Casa Cabeza

Dr. Necropolis Update: Final Rewrite

2026-06-01T14:30:05.682-04:00

Hello friends and Happy MONDAY!

I don't know who's still interested in this project, but in case you're wondering, I'm about halfway through the final rewrite. It's going pretty well, but I'll admit that it's also been a LOT more comprehensive than I'd expected.

I've broken several chapters up into parts, reframed both Tiffany's and Blaine's introductions, and done what I can to make their arcs clearer. For example, where we once got two pages of Blaine's backstory straight-up, we now take a literal walk through his family's museum. With that, we can now see his family's military history, which informs his arc. A lot of the changes have been like that. I'll go in trying to make something read less like exposition and come out with a clearer statement of a character's motivations. Granted, I should've done that BEFORE I sent this thing to you, but hey, that's why God invented rewriting.

If you haven't read much, at this point, you might as well wait for the final version to drop. I'll be counting on everyone to leave me a review on Amazon's website. Those written reviews are the single biggest way their algorithm ranks books for people, and it takes *15* to actually get them to show your book to would-be readers.

Fifteen is a lot of reviews.

Sally and I went into Manhattan last week, shot a bunch of would-be cover ideas, used Photoshop to cut pieces together, and then cartoonified the result to get a cover that I like. Getting a good shot of the Empire State Building turned out to be much, MUCH more challenging than I thought it would be, but we got there eventually. The one we used came from the Sandbar, on the roof of the Hilton Fashion District.

Yes, that is me modeling as Frank. I bought the hoodie especially for that shoot.

I have to rewrite the boat scene tomorrow. That's what triggered this email. I'm about halfway through, and I expect tomorrow's rewrite to be the most complicated of this entire process. We'll see, but I'm nervous.

Anyway, thanks for your time.

--Dan

Chapter 4 (Rewrite): The Diamond District

2026-05-17T09:39:42.237-04:00

I finally finished rewriting Chapter 4. I expect that'll be the hardest rewrite in the book. I've been working on it for the past four days.

If you're wondering, I most wanted to strengthen Tiffany's voice. I also put Zulu into ACUs when he'd originally been in a superhero suit, and I added some clarity to some of the backstory, hopefully without slowing the overall narrative.

What do you think?

Chapter 4 (Rewrite): The Diamond District

It took nearly three-quarters of an hour for Tiffany to peel off her cocktail dress, climb back into her Titania gear back on, and pull her too-long auburn hair back into something she could legitimately wear as an investigative professional at a crime-scene. Showing up in her old gear would be bad enough, she knew, but if she did it with her hair done up from the baby shower, she’d never hear the end of it from Casey fucking Walcott.

By the time she got to the Diamond Exchange, the hour had grown truly late. She looked down at the clock on her dashboard. Two-fifteen a.m. Unfortunately, the Diamond Exchange still hopped with activity.

So much for my day off, she thought wryly.

Manhattan’s Diamond Exchange wasn’t just a single building, it was a tiny neighborhood located on Midtown’s east side. Also called the “Diamond District”, it had once served as the nation’s primary import/export jewelry exchange and wholesalers’ market. Some of that still occurred, but nowadays the District survived more on its reputation than on its real-world relevance to the precious stones trade. In some ways, though, that made the place an even flashier target, especially in an era of Internet sales and just-in-time delivery. High end tourists came here to experience buying truly outrageous jewelry first-hand.

As Tiffany drove up, she could see that the Siberian Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie had made a mess of the entire area, hitting a half-dozen glass-windowed storefronts on both sides of the street up and down that one block. They’d torn through protective metal grating like so much gossamer and then leveled whatever security had tried to intervene. The resultant mess looked as though a series of grenades had gone off in rapid succession, throwing glass, blood, and even some people out onto the sidewalks. In response, the City’s police department, the FBI, and the New York National Guard’s new Enhanced Forces Division had all converged, turning this two-block stretch into a constellation of flashing lights and crime scene tape. Seeing this made Tiffany feel like some amateur astronomer spotting an unwelcome star cluster in a sky she’d hoped would stay clear and dark.

The Enhanced Forces Division hadn’t been called the “EFD” back when Tiffany had been part of that life. Back then, they’d just been the Diogenes Society, and they’d have all laughed at the idea of Federal oversight. But that had been a very different time. They’d had Oberon, for one thing, and Oberon hadn’t liked taking orders. More to the point, no one could make Oberon do anything he didn’t want to do.

Tiffany sighed but pushed those thoughts away. Thinking about it would only make her sad, and no force on Earth could put things back the way they’d once been.

From where she parked, she could see at least a dozen cop cars clustered in and around the District, completely blocking traffic across Fifth Avenue. The area looked like some kind of midnight street circus laid out exclusively for law enforcement professionals. A massive olive drab command tent dominated the scene, becoming the circus' big top while smaller canopies offered lesser attractions around the edges. The big top would hold the command center while the outer tents might house forensics, ballistics, site photography, crowd control, and a host of other services. Seemingly every agency under the Federal umbrella had found an excuse to shoehorn its way onto this particular scene.

Though the investigation would unleash holy Hell on early-morning commuters, for now, Tiffany didn’t see as many onlookers as she saw NYPD beat cops standing around drinking coffee and soaking up as much easy overtime as their departments would allow. But while most of the uniformed officers loitered aimlessly outside the barricade, ostensibly doing crowd control, inside Tiffany noted a completely different vibe. Whole masses of techs scurried everywhere, busily analyzing, taking pictures, taking notes, and documenting the scene down to the minutest detail. These all wore the Bureau’s trademark blue windbreakers with “FBI” stenciled onto their backs in big yellow letters. They came and went like ants circling the command center’s central hive. Tiffany knew all too well that she’d find Casey Walcott inside that central tent.

She felt a low, unformed dread just thinking about it. She remembered Walcott’s face and the feel of his hands on her skin. His gravelly voice and the way he always needed to take control.

She shook her head. God. What is wrong with me tonight?

Thankfully, a pair of young men diverted her attention before she had time to fully consider the coming confrontation. They stood outside the command tent, wearing standard Army Combat Uniforms and clearly waiting for something. The first stood at least six-foot-three and looked like he could’ve played linebacker in the National Football League. He had fair skin, a strong, lantern-shaped jaw, and a light blonde crew cut alongside surprisingly soft, azure blue eyes. The nametape across his chest read “Winters”, and he wore a single black bar stenciled onto a green band that looped through the central buttonhole at his mid-chest. This marked him as a first lieutenant in a leadership role.

Lieutenant Winters, then. She’d spoken to him on the telephone.

Winters’s partner was black, not quite as tall, and more athletic than muscle-bound. Tiffany guessed that he could have run ten miles without undue strain. It looked like he’d shaved his head, too, though that was hard to tell beneath his uniform cap. The black man wore a gold second lieutenant’s bar, his eyes looked older than Winters’, and his expression was both sterner and far more impassive.

Both men were so young that they made Tiffany feel positively ancient. She would have guessed that neither Winters nor his partner had yet passed twenty-five. That made her at least ten years their senior.

A lot had happened in those ten years.

Tiffany suddenly felt self-conscious. Lacking the patience to put on a full-on pants-suit back at her apartment, she’d instead thrown her old Diogenes Society gear back on because she’d still had it out after the raid. But this put her into kevlar-lined black leather matched with the titanium bracers that ran all the way up her forearms. She’d always liked the look because of the way it complimented her golden‑brown skin and dark brown eyes, but in this case, it also made her stand out. Everyone she could see wore some kind of simple, government-issue uniform. By contrast, Tiffany felt like a relic from a bygone age.

There was nothing for it, she knew. She climbed slowly out of her car, hung her badge around her neck, and headed inevitably towards the crime scene. A couple of beat cops stared, but she ignored them and instead went straight for Winters and his partner. They at least might see her as something other than a freak circus attraction. When she got to the crime tape barricade, she even made a point of using her powers to glide over the barricade rather than just ducking underneath.

Winters noticed her immediately, and she felt a moment’s satisfaction watching his mouth drop open in surprise. But then Tiffany’s own mouth nearly dropped open as well. She recognized him, too, and not just because she’d spoken to him on the phone.

Of course you do, Tiff. He’s Blaine Winters. He gave you his name when he called. You’ve seen his picture in the papers a hundred times. The scion of royalty. He’s the son of Scott Winters, the Centurion, and Emma Jean Winters, the Ice Queen. Dude’s the uncrowned prince of the entire ultrahuman community.

The government had gotten a real coup when Winters had voluntarily joined the EFD after college ROTC instead of going the celebrity route. His cooperation had proven that the government wasn’t just trying to control ultrahumans, that Uncle Sam was also willing to sponsor their efforts if those same folks were willing to work within the Federal system. After the heavy-handed way the government had forced the Diogenes Society’s nationalization -- what with Oberon leaving, the Owl going to prison, and a whole lot more hard feelings besides -- Winters’ voluntary recruitment, and the tacit familial approval it implied, had done a lot to keep the peace. Other ultrahumans had fallen in line, making the EFD’s ROTC detachment an actual pipeline for this new national force.

And now here he was. Like Tiffany, he’d become just another attraction at some midnight crime scene circus.

“Titania?” Winters asked. “What in the world are you doing here? I thought you’d retired.”

“You called me at home,” Tiffany replied. “Don’t you remember? I’m Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo, here because you seem to think I’m some expert on Dr. Necropolis.”

“But--”

“I’m assigned to the New Haven field office. But I figured that if we’re here talking about Dr. Necropolis, I might as well wear the old uniform. I take it that your friend here is the new Kid Zulu?”

“It’s just ‘Zulu’ now,” Winter’s partner replied. He had a formal African accent, the kind a person got from learning English in a one-time Colonial school run by British expats. “I have never understood why Dr. Mbeke allowed people to refer to him as ‘Kid’. In any event, I myself am Lieutenant Jacob Aboyie from the South African Army, here on permanent loan to the United States as part of the Enhanced Forces initiative. But you, of course, may call me Zulu. Everyone else does.”

“But...” Blaine said, “I don’t understand. How come you’re not a part of the EFD?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Tiffany replied. “Oberon always… objected… to the idea of us joining the Army. Didn’t want to do anything with the government at all, really. And it’s not like they could force him. He used to wear those crazy Hawaiian shirts just to make the point that he wasn’t gonna be who or what you expected, and there was nobody on Earth who could make him do anything different.” Tiffany shrugged. “When he left, though, my protection more-or-less went with him.

“But people knew, right? I mean, Oberon and Titania. People knew we’d been a thing. So the Feds came up with this as a compromise. I’m not the only one. Leapfrog and Butterfly are both down in the DC office.”

Zulu’s face remained stony, but Winters looked decidedly confused. Tiffany wondered if she hadn’t just overwhelmed the kid with all that ancient history.

In a way, Winters reminded her a lot of Oberon. He was a big guy and both rich enough and powerful enough to be whoever the hell he wanted. No one could tell him what to do. But Winters apparently wanted to be a soldier. He could dress exactly the way he wished, and yet he chose to wear the uniform.

Tiffany didn’t know what to make of that.

“What’s your story, Zulu?” Tiffany asked. “How does a kid from South Africa wind up in the EFD?”

“We are not so different, I suspect,” he said, voice cool. “My government is… less comfortable with ultrahumans than they could be. Easier to send me here and to perhaps garner some good will with the Americans than to let me run loose at home, potentially stirring up trouble.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tiffany said.

“It’s okay,” Zulu replied. “Truthfully, I’d rather be where I’m wanted and where there are others of my own kind.”

“Yeah,” Tiffany agreed. “I get that.” She looked over at Winters. “Alright kid, you got me here. Are we doing this or what?”

Winters looked suddenly abashed, and Tiffany wondered if she’d somehow hurt his feelings. He said, “Sorry about that, Titania. It’s just that SAC Walcott--”

Tiffany cut him off. “Please, Winters, call me Tiffany. The old days are gone. We’re all just people now.”

“Yeah, sorry, ma’am. It’s just--”

“It’s fine,” Tiffany said. The kid looked like a hurt puppy. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”

Winters shook it off and visibly forced himself to stand a little straighter. Tiffany didn’t think it was anything she’d said. Rather, he seemed to come to some kind of decision within himself. He stuck his hand out to her.

“Please, call me Blaine.”

They shook. “Tiffany,” she said in return.

Blaine followed her into the command center tent, leaving Zulu standing outside like some kind of ultrahuman security guard. Tiffany didn’t know what to make of that, either, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Zulu had gotten the better of the exchange.

From the outside, the command tent looked like a big top circus tent. Inside, though, it felt stuffy and crowded. Bare electric light bulbs hung low from plastic ceiling rafters that arched up beneath the tent’s central dome. Beneath its apex, clusters of FBI techs sat hunkered over computer screens, all wearing either those same trademark blue FBI windbreakers or once‑sterile blue Tyvek coveralls and booties. Between the computers’ waste heat and all the FBI bodies mashed into such a tight space, the tent’s atmosphere felt oppressively close and hot. The air stank of perspiration and nerves. The buzz of a dozen tensely held conversations overlapped, becoming a roar in Tiffany’s ears.

