06SEP2026: The Digital Watch Is Younger Than You Think
It’s been quite a busy few months, both inside and outside The Lab. A couple of surgeries for me and sickness in the family, all while navigating elderly parents. Something had to take a break, and it was this email. So we’re back with a fun newsletter to kick off the new season we’re stepping into. It’s fall, and we’ve hit the “brrr” months, as my daughter likes to say. 😀
Articles
The Digital Watch Is Younger Than You Think
The guy who invented the digital watch died a few weeks ago at 95. I assumed digital watches had been around much longer. The first one cost $2,100, and I probably would have bought it. My wife would have killed me.
A Whole Lot of Fun
I grew up in big cities, but my parents moved me to a town of 4,800 people in Oklahoma. Thirty-something years later, I'm sitting on a lake, thinking they probably did me a favor.
We Grabbed the Wrong Tool Off the Shelf
I'm an agreeable person. I like being liked, and I've gotten really good at reading the room and giving it what it needs to keep things running smoothly. A quiet, agreeable room can feel like the fruit of self-control, and sometimes it is. But sometimes it's self-betrayal with a holier name.
The Dink (2026)
⭐⭐⭐ A doctor prescribes pickleball to a washed-up athlete, and somehow there's a real movie spliced into the goofiness. Worth a no-phone watch.
Fun Web Throwback - Check-Ins
In 2007, I was invited to a party at the OKC Co-working Cooperative. A fledgling company called Gowalla was there to pitch their brand new check-in app. It's dead. Mine is alive.
Link Blog
Here is my summer on the internet, all in one breath. A dog ate 2.4 pounds of gummy worms and ended up at the emergency clinic. An Iowa man is still driving a truck at 93, five million miles in. A family in Idaho took the world record for Hungry Hungry Hippos, which is not the kind of game night my family runs, but I respect it. There is an actual World Santa Congress, which is excellent news for a guy who starts the Christmas playlist in July. And a crowd honored an artist by spreading peanut butter and jelly on a floor. I clicked all of it on purpose.
The nerd shelf was busy too. Casio put out a ring that looks like a G-Shock and I laughed out loud. My son sent me the story of the actual moth that gave us the word bug. Dungeon Crawler Carl is getting a show, and Princess Donut's audiobook voice is coming with it. And I have binged more Howtown than I want to admit.
The rest of what I saved this summer is on the link blog.
Photos
The Cone of Shame
Fresh pages
Page edits do not show up in RSS, so here's what changed on the site itself since the last issue:
That is the catch-up from the blog. Reply to this email anytime, or read everything and manage your subscription at https://rexbarrett.com/subscribe.