8/25 First Day of School Quickie

*Really had every intention of starting the new email newsletter today, but I underestimated that the First Day of School (Gabe 3rd, Jonah K) would KO my morning writing time. Still time to sign up in time to be there for issue 1.1!

*I might have talked about the first day of school, which was as emotionally mixed as ever -- especially with Jonah making the leap to elementary school.

*If you're curious, in our night-before-school Talk, we emphasize two very basic things to them: (1) Being friendly to EVERYONE (especially showing compassion for the students who are different/new/etc.) and (2) being a meaningful contributor to the class by showing respect to the teacher/classmates and trying their best.

*And, yes, we bought each kid a special back-to-school gift -- colorful Nike Elite basketball socks, which have been and remain THE fashion accessory for elementary school boys.

*I might have talked about the Quartz redesign, which I love. Their new "home page" is very Quickish-ish, which is affirming -- if (very) delayed gratification.

*I might have talked about Chris Collinsworth getting into early-stage media company investing, buying a chunk of ProFootballFocus, which is less a site for fans than a data analyst for teams.

*DraftKings raised $41M (!) to continue to dominate daily fantasy gaming (along with FanDuel) and they bought StarStreet, whose founder I first met during Quickish's very early days. Congrats to him.

*The most interesting thing I have read today is Gabe Sherman's piece in NY Mag on the decline of Time Inc., a piece that had me alternatingly snorting and smacking my forehead at executive decision-making over the past 20 years.

(Disclaimer: I was a Time-Warner employee at SI in 1998-99, working on the digital efforts - it shouldn't surprise you that Peter King was as forward-looking about it as anyone in the building, which is why he is publishing his own site right now and the rest of the place -- not SI, but Time Inc. -- is having trouble.)

*But, in thinking about it, I probably would have written about the timeless allure of the fantasy football draft (I have one tonight) and, maybe, how Gabe is ready to draft his own team.

-- D.S.