Joe Mazzulla Wins a Stupid Award ∞

It may be more precise to refer to it as “stupidly named”.

Wednesday, May 27th, 2026

Back in March, Joe Mazzulla had some unkind words for the NBA’s “Coach of the Year” award, referring to it as “stupid”. That remark came despite his being a frontrunner for the award. Sure enough, this week, he won it.

Though his manner is brusque, his reasoning is sound:

[Mazzulla] thinks it should be more of a “coaching staff of the year” than a “coach of the year” award, and that is a noble approach. He repeated that during Tuesday night’s announcement of his win, beginning his remarks on NBC by thanking those who made it possible.

“The long nights, the trips, game plans, the video guys that are clipping up the film and coding it, the assistants who are putting in the game plan, I think there’s so much that goes into winning one game,” Mazzulla said. “It starts with the players, but it goes to our staff. I feel bad that they’re not here — but forever indebted to the guys that we have that give up time with their families and their time to give us a chance to win every day.”

Congratulations to Mazzulla, and all the Celtics staff, on winning this stupid award.

Previously in Joe Mazzulla: Inspiring Words

Joey Chestnut Will Defend His Title While on Probation ∞

The judge gave him permission to travel outside the state.

Tuesday, May 26th, 2026

Despite a bit of legal trouble in the Hoosier state, World champion gurgitator Joey Chestnut will be able to compete in this year’s 4th of July hot dog eating contest.

If you’re keeping score, Major League Eating is OK with some light battery, but is not OK with endorsing a competing hot dog product.

Eat More Greens ∞

I’ll stick with mint chocolate chip, thank you.

Monday, May 25th, 2026

I scream, you scream, we all scream because someone tried to get us to eat asparagus ice cream.

Kars 4 Near-Adults To Go To Israel ∞

It’s the anthem of The Bad Place, and rightly so.

Friday, May 22nd, 2026

If you’ve ever been unfortunate to hear “Kars4Kids” jingle, it’s probably playing in your head right now. I’m sorry for that. If you’re in California, though, you might be hearing less of the jingle for at least a little bit. Bruce Puterbaugh brought suit against the organization for deceptive advertising, and won. Kars4Kids now has 30 days to amend the ad, likely by adding disclaimers, or stop airing it.

Despite the legal victory, the case feels rather weak. But anything that reduces the amount of play that awful jingle gets is a win.

Don’t miss KarsforKidsJingle.com, either, which rather bizarrely catalogs all sorts of (almost entirely negative!) mentions and references to the song.

Farewell to Stephen Colbert ∞

Another thing to wish had not happened, but to try to love.

Thursday, May 21st, 2026

Tonight, the final episode of “The Late Show”, the pioneering late-night talk show started by David Letterman in 1993 and hosted by Stephen Colbert since 2015, will air. While CBS has claimed that financial reasons led them to end the franchise, the circumstances surrounding that cancellation are highly questionable.

The network says it decided to end “The Late Show” because it was losing at least $40 million a year. Sounds credible, doesn’t it? Maybe not. Many insiders — including Mr. Colbert’s friend and direct competitor, Jimmy Kimmel — have noted that CBS’s calculation left out some key factors. It did not include the effect of Mr. Colbert’s star presence on the fees CBS is able to command from local affiliate stations. It shrugged off the value the network has gained from sending stars of its series onto the show for promotion. It ignored Mr. Colbert’s role in bringing viewers to those affiliates’ 11 p.m. news shows, in anticipation of the new “Late Show” episode that would air right after.

Whatever the case may be, for the first time in more than two decades, late-night programming won’t include Stephen Colbert. That loss is worth recognizing.

The network that once had the backbone to air Edward R. Murrow taking on Sen. Joe McCarthy has decided that Colbert — one of the sharpest and most honest voices in American media — is no longer worth the trouble.

What’s being lost is not simply a talk show. It is something older and more important.

Though late-night television was seldom part of my routine, I frequently enjoyed watching clips of Colbert in the days after they aired. I’ll miss that, but I’ll look forward to what he does next.

Previously in Stephen Colbert: “I Love the Thing That I Most Wish Had Not Happened”

“Wade Mode” Is Not “Swim Mode” ∞

Oh Jimmy Jack, what have you done?

Wednesday, May 20th, 2026

Even in Texas, you can’t just dump your garbage in the lake.

A Tesla CyberTruck drowned in the water
[Photo credit: Grapevine Police Department]

The local authorities reported that the driver, Jimmy Jack McDaniel, was arrested on charges of “Operation of Vehicle in Closed Section of Park/Lake and numerous water safety equipment violations”.

Goodhart’s Law in Action ∞

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Tuesday, May 19th, 2026

Amazon has introduced targets requiring their developer workforce to use A.I. tools, and tracking usage on internal leaderboards. The fine readers of One Foot Tsunami can surely guess what happened next:

Amazon employees are using an internal AI tool to run unnecessary, low-value tasks — not because the work needs doing, but because the activity inflates their scores on a company leaderboard tracking artificial intelligence usage.

Yes, workers started tokenmaxxing.

Previously in -maxxing: At Least AC/DC Would Be Proud

He Built This City ∞

It is unknown if he did so on rock and roll.

Monday, May 18th, 2026

Last September, I linked to Joseph Macken’s impressive New York City model. WBUR now has a brief interview with Macken, as his work has gone on display at the Museum of the City of New York. I hope to get a chance to see it in person.

Black & White Snacks ∞

That poor hat-and-sash-wearing potato got let go.

Friday, May 15th, 2026

The war in Iran has apparently disrupted the supply of printing inks in Japan. As a result, Calbee snack packages are losing their color. The difference is stark:

Calbee snacks in color, and black and white

Those are perhaps not the most appetizing bag of chips I’ve ever seen. Still, they do look sort of cool, in a bizarre way.

Quick and Creepy

If you read this post too, Sid, don’t email me about it.

Thursday, May 14th, 2026

Just before 9 AM yesterday, I posted about Dawn Zuidgeest-Craft, the septuagenarian resident. Approximately 90 minutes later, I received an email to my work account with the subject line “if Dawn can be a doctor at 72- it’s never too late for anything”. I was initially confused as to what was happening. When I opened the email, however, I saw that it was simply spam. Impressively well-targeted spam, but spam nonetheless:

An email message readingf “If Dawn Zuidgeest-Craft can become a doctor at 72, it's never too late to evaluate Deel as your payroll provider. Deel handles payroll, compliance, benefits all from one platform. Curious, do you have a payroll provider right now or is the process handled manually? ”
As I know the impact an uncommon last name can have, I’ve lightly censored the above email.

I occasionally mention my day job on here, but One Foot Tsunami and Rogue Amoeba are really quite distinct entities. They do not overlap. Attempting to leverage a cursory glance at my humor website to get my company as a payroll client is at best gross, and at worst creepy. Don’t do this.

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