Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1095
More Apple Vision Pro + high prescription info, Olivia tickets, the Taylor/Twitter situation, Q&A with Jane
Good morning. Hello. How are you? Happy Friday. How exciting. We have today off: recharge day. It is occurring to me right now that I am *so close* to having GMHHAY issue 1099 on the day 1099’s are due, but, alas, I will be slightly off. That is a shame. In any case, gotta get the Viridian 1099’s done today. Wish me luck.
But we are not going to speak of that we will do this weekend. Lots of exciting stuff planned, but we’ll save that for Monday. ‘Tis always more pleasant to speak of plans once you have accomplished them.
Related: Important news: If you live in the Boston area, and have a kid, save the date of April 6. Exciting things coming. VERY EXCITING.
I have a call-out request from a friend: Does anyone here have any experience or help with bankruptcy or debt consolidation? Someone who has filed for bankruptcy or worked their way out of it. I will keep everyone anonymous but a friend is looking for some advice.
I would like to apologize to Anne for disparaging soap operas. I ought to get her to write a WITI about soap operas that would be awesome.
Man. I gotta write a new WITI soon.
Jane is in the other room making a video for the “Journal” app and it is so amazing. I hope she manages to keep all these her whole life, it’ll be a real gift for her. Also I gotta see if these save to her camera roll, and thus our shared iPhoto library. That would be amazing.
I am listening to the Fauns album, it is great. Beautiful shoegaze. They deviate from the genre on maybe 4 of the 10 or so songs, and the other 6 are perfect examples of the genre. A+ no complaints.
So Taylor got a bunch of AI porn made of her on Twitter, surprise surprise. And then a bunch of Taylor fans starting a “protect Taylor” campaign where they were posting PROTECT TAYLOR under every conceivable hashtag someone might use to see these images, which, I gotta say, is very sweet. Elon did eventually take the images down, mostly, and ban the main perpetrator accounts, for now. But my god, between the people looking for it and the PROTECT TAYLOR fans, I suspect yesterday was one of Twitter’s largest days of traffic since he bought the thing, and my god does that piss me off.
Unrelatedly, I swear, I’ve also been irked with Taylor for not getting off Twitter: it is still where she does the bulk of her announcements for new albums and tours and whatnot. She is not on Threads. And please, please, please, let this be the thing that gets her off of Twitter, take her stans with her.
My current theory is that almost every progressive lurker and consumer of Tweets has left, gone to Threads or Bluesky or Mastadon. But the content creators, especially the ones with large audiences, are scared to leave. It’s just such a bummer I am sad.
In other pop star news I successfully got the absolute three worst seats in the Arena for the Olivia Rodrigo show in Charlotte. I did not succeed in getting tickets for either of the Boston shows. I will probably have to get those on the secondary, which sucks. Because Olivia’s tickets were priced so absolutely perfectly. When I bought Taylor Eras tickets, I got four of the worst seats in the house and it was about $1,200. These seats for Olivia are a little worse, but not much, and actually closer to the stage — just the back, har har. And they were forty-nine dollars each. I mean, c’mon. Olivia rules.
Went to PT yesterday. Got some dry needling done. It is absolutely insane how little those needles hurt compared to the ones they stick in my neck. She also did some therapeutic ultrasound, which I gotta say is pretty awesome I am slowly becoming a fan over cupping. In any case, at this exact moment, both my neck and elbow are feeling okay. And I don’t know if you know the weird euphoric feeling you get when long-term pain has been mitigated in some way (like, ahem, heroin?) but holy hell do I feel great right now. My arm still hurts when I use it, but it doesn’t hurt when it’s not lifting or squeezing, and my neck doesn’t hurt so long as I move it right now, and while I recognize that neither of those sounds amazing, it is also pretty amazing.
Of course it’s all gonna get ruined from all the yard work I have to do over the next few days but hey enjoy it while it lasts.
