Do Not Mess With Calvin and Hobbes
I hope you’re having a safe and happy holiday season. For the last entry of 2025, I’m sharing some reflections on “Wake Up Dead Man,” Jeff Kent, cookies, books, tying shoes, Calvin and Hobbes, and more. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and that means I’m only giving you the uncut best stuff I’ve got. Also, the first season of the Kids Popcorn Podcast is finished! Listen to all the episodes on the podcast site, or wherever you get your podcasts. LFG.
GO DIRECTLY TO:
Read My Novel for Free
“Wake Up Dead Man” Is an Intensely Catholic Movie
Chatbots Aren’t Your Friends
Seriously, the Jeff Kent “Survivor” Clip Is Hilarious
Step Up Your Cookie Game
Do Not Mess With Calvin and Hobbes
“Now That I’m Grown, I Eat Five Dozen Eggs”
“So This Is Christmas”
The Greatest TED Talk Ever
All the Books I’ve Read This Year
Read My Novel for Free
Earlier this year, I published a novel titled, "A Hell of a Wedding." It's about Tara, a young photographer hired on short notice to shoot a wedding at a Caribbean luxury resort, who is shocked to discover her ex is in attendance. She must navigate her feelings about him, the best man with complicated family dynamics, the unsettlingly intense maid of honor, and others among the wedding party and guests, in order to get through the week with her dignity, sense of self-worth, and reputation intact.
"A Hell of a Wedding" is part romcom, part family drama, and entirely a page-turner that will have you rooting for Tara to find herself, find love, and get the hell off the island.
To get a free e-book copy, simply request it through this page and I'll send it to you.
“Wake Up Dead Man” Is an Intensely Catholic Movie
I saw “Wake Up Dead Man,” the new Knives Out movie from Rian Johnson, on a weekday afternoon in a theater three-fourths full of retired folks, misanthropes, and dedicated cinema sickos. It was entrancing.
Now that it’s on Netflix, I’m going to watch it again soon, and I wonder if I’ll have the same deeply-felt reaction I had in that theater screening: that Fr. Jud is a reflection of the very best Jesuits I’ve known over my life and his conversations about faith and his commitment to putting his faith into action are a brilliant pillar from which the rest of the movie hangs. Once you’ve seen it, do read this analysis by Leah Schnelbach, which had me nodding over and over.
The only reason I haven’t rewatched yet is because my spouse showed some interest in watching, and so I screened the first two Knives Out movies for them. My opinions have changed slightly upon revisiting them: I liked both more than I did the first time around, but my estimation of the first one grew a lot more. Sure, the “can’t lie” device is weak, but Daniel Craig is too charismatic as Blanc to get hung up on such a minor thing. In “Glass Onion,” I was reminded that I thought Janelle Monae wasn’t quite as strong as a bunch of other people seemed to think, but I also can’t help but be charmed by Rian Johnson slickly displaying the crime in front of our faces in such a way that most viewers simply don’t see it, moonwalking bear style.
I haven’t gotten into Johnson’s TV show, “Poker Face,” but now I’m more inclined to give it a shot. Just give me more Knives Out, please.
Chatbots Aren’t Your Friends
Sam Altman said a bunch of ridiculous stuff on The Tonight Show while Jimmy Fallon grinned, such as how he can’t imagine anyone taking care of a baby without using ChatGPT. On the one hand, I don’t think many people today would be taken aback if he’d said search engines are essential to modern parenting, but after five seconds of thinking about it, one should realize how full of shit Altman is because even that is kind of weird.
The whole thing reinforced my belief that people who believe chatbots are God, or smarter than them, or even folks who use public chatbots as a source of knowledge, simply need more friends with whom they can talk. Or they need to learn how to ask questions on Reddit, where people will answer them. ChatGPT’s own advertisements illustrate the point! Why is this guy asking a chatbot for workout advice instead of connecting with a person, whether that’s a friend, a pro at a gym, or reading the advice proffered by someone to the public? Why is this guy asking a chatbot for a recipe instead of his friends?
Seriously, the Jeff Kent “Survivor” Clip Is Hilarious
Jeff Kent got elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is funny because I was *convinced* the next former San Francisco Giant to get in would be Carlos Beltrán and never would’ve thought Kent would be on the radar of a committee also considering the likes of Don Mattingly and, especially, Dale Murphy. But Kent got in, and good for him. Good ballplayer for a long while, even though he was never the best player on his own team (being Barry Bonds’s teammate will do that). I’m happy to know a bunch of baseball fans are about to learn he has a certain level of infamy outside the baseball world for unleashing an all-time wild rant when he participated on “Survivor”.
Anyway, you don’t have to care about any sports Hall of Fame if you don’t want to. Wake me up when Kenny Lofton gets inducted.
Step Up Your Cookie Game
I made several batches of cookies the past couple weeks that have been very well-received. I built off this recipe, which I appreciate for its utter simplicity, and changed it up by substituting orange chocolate (either Terry’s or the Ghirardelli Blood Orange bars) for regular chocolate chips, and adding a handful of chopped sage. No photos because they’re eaten too quickly.