“I can’t believe you called me out here for this, Blaine,” Tiffany said over her shoulder.

To his credit, the kid didn’t reply.

Special Agent in Charge Casey Walcott stood on the tent’s far side, perhaps fifty feet away, hovering over a tech reviewing surveillance footage. Just seeing him dropped a pit into Tiffany’s stomach. Walcott had gotten noticeably older since she’d last seen him, and he’d let himself get a little paunchy, too. However, his slicked back black hair remained unmistakable, though it now grayed at the temples, as did the cut of his thousand dollar gray suit and his steel-rimmed aviator’s glasses. The set of his mouth turned down, giving him a hard, serious expression that Tiffany had once found intriguing. Now, though, she could see the temper lines that his professional veneer kept hidden. Unbidden, she again remembered the feel of his hands in her hair, his body pressing against hers…

She fought down a shudder. It had been years since she’d seen him, but those old memories still lingered somehow.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t go home until she’d at least talked to the guy.

She turned back to Blaine. “You know what?” she said. “I think you’d probably better wait outside. SAC Walcott and I have some history, and I don’t think you want to get involved with that if you can avoid it.”

“Yes ma’am, er, Tiffany,” he stammered. “I’ll go wait with Zulu.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll come find you afterwards. This is all just some bullshit power play. You’re not gonna miss anything. ”

“If you say so,” he said. He suddenly looked eager to escape.

Great Tiff. Either you just scared that kid, or he thinks you’re a lunatic. Either way, mission accomplished. Now go see The Man and take what’s coming.

Her stomach dropped again at the thought of it, but she forced herself to turn and walk steadily in Casey’s direction. He was so engrossed in whatever he was watching that he didn’t see her coming. That was something, at least.

“Okay, Casey, you got me down here,” she called out as she approached. “What was so insanely urgent that you called me out at two in the fucking morning?”

Casey started and then whipped around, looking first shocked then angry that someone had interrupted him. He mastered it quickly, however, and then looked more appraisingly, taking in the way Tiffany had dressed. His eyebrows rose in brief disapproval, and then his scowl returned in full force.

“Did the circus come to town, Agent Trujillo?” he asked, voice cold.

“Come on, sir. It’s late. I went on a raid today, as you must surely already know.”

“And you couldn’t change clothes afterwards?”

“Gimme a break,” Tiffany snapped. “You’re the one who pitched a big top tent and called out the clown cars. The way you called me down here, I figured you maybe had a hostage situation or some shit, so I came prepared.”

Casey looked at his watch. “Well, it certainly took you long enough. But don’t worry about it. You’re back on the clock now.

“And since you asked, no, I didn’t call you down here just because you used to like to play dress up. I called you because we need some actual information. That’s in short supply just now.”

“And this couldn’t have waited another six hours?”

“Do you think an ultrahuman murder spree is some kind of game, Agent Trujillo?”

“Come on, Casey. I’m not the one who’s playing games.”

Casey looked around and realized that the techs were all staring at them. “Okay, Tiff. You win. Let’s take this outside.”

Tiffany followed Casey outside reluctantly, but she was surprised when they got more than a few yards away from the command tent and he kept on walking. “Where the hell are you going?” she asked.

“What is your problem?” he said, turning to face her. He looked genuinely surprised and more than a little pissed off. “I’m taking you to the crime scene, Tiffany. It’s why I called you. Now are you coming, or would you rather question every goddamned move I make for the rest of the night?”

Tiffany hurried to catch up, boots clacking loudly on the ground.

“Goddamnit, those things are ridiculous,” Casey snapped.

She shrugged. “Dramatic effect. They were the Owl’s idea.”

“Christ, Tiff, grow up. You’re an FBI agent, not some fucking has-been superhero.”

You used to like fucking a superhero, Tiffany thought savagely. It was your wife who had all the objections.

It was no use thinking like that, though. He was what the FBI wanted. He’d gotten promoted because he looked the way they wanted him to look, and he thought the way they wanted him to think. Meanwhile, she still languished in the New Haven Field Office because no one knew quite what to make of her -- or of who she’d once been. It didn’t help that she’d fucked her former partner a few times, breaking up the poor guy’s marriage.

Anger flared just thinking about it, but she’d been so young and so, so alone after Oberon left. She couldn’t feel bad about it, even after all this time. He’d been the senior officer, and he’d let it happen. He’d been there every bit as much as she had been.

But no one saw it that way, then or now.

Still, at least Tiffany no longer felt nervous. She forced herself to take a breath to get her emotions back under control. “Alright Casey. What do you want to show me?”

He lifted the line of crime scene tape and stepped underneath. Tiffany followed reluctantly and again when he opened the door to one of the Diamond District’s shops. On the floor inside, she saw several chalked outlines where bodies had fallen. She saw just three here, but she knew there were more elsewhere. The bodies themselves had been removed, but even in the dark, Tiffany could see where blood had spilled from the victims’ throats or heads. From there, it spread widely, staining the shop’s tightly-knit white carpeting and leaving behind a sickly, coppery scent she knew far too well.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

“The Siberian Tiger somehow weaponized a Neural Disruptor,” Casey replied. “At least, that’s what we think happened.” He pointed to the chalked outlines. “He ripped these three open with his claws, but we found ten more bodies scattered around the rest of the district. Not a scratch on the lot of ‘em, but they’re all neurologically unresponsive, and they were all bleeding from the ears when they fell. We’re not sure if they’re braindead, or if their condition might still be reversible somehow. The doctors say that they’ve never seen anything like it.”

“But--”

“That’s why I called you. Because not only is the Siberian Tiger back, he’s also kitted up with some of your buddy Frank McGuinness’s old tech.”

“But Frank would never do something like this,” Tiffany said.

Walcott stared at her like she’d grown a second head. “Are we forgetting about the Federal Reserve Bank? I seem to remember him dropping quite a few bodies back there.”

“Sure, but that wasn’t--”

“Damn it, Tiff. Obviously McGuinness wasn’t here,” Casey said. “We know he’s still in prison. We checked.” But then he reached inside his coat and drew forth a handful of color photographs. “Here, have a look at these.”

Surveillance cameras had caught the Tiger and Gun Girl Gracie multiple times. The Neural Disruptor sat conspicuously above the Tiger’s eyes, a thin gray headband with a large disk at its front. Behind him, Gracie, now either blond or wearing a blond wig, looked older, harder, and somehow harder-used than Tiffany remembered her. Tiffany could see it in the set of the woman’s face even though she’d worn sunglasses to hide her eyes. Still, she remained unmistakable in that outfit. She also carried the same silver-plated pistols she’d used back in the old days.

Tiffany couldn’t help wondering what Frank would make of all of this.

“What do you know about the Neural Disruptor?” Casey asked quietly.

“Not as much as you’re hoping,” Tiffany replied. “Frank McGuinness is, like, a fully functional mad scientist. You do know that, right?”

“But you knew him? You worked his case?”

Tiffany shook her head and looked away. She did not want to get into this with Casey Wolcott.

“Tiff?” Casey pressed.

She sighed and hugged her arms close to her chest. But he would never just let it go; she knew that. “Yeah. I knew him,” she said at last. “But I didn’t work his case. Not the way you’re thinking. This was back in the old days, Casey. The Diogenes Society, we didn’t work cases like that. He and Oberon and I… it was complicated.”

“Because you knew him from before?”

Tiffany turned away, feeling as sad as she’d felt in a good long time. She stared out the shop’s front window, saw the many floodlights standing on tripods all across the street and all the techs working furiously to collect evidence beneath them. Somewhere in her memory, an oft-forgotten teenage girl stirred and then shuddered, as if holding her knees to her chest.

“I… had a medical condition,” Tiffany said softly.

She’d been terrified. She’d had a disease that no one understood. Then she’d walked into a white-tiled clinic at Yale University’s New Haven hospital. Dr. Frank McGuinness had run that clinic. He’d just become the youngest department head on the hospital’s staff. He’d started doing some new kind of gene therapy work that very few people understood.

He’d been her only hope.

“And…?” Casey pressed.

* * *

“You’re pregnant,” Frank said. He smiled gently. Tiffany didn’t see any judgment in it. “I take it that you’re the girl we saw on TV a few weeks back? The one this ‘Oberon’ character saved from that burning building?”

Tiffany nodded. “How could you possibly--?”

“I’d thought as much. Thought that Oberon might be an alien, I mean.” Frank cleared his throat. “I, uh… Look, why don’t you sit down.”

Tiffany sat, and Frank pulled his chair up next to hers.

“I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but… you and Oberon, you can’t be together. He seems like a nice enough boy, but the fact is, his baby is killing you.” Frank put a hand on Tiffany’s shoulder to cushion the blow. “I don’t know that I’d even call it a baby. Not really. It’s behaving more like an alien infestation. Your genotypes aren’t remotely compatible, and the embryonic growth that your mating has produced has, well… It’s rewriting your DNA at a fundamental level. It’s created a fascinating RNA transcriptase mechanism that… But I, uh, I can see that you don’t really care. That’s okay.”

“What does this mean?” Tiffany asked. She felt herself go numb, unable to face it.

“Well, we’ll have to terminate the pregnancy, of course. It was never viable regardless. And… I don’t know that you’ll be able to have children, you know, afterwards. We can run some tests. I don’t want to rule anything out prematurely, but…” He trailed off and shrugged.

“Will I die?” Tiffany asked. Her hands trembled.

“Not if we move quickly. But you’re lucky that you came to see me. We’re in uncharted territory here.”

* * *

Tiffany looked back at Casey and then slowly forced her mind back to the present. “And Dr. McGuinness helped me control it,” she said.

“He gave you your powers, didn’t he?”

“He helped me survive them,” Tiffany admitted. “The powers, I did that to myself.”

Casey looked dubious. “But I thought--”

“How is any of this relevant? It’s ancient history.”

“We need someone to go talk to him,” Casey replied. “I’m sending you.”

“That won’t work.”

“Why not? You have a history with the man. Use it. Get him to open up.”

“Frank McGuinness is not gonna ‘open up’, Casey. Not to me, not to anyone. He’s been inside for ten years and hasn’t said shit. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not gonna work.”

“Please, Tiff. We need something here. If you have to play on the man’s emotions, then do it. That’s the job.”

But that’s not what’s gonna happen, Tiffany thought. I’m not gonna play on his emotions. He’s gonna play on mine. That’s why he’s Dr. Necropolis, and I’m still just Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo, ex-ultrahuman superhero now stuck in the lowly New Haven Field Office.

Tiffany knew that Casey wouldn’t see it that way, though. She could argue with him all night, but he’d already made his decision.

“Fine,” she said at last. “I’ll do whatever I can. Just don’t expect too much.”

“Just do your best,” Casey replied. “That’s all I’m asking.”

And then, at last, Tiffany was free to go home.

Testing Audiobook Tech

2026-05-13T13:54:31.136-04:00

I recorded the first two chapters of my book. This isn't perfect. It's basically just a draft. But feel free to check it out if you're interested.

And... it looks like I can't actually upload the audio by itself. So here's a link to a shared mp3 file via Google Drive.

The Return of Dr. Necropolis (Audiobook Test): Chapters 1 & 2

I already have some notes, but please, let me know what you think!

An Invitation to Haters

2026-05-06T14:23:00.003-04:00

Sent my book to a potential agent. Got rejected. This is fine. It’s what I was expecting.

However. I’m having a moment.

How does one know that their book is terrible?

I realize that if you have to ask, you already know the answer.

People used to ask me, “How do I know if my kid is good enough to earn a sports scholarship?”

Honest answer: There’s no way in Hell your kid is good enough.

The fact that you asked tells me everything I need to know. If your kid was *that* good, believe me, you’d know it already.

But this begs the question of when it’s socially acceptable to continue writing just because you enjoy it. I mean, I would never tell someone not to swim just because they’re not as fast as I am. No one is as fast as I am. So what? But then, is it okay to ask your friends to read your stuff? Is it okay to self-publish? At what point does all of this become embarrassing?

Like, I can accept that I’m a good writer in the same way that the captain of my high school football team was good. Not playing at Alabama good, but y’know, good. Better than anyone at that high school, anyway. Just not good enough to play for the Chiefs or whatever.

This is not a problem. This is almost everyone’s experience with sports.

But writing isn’t exactly the same thing.

When I was a cadet, I used to write in notebooks. Fill one up, throw it in the trash, start a new one. I have always wondered if this wouldn’t have been the better long-term play.

Reality is that there was probably not ever anything that was gonna stop me from self-publishing my book. In many ways, that’s actually preferable.

I know how this works. Ten people will read it, six will like it, three will fucking LOVE it, and one guy will send me an email listing fifty reasons why it sucks. I got it.

Really, I’m just wondering how much I’m imposing on my friends’ patience these days.

Chapter 1: Running Late

2026-05-04T12:01:00.002-04:00

Sally convinced me to write a new Chapter 1 for The Return of Dr. Necropolis. Her comments made me feel like Tiffany wasn't coming across heroically enough in the book's early going, a concern I'd had in the back of my mind since before the re-write. I'd therefore been considering something like this for awhile. I just hadn't pulled the trigger until this past weekend.

