Good Good Things – Issue 31
Hi friends of Good Good Things, sorry for the delay. A new dog just dropped and our whole household is busy giving her some much-needed attention. More on that later, let’s kick thing off with some fun.
Revisiting Epic Videos: The Pharcyde’s “Drop”
Let’s get back(wards) to basics and view The Pharcyde’s iconic 1995 “Drop” video directed by Spike Jonze. If you don’t know exactly what’s going on, fire up the making of video below when you are done to appreciate some old-school filmmaking magic.
The Pharcyde – “Drop” (Official Music Video)
The Making of The Pharcyde’s “Drop”
Reel In This Very Fun Wikipedia Trivia Game
My college-age daughter discovered this addictive trivia game at her friend’s birthday gathering. It’s called CATfishing (I know, not the best name) and it’s a free and easy-to-use Wikipedia-based guessing game where you are given 10 interesting people, places and things to guess every day.
The Basics: On Wikipedia, each article is tagged in a number of categories. In this game, you are given a list of category names (clues) and each one will hopefully guide you to the wiki article name (the answer), which is a person, place, or thing.
You can play by yourself every day or grab some drinks and snacks, and play with a group of people, which is a hoot.
“Jeff, we’re still a little confused on the game play, can you give us an example?
Sure. You have a group of people and one person reads (they can also play). You can have teams or act as one big team (like we do, “The Fun Time Family Funsters”).
The reader reads each of these categories and you can briefly discuss after each category name is read. After the last clue, you confer and settle on your answer, and the reader enters it in the answer field.
Example: Let’s take this game form January 1, 2026.
Clues:
1964 British novels – 1964 children’s books – 1964 fantasy novels – British children’s novels – British fantasy novels – British novels adapted for radio – British novels adapted into films – British novels adapted into plays – Children’s books about transport – Children’s books adapted into films – Children’s fantasy novels – Fantasy novels adapted into films – Fiction about flying cars – Jonathan Cape books – Novels about transport – Novels adapted into comics – Novels by Ian Fleming – Novels published posthumously
If you guessed “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang” you are correctamundo! Proceed to the next question. There are 10 questions a day and a few years of archived games. Have at it!
Can Pro Bikers Beat This Impossible Obstacle Course?
It might not surprise you that I am not an extreme sports guy and Red Bull makes my tummy hurt. That said, I am a big fan watching solo-sport athletes doing very cool and sometimes silly things that take a lot of skill and precision… like this!
We built a WILD bike obstacle course for Danny MacAskill and Kriss Kyle to try and conquer. Spanning over 200m, the floating track featured seesaws, log skinnies, wall rides, a ladder bridge, and a gnarly tightrope where one slip means you’re taking a cold dip.
Other talented and charming athletes I follow on YouTube:
- Erin McNeice (climbing)
- Ed Scott and Travis Verky (parkour)
- Jennifer Lichter (trail running)
- Bouldering Bobat (climbing)
- Boulder Boys (trail running)
- Tall Order (bikes)
The Woman Who Gave the Mac Its Face: Susan Kare
Fans of graphic, typeface, and interface design history, this is for you.
Hired into the Macintosh software group in 1983 as its only graphic designer, Kare drew the Happy Mac, the trash can, the paintbrush, and the looped-square Command symbol still printed on every Mac keyboard. She named her typefaces after world cities at Steve Jobs’ insistence, and one of them, Chicago, ran on the Mac and the first iPods for two decades.
The Last Museum
A simple joy in life is clicking and scrolling around a database of art. This is a good one.
The Last Museum is the largest search engine for museum art. It uses semantic search, allowing you to search for artworks by theme, style, subject, vibes, or any description you can imagine. We currently have around 6 million artworks indexed, and strive to eventually index all museum art in the world.
Welcome Hazelnut!
Hazelnut was rescued from an unlicensed backyard breeder two weeks ago along with a small group of other dogs. The kind folks at Main Line Animal Rescue took them all in and gave them love, examinations, shots, baths, and made sure they were healthy and well cared for. A few days later we visited the shelter and met a very scared little dog.
She was not used to wearing a leash and had to be carried by Rachel, her handler, to the small fenced in area where we met her. The 17 pound, 2.5 year-old Klee Kai dog they named “Ally” did not move and we approached her very slowly. She let us pet her and seemed to relax a bit after a few minutes even with four doting strangers standing around her and saying “She is so cute…” over and over. Within five minutes I knew she was coming home with us. My one daughter was crying the entire time.
