Good morning. Hello. How are you? #767
An end-of-the-week issue devoid of Elon, politics, SBF or any other crypto. You are welcome.
Good morning. Hello! How are you? Happy Friday. I am SO EXCITED. I am going to re-organize garage storage today AND THEN my big new tool chest workbench for my studio comes today. My god it is too exciting. Just ridiculous. Jane is at grammy’s this morning. Yesterday morning was rough. Big meltdown even before breakfast. Didn’t want to get dressed. I rate my parenting at about a C+ for the first third of the storm, but then I stepped away, took a breather, came back and my god I was the most patient, kind and attentive parent for the entire hour it took to calm her down. By the end we were both a lot happier. Thank god it didn’t happen the day before when I had a big work meeting during the 10 AM hour. She sat in my lap through that entire meeting on Wednesday, no outburst. My god that girl loves Zoom meetings.
Happy Veteran’s day. My uncle is a veteran: air force. My aunt is a veteran: Air force. My grandfather is a veteran: Army. My other grandfather is not a veteran. My father was drafted for vietnam but they took one look at his crappy-ass eyes and the fact he was a state police officer and let him off. On our last long roadtrip from Fairbanks to North Carolina, he told me a long story about his hitchiking trip from Fairbanks to Anchorage to go to the draft office. He got down there, the inspection lasted like ten minutes and they cleared him (it is hard to convey how screwed up my dad’s eyes were), and then he started hitchiking back to Wasilla to get to my mom who was at her parents’ house. Some guy picked him up just past Merrill Field, asked where he was going, said “just past Wasilla.” And the guy said “Great. Where?” And dad said “Jacobsen Lake.” And the guy said “Oh, you’re Kathy’s new man.” Small state now, small state then. The population of Alaska then was about 260,000.
Look, its Friday. We are going to have a tech- and crypto- and politics- free GMHHAY today. And this is a real feat of discipline, because, honestly, I don’t think we’re gonna have more than about 60 days of Elon owning Twitter, but we can talk about that Monday. And none of the cliffhanger races are decided yet (wait. Are they? Lemme check. No.) So it can all wait. We need a breather.
We should also pause for a moment here and acknowledge that this is a Boeing issue of GMHHAY: 767. Look. 767s are great, just amazing crafts, phenomenal feats of human engineering, and the first class section of most transoceanic 767s is just glorious. But I think we all have to admit they are no 747s and there’s just a smidge less glamour and that is sad. Great plane, though.
Just back from Walmart and McDonald’s and the recycling center. Great trip, very satisfying. They have cleared a 5-acre-or-so lot at the corner of 15-501 and what is imaginitively called “Collection Center Drive.” I wonder what it will be. I hope not another grocery store. Unless it’s Publix OMG. But I doubt that. Seems a little too small. A Home Depot would be great. With a Wendys. And a Thai restaurant. And a food truck village. Anyway, Walmart did not have a copy of Nope in 4k, alas. Nor did it have the affordably priced Walmart brand generic organic butter. $6 for a pound of butter is really something, I gotta say. At Walmart.
Bought a new smoke detector today for our equipment room there wasn’t one in there. There’s one outside the door, but that room has a lot of heavy electrical in it now, so it should have its own. Thought about going for some Homekit enabled one, but felt like immediate gratification and got one at Walmart. Not so long ago, I watched this fantastic Technology Connections YouTube video on smoke detectors, so I knew to get the good kind of smoke detector, the one with both kinds of tests in it, the one that costs $30 more. But also this one lasts ten years on a single battery and that is extremely up my alley. Maybe in ten years Homekit will be less buggy lol lol lol.
Bought some more Peach Iced Tea flavored Ice Breakers on eBay the other day. Walmart still has the Pina Coloda flavor, and they’re good, but they’re no Peach Iced Tea. Seems safe to assume that at this point, they’re discontinued. Their price on Ebay is going up. And my use-Ice-Breakers-to-quit-Nicotine-lozenges process is mostly complete and I hope to wean myself off of the Ice Breakers soon ish. But hey. One last go round the bend for old times sake, eh, Peachy?
