PicoBlog

Ben McKenzie is someone who needs no introduction, an actor known for his roles on The O.C., Southland, and Gotham. But what you may not know is that McKenzie is also, based on years of research, an outspoken critic of cyptocurrency. In July of this year, he published Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud along with his co-author, journalist Jacob Silverman. And most recently, he’s been in federal court in New York for much of the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted on Thursday of fraud for stealing at least $10 billion from customers and investors in his business FTX.
The best compliment I can give Emilie Sommer is that when she recommends me a book, I immediately read it. I’m actually reading one of her recommendations, We Keep the Dead Close, a book that’s part memoir, part true crime, right now. Emilie is a book buyer at East City Bookshop, my neighborhood bookstore. Yes, that’s right, she buys books for a living. She also runs the store’s new fiction book club and a monthly subscription service, appropriately named Emilie’s Pick.
Tonight, a really special treat. One week from today, Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the Special Counsel’s classified documents prosecution against Donald Trump and co-defendants, will hold a hearing on one of Trump’s motions to dismiss the case. It’s an intricate legal argument about the constitutionality of appointing a special counsel that results in the allegation that Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, so the entire prosecution is faulty.
Fortune magazine interviewed me on advice for Bill Gates after he shared his resume on LinkedIn: Fortune Magazine: Bill Gates’ mistakes to avoid Now the one-time richest man in the world doesn’t need my resume advice any more than Novak Djokovic needs my tennis lessons. But the lessons to be learned from his 1974 resume are relevant to you today. By the way, if you need a new resume you can get one written free, tips appreciated, at Leet Resumes.
1× 0:00 -17:43 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.When I lived in Knoxville, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was a 45-minute drive from my apartment. I worked at a television network all week and soon as 5PM on a Friday hit, I loaded my huskies into my Subaru forester, and we drove east to the park with wolves’ heads hanging out the window and the soundtrack to Cold Mountain blasting.
Welcome to Flashlight & A Biscuit, my Southern sports/culture/food offshoot of my work at Yahoo Sports. Thanks for reading, and why not subscribe below? It’s free and all. You’re driving alone down a two-lane county highway. It’s late. Your air conditioning is blowing at full blast, but it’s helpless against the thick heat and humidity of a South Carolina July. Black pines loom high alongside the road. Your fragile headlights trace cracked pavement and sandy soil alongside it.
When it comes to war films, I often feel like the kid in "The Princess Bride," his little face screwed up into a perpetual pout -- "They're kissing again." I don't know why Golden Age Hollywood felt like it couldn't make a war picture without ladling in a huge dollop of gooey romance. Particularly in the 1950s and thereafter. In the years immediately after World War II, there were some great, gritty dramas that focused solely on the combat and existential peril of the soldiers -- like the wonderful and under-appreciated "
(Listen to the radio version here.) When I visited the Helen and Allan Cruickshank Sanctuary last month, a conspicuous sign in the parking area warned us not to feed the scrub jays, warning that it is illegal, and also that “non-natural foods can affect their health.” In the past decade, warnings like this have popped up in many places in Florida where I see scrub-jays, but feeding them wasn’t an issue when I added the species to my life list in 1999 at Lake Kissimmee State Park.
Unbeknownst to anyone who was watching the game on a mid-November night, the fate of this year’s College Football Playoff and the 2023 college football season as a whole was decided with 1:57 left in the first quarter of a game in which Florida State paid North Alabama $400,000 for a lopsided win. On a 1st-and-10 play, Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis scampered for a 16-yard gain, but before the play ended, his leg was rolled on and twisted by the defensive player who tackled him, resulting in one of those grotesque injuries where you know the severity of it simply by looking at its end result.