Watch Grid: Broken and full of wonders

It's a great weekend for exploring.

First, here’s some stuff you might scan past, since it’s mostly the same as last week.

Since I’ve been sharing the College Football Watch Grid for free each week over the last few years, some people have kindly asked how they can tip. Here’s the answer:

• My debut novel is on its way, with orders hopefully available during football season. I’ll share much more ASAP, but for now, that math is: I send you 15+ weekend guides, and you order a ~$15 book that’d be worth it even if I hadn’t.

• To be extra certain you don’t miss it, sign up for updates from Shutdown Fullbooks, the internet’s only publisher. (It’ll also be available via Amazon, your local book shop, and wherever else.)

A shorter writeup this week, for two reasons.

One:

College football seasons typically share a common overall rhythm: A sprawling Week 1, a pretty big Week 2, and a couple weeks of ehh before business picks up rapidly. Well, here’s some ehh. Or so it seems!!

Actually, no. I can’t lie to you. There’s a lot of ehh. The average point spread in this week’s games involving ranked teams is 24.2 — and that’s with most FBS-vs.-FCS games not even having lines yet.

So while I could rattle off all the reasons I find Sacramento State-Stanford interesting, let’s just say lots of weird stuff will emerge from what looks like desolation.

Two:

I’ve been writing these on Wednesday nights, but this time, I played Starfield instead.

It’s a mess. Every menu was designed by someone who hates me personally, bugs have included my character getting stranded forever on a cruise ship I fully controlled, and even while playing both sides of a cops-vs.-pirates war, I never felt like any of my choices had costs. As a Fallout veteran, I thought I was prepared for the full Bethesda experience (insert “damn bitch, you live like this?” meme), but apparently not.

Anyway, my slick-talking diplomat character’s now capable of convincing enemies to shoot each other, so we’re gonna do that during Vikings-Eagles. Every ten feet, someone involves us in a caper that might end up six beautiful solar systems away, where a lonely space captain sings a star-sea shanty, a piece of perfection plucked from a dump.

This game objectively sucks, and I love it. Week 3 college football! Your homework: Watch at least one game being played in a stadium you’ve never seen before.

• One more time, that’s Shutdown Fullbooks. I’ve started receiving blurbs from unfathomably intelligent/attractive writers, and here’s a fun fact: So far, the first adjective in each blurb is “funny.” There you have it. I wrote a book that’s funny. It’s a lot of other things too.