Latest / The Daily Sarcast / August 31st, 2026: The NFL, Little League World Series and Improv

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August 31st, 2026: The NFL, Little League World Series and Improv · The Daily Sarcast

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  This episode of the Daily Sarcast is brought to you by Productive Procrastination.
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  Are you a writer stuck in your 9-to-5 job that pays the bills?
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  Are you not a writer, but you still feel guilty about the YouTube rabbit holes
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  you've gone down on company time?
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  You can continue not working and feel good about it with Productive Procrastination.
• 0:19
  Productive Procrastination. This is your chance to call your parents,
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  call your grandma, do your laundry.
• 0:26
  If you start today, you also can organize your books by color,
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  make a list of your favorite I want songs from Broadway musicals,
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  write a fake ad, and host your friend's podcast.
• 0:37
  Put your normal colleagues to shame and procrastinate productively with productive procrastination.
• 0:43
  Your contribution to your creative well-being starts today.
• 0:47
  Your contribution to your actual job never starts.
• 0:51
  Quote of the day, if you can read music, you play the violin.
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  I can't read music, so I just play the fiddle.
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  Violet Hensley was a fiddler and fiddle maker from the Ozarks who died earlier this month.
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  She's known for making her debut at the Grand Ole Opry at age 99.
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  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Sarcast. I give you the news and maybe a laugh.
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  I'm Kate Stein, and today is August 31, 2026.
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  Hi, everyone. We've met before. I'm Lindsay's friend from improv comedy class.
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  I hosted the show earlier this month. I used to be a radio journalist,
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  and I excel at peppy earnestness.
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  In real news, a recent study found that one in four NFL players will be diagnosed with CTE.
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  This is a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated hits to the head.
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  It can lead to memory loss, confusion, and mood swings, and it's thought to
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  be a contributing factor to the deaths of a number of NFL players,
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  including the tragic suicide of the linebacker Junior Seau, among others.
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  No surprises here, those hits to the head add up in a bad way.
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  It's a crazy stat that 25% of players are affected.
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  And most NFL players quoted in recent articles on this do understand the dangers.
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  Also, a lot of fans recognize it.
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  And yet, the game goes on, the money keeps flowing.
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  I feel like this is the epitome of America.
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  I also feel... Go Packers!
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  In other news, recovery is ongoing from floods in Nepal and Tibet.
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  279 hydropower workers trapped in tunnels have been rescued,
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  but an estimated 933 remain trapped.
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  The flooding was caused by a glacier shearing off a mountain face.
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  This released a torrent of water that tore through villages.
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  In total, an estimated 2,500 people are missing, and that number is expected to climb.
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  Guys, flashback to my last episode. Climate change is real.
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  In lighter news, Curacao claimed the 2026 Little League World Series title over the weekend.
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  They defeated Nevada 11-2.
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  It's the second title for this small Caribbean island. Their first was in 2004,
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  and they've also had four runner-up finishes.
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  For those of you who are not familiar with the Little League World Series,
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  they are teams of 10, 11, and 12-year-olds, and it's not just boys. Girls also play.
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  A player from Alabama this year named Kinley Rasmus made history as a pitcher.
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  She had 14 strikeouts and five hits over the course of the two-week tournament.
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  In Kate Life, well, our class improv show was this past week,
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  and the highlight for me was my pal Corbin surprising me by showing up in the audience for our debut.
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  I mean, I had sent him the show information, so maybe I shouldn't have been
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  so surprised, but he did come all the way from his home in England.
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  I pretty much bowled him over when I saw him after the show,
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  just like, yeah, so crazy that he was there.
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  He did come on a work trip, but I'm going to pretend that it was just for me.
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  Our thing of the week this week is Dolly Parton tributes.
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  There have been some good ones. Jack White played a cover of Jolene at a concert in London.
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  Also in London, the Buckingham Palace guards played 9 to 5.
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  And on Jinmi Kimmel Live, Jelly Roll, who is guest hosting, described Dolly
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  as, quote, the last American that everyone liked.
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  Cooking tip of the day. So, okay, the last episode that I hosted,
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  I talked about a recipe that's been handed down through the generations in my
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  family, mostly by my mother.
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  And it's a recipe for making scrambled eggs in the microwave,
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  which was an innovation born out of necessity because we went through a bunch
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  of renovations and house moves when I was a kid.
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  And that just ended up being how we made our eggs sometimes.
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  So I was actually, my parents listened to my episode a couple weeks ago,
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  which was very nice of them. And I was talking to them while I was actually
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  also making scrambled eggs for my lunch the next day at work.
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  I was doing it on the stove because I'm an adult and they are better that way.
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  But anyway, my mom was like, you're going to take cold scrambled eggs to work
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  and heat them up in the microwave? That is disgusting. Your colleagues are going to be appalled by you.
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  Why don't you instead make your eggs in the microwave at work so they're fresh?
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  Which I guess would necessitate my bringing raw eggs on the subway to the office.
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  I did survey my colleagues about the different ways in which I could have eggs
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  for lunch at work, whether I should make them at home and heat them up or bring
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  raw eggs and make them in the office at work.
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  And they universally agreed that I should make my eggs at home and bring them
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  to the office and heat them up and they would not be offended by that. So thank you, mom.
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  As always, your feedback on my life. Very much appreciated, but yeah, no thank you.
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  Feedback, comments, questions, a nice Jewish boy looking for a date?
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  Email lindsay at thedailysarcast.com.
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  Thanks for listening to my episode of The Daily Sarcast Summer Residency.
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  I'm Kate Stein, and as usual, you can only find me on LinkedIn.
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  Tune in tomorrow for another very special episode of The Daily Sarcast Summer Residency.