Let’s get the World Cup rolling, the weekend rolling, the middle of summer rolling and much more rolling with a Friday edition of Screencaps. I know you guys aren’t soccer fans, but you have to pretend, just a little bit, over the next month.
Guys, you have to stop and just appreciate the sights and sounds from the World Cup, like Shakira and her Cup anthem that she performed Thursday in Mexico to kick off the festivities. Half the time I have no idea what she’s singing, but it just feels right. It just feels like summer. It just feels like I’m about to spend a weekend on the patio suckin’ down Kirkland Select margaritas and grilling meat.
This is the mindset I need you guys to assume this time of year. Sports is just the background noise to our summer. Mix in the World Cup along with the College World Series. Mix in patio beers. Stop at a bar with a great patio scene. Watch both sporting events. Most of all, like Shakira, feel the energy. Let it run wild through your body.
Now, here’s the crazy part of that Shakira performance. European news outlets are claiming there might be a conspiracy associated with that performance. I’m serious. Yahoo! has a story posted this morning titled, “Did Shakira use a body double at the 2026 World Cup opening ceremony?”
Body double? What? How do you go out and find a woman who looks like Shakira who can move her hips like Shakira. These Euros are nuts. Trust me, I will be investigating this all weekend…on the patio…while drinking margs.
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I don’t know what big America 250 event is supposed to take place on The Ellipse, but I can say there are 10-foot fences surrounding the entire grounds. Inside, it looks like they’re preparing for a massive carnival. On the west side of the grounds along 17th St., there are maybe 100 port-o-lets lined up like you’d see at Lollapalooza. There are picnic tables. Food vendor pop-up buildings. Etc. Etc.
I’ll give Trump and the America 250 team credit, there’s no lack of activity in the city. There are cranes everywhere, including the White House where they’re building that ballroom. The construction around the White House in general is crazy compared to what I experienced in April 2025. There are construction workers and National Guard troops everywhere. It’s true, Washington, D.C. proper might be the safest place to spend your summer in the United States.
But it didn’t feel like a police state. It was actually quite quiet and relaxing walking around D.C. There were Guard troops walking the streets, but it wasn’t like they were ready to lay down fire on Iranian infiltrators.
Yes, it was clean. Bums weren’t lying around in the parks that I saw. Workers were out cleaning. Doing their jobs. Imagine that. Fountains were working correctly — I was happy to finally see the World War II fountains running.
Add it all up, and you have a Washington, D.C. to be proud of.
– X-Canuk emails: Loved how you and the missus bought a big rock to commemorate your anniversary. Certainly something to remember. I bought this big hunker for the front of my house, about a ton, cost me a pretty penny to have it delivered and installed. My mom used to sit on it all the time when she came down from Canada and just enjoy the outdoors. Perched right there in my front yard. Good call on the rock, I am same!
Kinsey: Love to see it. That rock is probably three times the size of our boulder, but I have a rule on the size of the rocks we have delivered: If I can’t move the rock with a two-wheel cart, then it’s too big. Our back gardens are too tight for a mini skid steer. I am intrigued by a boulder dolly, but what do I do with the dolly after using it once? I don’t have a barn to store it.
– Chris P. emails: As a daily Screencaps reader, I saw the part about how Russia is the one country you’d never visit. I’d like to offer my experience, as I absolutely loved my trip there
WORKING CLASS MAN VISITS EUROPE, EXPERIENCES IMMEDIATE DISASTER
In June of 2013, I met a beautiful woman from Russia in Dublin, Ireland. We met at the hotel bar as she was there for a business trade show (her family is well off) and I was there for holiday. Let’s just say we hit it off and ended up hanging out a few days in Dublin. We stayed in touch via Skype; she visited me in Vegas and then she invited me to visit her in Russia. Of course, as a traveler, I accepted.
The visa application process is nuts – expensive and very lengthy. I won’t lie….as I was on approach to Moscow, I was freaking out – will she show up? How will I adapt to the Cyrillic alphabet if by myself? Fortunately, she was there and picked me up. We stayed at her flat in Moscow.
Moscow is a great city! Obviously a lot of history, but also an abundance of beautiful women.
