So it's been a month since my wife called me crying telling me they fired her. It's also been a month since within minutes of that phone call, one of the CEO's (they had two) of the company I was working for called me to tell me I was fired as well. The kicker in all of this was my wife and I were working for the same company. Now they didn't use the term "fired" - in fact I can't really remember what term they used but given that I had to have the exact same type of conversation with employees in the past, all that crossed my mind was, "Oooooh, you're about to fire me". This was supposed to be a product-led company and they had just fired the head of product and as I would find out, the rest of my team as well. "Confusion" only begins to describe the situation as this decision was not because of my performance and we were supposed to be fine financially, so it also wasn't about money - so, yeah. With a wife, kids, and a mortgage, the confusion slowly moved towards action and looking at what's next. But before I could really start to hone in on what was next, I needed to let the shock go through my system. And while being the eternal optimist I am, the bright side to all of this was I could let the shock do whatever it was going to do while I enjoyed watching the beginning of the World Cup uninterrupted everyday.

And so, while sitting on my couch doom scrolling at 10 or 11 something in the morning in a completely quiet house (don't even try and ask me what day of the week it was), I realized a few things:

• I really didn't want to work for people anymore that were trying to eventually "figure it out"

• I had learned my lesson in the past and thankfully this time (oh, this wasn't my first rodeo being packaged out) had enough saved up to carry our family for the better part of next year

• I really needed to start something for myself, again

Dads + Culture = Dulture

The one thing I have always fallen back on is writing. Since I was 17 I always turned to writing - Geocities, Xanga, Livejournal, MySpace, Medium, MSN Messenger, poetry, script writing, you name it, I wrote it. Cue the idea of this newsletter being born. I realized a newsletter is the perfect medium of combining all the things I used to write about, blended with the new things I want to write about, from a the point of view I've always wanted to convey - a dad of 3 who is still as obsessed with music, sports, video games, and culture at 38 as he was when he was 18.

Welcome to Dulture

Expect this body of masterfully written work to be a dad's take on what's going on in what interests me most across tech, business, sports, fashion, food, and any other random things that I come across on the internet.

That Chat GPT Thing

If you pay attention to tech at all then you already know what Chat GPT is. But for those of you who don't, basically a company called Open AI, who is known for their R&D in the AI space, created this exceptionally impressive chatbot. The reason why it's so rad is because the thing actually returns legit information with very minimal context. But if you decide to give it specific context, it will blow your mind. This kind of AI is what you would expect from your smart home devices instead of getting "I'm sorry, I don't understand" whenever you say "Hey Google, why are you built within a trillion dollar company and you SUCK?"

My lil parenting sidekick

Ghostwriting with the best of 'em

A very late review of the World Cup final

So I was at a kid's birthday party wearing France's navy kit when a dad came up to me and said, "So what do you think with Varane out?" To which I replied in my mind, Who the fuck is that? But what I really said was, "Oh, um, he'll be okay for the World Cup though right?" To which the dad responded, "You know who I'm talking about right?" "Oh yeah, of course, yes!" *quickly goes to see if my kid is ready to leave the party yet*  

The truth is I like to collect soccer jerseys like the homies in the hood used to collect over sized basketball jerseys with the matching New Era fitted in the early 2000's - you know who you are! But I'm also a Nike wh*re so lately the jerseys tend to only be ones produced by Nike although I am proud to say I have the jersey of this man in his last World Cup. But that's all I do with soccer.

You know who you are

I used to be a hardcore United fan (I think that's what their supporters call them) but then I got a job, had a family, and had no time for early morning soccer games on TV. But soccer jerseys are functional. You want to look stylish, sporty, and feel comfortable, especially in the summer - put on a nice kit with minimal design. See the French national team's kit below - you can rock that with a pair of golf shorts and hit bbq season in style.

Oh right - the actual WC final. Listen, I had my (theoretical) money on France given that nobody in the world can stop Mbappe right now and it almost looked like Mbappe was going to single handedly deliver the cup to the French. But I'm happy to see Messi get what he deserves given we'll most likely never see him in an international tournament again. Now perhaps the crowds will die down and he can live a normal life.

It's Beginning to look a lot like Drinkmas

When you think of the holiday season what do you think of? Psh - drinking of course! Why else do you take time off from work? How else do you tolerate being around your family? What else gives you an excuse to go buy those holiday packs of with the fancy glass.

Last year I bought a bottle of Suntory Roku Gin. The last time I had purchased a bottle of gin was for a party I was having in my basement while my kids slept at my parent's house. Then my mom bought a golden retriever and my 8 yr old discovered her eyes turn into that frog meme from her allergies every time we go over - sleeping over at the grandparent's house isn't even a thought now. Suffice to say I haven't thrown a party in the basement since. That said ,my wife and I still play 1v1 battle shots in the basement and this is one spirit I would not include in the roster of shots - it's too damn good for the poison we shoot while we talk trash to each other. I drink Roku with lime Bubly.

I'm not a gin connoisseur, but...

The Suntory gin got me into trying other gins and so the current bottle I'm on is The Botanist. Now again, I'm not even close to being a connoisseur of gins but with the right mix, gin can be so refreshing, and I love this gin. I mix this with lime Bubly (because I'm not a connoisseur!) and it's such a good flavour combo. What got me into drinking gin, you might ask? Truthfully, I was getting tired of beer. The bloated feeling, the stupid gut creation from the empty calories and carbs, and I just wanted to have another drink I could enjoy while I played Warzone with my friends during the lockdowns. If you have yet to venture into anything beyond beer/wine and the typical vodka and tequilas (read: you're 35 and think you're still in college), try these gins, they're super smooth and go with any mixer of your choice.

I picked up the SHOE OF THE YEAR recently

There's a fun story behind these shoes that involves my wife and I watching and pausing a YouTube video over and over again inspecting these shoes. More on that in the next issue. (these are BY FAR the shoe of the year)