I gotta say that I'm still not totally sure where to put this. But you can tell me what you think of it, either in context with the rest of the book or as a standalone piece.

Thanks in advance!

Chapter 1: Running Late

“Go go go!”

The van’s driver gunned it. Momentum shifted abruptly, throwing Tiffany hard into the nearest SWAT officer, and he cursed. For once, Tiffany bit back a retort. She’d never worked with this particular SWAT team, didn’t know the players, and wasn’t in the mood to start making new friends in the moments before a raid. The sound of squealing tires heralded another momentum shift, and suddenly that same SWAT operator flew back into Tiffany’s own lap. Wordlessly, she focused just long enough to push him back upright.

The van screeched to a stop, and its doors burst open.

Tiffany followed as the black-suited SWAT team hurried out of the van. Bridgeport, Connecticut’s once thriving industrial heart rose around her in dizzying, rusted glory. Shattered windows panes covered the front of a massive red brick building, its face saggy, aging, and covered with ancient ducting from long-forgotten machinery. The sky overhead held only a lingering purple twilight. The dying sun left a fey half-light, heralding the witching hour throughout this long dead part of America’s past.

I don’t have time for this, Tiffany thought. I’m running late as it is.

The SWAT guys approached the building’s metal doors with handheld rams and non-lethal beanbag rounds. Despite three day’s surveillance, they still didn’t know exactly what they’d find inside the target building. Homeland Security had only just added the Post-Human Liberation Front to its Domestic Terrorist Watch List. Tiffany didn’t know whose confidential informant had provided the relevant tip, but it certainly hadn’t been one of hers. Still, being a skrag wasn’t technically illegal, and Tiffany doubted that their warrant would’ve held up against a group of mere mundies. But these weren’t mundies, and for the last ten years, that had mattered.

The unknown CI had alleged that the PHLF dealt in unlicensed genetic augmentation tech. That was probably illegal. Under the Enhanced Forces Act, the allegation alone had been enough to trigger their warrant. Even so, Tiffany’s boss had ordered non-lethal rounds because no one knew which, if any, actual laws had been broken, and no one wanted a bloodbath based on such uncertain intelligence.

Unfortunately, the suspected presence of Marcus J. Jackson, better known as Static Jack, and Bridgette Ducain, the erstwhile Brickette, had sped the raid’s timing considerably. Both were known fugitives, wanted for dealing back-alley gene slop as well as cocaine, crystal meth, and anything else they could get their hands on. If they were indeed present, the FBI needed to get them off the streets immediately, even if that meant sending in an improvised SWAT team backed by an ex-superhero who’d already had other plans for the night.

But the FBI never cared about other people’s plans.

“Shit! It’s the Feds!”

Of course they saw us, Tiffany thought. That idiot van driver laid rubber all over the parking lot. They probably heard us three blocks away.

But that might make the raid run more quickly, not less, so Tiffany didn’t exactly mind. No had started shooting yet, so they were probably now flushing whatever they’d been cooking down the toilets before SWAT could seize it.

Flushing beat firing by a mile.

The SWAT guys stacked up at the door behind their ram, but before they could swing it, Tiffany set her feet, gathered her concentration, and pushed hard with her telekinesis. The door exploded off its hinges, and the SWAT team rushed immediately inside. Behind them, Tiffany sagged back onto her heels, breathing hard. It had been easier back in the day. Not because thirty-five was old but because Oberon used to do all the heavy lifting. Everything was harder without him. It always had been. These days, it was just Tiffany and a bunch of mundie SWAT guys against Brickette, Static Jack, and whatever unstable mutations a would-be terrorist cell had created using God-knew-what back-alley gene-tech.

Tiffany would never understand why anyone would want to be a skrag. She herself would have killed to be a plain-jane, vanilla mundie. It was far too late for that, though. Eighteen years had passed since she’d been a real girl.

Eighteen years since she’d become Titania. More than half her life.

Tiffany heard yelling beyond the doors but still no firing. That was good. She’d come dressed in her old gear, and with her kevlar-lined leather vest and her silver positive sequence bracers wrapped around her forearms, she actually looked like the superhero she’d once been. The only difference now was that she’d pulled her brown hair back into a ponytail and wore a Sig Sauer in a shoulder holster underneath her left arm. She never would have worn a mere ponytail back in the day, and she’d certainly never have carried a pistol. But maybe the FBI wasn’t going to need Titania today. Maybe they’d just need Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo. In which case, maybe she might possibly still make it to her sister’s baby shower.

One can hope, anyway.

She froze and bit back a sigh. She’d felt the pop as much as she’d heard it. Static Jack had let off an electromagnetic pulse somewhere inside the building. Electric lights flickered and died across a three-block area. Darkness fell like a shroud. Shouting began, followed by immediate, panicky firing. Bean bag rounds went first, then flash-bangs. M-4s would start popping off soon, though, Tiffany knew.

She gathered her concentration to enter the fight, but then the bricks on the far wall shuddered from a hard outward impact. Glass fell from the broken windows overhead. Another slam, and a small section of the factory wall collapsed outward.

Brickette emerged into the gloom. Static Jack followed a step behind her. The SWAT team, meanwhile, remained inside the building, yelling and firing beanbag rounds. The sound reminded Tiffany of a popcorn popper down to its last kernels.

Fuck me, she thought.

But this, of course, was why the FBI had brought her along.

Tiffany could barely make out details in the gloom, but whatever Brickette had done to herself, it had given her one hell of distinctive look. She stood maybe five-feet-four and had to weigh at least two-fifty. That made her squat, heavy-limbed, and incredibly powerful. She had a wild mane of red hair alongside droopy gray skin and an unnaturally ponderous gait. Had she spliced in some elephant DNA? Not that it mattered. Oberon could have gone toe-to-toe with her easily, but Tiffany would have to play it smart.

Behind her, Static Jack cut a tall, slim, obviously fidgety figure, even in the gloom. Electricity played around his eyes and fingertips, but beyond that, Tiffany couldn’t make out many details. She saw a white wife-beater tank top and the shape of his cowboy hat’s silhouette. She wondered, though, if maybe Jack wasn’t actually a skrag. Could he be fully ultrahuman? She’d never heard of a simple gene-splice giving someone electrical powers.

“Listen,” Tiffany said, trying to keep her voice light. “Can we maybe skip the fight and cut straight to the part where you guys are sitting in cuffs in the back of the tactical van? My sister’s baby shower starts in about two hours, and you guys are really messing with my timeline. She’s my baby sister, y’know?”

“Titania,” Brickette breathed. Tiffany could hear the sudden panic in her voice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m Special Agent Tiffany Trujillo now. Have been for the last ten years or so. And I was serious about that baby shower. So can we maybe hurry this up? I’m gonna be hella late as it is.”

“Bitch,” Static Jack hissed. He came around from behind Brickette, letting little jags of lightning dance up and down his arms. “Get out of the way, you fucking race-traitor. You should be on our side. You’re just as oppressed as we are. More, even, and yet here you stand, working against your own people.”

Definitely ultrahuman, Tiffany decided. No mere skrag could look at Titania and see a peer.

Tiffany concentrated enough to engage her superspeed even as sparks began shooting up and down Static Jack’s arms. The world slowed, and nearby sounds deepened to a booming, otherworldly bass. But the little lightning bolts sliding over Jack’s body still flashed at nearly normal speed, and Jack himself seemed to move only slightly slower than Tiffany did herself. Worse, she could feel the hairs on the backs of her arms and neck standing rigid with static electricity. She knew from the pre-raid case files that an ultra-high voltage electric field now surrounded Jack’s body. If she got too close, that field would ground out through her, causing a serious electrical burn and maybe a heart attack, too, depending on the path the charge took to ground.

Tiffany almost reached for her pistol. Electrical powers and an EMP wouldn’t save Jack from a bullet, and she had no doubt that the FBI would rule it a clean shoot. Plus, no one but Brickette would ever miss Static Jack. But the part of Tiffany that had once been Titania, the part that had been a member of the Diogenes Society alongside Oberon, the Owl, and the rest, that part rebelled at the idea of killing a man when he didn’t actually need to die. Besides, a shooting meant paperwork, and paperwork meant that she’d never make her sister’s baby shower.

Instead, Tiffany took a few quick steps to her left, moving to keep Brickette between herself and Static Jack. At the same time, she threw her hands forward and pushed, blasting Brickette back with a surge of telekinesis. Brickette stumbled and nearly fell, but Jack dodged her easily. She still stumbled close enough, though, that Jack’s electric field ground out through her body with a horrific, sizzling flash. Brickette screamed and tumbled backwards. Jack turned, horrified, and Tiffany flashed forward at superspeed, tackling him hard into the factory wall. The impact stunned them both, but Jack’s eyes glazed over from where his head had struck brick. He slumped forward, and Tiffany scrambled to get on top of him until she could get one of her positive sequence bracers up under his neck, moving quickly so that he couldn’t gather another charge. The bracers, she knew, would ground that charge out so long as they could do it slowly. She then slammed her knee up into his groin, and he slumped backward, groaning and insensible.

She released her superspeed even as she reached back for her handcuffs, but several SWAT guys swarmed the scene before she could get her cuffs loose from the back of her belt. She looked over and saw that Brickette lay unconscious but breathing. Tiffany sighed with relief. Tiny wisps of smoke rose faintly from the poor woman’s body. There was no telling how badly she’d been burned.

Tiffany shook her head. Oberon could have captured these two without injuring either. By herself, Tiffany had been lucky she hadn’t killed the both of them. She’d still given Jack at least a grade two concussion, and only luck had prevented her from cracking his head open like an egg. An actual miracle had prevented Brickette’s heart from seizing.

Sloppy, Tiff. Very sloppy. You’ve gotta be better than this.

She sat back and let herself breathe. Night had fallen fully over the course of mere minutes. The tactical van’s headlights and the SWAT team’s flashlights provided the scene’s only illumination. These cast the factory into contrast, darkness broken intermittently by brilliant pools of light.

Tiffany got slowly back to her feet. Using superspeed plus frantic telekinesis had left her feeling dizzy. She realized at that moment that she really did not want to go to her sister’s baby shower. Not because she begrudged her sister anything, but because that shower came as part of a whole life, a life that Tiffany herself had never even had the chance to try. But she had to go see her sister just as she’d had to go on this raid.

Just as she had to be in the FBI.

Oberon was gone, and he’d taken all her choices with him.

She looked over and saw that the SWAT team’s tactical leader was headed her way. Tiffany saw “Donovan” stencilled onto his nametag. He was an older guy, still wearing his helmet, and incredibly, he was chewing gum. He looked annoyingly unruffled, like this entire scene could have been just another Tuesday for him.

He smiled when he got close. “Nice work with these two, Titania. You laid a hell of a hit on that guy. You okay?”

“Please,” she said, trying not to cringe, “I’m just plain old Tiffany now. We’re both agents in the FBI.”

Donovan shrugged. “If you say so. But I don’t think we could’ve taken these two without you. This would’ve been a real shitshow.”

Tiffany didn’t know what to say to that. “Glad I could help,” she managed at last. Then, “You’ve got this, right? I mean, you don’t need me anymore?”

“Yeah. Why? Do you need to--”

“It’s my little sister’s baby shower. I’m already pushing it as it is. If I no-show, my mom will kill me. You know how moms get. Please tell me you’re got this, right Sergeant Donovan?”

“Yeah. We’ve got this. See you tomorrow?”

Tiffany returned his smile even as she regathered her concentration. “Nope. I’m off tomorrow. First day off in two weeks!”

“Nice!” he said. “Enjoy it. You earned it!”

Another burst of telekinesis, and Tiffany rose lightly into the air. The SWAT guys all turned to stare at her now in earnest, but Tiffany ignored them. The Bridgeport Field Office -- and her car -- stood only a dozen or so blocks away.

She could fly a dozen blocks, surely.

The Return of Dr. Necropolis: Audio Book Options

2026-04-28T10:31:00.006-04:00

My wife and I were talking on Sunday when she suggested I consider changing my pen name to Dan E. Cabeza. I've used Danno E. Cabeza for years online and on the various As For Football podcasts, but I can admit that it's not the most serious pen name, and I'm worried that people won't take The Return of Dr. Necropolis seriously because of it. Not that Dr. Necropolis is necessarily some think-piece, but it's unserious in an entirely different direction.

Necropolis is a comic-style adventure story with some adult themes. Danno E. Cabeza is just a ridiculous name that I happen to like. I worry that the pen name will make people think the book is some kind of comedy. That's definitely not what it is.

This is a working cover. I'll be looking
for an actual, local artist starting early
next month.

A lot of people call me Danno in my personal life, and my friend Mike Marcel used to add onto that with "Danno E. Danno!" back when we were lieutenants. Then, back when Internet forums were a thing, I shortened it to DannoE, and that's kind of how this thing got started. Add in that my wife served in the Peace Corps in Paraguay for almost four years, and that we call our household Casa Cabeza -- behold this very blog! -- and that's how I got the name.

Not that my identity needs to be some huge secret, but I've long needed to put some distance between my professional life as an engineer and my writing/hobbyist life, especially now that As For Football has become a full-on LLC.

