I've been busier than a fly laying turds recently and realized that this weekend is actually good 'ol Memorial Day in the US of A.
Normally, I keep track of these holidays by someone on my team reminding me…but I guess they're actually working so hardly lately they forgot too.
(That, and I fired my Assistant earlier this year.)
And then, my final way of remembering, was to check the Formula 1 calendar.
So I used to look forward to the big triple header.
Formula 1 Monaco GP, Indy 500, and Coca-Cola 600…all in the same day.
And because I'm in Europe I usually would watch F1 first as it's 2pm my time…so I relied on that calendar to remind me, except this year…the Monaco Grand Prix is…June 7th.
Not May 24th.
And it kind of got me thinking.
Good things always come to an end and it's really unfortunate.
My iPhone is two years old and the battery barely lasts 6 hours.
Granted, I'm using AI to super compute and do 1 month of work in 1 day (video on that here) — but still. The product is not as good as it used to be.
I remember my old iPhone 7 Max. White.
(They don't ever seem to make just a white one anymore do they? Add it to the list of my complaining.).
That monster would last for two whole days of Tinder-swiping and messaging and have plenty of gas in the tank. Now the 15 gives me 6 hours. I'll probably have to "force upgrade" to a new one soon.
Some of the software I used to love — bloated, overworked pieces of crap now. Products I used to buy at the store have gone downhill. The quality of food overall has gone downhill. NBA playoff basketball used to be amazing and now includes more flopping than you see at the Seattle fish market.
Everything just gets a little worse every year and nobody seems to care.
Now look, some things are genuinely better than they used to be. I'm not sitting here as the old man screeching "back in my day…"
But this — the triple header — this was an iconic tradition.
Monaco, Indy, Coca-Cola 600, all on the same day.
It's been like that for my entire life. Since before I was born.
I don't see who benefits from splitting it up. Who asked for this? Who sat in a room and said:
"You know what would be better? If we took the one day a year where 3 LEGENDARY races happen simultaneously and just…didn't."
Instead one showcasing the most prestigious and rich city in all of Europe and showing America how much better the Europeans are, they instead are showing off…Canada, which does nothing better than the US other than poutine.
To each their own, I guess.
And I'm genuinely sad to see it go.
By the way.
In this email I somehow started with motorsports, went to iPhones, Tinder, the NBA, Seattle fish market, to trying to ignite a brawl across countries and continents.
That's the concept I call "threading", and it's in Chapter 6 of my book, "10,000 Interviews":