Just The Sides #2
Just Another Round Up of The Wild World We're Living In.
The other day, I was walking down the street wearing my Just The Sandwich merch, and boy, did I look cool. Somebody walked over asked me about this here blog out of curiosity. Bringing up the site on their phone, they brought up the first Just The Sides, post at random. Son on this fine weekend morning, I have the urge to run it back. Hit the music!
The Pope Hat Is Real
The current Pope and American-born Leo XIV is a diehard Chicago White Sox fan. Which is wild because to me growing the Pope seemed so…I dunno, otherworldly. That would be like finding out the Dalai Lama had a favorite Street Fighter character. Anyway, the White Sox decided to pay tribute to this by releasing a “limited edition Pope Hat.” Observe:
I can’t tell if its sacrilegious, or a well-put together miter with a design that screams “I hope Vatican City sells Deep Dish Pizza,” but it’s a very real thing. And there were so many people who were like “Heck Yeah!” to this, they are giving it away to everyone!
…so sayeth The Lord.
Sora AI Sunset Date Confirmed
OpenAI—You know, the ChatGPT guys, announced that their AI generation app, Sora, is coming to an end, with April 26th, 2026, being the final day. Sora was cool in that if you gave it a text description, it would generate a video for you. They had safeguards against generating violent or sexual images, so of course, there were whole subreddits about how to describe things to get around those fail-safes. Look, AI isn’t going anywhere, but Sora and apps like it (her?) were typically used as Exhibit A as to why artificial intelligence was a bad idea. Not me, though. I exclusively used Sora to generate failed TV Show premises. Killing time at night before going to bed could never be a “bad idea.” Here’s one of my gems
Or this one:
I kind of feel guilty, as the app allegedly cost millions of dollars a day to run. But on the other hand, shopping carts!
Dodgers Aiming To Be Least Likable Team Ever
Whether or not you believe the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers are killing baseball (they are), I stand to believe that they are in the hunt for one of the most unlikable teams ever. I’m still kind of miffed about the saga of Errol Segal. Segal was a fifty-year season ticketholder to Dodgertown, and he says he rarely missed games. The LA Dodgers informed Segal that they were no longer printing his tickets and that he would need a smartphone (and app) to retrieve digital entry to games. Segal is 81 years old:
I don’t know if you caught that, but it used to cost him an ADDITIONAL $600 to have those tickets printed! Just ridiculous.
Hey, tech never stops, and the whole world has gone digital. But in this instance, they could have grandfathered (heh) this guy in and printed his tickets. In fact, if the team were smart, they could’ve leaned in and made Segal an example that both Dodgers fandom is for everybody AND that they have this classic old-timey throwback feel while being a modern franchise.
Not sure why I’m giving the Dodgers ideas, though. It’s not like they are going broke any time soon.
As a parting shot, let me get you one more AI-generated failed TV show:
Heh heh heh, nice.