I posted about this on social media and was actually shocked by the number of my friends who seemed not to know that I write -- at all! -- or that I use a pen name. That's fine in the sense that my friends certainly don't need to follow AFF or my writing career as a requirement of our friendship. However, it also shows what an incredible uphill climb I'm about to have in trying to get my book out there. People just don't know or care, and that's a really tough obstacle to overcome.

I have therefore spent some time recently experimenting with Necropolis delivery platforms.

One real problem here is the way that social media has changed in recent years. It's not really social anymore. This has affected AFF a decent amount, but thankfully, we amassed enough followers early on that it hasn't hurt us overall. In fact, sometimes the algorithms even help. They always skew right-leaning politically, and plenty of folks assume that all Army Sports fans lean conservative. In reality, we don't lean at all, but we'll still take all the help we can get.

But. Even if I use the LLC to publish my book for business reasons, I still can't turn the various AFF shows into de facto Necropolis commercials. No one's coming to AFF to hear about my book. I therefore need to come up with some new stuff -- and pretty soon, too.

I get that the book will never be a best seller. Really, I just want to put it out there. With that in mind, I've been mulling over putting the book out as an audio book and podcast. I want to figure out how to make it as easy and as accessible as it can be. The video below is there an experiment in developing thais new would-be delivery system.

Let me know what you think.

You can also find this as a Short on YouTube. We'll see how/if this all comes together.

I realized yesterday what an incredible uphill climb it's gonna be to get people to pay attention to my book when I finally put it out in September. So now we're experimenting with delivery methods. None of this is final. Hell, the book itself still needs a re-write. But here. This is Take 2.

[image or embed]
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) April 28, 2026 at 8:09 AM

Thanks in advance.

Notes on a Saturday Morning

2026-04-25T07:07:00.001-04:00

Good morning, friends.

Since early December, I've been working steadily on The Return of Dr. Necropolis and its sequel Gun Girl Gracie, and now that both are done in draft, I'm at loose ends. I still woke up at 5:30 am this morning out of sheer habit, but with nothing to work on, I've just been sitting here.

It's so weird not to have anything to work on, but I feel like I really NEED to take some time away and attempt to get some perspective on my own work. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, here are some thinky-thoughts, just to scratch the itch.

1. Noah Kahan released his new album, The Great Divide, yesterday, and I listened to it twice. I then read a couple of reviews this morning, the first of which was infuriating. The reviewer at the Hollywood Reporter straight-up misunderstood the album, resulting in a track-by-track deconstruction that makes absolutely NO sense.

It's frustrating. How in the world do you become a writer for the freaking Hollywood Reporter without having the simple media literacy required to understand a pop album?

In fairness, I also misunderstood the album on first listen. There's a lot there.

Okay, so the new Noah Kahan album is ANGRY. Damn. Unless I’ve misunderstood it, it’s mostly about his dysfunctional relationship with one of his older brothers. I suppose I wrote a whole book about my own dysfunctional relationship with my parents, but still. Damn.
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) April 24, 2026 at 6:23 AM

However, I also listened to it twice.

Second listen, & what I initially took to be anger with his dad or older brother is actually guilt directed inward, written from his family’s imagined POV. Which doesn’t make the middle of the album easier to listen to. It just makes it more sad than angry.
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) April 24, 2026 at 11:13 AM

I like the album a lot, for whatever that's worth. I will say, though, that listening to Kahan castigate himself on behalf of his loved-ones' imaginary complaints gets tough through the middle section. That's not a complaint, per se, because it's an amazing artistic choice, and it's well-executed, but it was still my lived experience of the thing. A lot of the songs are fun here, but through the middle, that's less true.

This isn't to say that they're bad, merely that they're challenging.

Anyway, NPR has a much better, more thoroughly considered review.

2. The Giants tradeded a bunch of Day 3 picks to get back into the Third Round, and this highlights a trend I've seen elsewhere lately, i.e. that college NIL deals have eaten into the value of late-round picks.

I think we might see this a bit more. Top-tier talent will always be top-tier, but NIL compensation competes favorably with League minimums for what would be mid-tier talent in the pros. This probably heralds a long-term change in the way NFL teams value and pay talent generally, but that might take some time to work itself out.

3. I don't understand what's going on with the stock markets. Global supply chains are facing existential risk, and yet the S&P 500 is above 7000. I suppose I'm not mad personally that my net worth hasn't been hit by this lunacy, but then, *I* seem to win no matter what happens, so let's maybe don't count my personal state as some kind of social barometer.

I can't help wondering if the markets are currently being made/run by the same kinds of people who write 3000 word reviews of pop-folk albums they didn't understand. And because that stuff appears in print, people tend to believe it...?

Weird.

4. I realized shortly after I started playing with cover concepts that Gun Girl Gracie is a much, much better title than The Return of Dr. Necropolis. The cover concepts are better, too.

People are gonna read this one just
because the cover catches their eye.

I'm a little concerned that the second book is just way better all the way around, but that it's not going to get read because people aren't going to give the first one a chance and/or they're not gonna understand it. Again, media literacy is not great out there, and that's before we consider my faults as a writer.

From a craft standpoint, I got much less emotional about the story in the second book. That usually *helps* my writing a lot. When I'm less emotional, I think much more about why things work in fiction, which is good.

I have no idea how to fix this, but I'm still gonna give it a try. I know I have a handful of things to fix in the Dr. Necropolis during the next/final re-write. I need to put Zulu into ACU's when he's introduced, there's a scene in a bank where Frank needs to make a conscious decision to take off his hat, Frank probably needs to explain his motivations a little more clearly, and I need to work on Chelsea's arc. I probably also need to try to make the theme of regret more explicit in the text.

The book itself needs to explain its themes, so that I as the author don't have to do it later. Identity is an obvious one, and if you know me, you probably already know why that is. But this idea of aging and regret was very much in my mind when I was writing the story. I need to find a way to bring this out more explicitly.

5. One final note: I'm not sure what this means for my future as a would-be self-publishing author and/or for As For Football, but it certainly jibes with my lived experiences, both personally and with AFF.

Social media is no longer social. Most of it is passive viewing of videos and pictures from people we've never met. But we're still studying social media like it's 2010. We've entered the post-social media era — and research needs to catch up. osf.io/preprints/so... preprint w/ Richard Rogers

[image or embed]
— Petter Törnberg (@pettertornberg.com) April 23, 2026 at 9:34 AM

Exhibit A: in a recent antitrust filing, Meta argued it isn't a social media monopoly because it isn't really a social media company anymore. Only 7% of Instagram time and 17% of Facebook time is spent on content from friends or followed accounts. The rest is algorithmic video from strangers.
— Petter Törnberg (@pettertornberg.com) April 23, 2026 at 9:34 AM

Again, here we are killing the thing that people like in favor of the thing that NO ONE wants. I'm honestly gonna need this kind of behavior to eventually have some kinds of consequences for at least some of the bad actors at some point someday.

***

I think I'm done here, friends. Have a good weekend.

Adventures in AI Part 1: Editing

2026-02-11T11:44:00.003-05:00

I’ve spent the last two day working with an AI (Microsoft Copilot) on some of my writing by way of an experiment. Been sitting in corporate training this week & DRIVING into work, so I haven’t been able to write AT ALL. That has sucked. This is what I’ve been left with instead.

I therefore fed the AI all of THE RETURN OF DR. NECROPOLIS as well as the first 10 chapters of a different story that isn’t working as well by way of creating a control group. I wanted to understand what the AI could do and when it was being genuinely helpful vs. being sycophantically unhelpful.

Unfortunately, the AI’s all want you to like them. This is actually their worst attribute, at least as far as editing is concerned. Bottom line: the AI is a computer program. It does stuff that one would expect a computer to be able to do pretty darned well. For example, if you feed it something that is close to working, it understands the mechanics of scene & story structure well enough to algorithmically point out where a handful of tweeks might fix specific issues within your text. However, if you ask it to do anything more, you’re gonna get a generic hash that consistently loses details & which generally tends towards an uncreative mean. AI’s work by absorbing training data & then using statistics to predict likely outcomes, so OBVIOUSLY they will create generic shit if left to their own devices.

Really, it’s like using Excel. If you’re an engineer, & you know how to use the formulas, the computers help a lot. However, without knowing engineering, Excel by itself won’t help you launch a rocket.

This was an interesting experiment & uplifting for my ego. However, it’s only really useful around the edges.

If you’re wondering, you really need to prompt the AI for meaningful criticism. I told it that I felt like my descriptions weren’t great, & it gave me a long, process-oriented critique of why I write better dialogue & psychology. That was TOTALLY USEFUL! But it had spent the previous day pumping me up about my stuff.

If I didn’t already have a basic idea of what wasn’t working & why, I’d never have gotten the most useful feedback I got from this entire experiment.

As For Football’s Guide to Sports Gambling (Beta Test)

2025-08-21T10:04:00.000-04:00

I'm gonna republish this since we're heading back into college football season. I never figured out how to make this work for the larger AFF audience, but I still think the original piece has something to say to the new, younger generation that's just discovering sports gambling.

* * *

Sports gambling enthusiasts will argue that betting on sports makes the games themselves more exciting, especially games in which the viewer has little to no rooting interest. This may be true. However, gambling can also be addictive, and as a matter of reality, it’s next to impossible to win often enough on an ongoing-basis to make money gambling.

Yes, pro-bettors exist. However, the good ones, like Steve Fezzik, often have advanced degrees in a field like Statistics and often also have experience as bond traders in the financial markets, especially via international finance and currency trading. I’m talking about trading real currencies here, not Bitcoin. These guys are used to doing the grinding work of evaluating international corporate spreadsheets and macro-economic currency trends to find opportunities in international debt markets. There’s nothing sexy about any of this unless you happen to truly enjoy statistics and probability.

If you’re wondering, I myself have an MBA in International Finance from Fordham University plus a very long history playing the most statistics-driven game of all time, tabletop Dungeons and Dragons. Unsurprisingly, Statistics became my favorite course at Business School, and here we are.

Ross Tucker's "Even Money" podcast, starring Steve Fezzik, is my favorite betting podcast

This article came about because of a discussion yesterday on Bluesky. This particular piece serves as a prototype for one that will eventually hit AsForFootball.Com. But this one will be geared more towards parents. In this one, we’ll attempt to highlight risks more than strategies for gambling success.

This whole thread is worth reading just so you can get a sense of parents’ desperation:

Per 15, my intrepid embedded frontline youth reporter, the youths are sports betting now, specifically it's the 14-15yo freshman boys across racial demographics are into sports betting, and why they like it is because of a) Super Bowl & b) all their favorite celebs are doing it. They prefer parlays.
— Erin Fogg (@criminalerin.bsky.social) February 5, 2025 at 2:57 PM

Fantasy Football

Fantasy Football started as a way for the NFL to expand its viewership, but it has since morphed to become America’s gateway drug into sports gambling.

fantasy football (noun): A competition in which participants select combinations of football players in a real league and score points according to their performance.

There are different ways to play Fantasy, but bottom line, you select real players participating in real games and get points based on their measurable performance metrics. How many yards did Saquon Barkley gain? How many touchdowns did he score? That sort of thing.

Playing Fantasy Football gets folks used to thinking about games in terms of performance metrics beyond just the final score. You don’t have to play for money, but many (most?) leagues have a buy-in with the winner pocketing the cash at the end of the season or something like that.

Gambling sites then expanded by introducing daily fantasy, where bettors create ad-hoc teams on a single-week basis to compete against large pools of competitive players. Conceptually, this is not much different than betting a bunch of single-player prop bets, but it creates a kind of “Leopards Ate My Face” moment in that total novices can -- and often do -- end up in truly massive leagues competing against professional bettors who have the kind of deep statistical background discussed above. Casual bettors lose badly in those cases.

Bettors noticed, and many gambling sites have tried various ways to keep this kind of thing from happening with various degrees of success. However, as a general rule, playing daily fantasy remains a good way to get your face ripped off.

In a macro sense, once you’re used to thinking about sports in terms of performance metrics, it’s hard to think about sports in any other way. This is not a bad thing. Understanding sports’ expectations provides a much deeper insight into why things happen. This really does deepen one’s understanding of the games. It is the raison d’etre of sites like Football Outsiders and my own As For Football, especially since football in particular has both tactical and strategic elements.

Unfortunately, this means that understanding and explaining sports stuff in gambling terms has become all too easy.

Betting on Teams

I hate fantasy football because it takes a team game and makes it about individual accomplishment. Individuals succeed because of team effort. This is not well-reflected in fantasy, however, and indeed, that reality creates the kind of information arbitrage that allows pro-bettors to rip the faces off of casual bettors.

All of sports gambling is about information arbitrage.

I don’t personally bet money. I hate to lose my money, for which I work very hard, and more to the point, I understand the probabilities well enough to know how things will play out over the long term. I don’t need to bet to understand statistics. With that said, I do enjoy making my weekly picks for the College Football Roundtable Show, and I think those picks provide a way to help us understand the college football season as a whole.

When I make my picks, I always make them for team accomplishments, not individual accomplishments. We can bet on teams in a few ways.

