Top-5 Mac Musings – September 12, 2025

BE BRIEF, BROTHER
Odds are good you’ve been “strongly encouraged” to attend a banquet celebrating something. These banquets usually feature a busy and overpriced no-host bar, a curiously presented salad and some sort of entree usually featuring rubber chicken. 

This is simply the appetizer for the main course: speeches. Usually multiple speeches. Some long, some interminable and some can be timed with sundials.

In a world full of longwinded presentations and speeches and endless tangents, I urge you: be bold, be special, but most importantly, distinguish yourself by being brief.

STORY TIME
There I was during awards banquet season. When working in collegiate athletics late-April to early June in prime team banquet season as coaches, student-athletes and fans converge to have a last supper with teammates before scattering for summer break. 

This particular one, celebrating the USF Hall of Fame, was a bit different. Golden State Warriors legend Al Attles, the head coach of the 1975 NBA Champs, was in attendance. It was a great night with about as much star power as USF’s athletic illuminati could produce. The drinks were free (!!), the chicken had taste and the first two speeches were short-ish.

This did not last. The next two speeches were… long. One was made by a softball player who I think may have mentioned in detail every batter she faced. Unfortunately she pitched for three years.

At long last the final speaker approached the platform, but not before being intercepted by Al Attles. When longtime coach Jim Brovelli took the microphone he immediately shared Attles’ “Three B’s”: Be brief, Brother. Brovelli was up to the challenge and powered through a three minute speech and took a bow.

I often think of this moment. There are times I have gone on meeting-extending tangents. Many more have been stopped cold by remembering Attles’ “Three B’s”.

You can be anyone you want to be so be the person responsible for ending the meeting early.

CONFESSION TIME
It is 9 p.m. PT as I write this. I have started more tasks than I have completed. This continues to rankle me, but I made the decision I was going to finish a blog post today. I literally had no idea what I was going to write until I opened this fresh google doc page at 8:58 p.m. 

My three promises: 1.) I will finish this. 2.) I will be brief. 3.) There will be no refunds.

Mac Musings for Friday, September 12.

1. Every couple of years I rediscover Tang. My handheld electric mixer just does an amazing job of making it froth and perfectly blended.
2. I am about two weeks away from closing the latest Tang chapter. My counter is getting gritty and a bit sticky. Now I remember…
3. After about 30 seconds of reflection I think my favorite Martian is The Great Gazoo as seen on the animated hit The Flintstones.
4. Screw it… my five favorite space cowboys, in no particular order:
   • Han Solo – If he’s not the top galactic smuggler of all-time, your list is wrong.
   • Jean-Luc Picard – Engage!
   • Captain Kirk – Overacting made easy.
   • Luke Skywalker – Watch that crossfire, boys.
   • Lt. Starbuck – Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica
5. Deep down, I think math would have made more sense if my folks would have given me that Casio calculator watch I asked for when I was 11 years old. I need to remind my dad again this Christmas.

Three Reflections on September 11 – 24 Years Later

1. I struggled to find words yesterday capable of corralling my feelings on the 24th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11.
2. I thought about writing a brief column centered on Alan Jackson’s haunting song “Where were you when the world stopped turning”? I just could not get it done. The last week has been, by almost any metric, a bad one for the entire country. 
3. What I respect most about Jackson’s song is it captured a brief window of time when it felt like we were really and truly together. It seems like that was eons ago and that makes me sad.

Now Watching: National Treasure, starring Nic Cage

NO CONTEXT GIF

QUOTABLE