Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1137
What's up with window tints. What's up with loud phones. What's up with Meta's volume abuse on phones. What's up with the Eclipse. What's up with this @highlight BS. What's up with the Virgin Prunes.
Good morning, friendo. My friend(o) Lauren always used to say “friendo.” Wonder if she still does. Miss her. Jane is at school. Took the detour, but lots of people didn’t. Turns out maybe the road isn’t closed yet. Maybe the DOT wised up and realized they could do those repairs during spring break. Who knows. Gotta go slow driving through the neighborhood. And I hate following slow cars. Yesterday I was stuck behind this car going 32 in a 25 and I was so annoyed. Then they finally turned off and I was free of car buddy encumbrances and free to go as fast as I wanted.
I went 30.
Jane was great this morning we were very early it was just lovely. We talked about exhaust and pollution and ICE engines and our spring break plans. Very excited. Jane says she plans to play at the playground every day. Fantastic.
Listening to the 40th anniversary repressing of the Virgin Prunes seminal debut album If I Die, I Die. Have an 80’s pressing but my god this one sounds so better. Real renaissance in Virgin Prunes releases the last few years, guess the band got the rights back to their albums. So happy they’re on streaming now.
Hope they made a fortune off of those 300k streams of “Baby Turns Blue.”
This band was so ridiculously ahead of its time it is insane. 1982. Shit, man. Eh, actually, the Cure were doing Pornography in 82, Joy Division had already done “Dead Souls,” Throbbing Gristle had already done Heathen Earth and Bauhaus was doing The Sky’s Gone Out. Never mind, this album is exactly of its time. But it is still so, so good.
I don’t wanna jinx it or anything but I can see an end in sight to, like, three months of work stress and I am very excited, but also nervous. Would hate for my brilliant plans to fall apart at the last minute. And of course the timing is not great, I woulda liked to actually take a few days off during my daughter’s spring break, but no luck. Still, though. Positive steps, positive steps.
Okay I have some questions for you. They are along the line of the plot of that Seinfeld episode about getting special keys copied.
How is it that half the state has illegal tints on their cars? This drives me bonkers. When we got here, the inspection place made us remove Emma’s tint cuz it was illegal. But I swear to god half the cars in the state have tints that dark. Do they all go the same inspection place? And then, like, the cops don’t care about it unless you’re black? How are they not all getting pulled over all the time? It is fucking maddening and it drives me as crazy as line cutters drive me. How how how.
How is it that some people have these extraordinarily loud cell phones, watching Youtube videos or talking to their significant others on speaker phone and the thing is deafening. Meanwhile I can’t get my phone to make a single sound, ever, at any volume, except for undesired Instagram stories. I legit don’t understand this. Does the iPhone Pro series secretly have a less loud speaker than other models? Relatedly, do you think Apple has been trying to counteract this through subsequent iterations of the iPhone and the built-in speaker isn’t as loud as it used to be? There is definitely something going on here and I am so curious.
I’m also so curious why Facebook and Instagram get to completely abuse the audio controls on your phone and why Apple hasn’t done anything about it. Does Facebook pay them to blast stupid videos at you?
Am I the only one annoyed at this? How is there not a public revolt?
Oh is it because no one uses Facebook and Instagram anymore? Well I know that’s not true because you guys keep making me post this thing to Facebook instead of subscribing to the email version, even as it has sweet photos and Media of the Days.
While I’m at it, what’s with this new @highlight bullshit on Facebook where someone can type @highlight in a comment and it forces a notification on me? This is new, right? Or did people just discover it? And I am so confused, like, isn’t this a total repudiation of Facebook’s whole “throttle viewability and make people pay” approach? Like a repudiation of the very thing everyone got annoyed about with Facebook in the first place? That you built up this huge audience and then you couldn’t ever actually reach them? Did we just need to type @highlight the whole time? Has anyone here ever tried it? I think I am going to try it today. But, I mean, it is weird, right? Are they so desperate for content now, as Facebook slowly dies, that they figure “fuck it, let’s just give people a magic wand to spam people indiscriminately.” I mean, it’s one thing to let people put “@highlight” on their own post, but what we have now is the ability for, say, my friend Jane to put a “@highlight” comment on some spammy post, and then the spammy post can spam me. I mean, wtf!
So now we have these spam accounts saying shit like “type @highlight in the comments to this post to win a camper van” and you guys are doing it and it is spamming me and I do not like it one bit nope. At Tumblr we called these “non genuine social interactions” and they were not allowed. But I guess Facebook is desperate for content these days, since I am one of six human beings left who post any real content on there.
And now a confession: I don’t care about the eclipse. I mean, it’s cool, but whatever. Didn’t we just have one like 2 years ago or some shit? I don’t remember. Ryan how long have you been married now? We watched that eclipse at your wedding, it was awesome. I am good on eclipses until my sixties or something. I mean I guess we’ll be sort of close while in Boston but I am not driving out to the crappy Republican part of Massachusetts just to watch physics do its thing. A partial eclipse from the comfort of my own couch will be just fine for me thanks.
We have decided to head up to Boston on Saturday, which is a little sad since we’ll miss the weekend, but I think that’s okay. There’s some weather on Friday, and I need to do some prep still, and I am working and it is busy so I can’t really be driving during work. So we should be there Saturday evening.
So I guess let us know what’s up Saturday!
Was this a short entry? Maybe? Well, I apologize. I am excited. I gotta do recycling and Walmart this morning, a day early, since Jane has tomorrow off and I won’t be able to do it. And you know how much I love Walmart. Well, just this one specific Walmart, I am not particularly a fan of other Walmarts, or the family, or corporate. I hear their art museum is nice, though. It’s weird I’ve never done any business with Walmart at any of my jobs, seems a thing I woulda encountered at some point. But I never had to do the Bentonville run. Huh.
Here’s a psych rock playlist for you as the Media of the Day for this fine March 28th, 2024. I hope you enjoy it. There are some gems here. Been very into the old Boston space rock band The December Sound, I liked that guy we got along great. Last time I saw him he was opening for Sonic Boom at the Mercury Lounge and they were so, so good. Underrated band, the December Sound. Just discovered this Austin band in the 13th Floor Elevators vein, Night Beats. Only listened to their debut self-titled album so far but I am into it.
Okay byeee.
People using their phones with the volume on... not just loud, but any volume at all... is my #1 pet peeve these days. It is so annoying to be trying to do something inane like shopping for bread and have to listen to someone's phone pinging and beeping and the shrill sound of whoever they *aren't ever talking to but have a call with anyway*.... ugh.
Also, @highlight and @everyone/@followers is new, yeah... and it is already getting annoying.
Also, also... Virgin Prunes... fuck, I am so happy they have been so active the last few years and these re-issues and video stuff they have been releasing.... yum!