If you're the sort of person who tolerates my writing — and God help you if you're not and you still wound up here — then this was a banner week for you, friendo. Not only can you find my byline in multiple places around the internet, but you also get another super-sized newsletter all for the low, low cost of free.

Let's get into it.

No greater love has a man for his daughter than to accompany her and a pal to Solano County with the mercury approaching 90 degrees. So when my daughter got it into her head to spend her hard-earned babysitting money on a day out at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, there I was, providing both the driving and the chaperoning. A good time was had by some.

"Wait a minute," long-time readers are protesting. "Aren't you the same guy who spent most of an entire newsletter gassing on about Disney's California Adventure? I thought you were a theme parks guy."

Theme parks, yes. Amusement parks, not so much. And the difference feels like it's worth exploring.

Theme parks, of which Disneyland is one, are meticulously planned, with very particular rides designed for very specific lands. There's a level of immersion when you're in a Disney park, from the music playing over the loudspeakers to the look and feel of the buildings meant to mask the backstage areas. You can find yourself thinking you're winding down a New Orleans street or walking through a safari outpost when you spend some time in Disneyland. 

Amusement parks, which is what Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is, are an entirely different breed of cat. There's no real theming to speak of — just a collection of rides, mostly roller coasters, loosely assembled on some sort of nondescript patch of land. Anything in the way of landscaping or charm is entirely an accident. A theme park operator assumes you are there to go on the rides, with any enjoyment you experience beyond that entirely dependent on you.

Amusement parks can be done well. A place like the Santa Cruz Beach & Boardwalk where there are some seaside amusements to be enjoyed alongside the sand and surf doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. But Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, like a lot of Six Flags parks I've been to over the years, doesn't even try to clear this fairly low bar.

There is a half-hearted attempt at theming. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom throws a bunch of DC Comics-inspired thrill rides into one section of the park, though the only connection appears to be coordinating the colors of different tracks and ride vehicles to the heroes and villains who lend their name to the ride. (The Joker's roller coaster is purple and green, for example, while the Superman ride is red and blue.) The kiddie rides have Looney Tune names slapped on the kind of attractions you find along a county fair midway. There are some other thrill rides that are nominally related to the animal kingdom.

Normally, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is a place I drive by — a real-life Roller Coaster Tycoon playset come to life that I see on my way to Napa Valley or Sacramento. In fact, this was my first visit to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, though I had been to its predecessor back in the day. For the most part, the Six Flags people are betting that you'll pay your money to get in the door and not expect too much after that. What minimal efforts there are to move people through the lines efficiently would kill Walt Disney if he hadn't already been dead for nearly 60 years.

Having spent a formative chunk of my childhood in Los Angeles around Disneyland, Universal Studios, and even Knott's Berry Farm, I spent my early years thinking every corner of the country is awash in theme parks. That's not the case, even in the Bay Area, where Six Flags Discovery Kingdom will be the last park standing once the better-if-only-slightly California's Great America closes its doors at some undetermined point in the near future. That's a shame for kids my daughter's age and younger, because amusement parks shouldn't be as dodgy as Discovery Kingdom.

During my Mendocino County vacation — confused readers, check your inboxes — I mentioned that I burned my way through Stupid TV, Be More Funny,  the Alan Siegel* book about the glory years of The Simpsons. If you think the first decade of The Simpsons counts as peak TV, then this is a great read, as you'll get a lot of insights from the show's writers on comedy writing in general and Simpsons history in particular. But this section isn't a book review — rather, it's about Simpsons merchandise.

It's easy to forget now, but in the first season or three of The Simpsons, America was absolutely awash in merchandise related to the show, with t-shirts in particular turning into a real money-spinner for Fox and anyone who wrangled the licensing agreement. (The show's writers, not so much, as they take great pains in the book to point out.) One Simpsons shirt garnered its own bit of attention.

Friends, a confession to make: I had the Bart Simpson "'Underachiever' and Proud of It" t-shirt.

I don't know how I got it, as I certainly didn't buy it for myself, and my parents — who were neither fans of the show nor the shirt — didn't give it to me either. That likely leaves one of my friends as the culprit, probably reasoning that my love of The Simpsons translated to a love of their merch.

Anyhow, I wore the shirt every now and again, and it's one of the few articles of clothing that garnered more than one lecture from a third party inexplicably moved to urge me to make better choices in life. (The other instance was in 1988 when I dyed my hair black, donned a pair of bushy eyebrows, and put on a suit to dress as Michael Dukakis for Halloween. A church lady of my acquaintance did not appreciate my tacit endorsement of the presidential nominee.) Truth be told, the occasional tut-tutting probably made me more inclined to wear the shirt, which I didn't really find to be flattering or comfortable.