Bet the Spread

Team A is favored against Team B by a certain amount of points. This betting line sets the mathematical expectation for the game. We then bet on one team or the other to exceed expectations. In gambling-speak, exceeding expectations means “covering the spread”.

Let’s say Team A is favored by a touchdown, and we want to bet on Team A to win by more than that. We say, “Team A is giving a touchdown. Team A will cover.” In writing, we express this as, “Team A (-7) vs. Team B”. Mathematically, Team A’s score - 7 > Team B’s score.

If we bet Team B, they’re “getting” a touchdown. Expressed in writing as “Team A vs. Team B (+7)”. Mathematically, Team B’s score + 7 > Team A’s score.

This is my favorite way to make picks.

First, because it’s a single, binary probability. Teams either exceed expectations, or they don’t. Second, betting lines provide an extremely useful and convenient shorthand for discussing sports probability overall. Sports probability is very complicated! But if I know that Team A is favored by 7, then absent any other information, I have at least some context for the game. When I’m deciding which games to put on my television on any given Saturday, I’ll usually start by seeing which we expect to be close based on their betting lines.

Bet the Moneyline

Moneyline bets ignore the lines but pay out more than the initial bet when the underdog wins and less than the initial bet when the favorite wins. The math behind moneyline bets is exactly the same as the math behind betting the spread, but the “House” or “Book,” i.e. the casino facilitating the bets, balances those bets, i.e. the “action,” by changing the sizes of the payouts rather than by offering lines against the spread.

Moneyline betting seems like it should be easier than betting the spread, but again, the math is exactly the same. Thus, betting the moneyline is actually a very good way to get your face ripped off. It only looks easy.

Bet the Over/Under

When we bet the Over/Under, i.e. the “Total,” we’re betting on the total number of points that will be scored in a game. If we bet Over 50, for example, we’re betting Team A + Team B > 50. Under 50 would be Team A + Team B < 50.

This is another one of those things that seems simple but is actually complicated. Because we don’t know what the various coaching staffs will try to accomplish in any given game.

For example, take Stoney Brook at Ohio State Over 55. Seems simple. We know Ohio State just won the National Championship while Stoney Brook is a tiny school on Long Island with a middling football team. OSU *can* win by 55 easily… if they want to. However, there are no coaching staffs anywhere that care about final scores. OSU’s staff could -- and probably should! -- pull their starters early, put in the back-ups, third string, and eventually fourth string, and wind up winning by *just* 35-3.

In this case, the staff is happy, but the bettors have lost on information arbitrage. They had no way of knowing when the back-ups would go in, or how hard or well those back-ups would play.

Prop Bets

Proposition Bets (Prop Bets) are tied to events inside a game outside the final result. For example, “Saquon Barkley will run for 150+ yards in the Super Bowl.” That can happen regardless of how the Eagles play as a whole.

Prop bets are good in the sense that they turn on single-instance binary outcomes, but they’re bad in the sense that they generally turn on individual accomplishments in a world in which we don’t necessarily know what coaching staffs are trying to accomplish from week-to-week.

Teasers

In a teaser, we bet two games at the same time, and because we’re taking on more risk by betting two (or more!) games at the same time, we get to “tease” the line to a more favorable position.

Let’s say we bet a standard 6-point teaser on the following games:

Team A (-7) vs. Team B
Team C (+1) vs. Team D

The teaser allows us to move the line 6 points, making each individual bet much more likely.

Team A (-1) vs. Team B
Team C (+7) vs. Team D

But we now have to hit both in order for this to pay off!

Let’s assume that each initial line had a 50% probability of hitting, and that after we teased the bet, each subsequent line now has a 75% probability of hitting. Did we help ourselves?

If we make both of the initial bets, we have a 50% chance of hitting at least one, a 25% chance of hitting both, and a 25% chance of hitting neither. If we play the teaser, it works out like this:

Win Probability = 0.75 * 0.75 = .50.

Statistically, this teaser changes nothing. It has a 50% probability of hitting. That’s the same probability of hitting one but not both of the initial bets. So far, so good. However, we’ve cost ourselves the 25% of hitting both bets while discounting the probability of hitting neither. Since those outcomes were equal anyway, the math cancels out all the way around.

This is why the books offer teasers. They don’t care how you bet; the math works out the same for them in aggregate in every case.

You Can’t Win

The reason you can’t win is because the books charge a 10% vigorish or “vig” as the cost of placing a bet. Thus, we have to hit 55% of our bets just to break even. Since the books are very good at ensuring that each side of a binary wager has something very close to a 50% chance of occuring, you’re gonna lose money on the vig over time. You might break even -- I usually break even in my picks league -- but the vig will eat into your profits over time every time.

This is mathematically unavoidable.

Professional bettors make money by having better information than the books, repeatedly over time. To be clear, these people are professional statisticians who truly enjoy pouring over the tiniest details of sports probability. If you’re reading this, that’s not you. Which is fine. Just understand that over time, it is statistically impossible to beat the odds by definition.

The books *usually* don’t try to take sides on the games they offer. They just want to balance the action and take the vig as their profit. If they can make the vig bigger, then that’s good for them.

“Needle In a Haystack” Bets Make Things Worse

This is because the books charge the same 10% vigorish to place unlikely wagers that they charge to play standard, binary wagers. So you’re paying 10% to try to pick the Super Bowl MVP when there are maybe 10 guys with a reasonable chance of winning it.

Ideally, that 10% vigorish should be spread evenly across all the different potential choices. Since it’s not, the bet itself is much more expensive than a standard binary bet would be. This, in turn, means that you need to hit these “needle in a haystack” bets way more often when, in fact, your odds of winning them are way smaller than they would be on standard binary bets.

Parlays Also Make It Worse

A parlay bet takes two or more bets, usually binary bets, and combines them into a single wager. This makes things worse in the same way that teaser bets don’t change odds overall. You’re taking a series of things that have, at best, a 50% chance of happening and combining them into one massive bet. Your odds go down with each leg you add to the parlay, and unlike the teasers, you can’t move the lines (or whatever) in your favor.

This essentially creates a “needle in a haystack” bet out of a series of binary bets. The books offer these bets because the bets themselves don’t pay very often.

Bet Win% = 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5…

With just two legs, you’ve reduced your odds to 25%. Add a third, and you’re down to 12.5%. Keep going, and you’re all but destroying your chances of actually winning. Then take out the vig, and on aggregate, you’re really just giving the books your money.

Betting Strategies

1. Don’t.

2. Cut out the books. Establish a picks league with your friends, either against the spread or just with moneyline winners and losers. Pay money into the pot, and have the winner get the pot at the end of the year. Or do what we did at As For Football and have a title belt made, so that the winner gets to hold the belt over the offseason.

This is still fun, and we still compete, but no one loses money. Because we all have families. Instead, we just talk shit to each other as part of a community. This is actually good.

3. Place single-outcome binary bets. You’re still going to lose 10% over the course of the season on average, but this is better -- and much cheaper -- than most of the alternatives.

Yours truly with the AFF Cruiserweight Title Belt. I've won it twice.

4. Bet on games that fewer folks will watch. To put that another way, don’t bet on the NFL or Alabama.

LOTS of people bet the NFL, so the books have no choice but to put TONS of work into the odds they offer on NFL games. The same is true with SEC and Big 10 football and with Power 4 football generally.

On the As For Football College Football Roundtable show, I almost always pick games from the American Athletic Conference. This is because 1) Army is in that conference, so I pay a lot of attention to that conference, and 2) the books spend astronomically less time setting those lines than they do with P4 college games or especially NFL games. Thus, the information arbitrage is much less -- for me -- in the AAC than it would be for the NFL or Power 4.

Theoretically, we’d do even better to bet FCS games, but I’m not actually a fan of, say, Stoney Brook or the Patriot or Ivy Leagues. But those games will have even less information arbitrage.

Thanks for your time with this. If you have questions, either leave them below or drop them on social media.

Final Thoughts: Swim Across the Sound 2025

2025-08-05T12:54:00.001-04:00

We did the Swim Across the Sound this past Saturday, and it went really well.

We had kind of a different event this year. After years with the original Team RBG, none of my habitual teammates could make this one. I initially reached out to Race Director Liz Fry to just fold me into someone else’s team, but Liz didn’t want that. She wanted to keep Team RBG a going concern.

Team RBG before the Swim

We found new swimmers slowly but surely. It got complicated because I personally have never done any age group swimming locally in Connecticut. I didn’t grow up here and don’t compete as a Master’s Swimming. So I don’t know anyone on the local scene! Save for the Swim Across the Sound, I’m retired from competition and not really looking to go back.

Liz had to introduce me to some folks, and as a result, Team RBG 2025 became the home to all the talented adult swimmers who were looking for a team. Chris Spearing joined first and quickly brought Mary Spillane into the fold. Galen Rinaldi joined next, and then we added Greg Pinchbeck maybe ten days before the Swim itself. This turned out to be a great group!

We had a heat wave locally in the days before the Swim. Then the weather broke, bringing storms, but thankfully, those blew over maybe sixteen hours before the event. However, those storms left maybe 15 mph of wind coming in their wake, running opposite the current. We started under crystal blue skies with temperatures in the low 80s — I mean, it was *gorgeous* out there — but all that wind blowing in the wrong direction created easily the strongest chop I’ve ever seen in an open water swimming race. We had two or maybe even two-and-a-half foot swells with white caps.

Friends, it got nasty out there.

Chris led off, and he handled that chop like a champ. However, I went second, and I struggled quite a bit. In talking about it afterwards, I think my biggest issue was that I decided to swim on the left side of the boat — breathing right to keep the boat in my line-of-sight — which had me breathing *into* the swells. On the smart/stupid scale, this was really stupid. I couldn’t catch my rhythm under any circumstances, let myself get a little panicked, and wound up doing breaststroke just to try to keep from having a full-on freak out.

I’ve had a lot of success in the water over the years, but in this instance, the best I can say for myself is that I neither drowned nor DQ’ed my team. Beyond that, things got kind of ugly. But as we learned during Beast Barracks, sometimes winning is just staying in the fight long enough to let conditions change.

Mary went in third, and she also swam well, as did the rest of my team. I was therefore nervous for my next leg -- and feeling like a real asshole for bringing everybody out and then booting it like that. I really got down on myself in the hour after that first swim. Thankfully, however, the chop settled a bit over the course of the day, and I put the boat on my other side for that next leg. Those things together -- plus a commitment to keep my stroke long and smooth -- let me chill out and just swim. With that, I actually swam pretty well on that second leg, and by the time I hit my third leg, I’d gotten back up to race pace and actually felt like myself in the water.

I’d trained all season for this, so it was nice to feel like I was actually succeeding. That first pull went far worse in my head than it went in the water.

The weird thing is that even doing breaststroke in the early going, we had the current so strongly behind us that I wound up putting in over a mile in the water. My next pull took me 1300 yards, while the one after that took me 1600. That’s almost another full mile in just 20 minutes. Even my last pull, which went just fifteen minutes, took me over 1000 yards.

So it was crazy out there. Tough conditions in the water but also insanely fast. All told, Team RBG finished in under six hours. That’s insanely fast.

At the finish

Our team finished fourth overall in the Traditional (No Wetsuit) team category. The only teams that beat us had four or more high school age group swimmers on them. We also did well with fundraising. As I write this, the team is up to almost $7500 raised for St. Vincent’s Cancer Center. I’m pretty excited about that, especially since this was an ad hoc team that came together late in the season.

Thank you again for your support. Speaking personally, I’m already looking forward to next year.

Go Team RBG! Beat Cancer!!!

Update: Team RBG & the Swim Across the Sound

2025-07-15T11:20:00.004-04:00

Friends,

I’d like to start off by saying, “Thank you!” to everyone who has donated to me and to Team RBG for this year’s Swim Across the Sound. Cancer sucks, and it affects a Hell of a lot of people, and in many cases, those folks’ lives get destroyed even if they somehow manage to survive the disease itself. The good news is that we as a society can help. However, this does not change the fact that huge amounts of people will have to fight cancer at some point over the course of their lives.

Team RBG in 2024

Everyone will be affected by cancer, either directly or through the experience of a loved one. I therefore thank you all for taking up arms in this literal battle for survival.

Donate to the Swim Across the Sound

We had to reform Team RBG from scratch this year. Through a combination of unexpected medical issues, travel issues, and vacation scheduling, none of my old team could make the race this year, necessitating the recruitment of an entirely new crew. I initially reached out to the Swim’s Race Director to just fold me personally into an existing team, but with her help, we instead found not just three but actually FOUR new swimmers for our team. Indeed, we once again have an experienced crew with a bunch of really well-traveled, successful open water swimmers. With that, I’m excited for the actual racing portion of this year’s event.

Speaking personally, swim training has been something of a journey this year.

I lifted and swam through the end of April and then dropped weights right as we started May. I then upped my total yardage and especially my intensity in the pool through the next eight or so weeks. My good friend and former Army Swimming teammate Andy talked me into this approach -- he’s been training for an English Channel crossing, mostly by swimming HARD -- and it’s been a good one, if somewhat surprising in concept. It’s also been hard as Hell. Instead of doing long, slow distance work, I spent May and June putting in TONS of uptempo interval work with longer rests between intervals. I worked a lot of quality in with my quantity, hoping to expand my aerobic base overall. With that base built, I then transitioned to some longer, smoother work, especially on the weekends in open water sessions.

