It wasn't intended to be a trilogy. The publisher made Tolkien split it up. He was totally against it. IIRC, he didn't even name the separate books.

Newsflash: A fictional ad agency didn’t come up with “I’d like to give the world a Coke” either. They repurposed all kinds of old ads in service to the show.

Baum didn’t really write an allegory - historian Henry Littlefield made those connections in the 1960s way after the fact. There’s zero evidence to support the idea that Baum was into political commentary.

Came here to say something similar... Yes, Lauren, it is just you. Everybody on the planet not from Michigan justifiably hates Michigan. And Ann Arbor is a whore.

All y’all are missing Darlene Love and “Christmas Baby Please Come Home,” one of the great Christmas songs of all time. Every generation seems to produce at least one classic. Except millennials, of course. Fuck them and their non-holiday cheer avocado toast.

Additionally, thank their grandparents (many of whom, I’m sure, are still alive and voted today) and those who fought to get the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed.

Math is evil, so your apparent inability to do it earns you points towards the Good Place in my book...

So you want to start a crusade to stop a practice that goes back almost two THOUSAND years via a blog read by maybe, what, a couple hundred people?

It wasn’t the assistants - that’s the explanation Bielema made up for why he left.

Could we maybe stop with the bullshit “Wisconsin doesn’t pay their assistants” angle?

I don’t know, man, the Aquarium for my family and me was just kind of OK. Cool set up, and the penguins and Belugas were cool, but after a few hours we were kind of just done. And 30 bucks + a pop! Newport, Atlanta, and even Cincinnati have better aquariums. OK, maybe not Cincy, but it was comparable.

The Field Museum is awesome, and well worth the price of admission. The Shedd Aquarium is, um, neat. And way too expensive.

Here’s my favorite example of something you don’t get from the TV replay. In 2010, Wisconsin’s David Gilreath returned the opening kick for a TD against OSU. The crowd was so loud that the camera’s microphone couldn’t handle it:

Gruff McTrollerstein

80%?? Uh, no. There were a lot of Cubs fans, sure, but more like 50-50. Watch the Shaw HR replay and listen. 80% - c’mon, man.

Another important tip is to break the square cheese slice in half and place it over the burger in a cross. This way, you get double cheese on top of the burger and don’t waste the corners of the cheese on the bun away from the burger.

So that went well...

11. Kubb is a game where you throw a short stick to knock over “pins” set up in the lawn. I played it for the first time last year - easy to learn, tons of fun, and most importantly, you can hold your beer while you play it.