Anyhow, people taking issue with my t-shirt apparently missed the point. According to no less an authority than Matt Groenig, the word "underachiever" was in quotes on the T-shirt for a reason — it was a label other people had stuck on Bart and this was his sarcastic response. "It seemed a tad far-fetched that an elementary schooler wearing the t-shirt would understand that distinction," Alan Siegel writes. Let me tell you, people seeing a high school senior wearing that shirt had a hard time making the distinction, too.

* When I started reading Stupid TV, Be More Funny, I was laboring under the delusion that it had been written by Alan Sepinwall, yet another writer about TV who is named Alan. And I'm not ashamed to admit I only realized my mistake after noticing a blurb on the back of the book attributed to Alan Sepinwall. "Strange to be blurbing your own book," I thought, perhaps stupidly. Anyhow, I created this mnemonic to help me remember which Alan is which.

Please pay me 10 cents each time you use this rhyme to better know your Alans.

I've beeen a busy little beaver in the last week, and now it's time for you to enjoy the fruits of my labors. Hey, hey, hey... less eye-rolling, more fruit-enjoying.

Apple marked its 50th anniversary last week, and I celebrated the occasion by charting my sometimes contentious but always interesting history with the company at the behest of my pal Jason Snell over at Six Colors. Come for the story where I make Chris Breen break an original iPod, stay for the story where Tim Cook and I stare at each other for an uncomfortably long period of time.

While we're on the subject of Apple, Dan Moren was kind enough to invite me onto his Clockwise Podcast so that we could turn it into a reboot of the old Pundit Showdown format I used to throw together in my Macworld days. Basically, it's a panel show where I ask ridiculous questions and award points, very much in the vein of BBC's Fighting Talk radio show. Could this be a soft relaunch of the Pundit Showdown beloved by dozens of listeners? Maybe. One can always lobby for it on social media (hint, hint)..

If you're still interested in hearing me talk — ewwww, why? — I made an appearance on a baseball-themed edition of Lions, Towers and Shields to talk up some of my favorite baseball movies, including one I actually appear in as an extra (not that you'd be able to spot me).

Finally, I make a return appearance on Awful Announcing where I marked the reboot of This Week in Baseball by talking about the original version of the show and how it's become my comfort watch on YouTube. In a nice bit of serendipity, I pitched the article to AA long before any of us knew that This Week in Baseball was coming back as a web series, so there was a fair bit of scrambling after the announcement dropped last week to get that story in before the new show launched.

But enough of me talking about things I've written or said. Here's more on things I've read.

I have a certain amount of sympathy for the political press brigade. Having recently been cashiered out of the tech press, I understand full well that access journalism requires some amount of distasteful compromise plus the attentive care and feeding of sources. And while that approach often yields a lot more chaff than wheat, the exposés and insider accounts we get that shed light on the grimy business of democracy likely don't happen without that access. We can argue about whether that's a pro or con in the greater scheme of things, but it's not really something you can ignore.

Still, I'm not going to try to convince anyone that a preponderance of the Washington press corps is doing a grand job of meeting the moment right now because that's simply not true. When the levee's cracking and the flood waters are about to wipe away the town, you're not doing anyone any favors by finding other sources to assert that all the ensuing flooding will be good, actually. There's no both-siding the basic principles of democracy.

But that's apparently lost on the people tasked with bringing you the news out of Washington, as they're still insisting on having the well-past-its-prime-date White House Correspondents' Dinner. That's where the press corps spends an evening rubbing elbows with the people they cover, and everyone is supposed to crack a few jokes in the spirit of "Hey, we're all in this together, guys."

Even in periods of relative normalcy, the White House Correspondents' Dinner came off as a bit too chummy. And at a time when we're certainly all in something, but it doesn't feel like we're all that together, the event has definitely outlived its usefulness.

Donald Trump skipped the White House Correspondents Dinner entirely during his first term in office — probably the only wise decision he made during those long four years. But he's coming back this time, doubtless lured by a Washington press corps that's essentially fallen down and rolled over to the president so that he can playfully rub its belly. Instead of the usual comedian to headline the event, the White House Press Association has hired a mentalist, because being mental is clearly a primary requirement to take that gig.

Still, when the guest of honor at your event is a man who's branded your entire profession enemies of the people, it might seem a bit awkward to raise a glass in his general direction. Not to worry, though, as Status reports the White House Press Association has come up with a devious counter-measure to show Donald Trump what's what.

Yes, Donald Trump may be spending the week before the gala threatening to jail reporters, but the sight of a roomful of strongly worded pocket squares is going to have him rethink that stance. Or so goes the thinking of the people tasked with shoring up the guardrails of democracy.

Pity the poor guardrails.

And that's the Phil for this week — thanks for reading. Go out and live your life like the kind of person who doesn't need a pocket square to get their point across.