Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1162
Art class resistance, fluffle, rabbit rabbit, Don Hill's, Pale Saints, UNC campus closure, Daddy school with China and religion, Star Trek: Grudge, shitty Facebook suggestions
Hey ho let’s go. Jane was school resistant again today. Took Emma and I together to get her out of the house. Took the social worker, the counsellor, and the m-f’in principal, and a purple bunny, to get her to go into the school. She is scared of a screen in art class. Hadn’t mentioned it for a few weeks, so we didn’t think it was an issue anymore, but it is. It does not seem to be about it being blurry, but she can’t see it. It is confusing. Wondering if the lights are off and it’s a contrast or brightness thing. Anyway, it gives her anxiety. And this time they are going to actually investigate it and fix it hopefully. I am annoyed we didn’t tackle it when she first mentioned it, I feel like we betrayed her trust and didn’t listen. But we thought it had passed. Hopefully fixing it now goes some way to restoring trust. Gah.
Along the way, though, I learned that a group of Canadian grad students in 2007 snuck the word “Fluffle” into Wikipedia as a term for a group of bunnies, and everyone believed Wikipedia and now it is a real word for a group of bunnies and if that does not make your day better well I don’t know what will. The whole ordeal was almost worth it just to learn this fact.
Also learned from the school social worker that on the first of the month you’re supposed to say “Rabbit Rabbit.” I have never heard of this I will be 52 years old next week.
I am listening to the final Pale Saints album, Slow Buildings. Stuck it in my queue a week or two ago when their guitarist Graeme Naysmith died. Just getting around to listening to it. I had always discounted this album because of the departure of eccentric artistic genius Ian Masters, but actually I think it’s kind of good in its own way. A different band in a way, but one with great vocals and guitars and a solid vibe. It’s my third listen this week and I keep starring more tracks.
Was doing my daily reconciliation of my credit transactions — my personal ones, as opposed to my day job ones, or my night job ones, both of which I also check every day — and I noticed a charge from DON HILLS and I got very, very confused. Don Hills, of course, being the legendary night club in NYC where Tiswas, was, lol. And a bunch of other stuff. Saw Taylor Momsen’s band there once, that was fun.
But no, alas. Turns out my local locksmith is named Don Hill’s Lock and Safe, and I didn’t even notice when I first called them.
Don Hill’s RIP.
I like to append my list of proposed Star Trek series with one more: Star Trek: Grudge, the adventures of a piratical floofy space cat. I would like to watch a whole series about Grudge, that cat rules. It would be set, of course, in the background of ST: Discovery, at least sometimes. There would be overlap, but of course Grudge’s owner, Book wasn’t always with Discovery or Burnham, so there would be plenty of opportunity for other adventures, and of course in one of them Grudge is going to have to meet a descendant of Spot. Also, of course, Grudge talks. Also, of course, the show is animated, but in a super cute Japanese style not that soulless Star Wars way.
This, or course, opens up ample opportunity to further explore the antics of Spot 73. We need more Paton Oswald in Trek.
(Also does anyone else feel like the name Book is a bit… er… racist, given the previous existence of Shepherd Book? Or does the name make Firefly part of Trek Canon, maybe taking place during the Eugenics wars or something, shit, maybe the Reavers are Khan’s soldiers.
There is a new Rockler carpentry store opening up in Cary and I am excited and I’m gonna go and stop by and I learned this on Facebook and I am glad I did because ever since I clicked on that Rockler link, all of my ads are about carpentry, and all of my Facebook Tik-Tok-ripoff videos are now about carpentry and not buxom ladies in bikinis and erectile dysfunction pills, which I can only assume are the things that Facebook serves up to men my age if they have not gleaned enough about their interests. Now all my ads are for shop vac attachments and router tables and miter jigs and I am so, so thankful. Seriously. Look at this screenshot I took a week or two ago:
I did not ask for this.
No. Really. I didn’t.
Fill it up with pictures of Anna Kendrick and the pre-2023 incarnation of the Spanish garage rock band Hinds, and I might be okay with it.
Today’s the last day of school at UNC Chapel Hill, and they are doing it from home, because the leadership of the school is bent out of shape that a bunch of kids are protesting genocide and sent the cops in to clear them out. I am a little unclear on how schools are private property that can be trespassed upon, but also get to have their own police forces, and those police forces are allowed to break up public protests, but I’m sure all of these people have read the constitution closely and have it all worked out. Clearly I was a bad student because I was of the understanding that people had a right to peacefully protest in the United States.
It really is something how freakin college administrators haven’t learned from history. Like seriously, what hope do we have as a species ever learning from the diktat “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” when even the people who lead our Universities can’t heed it. I 100% guarantee you if college administrators had not all called in the cops at universities around the country we would not be talking about the protests. Did you even know there was a protest at Columbia until they called the cops? I certainly did not. And I care about this cause. So I guess the whole thing is working, playing right into the protestors’ hands, and I guess I should be happy, but also, gawd. College protests. So boring. People get so obsessed with colleges. Colleges are not interesting! No offense to my professor friends but hey I doubt you find my profession interesting either.
I am rambling, people are dumb, I don’t care about colleges, please put the actual news back at the top of the newspapers. I do not need five stories about colleges at the top of the NYT, above the stories about Florida’s abortion ban, Arizona’s abortion ban, and the Middle East.
Daddy bedtime last night, and we learned more about China. Teaching a kindergartener stuff is so fascinating because everything you try and teach them, you have to teach them something else first. And so we had to learn about religion. Which was pretty interesting, asking Jane whether she believed in magic (no) or that someone was always watching over her even when she is alone (only when she is doing something interesting) and what happens after death (you turn into a ghost and people can’t see you anymore but they can remember you and boy I wanted to cry during that one). And then we learned about silk, which was is, of course, kind of batshit when you think about it. Well, caterpillarshit. Bah duh bump. But we got through silk and spices — another mind-blowing thing the first time you really think of them. And I forgot tea. Crap. Anyway, we did all that so we could get to the Silk Road and Marco Polo and connect up China to Europe and Africa. Now we gotta go back and talk about the Persians and Mongols. Jane is very excited about the Mongols she really likes Mongolia.
I also, of course, drove home that everyone has different religious beliefs, and it is okay that your friends have different religious beliefs than you, and that it’s even okay if you have different religious beliefs than your parents and that they are personal and no one can tell you what to believe when it comes to religion. I am not a monster.
She also told me that my beard looked like thousands of little, soft, magic wands.
So… look out ladies.
Moody and Quiet mix as the Media of the Day. All new stuff. I think. Not sure what’s up with this Broadcast is it new, old, gotta double check. Love the new Neubauten. New Ride gets better and better. LA Salami is a weirdly great band. Swell mix all around.
All right well I best go do some work. You have a lovely day.