Last Thursday, I was on a date with my husband at Middle Child Clubhouse, and in between bites of tricked out latkes and sips of a cheeky “vodka cran” made with smoked black tea and beets, I was pleasantly distracted by a very adorable, bald baby being passed around the booth behind us. It reminded me of a time in my life, more than a decade ago, when we would often bring our first daughter Benny out to eat in our Brooklyn neighborhood.

Modern board games are great, but they are not cheap. In some ways it's a miracle of global supply chains that they don’t cost even more than they do - shipping pallets of big, heavy boxes all over the world, filled with hundreds of perfectly-machined and printed components is not an easy business to be in.  Still, when “board game curious” audiences see that the ever-popular Gloomhaven is $100, the well-liked Pandemic Legacy is $60, and buzzy Terraforming Mars is $55, it may turn them off from the hobby entirely.

If you’re new here, welcome! To ensure you never miss an issue of The Weekly Dirt, click here to subscribe 👇 Hi, guys! I’ve collected a lot of information about plants over the years, and it occurs to me that some of the facts floating around in my brain aren’t neces… ncG1vNJzZmiilajAqq%2FAnZimoZGjvG%2B%2F1JuqrZmToHuku8xop2hqYGKzor%2FCoqWarJmjtG64yK2rpZ1doLuww81mnpqqlJq7qrrG

In keeping with how generally weird these times are that we live in, viewers taking comfort in horror films and TV shows has been a distinctive coping mechanism during the pandemic, when we’re doing our best to stay home. Of course, the last four years of horror under Trump have primed us for this approach to survival, and filmmakers are responding with a flurry of new horror, to the extent that it’s almost, well, too many horror films.

“It’s a penalty to Arsenal! Penalty… wait a moment, there’s a VAR check in progress. They’re checking for offside in the move leading to the penalty… waiting for the decision… still waiting… (crowd noises in the background) the fans are getting annoyed… waiting… OK, no offside so the penalty kick can now be taken (ironic cheering from fans in the background)…” I heard this radio commentary a couple of weeks ago.