Some Distractions, Alternatively Titled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet"

We've had some excellent serious writing here of late. I, of course, am neither excellent nor serious. Rather than let the state of our democracy drive me insane, or succumb to my cycle of bitterness, I find diversions to preoccupy my brain. Here's some stuff for you to try.

I've spilled many pixels here before about bringatrailer.com. Check it out when the world's bringing you down. There's an almost-perfect (I'd prefer Laguna blue) Honda S2000 around the corner from me. Find a convertible and buy it. Then drive it with the top down as much as possible. Convertibles make people happy. There's a good looking Mini up for auction right now too.

Another cool car site is petrolicious.com. Not only are the authors into cars, they're into photography and design in general. They product tremendous pictorals and even more magnificent videos. Ever wonder why I lust after Alfa Romeos, or why I'm always trying to figure out how to pay my mortgage, feed my family, save for zkids' college, and buy a Giulia Quadrifoglio? Watch this and make sure the volume is up:



Ever heard of a Porsche 959 and wondered why it's such a big deal? Watch this:



If you spend enough time on petrolicious you'll probably see an article or two about watches, which might lead you to hodinkee.com. I'm not saying that I've become a watch collector or that I have an even halfway decent understanding of how watches work, but if I have 10 minutes to kill I'd rather read about some crazy $100,000 watch than a 2000-word think-piece about Trump's latest tweet.

I also stream the daylights out of ... electrons? I don't know what exactly comes through the stream but it winds up on my TV all the time. If you haven't watched Narcos on Netflix stop everything and watch it. It's the best show on TV now, better than whatever Game of Thrones became last season. I love this show so much I had a fantasy team named Plata o Plomo. It has Pachanga from Carlito's Way and the Red Viper from Game of Thrones. It's superbly done. Here's a trailer.



When you're done with that watch El Chapo. It's Univision's answer to Narcos and it's also on Netflix. It isn't quite as good as Narcos but after Narcos you need to keep watching Latin American drug lords do preposterous drug lord stuff. As opposed to whatever preposterous stuff our nation's leaders are doing.

And, of course, Twin Peaks. At a minimum watch season 1, the last three episodes of season 2, and season 3. Or just watch season 3 episode 8 over and over and over again.

I don't read as much as I used to or as much as I'd like, and when I do read I'm not overly confident in my abilities to write about it given we have Dave the polymath/English teacher/devourer of libraries writing in this space. That said, my approach is to pick an author and dive in. I can't say enough good things about John Updike. The Henry Bech books are a good place to start as they're pretty light. Then try the Rabbit Angstrom books--they're heavier. Tom Robbins is fun. David Quammen and Jared Diamond make science and natural history interesting and accessible. I'm currently trying to figure out Philip Roth. All are much more fun and enlightening than any of Devin Nunes' memos.

Things you should avoid: Facebook, Twitter, really anything that allows any moron with internet access to draft an overly reductive hot take and blast it to thousands of people in a matter of seconds. That shit won't make you happier. Or curate those feeds carefully.