is that I've read many things – not necessarily at work, but in the wild – that are well-written and by AI). Side note: I prefer dashes to parentheses, although I used both in the previous sentence. Anyway, to continue a paragraph that could be a longer sentence with the proper use of semicolons, colons are helpful, but also a signal that you may be relying on something else to do your work.

Colons: A possible canary in the coal (colon?) mine for headlines and titles for writers.

Colons: I've now used 20 in this column.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Changing American football's name, learning cultures and other World Cup lessons

The world's greatest sporting event concludes today with the finals of soccer's World Cup.

That's a major concession from someone who spent years mocking those who said soccer was becoming a major American sport. Sure. Just like tennis in the 1970s. Or pickleball. Or ultimate frisbee. Or cornhole.

Soccer, I insisted, would always have a place in our sports world – played primarily by children or by adults who grew up in a country where it was the main sport. But 99% of soccer players would turn to another sport (or quit) once they hit high school. It would perpetually be popular among elementary school kids and their parents, but that's it.

I was wrong.

I still don't fully understand soccer, but having watched yet another World Cup, I acknowledge its place among the world's (and America's) great sports. Further, I think the World Cup tops the Olympics as a worldwide sports spectacle.

Here are six truths that have been cemented during the past several weeks.

1. Doubters were wrong about soccer. See above. I'm not alone in thinking soccer was doomed to perpetually be a second-, third- or fourth-level sport in the United States. It's now in the top tier.

2. We should call soccer "fútbol" and "football" should be called something else. This contradicts the long-held belief of many Americans that "soccer" is the right name and football is played on a 100-yard field with two teams of 11 players (wait. That sounds suspiciously like soccer. Maybe "while wearing shoulder pads and helmets" should be added). But fútbol is a game where you play primarily with your feet. We call that "soccer," a name that doesn't make sense. Henceforth, we should call "soccer" fútbol and the sport previously called football should be . . . well, in baseball, the goal is to get on base; in basketball, the goal is to put the ball in the basket. So American football should be "endzoneball?" Maybe "touchdownball?" Let's workshop it with the understanding that the name will change.

3. This is a great way to learn about other cultures. The venues in which I've learned the most about other nations are the Olympics and the World Cup. That's where I learn where countries are (is Cabo Verde near South America or Africa? Where is Curacao? Is Bosnia and Herzegovina really a country and not two countries? Where in Africa is Tunisia?). It's where I learn what drives a nation's people (just watch how they dress and what they do while chanting). All cultures are deeper than the surface-level understanding I get from the World Cup, but a surface-level understanding is better than what we had before.

4. The rules are confusing to newcomers. One observer explained soccer's (fútbol's) offside rule thusly: "If something exciting happens, it's an offside." That is not really true, it just seemed that way for much of the World Cup. But isn't that true for other sports? What constitutes pass interference in American football (aka touchdownball)? What is a balk in baseball? What's the difference between a Flagrant 1 and Flagrant 2 foul in basketball? The best part of the rules is how quickly ignorant American observers (like me) become outraged over decisions concerning rules we don't understand. I don't understand red cards, but I know when one shouldn't be given, even if I'm wrong.

5. Visitors love our culture. One of the best outcomes for Americans hosting the 2026 World Cup is the number of visitors who created buzz with their love of under-the-radar American culture. People from other countries are amazed by our huge grocery stores, our gas stations, getting free chips at Mexican restaurants and perhaps most striking, by how fantastic ranch dressing tastes. They've shared how welcoming we are and how fun we are. That's been a refreshing change.

6. Games (and goals) matter immensely. Fútbol is like the NFL in that each game carries so much weight (baseball, hockey and basketball have long seasons where even the great teams lose 15% to 30% of their games). In the World Cup (and even in European and South American fútbol leagues), each game is huge. It matters. And goals are rare. If you're down 2-0 in the World Cup, it's like trailing 28-3 in the Super Bowl (sorry, Atlanta Falcons). 

The World Cup ends today and won't be back for four years (hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain – with Uruguay, Argentia and Paraguay each getting one game). But this year's tournament has reminded us how sports can teach us about each other and about the world. Even this year's National Touchdownball League season – where the 49ers will try to get back to the Super Bowl – won't change that.

Viva fútbol!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

If you have a bad shoulder, don't feel bad. Everyone does

I was recently watching a senior citizen walk around while he was  hunched slightly forward, hands behind his back. (Do we use the term "senior citizen" anymore? This person was likely in his 80s, so he probably wouldn't be offended by the term since he was born around World War II, when we fought to preserve the right to use broad terms for people groups.)