I feel good, but I confess that I’m also tired. This is my last week of truly hard swimming before starting about a two-week taper. I honestly can’t wait. I swam 4800 yards in open water on Saturday two weeks ago, followed by 5300 yards in the pool this past weekend. Neither of those things would’ve been difficult back when I swam for the Army Team, but I’m now a 52-year-old who’s been retired from competition for almost a decade.

Alas, it’s just not the same any more.

If you’re wondering, though, my butterfly feels pretty good. That’s maybe not surprising given all the uptempo work I’ve done. Still, I went :31 consistently for a set of uptempo 50s Fly a few weeks ago at the end of a 4500 yard pool practice and then went :35 for another set at 80% effort at the end of that 5300 yard practice over this past weekend. I continue to think that I could probably go right at one minute or maybe just under if I had the right competition for a 100 Fly from the blocks. Unfortunately, however, there’s just NO WAY IN HELL that I’m ever going to enter a swim meet to find out for certain.

And anyway, the Swim Across the Sound is not really about swimming. I’m swimming well enough and have been for weeks. We’re trying to BEAT CANCER here.

To that end, we can still use your help. If you can afford to give, any little bit helps.

Thank you and BEAT CANCER!

Dan

Styx Setlist

2025-06-10T07:27:00.006-04:00

Sally and I are heading out to see Styx with Eagles' guitarist Don Felder and REO Speedwagon's Kevin Cronin early next month.

You'll find the full set list below.

Styx performing in 2017 (via Wikipedia).

The Eagles obviously don't perform together as a band anymore, and in any event, no force on Earth could get Glenn Fry out for another set. I'm still quite looking forward to seeing Felder and his band open this show.

Similarly, REO Speedwagon retired as a band after their last tour. However, former lead vocalist Kevin Cronin wanted to tour again, and here we are.

I respect Cronin's decision to tour under his own name rather than as "REO Speedwagon" with just himself and a bunch of session musicians. I'm pretty sure that decision will have cost him some money from lost ticket sales. Still, it's an acknowledgement that he himself is not the whole band.

Not everyone would make that choice. Indeed, if you go see "Foreigner" these days, the entire band has become a bunch of session musicians hired by Foreigner, Inc. to play the hits and keep the IP alive. They play a fun show to be sure, but ticket prices for "Foreigner" cost quite a bit more than they would if the band explicitly billed themselves as a nostalgia/tribute act.

Anyway, Cronin's set includes the entire album Hi Infidelity, which apparently celebrated its 30th anniversary last year.

Styx, of course, still tours consistently, and indeed, they even have a new album coming out later this summer. I find that incredible given that half the band must by now be in their 70s or even in their early 80s, but they -- with some long-term replacements -- have been going strong for a good, long time now.

The new album, called CIRCLING FROM ABOVE, comes out late this summer, though Styx has already released a single from it called BUILD AND DESTROY. They've also seemingly sent review copies to every Internet rock music reviewer on YouTube in an attempt to build buzz in lieu of old school radio airplay. I've not personally heard the new album yet, but reviewers say that it's stylistically similar to Styx's last two albums, THE MISSION and CRASH OF THE CROWN.

CRASH OF THE CROWN became Styx's pandemic project, and I liked it a lot. It's quite a unique concept album about growing up and leaving home, and in a larger sense, about watching the world fall apart from the perspective of having once been part of the "peace and love" generation. Having said that, the work as a whole eventually finds an uplifting, optimistic vibe, which is amazing all things considered. I quite wish that they'd play the whole thing on tour someday, but I realize that this is probably never going to happen. Alas.

However. Styx is played THE GRAND ILLUSION this summer. Which is awesome. That's my favorite album of all time. In particular, the song MAN IN THE WILDERNESS is a B-side personal favorite that I absolutely *never* thought I'd see live. So that's cool.

The full set list is here:

See you guys this summer!

#AsForDynamite: Would-Be AEW Podcast Plan

2025-05-15T09:55:00.004-04:00

Friends, I’ve accepted that I am never going to have time to do #AsForDynamite, my would-be AEW podcast built on the As For Football model. I spent some time pondering the idea on the train the other day, and I think I -- finally -- know how to actually do the show and make it work. Absent the time and effort to full-on create this thing, let’s at least talk about how it might work.

General Podcast Thoughts, Goals, & Timing

Podcasts work when they have structure. We want to have a plan and avoid rambling.
You want a host who manages the conversation and one of two folks to sound smart about the topics. The host is like the podcast’s quarterback. His job isn’t to score points, it’s to distribute the football to the podcast’s playmakers.
With that in mind, if you’ve had the mic for more than maybe a minute or so, it’s time to pass the mic back to the host and move on to the next play.

This post is therefore about designing our mythical show’s structure. Our show isn’t going to recap Dynamite and/or Collision. We’re going to assume that our fans are AEW fans, and that therefore already watched both shows. We’re going to try to help them relive the things that they enjoyed and hopefully provide some context where appropriate for why things happened.

At the end of the day, we’d like to make people excited to be fans of AEW by enhancing their fandom. We want to bring people up. We do not want to bring them down. They’ll get enough of that elsewhere.

With this in mind, we’d probably like to release this show on Monday mornings. We’ll discuss Dynamite, Collision, and PPVs and preview what’s coming up. This is important. We want to make people hopeful and excited heading into the week.

Part 1: Introduction

Start with a stinger, i.e. “Moxley bled, Hangman and Osprey proved that they could co-exist, and now we’ve got an Anarchy in the Arena set for Double or Nothing.”
Introduce the team, tell where they're from, and get a little early banter going.
Initial thoughts, i.e. “So, how are we feeling this week?”
Your guys give quick thoughts or otherwise do some intro stuff.

Example: “Busy week for me. It’s interesting that we got a potential team finisher from Hangman and Osprey in a match that also furthered their feud. Excited to see where that’s going…”

Part 2: Commercial

Finding sponsors for your show is a whole other discussion. If you have sponsors, though, stick your first commercial here. Otherwise, use this space to discuss your patreon, website, whatever.

“As a reminder, this show is brought to you by…”

Part 3: Show Review

The hardest part of this theoretical project is figuring out how to discuss the show without straight-up recapping it and/or getting bogged down in details. Ideally, you’d like your show to run between 25 and 45 minutes. That does not leave time for a lengthy discussion here, and that’s doubly true if you decide -- as I would -- to try to take in both Dynamite and Collision.

I finally decided to have my host use Cagematch.Com to list all the matches, times, and winners and then kick it back to the panel with something like, “Your thoughts on any of this?”

I let my guys talk from there.

As an aside, this is where the Golden Rule really matters. If you’ve had the mic for more than about a minute, it’s time to pass the mic. With that, you need a host who’s comfortable distributing the football and making sure that everyone talks and no one dominates the overall discussion.

Remember: the audience are fans. They also saw these shows. You don’t need to recap or tell them what happened. Tell them why it happened or why it was cool.

I probably end this segment with, “Okay, so what was your favorite thing on the show?” or “What was your favorite thing this week?”

All of this is going to work best when it’s a bunch of quick thoughts on several topics with the very important note that if we don’t cover absolutely everything, no one will ever know or care.

Part 4: Recap Fact or Fiction

This is where we discuss our predictions from the previous week. We’ll talk about that a little bit down below.

Part 5: Commercial #2

Having sponsors is good. Having a commercial between segments also lets your audience reset and prepare for a different discussion.

Part 6: Preview

Along similar lines to the above, you want to run through what’s been announced for next week’s Dynamite, Collision, PPV, etc, and you want to invite discussion from the team about any and all of this. Again, I would have the host run through this as a list and then invite comment/discussion from the team.

In my show, this part is at least as important as the review section was.

Part 7: Fact or Fiction

Each team member makes a prediction about upcoming content, and the others say whether that’s Fact of Fiction.

Example: “Fact or Fiction: Osprey and Hangman eventually challenge the Hurt Syndicate for the Tag Titles.”

We record these and go back through them during the next week’s show.

Part 8: 3rd Commercial

This is where As For Football hits Patreon and tells folks to sign up for our mailing list. Creating a mailing list is a whole other discussion, but trust me, if you do ONE THING, you should make a mailing list.

Part 9: Final Thoughts

Close out the show on a high note and get the Hell out of there.

Update to Yesterday’s Swimming Update

2025-05-02T07:08:00.004-04:00

I’m just gonna complain for a minute, so if you’re not into that, cool, but you might want to pass on this post.

I put in 3500 yards yesterday on top of the 3600 I put in on Tuesday. I felt really good on Tuesday but did not have my best stuff yesterday. The speed work I attempted absolutely did not come off. I’d planned to do 15 x 100 @ 1:30 as my main set. Instead, I did this:

Warm-Up (2x):

200 @ 3:00
2 x 100 @ 1:30
100 kick

10 x 50 @ :45, breathing every third

Main Set (2x)

6 x 100 @ 1:30
100 kick

100 easy

400 pull

100 easy cool down

It took me quite a while to settle in. Like I said, I didn’t feel like I had my best stuff, and I needed quite a bit of ingrained muscle memory and sheet experience to finally make my body round into form. I pushed a bit through the 50s @ :45 and then even more on the ensuing set of 6 x 100 @ 1:30. Really struggled to hold 1:15 on those.

Decided to slow it down on the second set and just try to ride it out with an easier, more efficient stroke. This proved to be both easier and quite a bit faster, so that I averaged 1:14/100 and felt good doing it.

Stupid is as stupid does, I suppose.

Anyway, I feel like absolute shit right now, here on Friday morning. My shoulders ache in the most familiar way possible. Haven’t slept particularly well this week,. And with all the pollen in the air, my head felt like a brick when I woke up this morning.

I’ve been stretching on the train this morning, which has me feeling all the knots in my upper back and people on the train staring at me. But I feel looser, which is good, if more exhausted without all those tight muscles holding me quite so rigidly.

Sigh. I love swimming. When they eventually make a movie of my life or turn my book into a Netflix series or whatever, I really want to make a point of showing the audience how it takes grinding, relentless days, week, months, and years of practice to be good at sports.

Happy Friday, friends.

Swim Training Update

2025-05-01T07:27:00.002-04:00

My Swim Across the Sound team fell apart a few weeks ago. It happens. Folks have lives and real-world concerns, and for better or worse, not everyone can make themselves available on the first Saturday in August every single year. After all the years I’ve been able to rely on this same small group of people, it’s somebody else’s turn to do their part now. I reached out to the race director for help fielding a team last week, but before I did that, I considered just swimming the damn thing solo. Not because I wanted to but to smooth out the logistics.

In the water for the Swim Across the Sound, 2022.

I laid out a training plan and talked to my buddy Andy about it — he’s done a LOT of these marathon solo swims, including the Swim Across the Sound — and then I readjusted my plan. Could I actually do this?

Maybe, I think. My wife asked me if I could, and I told her that if somebody put a gun to my head, I’m pretty sure I could finish in order to avoid a bullet. I’d need to swim something like 30K yards/week for maybe three weeks leading up to the race, and I’d need to spend at last two months working up to that distance from where I am right now. Barring an injury, I *can* do it. But beyond the sheer challenge of the thing, I confess that I just couldn’t make myself excited about it. Andy does all that yardage with two-a-days, putting in as many as ten workouts per week.

Honestly, it sounds awful.

In some ways, remembering my own swimming career -- back when 30K would’ve been my weekly minimum -- now feels like remembering that time I had a mental illness. The way I had to think about swimming in relation to the rest of my life; all perspective simply fell by the wayside. I don’t know how to describe it to you beyond noting that it was everything until I got mono as a Firstie, and then, once I *had* to back off, I almost couldn’t make myself come back to the sport in earnest. That single-minded devotion had my friends at West Point calling me “Angry Dan” literally for years.

Typical mood on an Army Swimming training trip

In the end, I threw my goggles away after my last race and didn’t swim again for more than a decade. Even now, the years since I started training again have been a struggle for balance as much as they’ve been anything.

Still, I got a lot out of talking with Andy. He trains much faster — and rests much more within each workout and indeed within each set — than I usually do, focusing much more on quality and much less on aerobic, Long Slow Distance work. I’ve been aware that modern swim training is different now than it was, that the kids don’t just grind mindlessly the way we used to. Not as much, anyway. They do a LOT more quality, uptempo work. Until I’d talked to Andy, though, I’d never really considered trying to adapt this to my own routine or even what that might look like.

Maybe that’s stupid. I don’t know. But I’m retired from competition, so nobody but me really cares how fast I’m swimming. Even if I went to the Connecticut Masters State Championship and won the 100 Fly, no one anywhere would care at all. I’d feel five minutes of pleasure then stick the trophy up on the shelf next to all the other trophies. The end.

This isn’t to say that I don’t want to swim well, however. I’m merely acknowledging that I already know when I’m swimming well, and that I don’t need anyone to tell me. I’ve been doing this since I was 10. I’m now almost 52. So that’s 42 years of consistent aerobic fitness and every bit of 30 years training in the water even with a 12 year break after college.

