Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1213
Boot free, summit over, short Japandroids retirement fiction, awnings! A stupid t-shirt I owned in the 90's. Real Wild Child promo ramping up. Did you know we can prevent Myopia now?
Good morning afternoon, hello, how are you? All well over here. Feastables is a dumb name for a chocolate bar. You do not feast on chocolate. That being said, as a mainstream chocolate bar, they are… fine. Nothing special. You’d think they’d do something zillennial and interesting or something, but nope. Just like every other chocolate bar.
Back from the foot doctor. I am free of the boot. It is exciting. Except now my right foot is constantly cold and I walk sort of lopsided and I am phantom convinced the pain is still there. Weird world. I remembered to bring a second shoe to the foot doctor, and then I was sitting in the parking lot, thinking: “Am I going to jinx it by bringing this shoe into the office with me?” I brought it in. I did not jinx. I asked the nurse what other people do.
“They always forget their shoe and have to wear the boot out,” she says.
I am superhuman. Eat it, Kanye.
Boy this Crowdstrike thing is bonkers. Apparently if you restart your computer up to fifteen times, it might go away! Cool!
But this is not going to keep me from putting windows on an old Mac still because I am so fucking sick of my truck beeping at me telling me not to take my eyes on the road because it is bad at is job and Ford cheaped out and put only one big-brother camera on my face and not two like the Mach-E and it turns down my music every single time, and I am trying to rock out. Not a fan. So I am going to foreskin Forscan that thing and turn off every beep I can, mark my words.
At work, we don’t really use windows — definitely not in our server environment — and use a different security software, so, you know, dodged a bullet here, but I suppose there but for the grace of god go I.
There is a new Japandroids song today. It is called Chicago. It is fantastic. It sounds like Japandroids. Okay, maybe “fantastic” is a bit strong, but it’s a super solid Japandroids song and it is stronger than the first single off of their last album, and that album turned out to be awesome, so things are looking up if you are a Japandroids fan.
Except, sadly and brilliantly, Japandroids have pre-announced that the forthcoming new album will be their last. They are consciously uncoupling or something. I mean, I am willing to wager that someday there will be another Japandroids album. In my gut — and I have no inside or outside knowledge here — is that they are basically saying “we’re getting old, we’ve been doing this a long time, it’s hard to keep the quality up, and to be a band in America that earns a living you have to give it 100% constantly, for years, living on the road, and do you know how much freakin’ time we’ve spent together? We have other hopes and dreams, we’re human, and god, our fanbase really kinda whined a lot when we, gasp, used a synthesizer or two on Near the the Wild Heart of Life, so, here. Here is a perfect Japandroids album. We’ll tour for it then leave us alone. Brian’s gotten really into gardening. David wants to do an album with Johnny Greenwood. We got other things in life. See us while you can.”
A short story about Japandroids by Rick Webb copyright © (option g) 2024 Rick Webb ltd.
Was following a Honda Pilot through the woods this morning. It had a MARY KAY COSMETICS giant sticker on it, then some indecipherable but clearly pro-gun sticker with two AK-47s on it. As I followed them down Fearrington Road I idly wondered if she worries the AK-47 sticker causes her to lose some clientele in the more suburban parts of this blue area. Probably not.
Then I remembered in the 90’s I had this T-Shirt that said DEFEND ALLSTON on it with an M-16 on it, and I suddenly felt deep, profound shame. Like… what the hell was I thinking? As some kid that had lived in Allston maybe ten years, I thought that I somehow had a right to speak about its gentrification? College assholes like me were the first wave of gentrification it’s not like *I* grew up in Allston, Ma. Never mind the stupid gun imagery, the joking around about armed insurrections and my utter naiveté that things like that could one day be an issue again (insert links to assorted Steve Albini essays where he explains how wrong we were with our post-evil irony when it turned out that evil was alive and well).
Man I have not thought about that shirt for like 20 years. I think I still have it in one of my archival t-shirt bins, but. Yeah. How fucking mortifying.
If you’re tired of run-of-the-mill white colonizer guilt, consider the sudden-and-profound-guilt-over-my-T-shirt-thirty-years-ago variant. A+.
Or consider awning guilt! Awnings!
This is a tour de force of modern YouTubing. Just fucking amazing. Awnings! Where did awnings go? How stupid was it to abandon awnings? because of HVAC? As if awnings still aren’t hella useful in an era of HVAC.
The death of awnings is, like, doom capitalism encapsulated. The very manifestation of calling anything in reality an “externality” and ignoring it in your models and inventions. It’s like a precursor to the way Silicon Valley cannot help but think. Oh, awnings, how quaint, we have HVAC now, we can cool your whole house without awnings. Never mind that it’s way more expensive, and massively damaging to the environment, and HVAC would still work even better if you still had awnings.
Also the part in this where he suggests using modern, high SHGC-rating heat-absorbing glass, as an awning, in addition to a high-SHGC window is fucking brilliant and someone needs to at least do a test about it.
Awnings!
I am finalizing locking down the photo booth and facepainting for REAL WILD CHILD, my kids’ goth night at Man Ray in Cambridge, Ma. I am excited. We have about 3 weeks until the big day. I need to start promoting better. Can you help get the word out? Any suggestions as to anything I should do to get the word out? I am willing to expend a modicum of effort on this I suppose.
Get this: while I was work summitting, Emma took Jane to the eye doctor. Her eyes are -1 already. The doctor said that if things continued unabated, that by the time she’s sixteen when things slow down, Jane will probably be as bad as me — negative ten to thirteen.
BUT! They have drops now! Yes, you have to take them every day for the next decade, but if she does this, they will almost certainly contain her nearsightedness drive to negative two! Two! Did you know we can prevent myopia now? That is so insane!
It makes me weepy, knowing Jane will not have to suffer through her whole life with blindness like I do. I have felt deep, irrational guilt about this, about her getting my shitty eye genes. It is such a huge relief.
All right that’s it for today I have work to do. Please enjoy this photo of Jane taking the kitty veterinarian oath:
Don’t have a playlist ready for today. Coulda sworn I would, but, alas, no luck. So, um… I don’t know. I already did a sweet video about awnings and the new Japandroids single! Oh right there is also a new Alan Sparhawk song have we talked about this? Oh right, we did, I made all those connections between Bobby Gillsepie, etc. etc. Well, I am putting the song here anyway here you go:
PSA if you are annoyed about politics, Monday is POLITICS DAY. Forewarned is forearmed. Wait, not like forearms. Fore-armed. Shit now I am confused.