Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1197
Jane morning ups and downs, missing Lana, headed to Boston, Notes.app dreams, VC backed personal software, Coldplay x Ocean Cleanup, garden hat update, Helena and Sophie visit, mapping utilities
Hello! Jane is yelling at me! It’s super fun! She slams doors till she gets my attention, then I go to her and ask her to stop slamming doors, and ask what she needs, and she just screams at me. It’s the best! Super conducive to writing a newsletter. Love it.
Happy Birthday, Jussi. See you in six hours. Happy birthday, Frank. See you maybe at Chrismtas ish.
We got the tankless hot water heaters inspected and flushed yesterday and as a result our water tasted like vinegar this morning. Yummy. Dude also fixed my leaky hose faucet at Chore House. He did not, sadly, fix my leaky well pump. Someone has to come back for that.
We had a lovely morning before this. We went to Bojangles. And Dunkin. And Apple Music played “Evil is Alive and Well” by Jakob Dylan and “It Won’t Rain All the Time” by Jane Siberry from the Crow soundtrack and Chop Chop’s “Bloodbath” from the Archenemy Record Company, yours truly’s record label of old. I think I need to cover that Jakob Dylan song, it is underrated. The good Dylan son, Jakob. Don’t get me started on Jesse. No knowledge of Sam.
And we went to the hardware store to buy springs, which is a shame in a way because I had a fun new shopping research project for you guys, finding this exact set of scissors that is the absolute best at cutting 1/4” irrigation tubing. Except I found a perfect replacement spring for them at the hardware store so now I don’t ned a replacement pair. They don’t seem to make them anymore. It was all very exciting. You guys are so good at finding things on the internet for me. Everyone should have an army of dedicated personal Googlers since, you know, Google is so bad for the layperson to use.
And on that note, thank you all for your help on the garden hat. Several of you arrived at the same hat. I am unconvinced this is the hat that Builder Brother Jamie Perkins is wearing in that Youtube screenshot, but you guys are pretty convinced, as is Emma. It was sold out pretty much everywhere, so I couldn’t buy it and prove you all wrong, but then reader Nora overcame that obstacle as well and found a copy (edition? unit?) for sale at REI. I so have purchased the garden hat you all think is “the one.” I will report back when it arrives. I think it’s too small, but Nora rightfully pointed out “you don’t know — maybe that dude is small.” Excellent point.
Oh and also from yesterday: damn a lot of you are convinced Zenni optics suck compared to good expensive optics. I guess I believe you? All evidence from these posh glasses on my face supports this conclusion. But, you know, economics and capitalism are upside down these days and mo money don’t mean mo quality in every circumstance anymore. Impossible to say. The glasses industry is basically a monopoly in Luxottica, right? Monopolies not known for their high quality. But I suppose it’s possible!
Jesus. $24 billion in eyewear sales. In a year.
Point of order: I have been informed that the chorus of “Biko” is actually:
Oh Biko Biko Because Biko
30 years and I had no idea one of those Bikos was a “Because.”
Yesterday our friend Helena came to meet us at the park with her daughter Sophie. Sophie and Jane hit it off like gangbusters three years ago, but they didn’t remember each other. So they had to become friends again. They’re both kind of shy. You have to have a lot of patience, I am realizing, talking to Jane because she takes her time to fully form her sentences, starting and stopping till she gets the diction exactly right. It’s not stuttering, it’s more like copy editing in verbal form, in real time. It is very fascinating. But it takes patience and awareness and I think it takes other kids a moment to get used to it. But they hit it off eventually. And before we left the park for dinner I saw them holding hands which was so cute. Then dinner, which was great except Jane’s “stomach hurt’ because she had to poop and refused to do it in public. But, then, I know adults who have this neurosis, so, I mean, who an I to judge. We rushed home, she pooped, she was right as rain and they went and played in the play room while I took Helena to go see the greenhouse and Chore house and all that, none of which were in existence the last time she visited.
The kids were having a ball and we let Jane stay up way too late (Sophia was on west coast time) and this morning she work up at the same time and, come to think of it, that’s probably why she’s screaming right now even though I bought her a biscuit and a munchkin and cmon man I am a good daddy.
Jane is working on her story now. We are both taking solace in the act of writing. Heck yeah.
Check it: I took those drone shots I made, put ‘em in to keynote, made line art of my property, from overhead, and now I am using those to map all my underground utilities. I have a long way to go on the mapping — gotta call Dig Safe which is gonna be so fun — but I’m happy with the results so far!
Dear Tim Cook please make notes a better app. It is so close to being good. Please just make it stop crashing when you’re using it in full screen and make it so it doesn’t occasionally complete break copy and paste and paste the wrong stuff that part is extra creepy. Also please make it so you can email yourself a note from your Mac like you can on your iPhone. Thank you.
