Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1103
The family that streps together, more Taylor discourse, Elon's pay package, important Tooth brushing information, Nubia and Naboo are two different planets.
Good morning, friend. Hello. How are you? I hope you do not have strep. My whole family has strep. What is strep? I do not even know. Did you know that you can have strep and not have a sore throat? I have been overwhelmingly nauseous, with a massive headache, some phlegm, and aching shoulders for a couple days. Spent about 30 of the last 36 hours in bed. But I never had a sore throat. Mysteries of the world. Anyway, Emma and I are just back from the doctor getting our tests — Jane tested positive on Monday. I tested negative, which is ironic because I had it the worst. But after an 11 hour sleep last night I woke up feeling a lot better, so it’s conceivable I fought it off. But! Fun fact! Fighting strep off is not necessarily a good thing as strep antibodies can lead to rheumatic fever, who knew. Learning lots this week. So I get the antibiotic anyway, just to be safe. One of the many things I love about my doctor — she will prescribe antibiotics. This is my second time in a year, which is worrisome, but also my second time in fifteen years, which is less worrisome.
Thank you, as ever, to the people who dropped a line and checked in yesterday because I did not write an edition of GMHHAY.
I am listening to a new album by the industrial super group Cyberaktif this morning: Bill Leeb from Front Line Assembly and the two main guys in Skinny Puppy. Thank you to Skot for alerting me to this album (I do not think Skot is a GMHHAy reader, alas, but I am still thankful). It sounds like a really good Skinny Puppy album remixed by Front Line Assembly. I am into it. The year is 2023.
I would also like to thank dear friend and GMHHAY reader Aubrey. Aubrey reads GMHHAY in batches, and last week she was catching up from November onward. And she texted me and recommended this amazing product: replacement squeezable, mess free, self-closing silicone caps for your toothpaste tube. Kinda shaped like the pee-hole on a pee pee. They work great. The ceramic hand has been retired. I am now using these and there is no more mess from the toothpaste cap, and I don’t have to do that complicated move of replacing the cap while holding a toothbrush. They have changed my life. Aubrey is now an official recipient of the GMHHAY awards, a thing I just made up. We’ll see if they take off.
Speaking of toothbrushes did you know that you can give yourself strep again from your toothbrush? You are supposed to throw away your toothbrush and get a new one 24 hours after you started the antibiotics. I did not know this. Learn something new every day.
In our family illness, we re-watched the Lego Ninjago Movie because someone told me recently it had a lot of great lines. It does have a lot of great lines! Jane didn’t dislike it like she does the Lego Movie 2. She cares about luh-loyd’s well-being. But she also got up and started playing with Lego halfway through the movie. B+.
I also watched the first two hours of this twelve-hour analysis of The Phantom Menace because it was exactly calibrated to my strep-addled mental state. I learned a lot. “Nubian” does not mean “from the planet Naboo.” This is news to me, but also a relief, because I thought that was an absolutely terrible adjective. Apparently there is a different planet called Nubian that makes hyperdrives.
Hrm sitting here writing this I realize I am still not up to full strength, so I will leave you with a few more half-assed observations and then maybe go back to bed or something:
Elon’s $55 billion pay package from Tesla that he got like five years ago was overturned by a judge in Delaware. The judge said a bunch of very true things: the board is not independent, Elon was never going to leave anyway, and they were bad about telling the shareholders these things when it was put to a vote. This is all true. But it is all moot, and everyone knows it. The board could have put that package to the shareholders and said something like “Elon bribed each one of us to do this also he shot a drifter last week and this is too much money but you should vote for it anyway” and they would have. Everyone knows this. This was a dumb decision.
Also — and it is so bad to say this about someone like Elon Fucking Musk — but there is a bit of labor rights in here? Like I’m sorry but every CEO compensation package in the world should have a part that says “also if you manage to pull off the greatest run in stock market history and make the value of our stock increase by twenty-four times, you, as CEO, will get a good chunk of that, rather than every bit of it going to the shareholders who did nothing.” It was a reasonable deal! I remember it at the time, and I laughed at the possibility of Elon ever hitting those targets. And I hate the guy, but hit those targets he did.
I’m no capitalist or anything, and the money going to the CEO rather than the employees sucks, but the money going to the stockholders instead of the CEO also sucks. Shades of suckiness.
Anyway, in the court of GMHHAY, this decision is overturned.
Next, Taylor Swift does not need two private jets, and she is being a dum dum for threatening to sue the college kid who tracks private jets on Twitter and Threads. Only other dum dum to have threatened this kid was Elon Musk, which tells you all you need to know about the wisdom of legally threatening a kid for showing the public information that is publicly available. You know what’s funny? Any Tom, Dick or Taylor can use Netjets and rent a private jet if they don’t want their information out there in the public. But they don’t. And I assume they don’t because they like the convenience of being able to leave their clothes or cats in the jet or whatever. So rather than, you know, find a less public means of travel, they threaten to sue a kid. This is not great behavior and I am disappointed in Taylor for it.
I am also downright peevish she still hasn’t left Twitter yet. I mean, a ton of you still haven’t left Twitter yet, and it makes me sad all the time, but at least you haven’t suffered from the propagation of AI-generated porn depicting you in lewd situations, like Taylor has. It is somewhat stunning to me that a mere week after this happened, she decided to use the selfsame platform to announce her new album. That just makes me sad.
Both of these Elon-like things make me seriously wonder why the Republicans are so worried about Talor endorsing Biden. Starting to look like a Republican to me.
OK that might be a little harsh, but you go ahead and tell me with a straight face Taylor isn’t at least thinking about how to reassure the right wing of her fan base a bit.
Reminds me from a verse in my musical hit “Hats off to Bobby:”
Yeah I know it took me a while To stand up and say they're all is vile But southern fans they vote GOP And they're the only ones who still buy CDs
In other news Taylor has decided Disney Plus will be the streaming home of the Eras tour movie. Oh wait, I’m sorry. The official title is, she told us on Twitter, Taylor Swift’s The Era’s Tour (Taylor’s Version). Man I cannot wait to read the credits on that one.
I love her, I really do. I’m just reporting facts here.
And in fairness, just so you know, Taylor recently sold one of her two private jets. Probably. Maybe. Or Maybe she finally realized she needs to set up her shell companies at different addresses. Time will tell.
OK well that’s all I got. I miss you. I hope you’re having a lovely day. I’ma gonna go and try and figure out which images in my Camera Uploads folder I haven’t posted to GMHHAY yet my filing system is a little messy at the moment. Wish me luck. Did you guys already see these bird pictures? I can’t remember.
Today’s Media of the Day is this mix, Justa Mix. Stuff I’ve been listening to, new stuff. It is pretty all over the place. I apologize. But it’s a lotta good songs. New Liam Gallagher and John Squire song is awesome I really want to see that tour and I have never cared about Oasis. But still! It’s gold.
Okay tune in tomorrow when I have some exciting news! You will like this it is absurd. Until then, ta ta.
Hey Rick, threw away my toothbrush, thanks for the tip, disagree with you about Elon, mostly on general, human principles. And Cyberaktif? Wow, to my ear, really bad. Of course, I’m primarily a Roy Hargrove and John Prine fan — showing my age?