Do Not Mess With Calvin and Hobbes
Successful Hollywood movie producer Roy Lee did an interview where he talked about a whole bunch of mildly interesting stuff, but then utterly stepped in it when he said he’s spent years pursuing the rights to make a Calvin and Hobbes movie. Never mind that cartoonist Bill Watterson has steadfastly refused to license his creation over the decades precisely because it is his vision, his creation, and translating it to other media would make it into something it’s not, making a Calvin and Hobbes movie would be an enormous risk because failure would cast a shadow on the original work in a way that doesn’t really have parallel to other original works.
Really, any Calvin and Hobbes movie should be about people who want to capitalize on the comic by turning it into something it isn't and Watterson's refusal to let them change his vision in any way. Like a Coen Bros-style caper about fuckers trying to screw the artist. “Adaptation”, but with no generosity for those attempting the adaptation.
“Now That I’m Grown, I Eat Five Dozen Eggs”
Maybe expanding the Beauty and the Beast-verse with a movie about Young Gaston is a good idea. But you know what’s a better idea? An original musical about Young Ursula and how she got to be That Way. You know I’m right.
“So This Is Christmas”
A few years ago, I wrote a flash fiction Christmas-themed short story of which I’m still proud. It’s titled “So This Is Christmas” and you can read it right here.
The Greatest TED Talk Ever
I don’t know if anyone has ever compiled a list of the greatest TED Talk sessions, and I don’t want to look at any such list because 95% of the ones I’ve seen aren’t all that interesting. That said, a few do stand out in my memory, and there is exactly one that I will recommend people watch. It’s under 3 minutes, and it imparts actionable advice that can have a tangible benefit on your life immediately. Ready? Watch Terry Moore give a TED Talk about tying shoes.
All the Books I’ve Read This Year
Previously, I’ve ranked all the books I read in a given year, and even provided brief comments about each of them. I’m not doing that this year because it’s *a lot*, and also because I think it’ll be more useful to call attention to several books in particular. The below list is all the books I’ve read this year, minus the ones I abandoned partway through, listed in alphabetical order by author. I pulled out several at the top because I wanted to say a few things about them and wholeheartedly recommend them; the rest, I enjoyed all of them to varying degrees, and I encourage you to look up each of them to see if they might be something you’d want to read.
The Ministry of Time • Kaliane Bradley
I loved this story about bringing historical figures to live in the modern day and how those people from the past have agency, individuality, and legitimately complex reactions to the changed world. Moreover, I appreciated seeing those people adapt to their new circumstances. Aside from being an engrossing emotional ride, the novel is a forceful reminder that people from the past were not just the letters and artifacts they left behind, but living people who breathed and spat and feared and loved.
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life • William Finnegan
I’ve never been surfing and don’t really have much desire to ever do it, but Finnegan’s memoir about surfing around the world gives an idea why some people see the sport as more of a calling than anything else. I read this across three days during a beachside vacation, so perhaps I was in the perfect spot and headspace to go along with Finnegan from Hawaii, to San Francisco, to Fiji, to Portugal, to Long Island, and elsewhere in his life’s journey, surfing never far from his thoughts. Clearly deserving of the Pulitzer.
When We Were Real • Daryl Gregory
A lot of stories that propose a simulation theory of reality seem to revolve around the question of whether or not we live in a simulation. This novel makes things interesting by positing that the question has been definitively answered that we do, indeed, live in a simulation, and what happens, psychologically, to the people in that world. I especially appreciated that a pair of nuns and a rabbi are among the coterie of characters wrestling with their mortality and faith in a world in which they know they are “just” ones and zeroes.
How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying • Django Wexler
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me • Django Wexler
This duology about a modern person isekai-ed into a high-fantasy world that reboots every time they die stood out to me for two main reasons: First, it turned the delightful trick of answering just about every question I had about the world’s mechanics and rules either before or just as I started to ask them, and second, it is wildly funny. I’m not sure the specific plot turns hold up, but the emotional truth of the protagonist’s journey sure does and, like I said, it’s hilarious.
A Coffin for Dimitrios • Eric Ambler
Mickey7 • Edward Ashton
Anxious People • Fredrik Backman
The Payback • Kashana Cauley
Character Limit • Kate Conger and Ryan Mac
King of Ashes • S.A. Cosby
Are Prisons Obsolete? • Angela Davis
Winning Fixes Everything • Evan Drellich
James • Percival Everett
The Eyre Affair • Jasper Fforde
The Day of the Jackal • Frederick Forsyth
In the Woods • Tana French
The Witch Elm • Tana French
The Lost City of Z • David Grann
Revelator • Daryl Gregory
Ordinary People • Judith Guest
The Art of Fielding • Chad Harbach (re-read from years ago)
Black Sunday • Thomas Harris
Slow Horses • Mick Herron
Bad Monkey • Carl Hiaasen
Evvie Drake Starts Over • Linda Holmes
On Writing • Stephen King (re-read from years ago)
The Running Man • Stephen King
Temporary • Hilary Leichter
A Grief Observed • C.S. Lewis
The Game • Jon Pessah
Colored Television • Danzy Senna
Stupid TV, Be More Funny • Alan Siegel
Hoopla • Harry Stein
I Hope This Finds You Well • Natalie Sue
Annihilation • Jeff VanderMeer
Run for the Hills • Kevin Wilson
Interior Chinatown • Charles Yu
Underspin • E.Y. Zhao
* * *
Thanks for reading, you crazy kids. Let’s do this again in 2026.
(Photo: "Exposition Calvin et Hobbes" by ActuaLitté. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 license.)