Can an old dog learn a new trick?

Up to now, a typical set for me has looked something like this:

2 x 200 @ 2:50
2 x 100 @ 1:25
100 kick

That’s a base 1:25/100, and I’ll do it three times through for a total of 2100 yards as a Main Set, holding something like 1:20/100 or maybe just under that. My heart rate typically stays in the 130-135 bpm range.

Andy does this same kind of thing simpler but much more intensely:

20 x 100 @ 1:30, holding between 1:05 and 1:10

Longer intervals, more rest, astronomically more intensity.

Post-race (I think) at Crandall Pool, West Point, NY

I’ve been giving this a try, and friends, it’s been working. I still can’t routinely hit 1:10/100, but I am routinely hitting 1:15/100, and I feel better in the water overall than I have in ages. More like myself. Among other things, I feel like I’m swimming more correctly, so that once I get all the way warmed up, I can go faster than I have in ages and maintain that faster pace longer. Much longer. Even on sets with lower intervals, I can still go faster. Doing more speed work has me swimming better overall, which translates into a variety of different improvements across the board.

So. I still need to find some teammates for the Swim Across the Sound. But other than that, things are going okay, at least as far as swimming is concerned.

Swim Across the Sound Update: Swimmer(s) Needed!

2025-04-22T08:55:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone.

I don't know if anyone lives at all close to Coastal Connecticut, but I am in dire need of an open water swimmer or two.

I've run a Swim Across the Sound team for the last few years, raising money for St. Vincent's Hospital's Cancer Center. This year, unfortunately, most of my team can't make it. I reached out to the charity a couple of weeks ago, and I *think* that they can give me at least two for the team. However, I still need at least one more, and here we are.

Team RBG at last year's Swim.

If you are at all interested, you can find more information via this link right here. I'm not much on social media these days, but I'm happy to answer questions as best I can.

Thanks in advance.

#GoArmy #BEATcancer

New Header

2025-03-26T07:34:00.002-04:00

Do you like it?

I've been playing with these for the last few weeks. I'm not totally sure that I love this one, but it's better than the last one.

Your thoughts?

Greetings from Northern Vermont

2025-02-26T07:56:00.000-05:00

In case you're wondering how things are going up in Vermont this week...

We're living in the winter of perfect conditions here in the Northeast. It's been snowing virtually every day. If you don't mind dressing warmly, life has been pretty good. Conditions then warmed up yesterday, and now, I think maybe we're into spring skiing for the rest of the season.

Which is fine, if I'm being honest.

Stowe Mountain as seen from a chairlift

Sally just off the gondola at Stowe

With Hannah on Sunday at Stowe. Terrific conditions but very flat light.

Sally at the Stowe base village

Cheers!

We've been at Sugarbush plenty but have taken way fewer pictures there.

Family gondola shot from Sunday

Bluesky conditions on Ridge view at Stowe

Tales from the Tipsy Mermaid

2025-02-22T07:50:00.002-05:00

It occured to me Thursday as I was working on the newly updated D&D archives for this very blog that I've got more than enough material here to create an entire Wanderhaven sourcebook. I think I might actually do that, using the pay-what-you-want model on DriveThruRPG and also maybe drop the damned thing as a free download on Amazon. I'll then add a link in the Foreword where folks can support my other projects, and with luck, that will actually help sell a few copies of other stuff I've written.

I'll have to use AI for all the art, unfortunately, which is a very large part of why I do not want to charge for this "new" project. I realize full well that modern AI creates via statistically driven machine-plagiarism, and that charging for other people's work is a sin.

Nevertheless, I feel like I should still do *something* with all this stuff.

Anyway. Behold this cover for the would-be Wanderhaven sourcebook, TALES FROM THE TIPSY MERMAID.

What do you think, friends?

D&D Adventure Archives

2025-02-20T11:44:00.003-05:00

Friends, I get requests almost every day for the PDF version of "The Mystery of Malvern Manor".

I expanded "Malvern Manor" into "Mordecai's Monster"
a few years ago for EN Publishing.

I've been ignoring these requests for months because that PDF has been stored in my personal Google Drive account, and frankly, I'm not sure what the security ramifications are from sharing that account with seemingly half of the Internet using population of this planet.

But you guys ask legit every single day, so...

BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT, I dropped these files into the little-used Drive account associated with the semi-annonymous email I created for Danno E. Cabeza, my public-facing persona that edits As For Football. I use this account specifically to sign up for 10% off whatever website and to catch spam from AFF, so I dont' *think* it's tied to anything important. Maybe you can use it to hack my account at The Athletic. That's about it, though. I hope.

With that in mind, please find the updated PDF archives of all of my most popular D&D stuff below, plus "Mordecai's Monster" because the exclusive publishing license for that thing has long since expired.

Support This Blog

If you feel the need to thank me monetarily for any or all of this content, you can do so either by contributing to my Swim Across the Sound campaign (preferred) or by buying one of my D&D novels, Sneakatara Boatman and the Priest of Loki and Sneakatara Boatman and the Crown of Pluto. Both come in the tradition of your favorite Forgotten Realms books. They're about my kids' D&D characters, halfling rogue Sneax (played by my daughter Hannah) and her best friend, the human swordmade Elaina Emboo (played by the real-life Emboo, my daughter Emma). I would really love to get thoughts on them from the D&D community at large. So here's hoping.

If you want to know about me personally, you can also read my memoir.

Anyway. The PDF links you came here for are listed below. I've added a few notes. Note that I've only given you READ access, so you'll want to download these, I think.

Enjoy!

* * *

D&D Adventures via Google Drive (Folder Level Access)

The Mystery of Malvern Manor. A quick one-shot that I wrote for my kids and their friends. The kids loved it, so I wrote it up & published it here. Now everyone loves it.

This thing's success got me writing more of these, and now here we are.

The Mystery of Mordecai's Monster. As I said in the opening, I expanded Malvern Manor for EN5ider. It's maybe a three-shot. I've never actually played it, so if you do run it, let me know how it went. I've heard that it's very hard for the players if you run it as-written. This is good.

The Fall of Cahokiantep. This is probably the most interesting piece on here, at least conceptually, and it's also probably the second-most popular thing I've written D&D-wise. It's a short planar adventure. I've always wanted to rewrite it as a short story, but I've never actually gotten around to that.

Christmas with the Orcs. Wrote this for the kids for Christmas, and they were damn-near finished with it before they realized that the villain is Santa Claus. It was a monster hit at our house, though.

Race to the Temple of Storms. This one started as a short story, and then I rewrote it as an adventure. My kids liked the adventure, for whatever that's worth. There's a really good skills challenge in here.

The Disappearance of Jaxon Carrows. Another mystery adventure. Let me know if you like this one. I can't remember what the kids thought of it.

Zeke's Mine. A short dungeon crawl. It's super-simple, but it was a hit when we played it.

The Demon's True Name. I wrote this one for a WotC D&D contest. Half the contest was just demonstrating that you could use their format correctly. Anyway, I made it to the finals before getting cut. Alas. On the flip side, even my wife liked this one, so that's something.

Journey Through Crocodile Crossroads. Wrote this as a straight sequel to Malven Manor, and played it with the kids and their friends the next time we got together. Went okay. It's probably not weird enough, honestly.

Mermaids Revisited. Worked with my daughter Hannah to develop Mermaids as a playable race. This is version 2.0. We've used it a lot. It works really well.

Were-Guinea Pigs. Folks seem to like this concept for a silly, playable race. However, we've never actually used it in play.

The Combat Engineer Class. This was another online hit that I've never actually used in play. You'd need to adapt it to the new 5.5e ruleset, but there are still some interesting ideas in here, I think.

Trouble at Sunbar Reef. I've never finished this adventure, but in my personal opinion, it's worth your time just for my homebrew underwater combat ruleset. This piece uses the same core exploration mechanic I invented for Cahokiantep, but it's MUCH bigger here. Hence never actually finishing this bitch. With that said, if I ever actually run another game, I'm running this.

Swim Across the Sound 2025

2025-02-18T08:29:00.003-05:00

Friends,

As many of you know, I will be competing in the Swim Across the Sound to support St. Vincent's Hospital's Cancer Center again this year. 2025 marks a decade with the Swim for me. I first competed as part of "Team Y-Me?" way back in 2015. We've learned a lot and raised a lot of money in that time. This year can and should be our best year ever!

Action shot of me from the Swim in 2017.

For those that don't know, the Swim is a 15-mile open water event that starts in Port Jefferson, NY, and finishes on the far side of Long Island Sound in Bridgeport, CT. My team, Team RBG, is an veteran-led team entered in the Classic (No Wetsuit) category, which means that we'll swim as a relay, taking half-hour pulls while a boat motors slowly alongside us. We have a team of legitimately talented swimmers -- some from the Army Swim Team, some experienced triathletes, and one, Stephen, who played Water Polo at UCLA.

We train hard, but really, the Swim is not about swimming. It's a charity fundraiser that funds community outreach for cancer screenings as well as familial financial support for those who undergo cancer treatments. Alas, my friends, cancer ain’t cheap. The Swim helps pay mortgage and electric bills for those undergoing treatment, taking at least one stressor off of already stressed families.

Team RBG in 2024. We finished 4th of 17 teams.

When you're fighting cancer, you need all your energy to win that fight.

As many of you know, my family has all passed on now, mostly due to cancer. My mother and all of my grandparents died from cancer. My father got cancer but survived, though he struggled mightily with its aftereffects.

As you can imagine, this is an important cause for me. That's doubly true now in this current age, when society has actively chosen to stop researching cancer treatments and funding so much of public life. With that in mind, please consider supporting our fight. Large or small, all contributions are greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

--Dan

Go Army! Beat Cancer!!!

Mount Snow Weekend Round-Up: A Skiing Story

2025-02-11T06:47:00.001-05:00

Sally and I went to Mount Snow over the weekend for what proved to be a fun, somewhat eventful weekend.

Sally and me at Mount Snow Saturday afternoon

We didn’t get away until a little after noon on Saturday. Sally had to work, which was fine, especially since it gave me a chance to swim Saturday morning. Wound up putting in every bit of 3000 yards. Did 7 x 200 @ 2:50, tempo pace, as my main set.

Well. I tried to hold tempo pace. I stayed solidly in the 2:35/200 range through the first 3-4 reps but fell apart as the set dragged on. A woman came over to wait for my lane, so I tried to hurry. Oof. Finished the set just off 2:40/200 and feeling very much like a wrung sponge.

Got home, made and ate some oatmeal, finished packing the car, explained our stereo set-up to our new dog-sitter — who turned out to be something of an audiophile — and at last, we got off. Arrived at Mount Snow some two hours and forty minutes later.

We were finally ready to hit the slopes.

We rolled in there at quarter-to-three, just as damned-near everybody else was starting to pack up. We parked at Carinthia — right in front of the lodge! — dressed quickly, and caught the lift. We then hung a left down into SunBrook, whereupon we caught the very last lift back up. This sucked because it meant that SunBrook itself has just closed. We had to hike up to the summit instead of banging a few quick laps right then and there.

I spent that time trying to convince my beautiful bride to ski back down to Sundance, still visibly in motion from where we were on that part of the mountain, so that we could bang a few laps closer by rather than skiing to the Main Face and chancing the Bluebird Six. No dice. We did one lap at Sundance, but Sally very much wanted to catch at least one ride up the main lift.

What can you do?

We set out for the Main Face at 3:40 with lifts cutting off at 4:00. We’d also already been thrown off one part of the mountain. If we didn’t get onto the Bluebird before it closed, we’d have to take the shuttle bus back to our car. Clearly not a disaster at scale with dismantling American democracy for the LOLs, but also decidedly not desirable, either. I was concerned.

Okay, so it turns out that Sally was right, and I was wrong. We made it to the lift with ten minutes to spare, easy, and in retrospect, I felt silly for worrying about it.

Sigh.

We skied uneventfully down the long run back to Carinthia, dropped our skis, changed back into shoes, and went to the bar. We'd put in maybe 5000 vertical feet in the space of an hour. With beers in hand, we sat overlooking the mountain and tried not to talk about the news. But it’s both all-consuming and infuriating. We’ve both cut off so many people in the past few weeks just because we both know whose fault all of this is, and neither of us ever want to see any of those dumbasses again.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way to the Ski Club lodge. Sally said, “Go pick out some wine, and I’ll get the food.”

Am I qualified for this? I have a degree in European History from the U.S. Military Academy, and I like wine quite a bit. But this place had tons of bottles, no shelf-talkers, and even I cannot look at 200 random bottles and automatically know which is gonna be the best under $20. Given a dizzying array of nondescript choices, I finally settled on something safe — a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Oyster Bay.

We made dinner, had some wine, and everything was more or less going to plan when one of the other guys rolled into the lodge with a little backpack. He pulled out a 2005 Spanish Rioja, uncorked it, and invited everyone over. Turns out that his buddy had been a professional wine critic, and when he passed, the critic left behind ten entire storage units full of wine that various winemakers had sent him to review. Some went to auction, and some went to the family, but a lot just went into a dumpster behind this guy’s house. This Rioja being one that had gone into the dumpster.

