Side Salad: Never-ending References To a Never-ending Pasta Bowl
July 22, 2026
Good morning from Dieline’s editor-in-chief, Bill McCool. Here’s your daily side serving of design news, short musings, brand stuff, and forgotten ephemera.
Olive Garden’s Pasta Pass is out here catching the worst kind of strays. Also, this is the absolute worst kind of false equivalence that some think makes for a good enough soundbite, but it actually makes you sound like an old man yelling at a television and/or cloud.
“There are few things in America more dangerous than a bored CEO using ChatGPT, and the consequences for the Eagles could be tremendous.” Quit it, Nick!
Thanks for ruining booze, boomers.
Speaking of alcohol in cans and bottles, I tend to hate it when actors I enjoy start shilling for any kind of brand. But Parker Posey being the spokesperson for Cutwater makes all kinds of enormous sense, right?
Hell yeah, this is Grade-A looking junk food. Good on you, Couch Potato.
I really wanted to say that you’ll never catch me buying a supplement from an AI influencer—and the Times found hundreds of hyper-realistic folks touting what amounts to snake oil—but I also just bought a VelorBoard off Instagram for an ailing knee (even though my PT person said I should absolutely buy this). Point being, if you’re hurting or you have experienced some kind of decline in your quality of life, you will do just about anything to be rid of what ails you, and that AI doc might feel not only somewhat plausible, but even trustworthy when you desperately seek out a fix.
Incidentally, a real Health & Human Services department would be in the business of regulating supplement brands.
Have you considered that nostalgia might possibly kill us all? No? Just me?
How come none of you monsters told me there was a SPAM hotdog???
Today, like most others, is a good day for Alice Coltrane’s Universal Consciousness.
Hey. You’re gonna’ make it after all.
-Bill