Upholding Labor Day Weekend traditions. Flying the American flag on the front porch. Cooking a boneless ribeye steak for dinner. Taking Monday off from work. Enduring brutal summer weather…
Wait. What?!?
We were supposed to have unseasonably mild temperatures, then Hurricane Marie decided to cruise parallel to Baja California’s coastline. August’s reviled heat and humidity have returned, which has altered this week’s plans to relax at home.
More on that in a bit...
💡 WHAT I LEARNED
The Switch 2 is more suited for Le Crash Pad than travel. I tried playing Rocket League in my hotel room but I occasionally lost track of the ball, something that never happens when it’s docked and connected to my 55” TV. I also confirmed the Switch 2’s battery lasts just over two hours. A forty-five minute Star Wars Monopoly game drained 30% of its battery.
📋 WHAT I’M PLANNING FOR THIS WEEK
I’m fleeing this monsoonal moisture and its mid-70s overnight temperatures for a two-night stay in Temecula Valley tomorrow. When I reviewed my credit card transactions over the weekend, I discovered I had nearly $175 in unused cash back rewards. That nearly covers a two-night stay at my favorite “bang for your buck” hotel, so it took me roughly five milliseconds to book a room.
Will I visit Lorimar for lunch? We’ll see.
🛍️ WHAT I BOUGHT
I visited Temecula Valley’s GameStop on my last trip and bought pre-owned copies of WWE2K26 and Batman: Arkham Trilogy. I’ll likely return to the store during my birthday week trip to buy a few more titles that caught my eye.
My Nintendo gaming library is now over 40 titles, so I visited Best Buy to acquire a 512GB MicroSD Express card for the Switch 2. Any game that requires constant button pushes and joystick movement will only be played at home. My older Switch is now loaded with casual games and visual novels, and it will accompany me on my travels going forward.
📺 WHAT I WATCHED
With the NFL season fast approaching, I dusted off my America’s Game collection of Oakland Raiders Super Bowl episodes and watched them on my PS5. Los Angeles Chargers fans, and their San Diego simps, can laugh at me for reliving ancient history, but the Lombardi Trophy scoreboard still reads Raiders 3, Chargers 0.
I stumbled upon a fourth-generation Kindle Paperwite hiding in my closet, so I recharged its battery and synced it with my Kindle library. I read the latest Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty volume amongst other manga titles during my recent getaway, and then finished Nick Freitas’ The Manbook upon my return. I also ditched Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged once I realized I’ve seen statues move faster than her stories.
🎧 WHAT I LISTENED TO
For a fleeting moment on Thursday, I took an SXM break and listened to a modest collection of Date A Live opening and closing theme songs from the first four years of the anime series. I also listened to The Offspring’s Americana album because why not?
🍷 WHAT I PAIRED SATURDAY NIGHT
For Saturday’s dinner, I paired a 2022 Lorimar Cabernet Franc with a frozen three meat Sicilian pizza I enhanced with goat cheese, herbed pizza oil and a little parsley for color. This glorious combination of fats, herbs and fruity notes made my palette sing.
I also had similar results with a chimichurri steak bowl for Sunday’s dinner, and I look forward to polishing off the bottle tonight with last night’s leftovers.
🐍🤡 THE GAVIN NEWSOM AWARD (aka THE SCUMBAG OF THE WEEK)
The Offender: China GT Championship’s organizers
The Offense: Track marshals nearly let a driver burn to death in his race car.
The Verdict: 🤚🏼🤚🏼🤚🏼🤚🏼🤚🏼 (5/5 slaps)
I was appalled when I saw video of the wreck that turned Ollie Millory’s Ferrari into an inferno during Race 1 of this weekend’s China GT Championship event at Shanghai. According to reports and firsthand driver statements, some track marshals dropped their fire extinguishers and fled the scene while other personnel seemed untrained on how to use one. It even took 15 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, for f*cks sake.
This could have been a near-faithful reenactment of Roger Williamson’s fatal F1 accident at Zandvoort during the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix if it weren’t for…
🤜🏼 WHO DESERVES A FIST BUMP (AND PERHAPS A MEDAL?)
Loek Hartog, who saved Millory’s life by extricating him from his burning Ferrari while sufficiently courageous track marshals extinguished the flames. I don’t know if England awards its George Medal to foreigners, but Hartog deserves one for his David Purley-like selfless act of bravery.
Honorable mention: FIST Team AAI (FIST_Auto) and 610 Racing. Both teams have withdrawn from the China GT Championship series in response to Ollie Millory’s accident. There is absolutely no excuse for the failure of track safety protocols a half century after Williamson’s accident, and I’m thrilled that people are holding race organizers accountable.
😄 FINALLY, WHAT MADE ME HAPPY
My wine country getaways often double as a respite from most current events. That’s why I always smile whenever I open my luggage on my bed. Packing for my upcoming trip means I can let go of women supporting and copycatting a child killer, activist judges releasing violent criminals into our communities, and other stupid sh*t making the headlines for a little while.
But I'm always down for a live police chase on KTLA, though.
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