Friends, this was a $100 bottle of wine, easy. Aged twenty years, it's also the oldest wine I’ve ever personally partaken. It was amazing.

Rioja finished, the night devolved as first a 2005 California Cab came out, followed by something else that I can’t quite remember. Alas, the Cab had turned, though I still had two glasse. The third bottle proved pretty good but not at the same level as the Rioja.

Outside, it started snowing.

We’d planned to go to bed early. Dear reader, that is in no way what actually transpired.

I awakened in the middle of the night bathed in a cold sweat. My head pounded, as you may well imagine, and my stomach churned. Got some water, fell back asleep, then awakened again at seven. Felt vaguely ill and quite extensively dehydrated. Got up, immediately felt more more unwell, and finally resolved to just vomit a little, spewing forth what can only be called the dregs from the previous night’s adventures.

Literal dregs. From a dumpster Cabernet. How did I drink those?

Why?

Thankfully, two Advil and a cup of coffee set me to rights, followed by some cuddle time with my beloved and some oatmeal. We then packed up, cleaned the lodge a bit, and headed out for Mount Snow around 8:30 am.

View from the lodge window Sunday morning.

It was at this point that I discovered my beloved doesn’t much care for powder skiing. Or, more accurately, she just hasn’t done it very much.. Regardless, it’s quite a bit different than skiing groomed runs at a resort. Which sucks because we had maybe six to eight inches out there, and those are by far my best conditions. But it that kind of snow gets bumped up quickly, and like I said, it then becomes a very different proposition from what you get on a groomed ski run.

I tried to stay patient and cheerful. Sally felt like I was rushing her. She then got frustrated, either with herself or with me, and at length, she convinced me that we should split up and meet back at the summit lodge around noon. I didn’t love that plan. However, I could see that my “support” had become counter-productive. At that point, there was not much to say. I put on The Midnight's Red, White, and Bruised and headed for Sundance, which I love in powder.

Sally quickly got it together without me watching over her, while I just banged some runs as hard as a could. That Midnight album proved perfect for this because it was cheery and upbeat to match the surfy conditions, but it's not remotely aggressive enough to inspire stupid choices. As you might expect, Sally and I were both exhausted by the time we met back up at the summit, but overall, I have to say that we had a great day — though separately.

We skied Super Bowl Sunday on purpose. The mountain got crowded early with all the fresh powder, but the crowds started thinning around 11:00, and by noon we all but had the mountain to ourselves. We met back up at the lodge, had some chilly, then headed out for one last set of runs. Sally and I both train extensively to ski, but navigating that fresh, heavy pow remains a legit athletic event. We took it easy down Cascade to River Run, caught the North Face lift up to SunBrook, banged one last run there, and then rode the Bear Trap lift back up for the run down to the car.

Selfie looking down towards Sundance.

I took arguably my hardest fall of the season at SunBrook’s base, catching an edge on an unlooked-for patch of ice and landing face-first.

SPLAT!

Eh. I rolled through it. No biggie. But it had to have looked spectacular because I wound up in an uncontrollable flat spin facedown in the snow.

After that, we were both more than ready to leave by about 2:00. That got us home in plenty of time to unpack and make dinner before the game.

We’re skiing again on Thursday and Friday this week, if you’re wondering. I already can’t wait. Hopefully the weather will hold up on Thursday morning. Ullr can't seem to decide if we're in for rain, sleet, or snow.

Five Things on a Friday: Catching Up Since 2020

2025-01-31T07:38:00.003-05:00

I have a LOT to do today, friends. But I need to warm my brain up a little before we get into it, and for that, we turn to Five Things. If you're wondering, our last Five Things on a Friday occured on Friday, September 11, 2020.

So yeah, it's been a while. I hope you're all doing well in what very much feels like a world gone mad.

1. I Left Most Social Media Last Week

In the last week, I’ve left Twitter, Instagram, & Netflix. Apart from everything else, I feel like I’m doubling down on my actual life, & it’s a net positive.
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 26, 2025 at 7:22 PM

I don't know if anyone has noticed other than my wife. Sally misses my presence on Instagram because she's on there a lot for her business, and she likes for me to help her boost her posts. I, however, think the change has been good for my mental health, and I'll add that I've read two books since leaving social media and a Hell of a lot more traditional news.

If you're interested, I've gotten way into independent, accredited journalism over the last couple of weeks. There are lots of good reads out there, but my favorite is The Handbasket from Marisa Kabas. I've also started taking The Contrarian via email subscription because that's where Paul Krugman went when he left the NY Times.

Anyway. Find me if you dare on Bluesky or here.

2. Sally & I Are Starting a Podcast

We've talked about this thing for years, but we finally figured out how to do it on a hike through the woods last weekend. I wrote the outline for the first show earlier this week, and we're going to shoot tomorrow.

I'd like to shoot maybe five of these things before we release the first one, hopefully on Valentine's Day. Obviously, I'll let you know when the first episode drops.

3. From the, “Stories I Didn’t Realize Could Be Super-Important” Department…

In a week when AI chipmaker Nvidia suffered the biggest one-day loss of value on record and the Federal Reserve said it was in no hurry to cut rates again, a few gauges underscore markets' vulnerability to big swings reut.rs/3WCoUZN

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— Reuters (@reuters.com) January 31, 2025 at 6:07 AM

I got a little confused last week when folks started saying that the stock market had cracked up because of the Nvidia/DeepSeek news. The S&P 500 looks fine, and speaking personally, so does my personal my portfolio. But apparently there are a bunch of idiots who went super-long on a leveraged basis into the NASDAQ, and if you lived through the late 90s, you already know how that's going, and here we are.

Can a bunch of assholes lose their money without taking the rest of us with them?

In theory, that should be exactly what will happen, at least until the tarrifs hit the greater economy. Granted, this is exactly why I've been investing in bonds for years at a loss.

But you're right to be skeptical. Everybody at Fordham Business School knew that the Housing Market Crisis was coming back in 2006, but somehow it still caught "the Market" and the financial media off-guard, and it therefore took the rest of us down the drain.

I don't honestly know if there's still such a thing as a diversified portfolio, but like I said, I've had quite a bit of money in bonds for quite a long time, so hopefully when the crack-up happens, it won't take my personal family with it.

4. Stratford sells beachfront house seized over unpaid taxes for $555K, records show

This isn't an important story or anything, but look at this house! Single story right on the water built in 1923. This thing could never be built today. They'd put a three-story McMansion on the same piece of property and sell it for $3M.

Which, by the way, is the REAL cause of the housing crisis. There's no money in starter homes for builders, and here we are. Young people can't afford homes.

5. Black Country Communion's "Song of Yesterday"

Black Country Communion’s SONG OF YESTERDAY. Never heard of this band until they popped onto my Spotify “Blues” feed. These guys are incredible. open.spotify.com/track/6aVCLo...

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— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 29, 2025 at 6:49 PM

It strikes me that releasing a blues record — even a GREAT one — is not some kind of get-rich-quick scheme.
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 29, 2025 at 6:51 PM

Two things:

1. The song slaps, obviously.

2. Somebody blocked me yesterday on Bluesky for that second skeet, which is incredible. Black Country Communion is an awesome band with just 83K monthly listeners, and you're telling me that these guys are part of a "get rich quick" scheme?

C'mon. I like the band, seriously, but let's don't play pretend right now.

Consider the Sammy Hagar/Joe Satriani project Chickenfoot by comparison. I really, really liked that band, but NO ONE would consider them commercially successful, and indeed, Hagar's Best of All Worlds Tour plays exactly one Chickenfoot song in their 90+ minute set.

They have 115K monthly listeners. With Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Joe Satriani in the lineup!

Apropos of nothing, but my favorite snowboarding album of all time is the live half of Chickenfoot's Best + Live. It rocks hard enough to make me feel good about myself without getting so heavy that I start making bad decisions out there. Works for everything from warm-up runs to moguls.

That's it, friends. Have a great weekend!

I Still Hate You & Never Want to See You Again

2025-01-21T07:32:00.006-05:00

To that end, I've signed out of X.com & removed the app from my phone and browser favorites. I don't want to formally close my account because I don't want to facilitate someone pretending to be *me*, but I also refuse to be party to anything that's going on over there in any way.

I just can't with a lot of this stuff. I won't.

UPDATE: I've also disconnected & deleted Instagram.

Its not a gaffe. It's back to back, clear as day Nazi salutes. And how does this not make sense? Did we not just watch the campaign Trump ran? Have we all not seen the antisemitism in MAGA? Feels like this is all we should be talking about tomorrow.

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— Chris Murphy (@chrismurphyct.bsky.social) January 20, 2025 at 10:34 PM

If you're wondering how it looked from where I sat yesterday, relatively safe up in the Northeast, this roll-up from Salon did a pretty good job laying it out in straightforward terms.

The truth is that I just don't get you anymore, and our one-time friendship from when we were younger... it feels like maybe the relevancy of this thing has passed. I'll always treasure the times that we had together, and I can accept that it's me and not you. But still. How are we supposed to get along at this point, and why do I always have to be the one to shut up and eat shit?

Plus, I confess that I am losing interest in social media writ-large. Again, this bit comes from that Salon article:

"As tech journalist Ed Zitron wrote in a recent newsletter, companies run by Zuckerberg, Musk, and Bezos have created "the Rot Economy," where "the paying customer" is "a nuisance to be mitigated far more than a participant in an exchange of value." To go on their websites is to be overwhelmed by shady characters trying to drain money from you in unsavory ways, from catfishing accounts to the systematic replacement of name-brand products with knockoffs with names like Jzzzacha or Meamoer. (I made those up, but they could just as easily prove to be real "brands" on Amazon.) Not only do these companies eagerly help con artists find their victims, but, as Zitron documents, these apps have become increasingly unusable "as a means of increasing engagement metrics and revenue." Search engines bury useful results. Social media feeds are full of junk. It's all meant to keep users scrolling, desperately hoping to find what they were looking for, and unable to seek alternatives, due to monopolization."

With that in mind, you probably won't even notice that I've cut you off. Which is fine. As I said, it's not you, it's me.

If you absolutely MUST follow me somewhere, I'll be here, and I'll be on Bluesky. I don't know that I'll post much at either place, but if you're looking, this is where you might find me.

If you're wondering, I have no idea what will happen to As For Football without social media support, but part of me hopes that we get to the point where we can fold it seamlessly. Or maybe I'll walk away and leave it to the other guys. I guess we'll see.

Catching Up with Recent Social Media Threads

2025-01-14T07:39:00.004-05:00

I set a goal for the New Year to spend less time on social media and more time here. It's not that I don't want folks to be able to catch up with what's going on with me and Sally, it's that social media writ-large feels like a dying a medium. I've only ever been on social media to promote my own writing and/or to see pictures of my friends doing awesomely fun stuff, but even with that, it's a little too easy to just pontificate mindlessly on those sites.

Which is dumb. I have a site for that, it's here, and it's actually mine.

So anyway, here are some recent social media posts. I'm posting them here, so that you can catch up if you want to. I've presented these in chronological order.

Upgraded from LinkTree to a Dot Card. Check it out. dot.cards/dannoecabeza

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— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 7, 2025 at 1:26 PM

This next post came last week. While most of the country sat under freezing, blizzardy conditions, the Northeast had seasonal cold, accompanied by high winds. I rode my regular bike commute and skied in those conditions... twice!

Not an ace cycling day in any way. I did not dig it. #BikeCommute #BikeNYC
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 8, 2025 at 4:54 PM

Hannah took this next picture out at Ski Butternut. We had a great day despite it being windy enough that the main lift spent most of the day on Wind Hold.

This selfie is awesome.

Solid day today. Windy but pretty damned good overall.

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— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 9, 2025 at 6:06 PM

Selfie with Zop ('96) up at Okemo under the same conditions. But an AWESOME ski day nonetheless.

Day Two. Different buddy. Different mountain.

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— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 10, 2025 at 8:46 PM

This one came earlier this week. Temps have moderated, but more to the point, it's MUCH less windy.

Decently day on the bike this morning, especially compared to last week’s frozen wind storm. Felt good out there. #BikeCommute #BikeNYC
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 7:46 AM

Finally, there's this:

Google has correctly intuited that I am an older guy who’s way into fitness. They then used this data to push an endless stream of quack fitness “hacks” into my YouTube feed. How does this make sense? Don’t you push quack fitness hacks on folks who *don’t* know anything about fitness?
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 8:54 AM

Folks who actually *know* fitness should know better, right? Like, I’m not mad that Insta shows me an endless stream of ski gear. I like skiing & frequently price stuff that’s on sale just to get a sense of the market. But “Try this hack to lose your belly fat”? Really? I swim 10 miles/week.
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 8:54 AM

I’ve started blocking these ads just because they’re so annoying. But I legitimately think there’s an endless supply of them.
— Danno E. Cabeza (@dannoecabeza.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 8:55 AM

If you're wondering, Google has since stopped showing me these ads. So... yay?

Three cheers for cookie tracking, I guess.