Will I someday walk like that? I'll undoubtedly walk slower as I age and if I live long enough, I'll likely someday need a cane and then a walker and then an assistant to push me around in a wheelchair, like that used by Mr. Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life." But will I walk around with my hands behind my back, like Groucho Marx? (In case you're not keeping score, I've so far referenced World War II, "It's a Wonderful Life" and Groucho Marx. Modern culture!)

The answer (the question again: Will I walk around with my hands behind my back?) is an unconditional no.

Not because I'll be too spry to walk like that. Or because I'll feel like it looks old or anything like that. The reason I won't walk like that is that it would hurt my shoulders too much.

I don't have terrible shoulders in the way a former pitcher or painter or gymnast might have (do painters have bad shoulders? It seems like they should). But I've had my share of shoulder trouble (I had a "frozen shoulder" around the time the pandemic started, a common, a very uncomfortable thing where your shoulder really hurts and takes three years to gradually get better).

If you're over 40, you've likely had some shoulder problems, although it's possible that you haven't talked to a doctor about it (about one-third of humans admit to shoulder pain, making it one of the most common medical complaints). If you're over 40, you've almost assuredly had some sort of damage to your shoulder – an opinion based on science.

Earlier this year, a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine (not related to Carl Carlson's 1981 hit, "She's a Bad Mama Jama," a pop culture reference that's only 45 years old, so much newer than Groucho Marx) reported that 99% of adults over 40 have at least one abnormality in a rotator cuff, based on magnetic resonance imaging.

More than 99% of us have damaged shoulders!

The study concluded that not all rotator cuff injuries hurt. The authors suggested that doctors using MRIs to diagnose shoulder pain could leave to unnecessary treatment, since everyone has shoulder damage.

My conclusion was different: 99% of us have shoulder injuries!

So how can so many old people walk around hunched slightly forward with their hands clasped behind their backs? Doesn't it hurt? It hurts me!

First, some basics if you're not a doctor. Or if like me, your understanding of rotator cuffs ends with the knowledge that a torn rotator cuff leads to surgery for baseball pitchers.

The rotator cuff is not a single thing; it's a group of tendons and muscles that keep the upper arm bone in your shoulder socket. Damage to it can cause pain. Or not.

The study in question was based on information on patients in Finland (leading to colleagues of those who published the paper to continually ask, "Is it Finish(ed)?" and then laugh.) and included a variety of possible injuries to the rotator cuff, from degrees of tears to tendinopathy.

The study also showed that the older you got, the more likely you were to have more severe injuries to your rotator cuff, a finding that lines up with a recent conversation I had with a friend who is probably close to 70 and was coming off a torn rotator cuff that happened while he was opening a can of pickles.

He tore his rotator cuff taking the lid off a jar of pickles!

Alas, the study's findings didn't help me much. Although most older people don't walk around with hands behind their backs, enough do that it makes me think either they've somehow avoided hurting their shoulders or that they're tougher than me.

Or perhaps, as Groucho Marx once said, "Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough."

And have some sort of rotator cuff injury.

Reach Brad Stanhope (but stretch before reaching) at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Bicentennial memories, next Bay Area champion and more notes

We just celebrated America's 250th birthday. At my house, we had a cake with 250 candles and sang "Happy Birthday" to a flag. I presume the same was true for you.

As I told the nation, "It's not every country that gets to celebrate the big 2-5-0." (Of course, Iran and Egypt are about 5,000 years old, but they're the Dick Van Dykes of nations. We're Macaulay Culkin or Tiger Woods – we became famous quickly and aren't as old as we feel.)

Anyway, I'm of the age to remember the bicentennial, which seemed like the biggest event in the history of America. In 1976, everyone had flags out. We had patriotic clothes. TV networks had things like "Bicentennial Minutes," where we were taught about Betsy Ross or Constitution Hall or Paul Revere by celebrities.

It was a different world in 1976. We were coming off a scandal-plagued presidential term, we had a confidence crisis as a nation, gas prices were unstable, the Giants were terrible.

Wait a second . . . that sounds familiar.

Things were different 50 years ago, though. We all watched three TV networks. We heard new music by listening to AM radio. We had tuna casserole for dinner at least once a week. We wore corduroy pants a lot.

Things are different now. On TV, instead of Love Boat, we have Love Island. Instead of The Carpenters, we have Sabrina Carpenter. Instead of playing Pong, we watch TikTok.

The lesson: The world changes a lot in 50 years and it also doesn't change a lot. But here's the thing for which I'm most grateful: I'm not spending the summer getting ready to be a high school freshman. So there's that.

On to today's topics du jour, a pocketful of notes  . . .

•••

A quick top five: The likely next Bay Area pro sports team to win a championship:

1. San Francisco 49ers. They're going for it in 2026, with players returning from injuries and a quarterback entering his prime. The odds are against them, but it's likely they'll be a contender for the next few years. They'll have multiple postseason chances in the next few years.

