Good morning. Hello. How are you? #809
Walmart, Mainstays v Brilliance, Akron, the Rubbermaid corporate show room, My Struggle for Normies, flour proliferation, shutting down Amazon Smile.
Good morning, friend. Hello. How are you? Happy Friday. I am realizing yesterday was issue #808 and I forgot to make a bunch of synthesizer and electronica jokes. My techno friends are probably disappointed in me. I deserve it. Hrm. I wonder if I made any jokes on issue #606 or, for that matter, #420.
Good god I’ve been doing this a long time. Our friend was over last night and she said that GMHHAY was art. She did not say it was good art, mind you, but rather was telling me she understood the point of it. My Struggle for normies or something. Profundity in mundanity. Deep connection through low stakes. Hi-low. Whatever. She got it. That was nice.
“Whatever.” So Gen X. Belittle yourself just for good measure.
(I am not attaching her name to this little anecdote because she was not offering a cover blurb or anything. But it was wonderful to see her).
Last night I made a “cocktail” of a cheap red wine blend, seltzer water and Cheer Wine. It was… actually okay? Bet it’d go over in Argentina. I’m trying to replicate Haus Spiced Cherry and it’s never going to happen and I miss that stuff so much and it’s so sad I should have stocked up more. Haus is a god damned tragedy and I’m very upset about it. Constellation Brands what have you reduced me to? Putting freakin’ Cheer Wine in my blends.
Just back from the highlight of my week, the recycling center-Walmart run. I got into my (fantastic, amazing, still love it, no regrets) runs-on-sunshine truck this morning and the map automatically assumed I was going to Walmart and laid out the route for me, lest I not know how to make the 1-mile journey. Jesus christ. I used to be friends with superstars and billionaires. What has become of my life.
It is freakin awesome that’s what. I think I have to acknowledge the possibility that the magical new pain medication I am on is not only working, but that it’s on-label use is also working. In that Duloxetine is better known as Cymbalta and used to treat depression. Because I gotta say, damn am I happy these days. Just low-key happy. Not euphoric, just… content. It is pretty rad.
At the recycling center as I was dumping my cans and cardboard I saw in the dumpster a disused can for Grape Zevia and it made me very happy to think that someone in our… region? Also drank the stuff, because it really does feel like they stock it in the grocery stores just for me.
At the Walmart, Walmart radio is back, so we can all breathe easy, seems like someone figured out how to reboot the Windows XP machine in the closet. They were blasting “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters (like there’s another “Everlong.”) Which was a nice coincidence cuz last night Emma and I were talking about when we saw the Foo Fighters at Stubb’s. Which was great except they decided to play a whole new album no one knew before the hits. We were talking about all the good shows we’d seen at Stubb’s. Metallica. Fiona Apple and Metric. OMD. Belle & Sebastian. Brightblack Morning Light, lol. God, that band ruled.
No good 4K Blu Rays at Walmart this week — they’re really invested in selling Black Adam blu rays and, I suppose, sure. Seems like there is an overlap between Black Adam fans and people with a physical blu ray player in their house. Haven’t seen the stats, but I’d buy it.
And they had no Rubbermaid Brilliance storage containers, my kitchen storage containers of choice. I need to more for two new types of flour I’m keeping in the house, my god, I have so many different flours. If you had told me about the future when I was a kid I think the fact that I needed six-to-eight types of flour would be as high up there on the wonderment scale as global plagues and the internet. It’s getting out of control. And I don’t even bake that much! Real bakers must have whole closets dedicated to flour. Maybe that’s what that mysterious extra tent is attached to the main tent on Bake Off.
Anyway, it seems that Walmart has decided to slowly scale back its array of Rubbermaid Brilliance containers in favor of its cheap-o in-house brand “Mainstays.” I mean, I am a big Mainstays fan in a lot of instances but a) one simply must have all their flour containers match and I’m already bought in, here and b) you can tell by looking at them they’re not as good! Four latches instead of two, cool, seems nice but is just more work, and the inner seal clearly does not go entirely around the edge of the container, and they’re not even as clear! They’re a little cloudy. I mean, not much, mind you, you’d not notice if you weren’t comparing them to Brilliance, but next to them they just look dull.
So now what. They don’t sell em at the good grocery store, just the bad one, so now I gotta get them from either Amazon or the evil grocery store. Man. Rubbermaid used to be a client, too. I’ve been to the factory. Can I tell you how awesome the showroom inside the Rubbermaid corporate office is? It is so awesome. Rubbermaid makes so much shit. I mean, I suppose it’s all plastic and it’s killing the planet, but when the revolution does happen and we’re slowly getting rid of all the plastic makers, can we put Rubbermaid last on the list?
We had Goodyear as a client, too. Akron. Great town. At one point, The Barbarian Group absolutely dominated Akron. Ben and I would fly in, rent a car, go to the Inventor’s Museum (amazing place), see all our Akron clients, head back to the airport and leave burned mix-CDs in the rental car for the next customer.
Pretty good airport bar in Akron, too. Miss that place.
Speaking of Amazon (ha) they shut down Amazon Smile, their program where you could go to smile. amazon.com, choose a charity, and do all your shopping from there and they would donate 1% or something of your purchase price to a charity of your choice. That last part was huge. My charity of choice is, of course, the local food bank, CORA, in honor of my dad and because you gotta start local, and I got them another like $200 or so on top of our regular donations through my use of Amazon Smile. It was a phenomanally great guilt reducer if nothing else, and now I am redoubled in my very lazy halfbaked plans to leave Amazon. Dammit.
Rubbermaid.com does not have a store. They helpfully suggest to buy their products at Target, Walmart or Amazon. Thank you, Rubbermaid.
Clearly it is time to shred all my plastic Rubbermaid containers, make a bench out of it and buy all new artisinal flour containers off of Etsy.
Mix of covers for you today. Mostly new ones. Lotta grreat ones. Love the Soccer Moommy cover of Bruce. Probably the best thing about the Willow show on Disney+. Two different Running up that Hill covers but that’s to be expected these days. Spoon doing a cover of one of the best late-career Bowie songs. Mo Troper, whom I don’t know much about, covering Chris Bell. Really spooky Cyndi Lauper cover. Good stuff. All worth checking out.
OK that’s it today I have so much work today and it’s already 9 and I gotta get cranking on it. Plus I got the plumber coming today. I don’t know what that has to do with word count but I’m using it as an excuse anyway. Have a lovely weekend!