Retro #17: September

10 Oct 2026

If I’ve known you awhile you may remember my silly little baseball website from 2015, the David Price Nickname Generator. It happened at a good time for Jays content, when they were in the division race and gunning for their first playoff appearance in an eternity, and it’s had incredible staying power—I got a job partially off the back of that website, and many people I’ve met years later have been surprised to learn that that was me (including a new colleague I met only a few months ago!).

This year I was inspired to make another dumb baseball thing, specifically after observing starting pitcher Dylan Cease switch away from the substantial beard he’d been sporting and back to the giant ’stache in time to have a pretty bad outing against the Athletics. Of course I thought: are those things related? And now we have a website for it, which is called, of course, STACHECAST.

It came out in mid-September and it’s been incredibly fun—people think it’s funny, which is all I wanted, and it’s actually taught me a lot about a number of things, including modern frontend (I’m using Parcel and it’s been cool, except for its wildly aggressive local cache), data visualization and when not to use line charts, the rhythm of MLB strikeout video compilations (there’s almost always a warmup shot, which is very helpful to me), and Cease’s pitch arsenal, among others.

I am, however, creeping myself out while researching (do you know how many screenshots you need in order to accurately compare across years like this???). Cease is a handsome guy and all, but there’s a limit to how much I can comfortably look at a stranger’s face and I’ve blown right past it. Data collection for prior seasons is on hold for a bit, lol.

I also went on tour this month! My band Survival Club opened six Ontario and Quebec dates in support of The Honest Heart Collective, who are touring their new album Sheer Will. We played Sudbury, Ottawa, Kingston, Montréal, London, and Toronto in the span of about 9 days and I had a great time. You definitely get better fast when you’re playing every night, and I enjoyed being able to give myself little notes after the show that I tried to act on the next night.

(One night in Kingston I noticed myself resolving a vocal harmony to the V chord too early, and it’s wild that I was singing, playing keyboards, and thinking about this in such specific detail at the same time on stage. Offloading things to muscle memory can get weird!)

A group shot of Survival Club and the Honest Heart Collective on the stage at Longboat Hall

Survival Club at the Broom Factory in Kingston, photo by Virginia Maria Meeks

Survival Club posing in front of a bar sign that says The Honest Heart Collective x Survival Club

(A million more photos are on instagram.)

Some other things:

I did a terrible job of tracking my outfits this month, and I didn’t do a lot of thrifting, but I did score a fantastic vintage find: an Adam Lind Jays jersey from the early 2010s. He was my first favourite Blue Jay (I started watching baseball in 2011) and this was just such a nice thing to encounter. I fear I might be becoming a Jersey Guy.
I also got to see Shreya Ghoshal at Scotiabank Arena with my whole family. We had amazing seats. She played for three hours and the vibe in there was immaculate.
My hold hasn’t come in yet, but there’s a new Emily St. John Mandel novel!

It was a busy month! Now I’m in MLB playoff mode (pour one out for those Blue Jays, though) and trying to keep my calendar free so I can actually relax for once. See you soon!