2. Golden State Valkyries. The WNBA's most successful expansion franchise is in its second year and the Valkyries are already a top-tier team. They seem unlikely to win it all this year, but all arrows are pointing up.

3. San Jose Sharks. They haven't even made the NHL playoffs since 2019, but they have a young superstar (Macklin Celebrini) and just drafted another potential star in Sweden's Ivar Stenberg. Note: NHL stars grow up fast.

4. San Francisco Giants. This has been a disastrous season and top executive Buster Posey hasn't proven that he knows what he's doing. However . . . the Giants' minor league system is in its best shape since right before winning three World Series. They might be a contender by the early 2030s.

5. Golden State Warriors. Steph Curry is still great, but fans are right when they call this team the "Olden State Warriors." The band isn't ready to break up, but it will take a complete refresh (and somehow landing another superstar) before they're contenders to win a championship.

•••

Nothing has shaken my confidence in my humanity more than those "prove you're human" tests on websites where you have to identify which of the nine (or 16 or 25) photos they show has a car or a bike or a bridge or something else.

I spend most of my time guessing. Is that a building or a bridge? Is construction equipment considered a car? Is that part of a bike or just a wheel? And if I'm looking for bikes, does a car with a bike rack count?

Mostly, I wonder why the ability to identify street signs makes us uniquely human. Maybe I'm not really human.

•••

It's not yet football season, but I have an idea for NFL broadcasters. In an era when we have network rules specialists who explain what the referees are looking for during a replay, important plays sometimes come down to determining whether the ref's whistle blew before a ball was fumbled or an interception was thrown.

The solution: A dog in the booth. Every NFL broadcasting booth should have a specially trained dog that would indicate during a replay when the whistle blew, allowing the announcers (and perhaps the referees) to know when the play was dead.

Networks (and NFL) you're welcome.

•••

As time passes, I find myself more frequently deciding whether it's worth it to spring from my chair when a vehicle passes with a siren blaring or a low-flying plane goes overhead.

I want to know, but due to slower reaction times and a lifetime of getting outside (or to a window) too late to see anything has taught me to weigh my options.

That means most often, I just ignore them. I feel like I miss out on some excitement because of that.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

An early look at my AI-assisted Great American Novel

Back in the day, writing the great American novel was hard. You had to work for years, perfecting the story and the characters, getting the voices right and likely having your novel address something bubbling under the surface of the cultural landscape (racism, search for meaning, dinosaurs).

Then you had to be tormented and likely have a drinking problem along with a ruptured relationship with your family. You had to be difficult for those in the publishing world, whether it was your publishing company, agent or other writers.

It was hard and I can't write the Great American Novel. But in the age of AI, I can try.

Right? What is artificial intelligence if not a tool to do something we can't do otherwise? And while I can't afford the top-shelf AI tools that work really well, I can use the free versions that come with warnings about hallucinations and concerns about plagiarism. It should work, I think.

Well, I fed some information about the world's greatest novels (not just American!) and here is the first chapter of my new AI-assisted (which means AI-written, but I want my name on the book!) novel, "The Grapes of Rathman." It took lines from the greatest novels (and elsewhere) and tweaked them.

How can this not work?

Here it is:

•••

It was the beast of times, it was the wurst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the Tupac of belief, it was the Tupac of incredulity. 

Call me Ishmael. Although Ish is OK if we're close. That's what my friends call me.

Anyway, the Joads loaded up their car and headed west on Route 66. That road, of course, goes from St Louie to Joplin, Missouri; Oklahoma City; Amarillo; Gallup, New Mexico; Flagstaff, Arizona; Winona; Kingman; Barstow and San Bernardino. Tom got his kicks, for sure.

But Tom knew this: All the world’s a stagecoach and all the men and women merely players (except for Pat Riley, who is a coach. Really, he's an executive who used to be a coach and was a player before that, so ignore this). Anyhoo, they have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts. Especially Eddie Murphy in those movies where he is multiple characters.

But back to Tom Joad and his family, led by his father Frog N. Joad.

As Atticus told him, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."

That's when Tom started his killing spree, skinning people so his could wear their skin. Atticus defended him in court. It was the summer of his 27th year.

Tom talked to his friend and said he was angry.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can’t help that," said Karl Anthony Towns (KAT), the New York Knicks star who is suddenly a character in this novel: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."

"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.

"You must be," said KAT, "or you wouldn’t have come here. Also, you just punched the wall and cursed.”

That's when she knew that love means you never have to say you're sorry.

After this, Tom, Alice and KAT visited Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, who were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were especially proud of their hairy potter, a very shaggy man who grew marijuana for them in a needless side story in this novel.

