Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1018
Autumn, Walmart run, Miranda Sex Garden, Delta Sky Clubs can suck it, Pool company meeting, pounding NA beer at the end of a bender
Good morning. Hello. How’s it going? Ah, autumn. The time when souls organizational efforts are challenged when it comes to not-clean-but-not-dirty clothes. I swear I have, like, three pairs of pants and two pairs of shorts in rotation right now. Freezing when I wake up, warm during the day, chilly in the evening, though all of that might change depending when the sun’s out. Always changing clothes, I am.
Just back from Walmart. My cart had a thumping wheel. I did that thing where you notice your cart has a thumping wheel, and then you’re like “it’s fine. I don’t want to go back and get another cart, that is a hassle. I can endure this thumping wheel, it’s not so bad” and then the thumping wheel annoys you to your last frayed end, and it’s all exacerbated by the inescapable fact that you did this to yourself.
There was no Walmart radio today. I missed it. Not sure what’s up with that. I hope this experiment in corporate branded content has not come to an end. I, for one, believe in Walmart radio. There was no music at all. It was weird. They were out of Topo Chico. I took the last 99 liter bin and it will probably be six months before they get more. When a Walmart runs out of something, it will be at least an entire season before they replace it. It really is something. There were a lot of copies of Taylor’s Version of Speak Now out, finally, three months too late. A Walmart special edition of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning. That was exciting I bought that one.
The Zevia redesign is slowly permeating its way through the retail chain, and it is a serious problem. The Zevia Cola and the Caffeine Free Cola look waaaaay too much alike. I mean, seriously, look at this. How is someone supposed to deal with that? Diet Mountain Dew handles this the best. The Caffeine Free DMD comes in a completely different color can, no mixing them up. Emma and I talked about this last night and I thought that Caffeine Free Diet Coke no longer comes in a golden can, but, in fact, it still does come in a golden can. Or copper. Or something.
But this Zevia situation is untenable. I love this brand but they are always, always trying new shit. Which, from a corporate executive perspective, I can really admire. Never rest, Zevia. But from a consumer point of view, it is exhausting. This month they took the six-pack rings out of the cases and, yeah, that makes sense from a recycling point of view, and I will deal. but I swear to god this is like the fourth time since the pandemic started they’ve fiddled about with their cases in some way. They used to have this awesome “frustration free” packaging and it ruled but now its gone and the packaging now includes frustration. And now, this redesign. Oof.
It is hard, it is hard.
Delta has been fiddling about with its miles program and boy people are pissed. I personally think it’s hilarious. I mean, I’m a sky miles member but I almost never actually use the miles, and when I do, I just use them for more tickets. I don’t expect upgrades to first — even when I was at the Diamond level they were impossible to actually obtain. I don’t expect them to get me into the Sky Lounge. I subscribe to the WFBF philosophy — Want First Buy First.
And I also pay my own way to the Sky Lounge, but I gotta say, I am done with that shit. The Sky Lounge is awful, just awful these days. It is filled with awful people. The model that they are now following in their business is awful. The conversion to having free food in the lounge has been absolutely terrible. The place is now just absolutely, constantly, filled to the gills with grazing pigs, on top of the previous free booze hounds. The place is like if you took a Costco and made it 1/10 the size but crammed just as many people in there.
And don’t get me started on the men’s rooms. They’re clean, they’re great, but historically they’ve always only had one or two stalls and I swear to god there are men who just camp out in those stalls. I swear to god, constantly full of long-shitting men. Somewhere in Atlanta there is a conference room where people have realized this because over the last few years Delta has mightily endeavored to radically expand the number of stalls in the men’s room from a number that all common sense says is enough, to essentially one stall for every man who might be in the Sky Club at any moment. If you walk into a Sky Club and see, like, thirty men, I guarantee you there are another thirty in the bathroom, sitting on their thrones looking at their phones for an hour or so each.
Men just don’t do this in the bathrooms out in the main airport.
Also the rest of the airport has gotten so much better. I mean, generally speaking, in the US, we are emerging from the dark age of crappy airports and many, many cities have revamped their airports and their food options and their work areas and power outlets and bathrooms and all of the things for which I used to use the Delta lounge.
Delta Sky Club: it can suck it.
Miranda Sex Garden is back together, playing shows. I am very excited about this. I suppose there is zero chance they will ever make it to America but I am enjoying living vicariously through their Instagram photos. So right now, Katherine Blake is touring three bands: Miranda Sex Garden, her more-mainstream Mediæval Bæbes, and a band I didn’t even know about, The Witching Tale. Hardest working goth witch in show business, Katherine Blake.
Man, Miranda Sex Garden was so freakin good live back in the day, too. I only got to see them twice, but were I a childless single man, I would be flying to England for this reuinion. Alas.
Speaking of Jane she was SO GOOD this morning, we left for school five minutes early, she was so happy and kind and it was just the best. It is exciting to have a daughter who is not sick. That makes things a lot better. I’m gonna enjoy this week, hopefully two, where she isn’t sick.
I didn’t do bedtime last night cuz I had a pool company meeting, which was pretty exciting. I like that company, really doing some interesting stuff. It’s like a useful application of many of the business skillz I’ve acquired through the years, without being in tech, and having a slightly different spin on them. We’re going through an audit right now (lot more regulated of an industry than I’m used to, contracting — all these different licenses and audits and whatnot), and it’s like 80% stuff I’m used to in audits but 20% different stuff and 90% less corporate. The lady managing the audit barely has her act together in life and is bordering on incomprehensible. You’d never get that with a big NYC audit firm. It’s a hoot. People are real. I enjoy it.
And I drank too much and staggered home from next door, where we have our meetings, and I took a nice picture of the driveway at night and learned that every one of those little lights on the driveway auto-brightened when you walk by them that is cool. Then I got home and Emma and I had a long conversation where I tried to explain the pool company to her but I don’t think I made much sense and we both worried about how hung over I’d be today but I mostly feel fine and I definitely needed that, it has been a very hard week.
Life is hard.
But I’m not hung over because when I got home instead of continuing to drink I pounded two Bud Zeros which meant I cleverly got 24 oz of water in me before bed. Brilliant.
Every bar should serve NA Beer for last call, just to do people a favor.
It’s Friday. Here. Have a country playlist. It is great, I promise. So many great country ladies, and a few countrymen that almost certainly aren’t boycotting Bud Light. Don’t let the bastards take country away from us, maaan.
Have a lovely weekend. Will I take my own advice? TBD.
WFBF is the way