Hey all you people who are in the journey of finding an Evernote replacement and have not chosen Apple Notes: are any of the current options (Notion, etc) made by solo entrepreneurs or lifestyle companies? Are are the all venture-back monstrosities? I would consider switching away from Apple Notes for added functionality, but only if the company isn’t venture backed. Because I think Evernote has proven pretty conclusively that that is a road to ruin in the notes space, there is no “big exit,” and your notes will inevitably end up in the hands of the Russians. Actually, has that happened with Evernote yet? Ha lol. Seems to be owned by a company called Bending Spoons that counts The Weeknd and the Chainsmokers as investors. Well okay. Sounds like the Russians to me, he said, half-joking, half-seriously. Oh god, look at this investor roster this smells trouble: Chloe Zhao, Bradley Cooper, Eric Schmidt? Big nope. Mike Kreiger? Oh god, it’s worse than I thought.
I don’t think I will ever embrace another piece of personal software backed by VCs. It has never not come and bitten me in the ass eventually. Adobe, gawd.
I am off today, heading to Boston in three hours. It is very weird to wake up in the woods and think “Tonight I will see the Afghan Whigs and the Church rock it out in Boston I hope the whigs play ‘The Temple.’” I don’t care what the Church play, because their new album is their best in 20 years and sure, “Under the Milky Way” would be awesome but if they play nothing but the entirety of The Hypnogogue, I am 100% okay with that. This is going to rule.
Super pissed about Lana Del Rey at Fenway last night. Was gonna go, had tickets in my cart, MLB fucked it up, I got pissed and pouty and didn’t buy them, then forgot about it so I bought my ticket to Boston for Friday instead of Thursday so I couldn’t do the scalped tickets in Kenmore Square which was my plan. Just flat-out forgot. Sad. But, then, I wouldn’t have gotten to see Helena for another year, so I guess that works out but golly gosh I want to see Lana Del Rey live I have never seen her what a stupid oversight on my part. Lana come play Cat’s Cradle please hahaha yeah right.
A few PSAs:
Civilization VII is coming next year and I am very excited. It is going to rule. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully. Do I still play Civ VII way too much, eight years after it was launched? Yes, yes I do. Won a diety religious victory with Russia just this week. Absolutely trounced. St. Petersburg had a +20 religious district it was unhinged.
PSA for those of you who track your expenses in Quicken or something like that, and use Amazon too much for your own good: Amazon has a page that lists every single credit card transaction by the amount charged to the card. Which, as you know, is rarely the amount of the actual order. It’s a great page. Look at the amount charged on your card by Amazon, go to this page, type command-F and search for the transation amount. Bob’s your uncle. Not sure how long this page has existed, but upon finding it a month or two ago, my life has gotten a lot easier.
Coldplay’s new album has a special edition in partnership with the Ocean Cleanup project. Now, look, I know. Colplay. But the Ocean Cleanup is awesome, they are the people who have built the giant boats with giant booms that sail around the great ocean garbage patch and pick up plastic. People mocked the idea when it started, but they really have delivered. They deserve a Nobel Prize in environmentalism, which should exist.
Normally I give Coldplay albums a listen still because Brian Eno produces them usually, and while the songwriting can be tedious, they have often sonically sounded amazing. This one, weirdly, looks to be produced by Max Martin, so maybe the exact opposite will be the case. Be awesome if an album was produced by Max Martin and Brian Eno. Awesome sounding bangers with great choruses and bridges.
Also, c’mon, those early singles, yessss.
(Suzy I am sad that Coldplay Parachutes show at Avalon got cancelled that we were gonna go to).
The Chicadas are dying down. The buzz is gone. Every bucket I have has ten dead cicadas in it. Spawn till death. I am putting them all in the compost. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Cicadas are just gollums — the earth comes alive, breads, moans, and becomes dirt once again. What a weird thing to have gone through. They were everywhere, now they are no more. I can’t even imagine how people handled this sort of thing in pre-historic times. Woulda freaked my shit when they came back in ten years or whatever.
It really is something the way the creators of The Acolyte put m’fin Ki-Adi Mundi in the show and people are still like “dont’ you know Ki-Adi Mundi said the Sith hadn’t existed in 1,000 years??? OMG dummies,” and the creators literally have that dude in the show which means yes, they are probably aware of this, and maybe you should watch the show first before bitching about canon? Seems pretty clear these dudes know who Ki-Adi Mundi is and what he said. Maybe, just maybe, there’s an explanation! Chill!
Jane and I have made up from safety hug time this morning. We’ve had some hugs, she is using her Playdate and drinking healthy ginger ale. I hope the citric acid doesn’t fuck up her teeth.
Okay let’s keep this short-ish this Friday.
Look, yes there is a new Gracie Abrams x Taylor Swift jam out this morning. But you get a mix of death metal. Too bad. There is also a new Thou album today. VEry exciting. And I was just listening to that Abriction album and they (she) really are (is) one of the best bands around today just so insanely, endlessly innovative. Dis Fig is coming to Pinhook in Durham soon think I can get Emma to go?
Okay talk to you Monday. Bye bye birdie we love you Conrad.
concerts that get canceled make me so sad.