I think we need to talk about Taylor’s problem here putting out so many versions of “Anti-Hero.” The Roosevelt one is okay. I can’t find the acoustic one yet seems taken off her site, not on Spotify. I have hopes for that one. But this Bleachers remix of “Anti-hero.” It is problematic! It is bad! Just go guest on a Bleachers song if you love them so much! And I cannot bear to hear his voice on your songs, Taylor, he’s already mucked them about too much! It’s so upsetting! Why are you doing this? Couldn’t you have posted a Dessner version of Anti-hero? Imagine how good a Bryce verse would have been in this anthem of self-loathing. Why are you messing with us? And his new lyrics! Taylor’s have a sort of self-lacerating bemusement. Jack’s lyrics are just mean! Not necessary! I am very upset about this version. The first time I tried to listen to it, I got through his first verse and had to stop in disgust. I mean, look, yes, I seem to like Taylor a lot, but the level of this revulsion surprised even me.
It’s really upsetting.
Do you wish I was talking about crypto instead yet?
Andor is really really good. Just astonishingly good. You could watch episode one, and think “That was really good.” Which you will probably think. But I am here to tell you… it gets better. Consistently better. Every episode has been better than the last one. Andor is barely Star Wars, in fact, it could be argued that Star Wars is holding Andor back. Andor would be winning every Emmy in the world if it weren’t a Star Wars property. There have been two — two! — speeches given in the show, by two different — two! — supporting — supporting! — actors in Andor that, both of which, I thought “this is the best thing I’ve seen on TV in years.” That was crazy enough the first time, and then it happened again!
Who knew Harry Potter’s aunt Petunia was so fucking awesome? (to which my wife would retort: people who watched Orphan Black). I knew Stellan Skarsgard was that awesome but I figured this was just another run at the ‘ole Disney paycheck that every actor I’ve ever loved inevitably does (ahem Richard E Grant). But nope. It is phenomenal. He is phenomenal.
And my god, what a show for our times. Andor isn’t Star Wars, its a window into our most-likely future twenty years from now.
While I’m on the entertainment kick, I will tell you I recently “re-watched” the 1970’s animated The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I put re-watch in quotes because while my child-memories definitely remember seeing snippets, parts of these, and quite probably I watched them both several times, I’m just not sure.
One thing I learned is that.. they are made by two different groups of people! In my head, both were produced by Rankin/Bass and directed (and animated) by Ralph Bakshi. But this is not the case! They are two entirely separate endeavors! Rankin/Bass did the Hobbit and it is definitely way more kid-friendly than Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings. They have fairly different animation styles. Both are wildly abbreviated - especially Bakshi’s LOTR. It ends so comically abruptly it is confusing. I was dimly aware of an animated companion Return of the King, and assumed that was a Bakshi sequel to LOTR, but no! His sequel never got off the ground, so later Rankin/Bass made a Return of the King, which I have still not watched. Crazy.
Also it is absolutely insane how heavily influenced by Bakshi Peter Jackson was. There are many, many scenes that are straight-lifted from Bakshi, and they both did similar cuts. No Tom Bombadil in either one. Won’t someone think of Tom Bombadil. Please, for the love of god, can we have a Tom Bombadil series filmed sort of like Upstream Color except nothing ever happens except god (er. sorry. Eru Ilúvatar)’s majesty and nature communing. Maybe a slow moving Ent. Please. Shit you could release it as a visualizer. That’d be so amazing.
Anyway. I will stop. I have a whole chat group of friends where I can talk about this: Thorin’s Thread. Hi guys.
And finally, I will say that Apple needs to get its shit together about its posh retail bags. First: I don’t need a bag when you deliver something to my house thanks. Second, that shoelace you use as a handle is cool, but that, combined with the metal grommets, almost certainly reduce the recyclability of your bags, and here I am cutting them out every time and now I have a pile of shoelace-like, Apple-bag ex-handles. Can I mail them to you? k thanks.
Hurricane Nicole — best hurricane name — is headed our way, but it’s taking the long way, through lots of land, so we should be fine. Finger’s crossed. Rain already started. Plants are happy, Rick is sad he wanted to do some work in the garden this weekend. But I guess between gargae organization, new workbench organization and the fact that I need to get my podcast done, I will manage.
Club mix today. Oontz oontz oontz. Why not. So many remixes. Why make a nice melodic song when you can go make a remix of that song so people can go to a club and catch COVID and dance to it. That is too cynical, I apologize. But boy, Spotify sure does like suggesting these things to me. “Do you like early solo Sting? Do you like dj MONK? Have you considered them together?” If Spotify made a Reese’s candy it would be nails and hairbrush flavor. Both fantastically great things on their own, but, um.
Have a lovely weekend.