While in Moscow, she took me to:
1. Performance at the Bolshoi (Sleeping Beauty)
2. Red Square/Lenin Tomb/St. Basil Cathedral
3. River cruise on the Moska River
4. A Russian circus
5. Russian swap meet
6. A KHL hockey game (HC Dynamo Moscow)
While in Moscow, she did my laundry, cooked meals for me and taught me how to drink vodka like a Russian man (basically three 2-oz. shots back-to-back-to-back with a pickle in between. After that, a Russian man drinks until one of two things happen: hook up with a woman or pass out).
Then we went to St. Petersburg for 5 days – beautiful city. There, we visited:
1. The Hermitage Museum (second only to the Louvre)
2. Peter and Paul Fortress
3. Literary Cafe. In the 1830s, this building housed Wolf & Beranger’s Confectionery, a popular hub for writers. Crucially, Pushkin ate his final meal here on Jan. 27, 1837, right before departing for the tragic duel that ended his life.
4. Nevsky Prospect (main boulevard)
Overall, I found the people to be respectful and friendly, very hospitable and they definitely like to have a good time.
Kinsey: Hold up, I need more details. Was this a one-and-done visit? Did Chris marry the Russian woman?
And I’ll just go ahead and say it, these stories typically end up with the American male murdered and tied up to a Russian drone before it’s dropped on the eastern front of the Ukrainian territory. Chris has some big brass balls. He could’ve gone into a situation where the woman was cheating on her husband. What Chris is writing here is how movie scripts used to be written.
Drinking like a Russian…a mysterious Russian brunette you meet in a legit Irish bar…passing out on Russian vodka…hooking up….a Russian swap meet with KGB everywhere.
Unreal. Legacy readers now have two great Russian stories from Screencaps readers. Now I’m kicking myself for not going to Russia in my 20s when I didn’t have anything back home like kids and a wife.
– Moke writes: My wife and I went to Russia (St. Petersburg) during a Baltic cruise when Russia was still accessible. It was interesting, some old buildings still had chips in their structure from WWII. The museums (Peterhoff and Hermitage etc.) were amazing. Looking at the opulence of these building interiors made it understandable why the “peasants,” who had nothing, overthrew the czar!
I wouldn’t travel to North Korea.
– Rick from Georgia shares: Joe…..been loving the stories of golf balls hitting houses. Each one is an adventure that all of us that play can clearly see/feel as we read them. Good stuff. My story is about “the inevitable”…of a future golf ball hitting my parents home – but has yet to happen. Their house sits on a nice corner lot on hole No. 11 in a North Georgia subdivision. Luckily for them, their location is a touch behind the tee box. From their sunroom, you can see everyone tee off on a beautiful par 4 with a lake protecting the green. When they moved in, I told my folks they have the best of all worlds…living on a beautiful golf course w/o the risk of your house getting hit by the stray ball.
A few months after moving in, I drive over for a visit. I pull into the driveway and see a golf ball on their front lawn. I figured either my Mom or Dad was out there maybe chipping a few. I pick up the ball on the way in. My Dad proceeds to tell me that he was not chipping and that it was from an errant tee shot from Hole #10. I tell him “no way…..impossible”. He says……”I am telling you !!”. I start to think. Could that really happen? I have played that course a zillion times and if you stand on that 10th tee box, you would have to launch your drive over 200 yards while putting on an ascending, towering slice to clear the trees, the houses that line the right side of the fairway, the front yards of those houses, over the street…..and….into my parent’s yard. My Dad sees that I now think it COULD be possible under perfect circumstances and adds…..”it happens more than you think.” He tells me that a handful of times during the year, he comes out to do yard work and sees a golf ball in his front yard.
Joe: you are a player, so you know almost anything is possible regarding golf balls and where they land. You would marvel at what it would take to get a tee shot from that tee box to my folks’s yard. When I play that hole, I see the line it would take, the slice it would take, the clubbed speed it would take, etc. to pull that off. I always have a great laugh thinking of some dude revving up for his tee shot and actually hitting THAT monster, hypersonic slice. In a weird way, it is its own work of art. Volcanic physics in action. The inevitable is bound to happen if someone can just add a touch more club head speed to that work of art !!
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And that is it for this Friday morning. I just took out the trash and it feels incredible out. It feels like the weekend. The sun is out. Mrs. Screencaps’ flowers are popping. These are the days we all cherish. Go out there and enjoy.
Finish up your work and get to the lake houses. Take care.