The hairy potter always said this to Mr. Dursley: “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”

Getting back to Tom Joad's trial for skinning people, Atticus told him: “This above all: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Tom didn't understand what was being said because it was in 1600s English and he was trying to remember the order of cities along Route 66. Was Flagstaff before Winona? He wasn't sure.

That's when Tom stopped worrying about everything and headed to Kansas, because there's no place like home – even though he wasn't from that state, he was from Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.

Goodnight, moon.

•••

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Time for a return for 'Dear Dad' to provide important advice

Nobody gives advice like a dad. Disagree? Consider Atticus Finch, Mike Brady, Heathcliff Huxtable, and John Walton. But ignore Homer Simpson, Phil Dunphy, Al Bundy and Peter Griffin.

As we commemorate another Father's Day, it's time for an annual tradition that is as beloved as wishing dad "Happy Father's Day" and then forgetting about it: Allowing a dad to take over this column.

In the spirit of Dear Abby, Dear Prudence, Miss Manners and more, it's time for Dear Dad, a column that features made-up questions from made-up readers for a made-up advice columnist.

The advice, however, is solid. Read on.

Dear Dad:

My husband and I divorced eight years ago. We share custody of our two children and it has been fairly amicable over the years. However, my children have told me things that have me concerned. They say my ex-husband seems very focused on gambling and constantly uses one of those betting apps on his phone. They say he watches more sports than he used to and talks a lot about "parlays" and "prop bets" and "futures." I don't receive alimony or child support from him, so this isn't about me needing his money. But I still care about him and he remains my children's father. Should I do anything?

Uneasy in Fairfield

Dear Uneasy: One of life's most important lessons is that you can't fix someone who doesn't want to be fixed. Unless it's a dog or cat, I guess, but that's a different issue.

It's like when my 1990 Honda Accord was running rough and I didn't want to pay a mechanic to fix it. This was before YouTube – before the Internet, really – so I relied on my friend Troy to help. He said it was probably the carburetor, so we checked the vacuum lines to see if they were dry-rotted or disconnected and pinched them off to see if that affected how the engine idled. There was nothing wrong, so we sprayed some carburetor cleaner into the jets. Again, nothing. So we looked at the fuel pump. That was the problem – a bad fuel pump relay was starving the carburetor of fuel. I went down to Pep Boys and bought a replacement. It worked great and taught me a good lesson – sometimes when the carburetor is running badly, the problem might be somewhere else.

Glad I could help.

Dear Dad:

I work at a large local company and sometimes at social events I'll see co-workers. Recently, I was at a graduation barbecue in Suisun City for a friend's son and one of the guests was a supervisor from work. He didn't see me, but he ended up drinking too much and started talking about how "layoffs are coming" at work and how he's part of the group who will determine who gets let go. Should I warn my co-workers? I don't think the supervisor would have said anything if he knew I was there. I welcome your advice.

Concerned in Cordelia

Dear Concerned:

Sorry to hear about that situation. I can't help but notice you mentioned a barbecue. One thing you should always keep in mind when barbecuing meat is to not take the meat out of the fridge and put it directly on the grill. When I barbecue steak, I usually let it sit at room temperature for at least a half-hour. I just put it on a plate on the kitchen counter, so I won't forget it.

A lot of people put too much seasoning the meat. I'm a fan of using just salt and pepper – both generously. And remember to cook the meat over the hottest part of the grill and only for two or three minutes per side. After that, you can tent it loosely with aluminum foil for five or 10 minutes.

I hope that they cooked the meat well at your friend's barbecue.

Dear Dad: I'm concerned about my daughter. She's just finished her sophomore year at Vanden High School and said she's talking with a boy. I thought that meant they were talking, but a friend told me that when teenagers say that now, it means they're actually dating. Could that be true? I don't know whether to ask her about it or if it really means she's literally just talking. What should I do?

Confused at Travis

Dear Confused: Boy times have changed, haven't they? Back when I was in high school, we just said we had a girlfriend or that we were dating someone. We didn't have all these terms that are confusing.

It reminds me of how baseball has changed. It used to be that the best hitters were determined by easy-to-understand numbers. If you hit .300, you were a good hitter. If you hit 30 homers, you were a power hitter. If you drove in 100 runs, you were clutch. Same with pitchers. Guys who won 20 games and had an ERA of 3.00 or below were the best pitchers. Now we have OPS and WAR and FIP and BABIP. People talk about launch angle and bat speed and exit velocity. The statistics guys took something that worked well for more than 100 years and changed it so it requires a slide rule and special handbook to know what works. You know what really works? A three-run homer and seven good innings out of your starting pitcher. Give me Greg Maddux and Tony Gwynn any day over these guys who hit .220 and are considered valuable.

I hope I've helped.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.