We we changed her named to Hazelnut for a few reasons and she has been living with us for over a week now. She no longer hates her leash which is awesome because she loves being outside and taking walks. Hazel (for short) has made friends with all the neighborhood dogs, has learned to walk up and down both the indoor and outdoor deck stairs after a few days of trying, and she is still very startled by seeing herself in a mirror or the oven’s glass door or anything with a reflection. It’s obvious she has never lived in a house before.
Hazel loves my daughters and wife and loves jumping up on couches to be near them. I am slowly winning her over. She greeted me this morning which was a big step.
We lost both Shelby and Starr this past year and to put it bluntly, I have been really really sad. Even in my advanced age where I should be ready for losses like this, their passings still floored me. I knew we needed to adopt again and I finally realized this new dog would never take away a single ounce of the love I had for our departed pups.
As mentioned earlier, we adopted our girls from Main Line Animal Shelter over 8 years ago when they were both five, so in their honor we went there again. We are very happy we did and hope to make another visit soon.
Quick Hits
- 5 on Fridays with Vince Staples
- Epic Album-Opening Tracks
- Meet New Mural Arts Leader Emily Mello
- I Taught A Scorekeeping Class And Everybody Came
- How Wet Hot American Summer went from miss to hit
- There’s a New Cookie Place by Julie Klausner
- 30 years of Pokémon, from school-wide bans to multimillion-dollar trading cards
Fantasy Three-Band Lineup Shows
It’s rare, but every so often, a tour comes around where there are three acts you want to see. Four bands? That’s one too many bands. Three will get me out of the house. What are your fantasy three-band bills for artists/bands that are still active? Here are a few of mine.
Indie Pop
- The Beths
- Nada Surf
- The Belair Lip Bombs
Jangle
- The Tubs
- MJ Lenderman
- Twister Teens
Hard Stuff
- Propagandhi
- Touché Amoré
- Spite House
Riotous
- Momma
- Destroy Boys
- Gladie
Modern Melodic Punk
- High Vis
- Anxious
- Fiddlehead
Potty Mouths
- Fucked up
- Mannequin Pussy
- Pissed Jeans
Old Guy Punk
- Samiam
- The Lawrence Arms
- Iron Chic
Gazing
- Ride
- Swervedriver
- Kestrels
“Changes: The Story of Sugar”
Sugar combined everything I loved about punk and alternative music back in the 90s: huge swirling guitars with incredible pop hooks. This is a sweet little film. So glad the guys were excited to get back together after 30 years.
Watch their classic videos here >
Every Body Hurts
R.E.M. fans and fans of non-existent races, this shirt is for you!
UTMB Mont-Blanc 2026
The Super Bowl of mountain/trail running is taking place on the Mont-Blanc massif from August 24 to the 30th with maybe the most stacked field of international athletes ever. It’s gonna be nuts! Read all about it on the UTMB website and watch highlights from last year’s 100-mile race right here…
Good Good Songs
Chorus Truly – “Your Name”
Tigers in Cairo – “Just My Luck”
Anxious – “Don’t Move”
The Tubs – “Hard Life”
Protomartyr – “Sounds We Cannot Hear”
My Favorite Monsters
I really miss the Beastie Boys.
Making your dad take you to the mall while the game is on.
Every Bar Trivia Night
View this post on Instagram
Best of Bluesky – Volume 6
There’s a blue “Follow” button on every post, click each one of those to enjoy more of the good stuff.
wife: what’s wrong?
me: I just got diagnosed with dyslexia
wife: wtf
me: no actually this is bad— dan mentos (@danmentos.com) August 19, 2026 at 12:07 AM
*on the verge of becoming extremely stopped* I simply can not be stopped
— hi their (@mikemay.bsky.social) August 8, 2026 at 4:02 PM
You never see the Little Caesars mascot running around anymore. I assume he died.
— Lauren Flans (@laurenflans.bsky.social) May 25, 2026 at 4:14 PM
If you’re ever in a fight with a circus, go for the juggler
— Steven W Skinner (@skinnersteven.bsky.social) August 7, 2026 at 6:26 AM
it’s like my dad always used to say, [extremely loud beer can opening sound]
— slop enjoyer (@slop.guru) August 5, 2026 at 8:28 PM
Nobody even paid attention to me until they realised I could open my mouth real wide and release thousands of swarming wasps whilst simultaneously recreating the sound of a freight train
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