Yesterday while I was cleaning up for dinner I got a mysterious call from a 512 number, ignored it, got a voicemail, it was from Apple about my order. I have cancelled the order, as you know, and got worried Apple was trying to bill me for it or something. So I called them back and got the “management center” which is a thing, and I gave em the order number but they had no idea why I was calling about a cancelled order, alas. I am now convinced Apple is calling me because they want me to be a beta participant in some amazing high-diopter lens program and they are willing to custom grind for me prescription lenses for the Vision Pro but it is all falling apart because I didn’t answer the phone. I find myself still sad I’m not getting the thing. It is not rational. I could spend that money on so many other cool things like fiber between the houses or that amazing new electric wood chipper. The thing seems bordering on useless. But my god, I still want it. And now I won’t be able to get it because of my phobia of answering the phone.
But I did explain to the woman why I cancelled and she sent me an article about lenses and the Vision Pro, so if you are in my boat and wondering about high-diopter prescriptions and the Vision Pro, maybe this technote will prove useful to you. The note says that Vision Pro is compatible with “the vast majority of prescriptions.” It also lists a lot of conditions. I just fired off an email to my optometrist asking if any of the other conditions, besides diopter, are incorrect, but I don’t think they are.
And for those of you who are curious, my current prescription is -11 and -12.
Jane bedtime last night, second night in a row since Emma is still not feeling well (send her love). Jane kicked me in the balls and nearly ripped my pinky off and didn’t notice either. Roughousing is rough! We can’t find Gigi and it has been two days and we are getting worried. She actually let us watch some videos that weren’t Taylor or Blackpink. Olivia is getting deprecated. Caroline Polacheck and St. Vincent are back. The new Renee Rapp and Megan Thee Stallion is an instant hit. She loves it so much. There video is, alas, explicit, and she won’t let me sub it out for the SNL one.
OH and I finally asked her all those questions, her answers were not super exciting. But here they are for posterity:
1. What is something I say a lot?
“Can I have a hug please?”
2. What makes me happy?
Hugs!
3. What makes me sad?
When I argue
4. How tall am I?
No idea!
5. How old am I?
I keep forgetting
6. What's my favorite thing to do?
Hmmm. There’s a lot of things you like doing so this is a difficult one. I would probably pick “be around with Janie”
7. What makes me proud of you?
That’s an interesting one. I don’t know the answer but I think: when I do something I don’t want to do.
8. What is my favorite food?
I don’t know!
9. Do I have a favorite child?
Well.. if I had to answer this one it would probably be me.
10. If I could go anywhere, where would I go?
I don’t know.
Wanna guess?
No.
11. Do you think you could live without me?
I don’t think so. It makes me sad to think about that.
12. What's my favorite song?
Hrm. You have lots I don’t know which one to chose.
13. How do you annoy me?
Ummm. I think when I’m not doing the right thing
14. What is my favorite movie?
I don’t know.
15. Who do I have a crush on?
I don’t want to answer because you pointed (I pointed toward the bedroom where Emma was because Jane doesn’t know what a crush is)
16. Where was I born?
Alaska
17. What's my favorite show I watch?
I don’t really know a lot about this question. Sometimes you still watch TV even though I’m not around, right?
18. Who's my best friend?
I don’t know what to choose.
Choose one. There’s no right or wrong answer.
But I don’t know if I’m correct.
Do you want to guess?
No.
19. What scares me?
Me yelling’
20. How do you describe me to your friends?
Hmmm. Ummm. Uhhh um um um I would say that he likes hugs a lot.
Okay lots to do today — even though it is a day off I am overwhelmed with tasks. So we will keep this short. Have a lovely day!
Today’s Media of the Day is the new Aaron Perrino track, which is freakin awesome and synthy and goth and makes me very happy and it will make you very happy too.
Oh look good for Substack (I did not say that), they handle Bandcamp links just great.
Y’all have a good weekend, y’hear?
Also, I assume you have looked into LASIK. My prescription was -8 with astigmatism and with LASIK I got to 20/40ish. I still wear glasses but I have a nice normal prescription now.
Yes! The answer is yes! I will write a million words (or more) about why soaps are interesting and you will be sorry you ever asked