Maria Sharapova attacks the dog days of summer by hopping into the pool, it pays to be OSU's QB & Shatner

The sun is out, it’s 59 brisk degrees here in Ohio and it’s time to fire off a fresh edition of Thursday Screencaps where I better not hear anyone north of the Ohio River complaining this morning. We’re heading for a high of 80. I am talking one of the most beautiful July days in the history of this state.

Speaking of Ohio, my home state, where I was born, where my kids were born, where I went to college, let’s head down state route 23 to Columbus where our Ohio State quarterback seems to be having himself quite a summer.

Miami University sorority girl and pilates instructor Paulina Adams — I’d never heard of her — revealed she’s dating Julian Sayin. And just like that, the college football season is officially off and running for this column. For Screencaps, this is like a cannon going off at a golf course to start a golf scramble (Green Hills golf course in Clyde, OH fires off a cannon; it’s great).

After spending all summer acting, and dressing, like she was trying out for a ridiculous PBS Shakespeare TV series that your grandma fake-watched, Maria Sharapova is back to acting like the pop culture icon that we all fell in love with in the early 2000s.

I write about this quite a bit. I’m talking about the whole thing where women hit their late 30s and all of a sudden they’re eating mushrooms, praying to butterfly gods and burning incense to cleanse the air in their apartment while a cat takes a dump in a litter trap placed in the kitchen.

There’s nothing quite insufferable like these women going on podcasts and rambling about how they’re reclaiming their souls or some stupid crap they’ve heard from some Oprah guest.

It’s all a work, folks.

Then, when you’re not looking, Maria and other ladies/moms in their late 30s are acting like they’re in Fountain of Wayne’s classic “Stacy’s Mom” music video. Don’t let them fool you with their Shakespearean Instagram posts.

The story of Shatner and his daughter popped up on our TV last night and I about came out of my recliner. The minute you don’t see photos of a celebrity for several years is typically the time where they’re in decline and near death. Then Shatner pops up on TV looking like he’s 75.

This is a guy who has been married FOUR times. You’d think such a run would wear his ass out. Nope.

– Chris B. wants to take a shot at explaining things to his fellow readers: I don’t think the sale-leaseback is, in and of itself, a sign of impending doom for Cracker Barrel. The deal only includes 26/658 locations, or about 4%.

The technique isn’t unheard-of; I’ve seen lot of medical practice building sales for a cash infusion (doctors are notorious for post-divorce cash-flow problems).A lot of the success of the deal will depend on the new lease terms, since CB is exchanging equity for rent payments — so there will be a TBD effect on the P&L. Again, though, it’s a small number of properties.The same-store revenue drop year-over-year seems like it could be caused by decreased road travel, or changes to road tripping, because of costs for gas and every other damn thing.

If–and only if–CEO Masino does the right thing (TBD) and actually applies the $77MM to debt, the company might come out slightly stronger.All of this is speculative and subject to the usual disclaimers about things like hiring another woke moron to run marketing…

– Bill D. says doom could be on the horizon: All you really need to understand about what’s going on at Cracker Barrel is to look at the table on page 24 of their most recent Form 10-Q. This is the table where they show Cracker Barrel comparable store sales.

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On that note, let’s crank it down on this beautiful morning. I have work to do. You have work to do. Many of you have another day of retirement to live. Go out and keep busy. I watch the retiree across the street from us, John, out working on his new Ford Maverick truck just about every day. He’s waxed down that orange truck at least five times in 10 days.

Hey, at least he’s staying busy. Let’s go get after it.