Good morning. Hello. How are you? #833
Jane's doing long jumps, schooling plans, theory of Ambivalence Pricing revisited and properly credited, do you think the Obamas give till it hurts? Neptune is coming to Carrboro
Good morning! Hello there, how are you? All well? I do hope so. We’re good over here. Big day in the Webb household. Finally got Jane to understand that she doesn’t need to stop running before she jumps. She can use her momentum and inertia to jump further if she keeps running and jumps while running. It’s really odd it took her so long to understand this. Is this normal? It feels instinctive? But, then, I think of that scene in, I think, Chariots of Fire where those stodgy English boy students were doing the hurdles and they would run up to each hurdle, stop, back up, then run at it again and only then jump over the hurdle. Then that guy came along and just ran and jumped over each hurdle and it caused a revolution in hurdling. Was that Chariots of Fire? I am not sure. Feels like it was. Also wasn’t it awesome in The Crown how they recreated the beach running scene in Chariots of Fire? I feel like that scene didn’t get enough credit. Beautiful. Anyway, Jane was very excited about this and started long jumping all over the house which was just great. Our Daddy Jane dance party (Fiesta de Baile Daddy y Jane) was mostly long jumping. Then she gathered all her stuffed animals and sat them in a row for class and had me teach them how to long jump and each one of them learned how to long jump. Man. We may have oversold school to this girl. She is very excited about it, raising her hand and whatnot.
And we, on the other hand, are sitting here thinking about home schooling. The lottery for the other “good” public school is tomorrow, we do not have high hopes, but never say never, as they say. Jane learned that phrase not too long ago. It is great when she uses it. Anyway, I read all the documentation on home schooling from the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education, home-schooling division and it’s all pretty straightforward and chill. You gotta name your school, which is kinda funny. I wonder if they’d let us call it Space Academy. Oh. No. They will not. You cannot use words like “Academy” in your school name. Which is very weird. Also you have to have a high school diploma, and prove it, to start a home school, which I suppose makes sense. On a lark I dug up the email address on the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District web site for diploma ordering and emailed asking about a copy of my high school diploma. No word back yet.
It seems easier to pull a kid from school than to re-insert one, though, so I suppose we ought to give it a shot first? Also, fun fact: you don’t have to send your kid to school at all in North Carolina until they’re seven so, you know, we could just punt on this issue for another year. Try all the lotteries again. Have her be even older than the other kids. Maybe she’d actually be their height by then.
Anyway, she’s running around the house doing long jumps and speaking Spanish. I think we got a regular Speedy Gonzalez over here. I will need to teach her “andele” and “arriba” this morning.
I would like to give a shout-out to my wife for introducing the concept of ambivalence pricing. When you don’t know how much to charge for something, or to offer for something, you want to find that sweet spot where you feel like you paid too much and you didn’t pay enough. You want to be equally scare you will win the job and that you will lose the job. I wrote an essay about this several years back. I did not give my wife credit for the theory then, I am here apologizing publicly (I apologized privately almost immediately, natch) and announce to the world that this brilliant business theory is her brainchild.
It’s been coming up a lot lately in my personal life and in my work life. I have found myself education many people about ambivalence pricing of late. It really ought to be in all the business textbooks.
Speaking of ambivalence pricing, I remember Obama giving this speech several years ago about how we all needed to give more money to charity, to political causes that matter to us. We need to give enough that it hurts, he said. It seemed to sort of touch on the theory of ambivalence pricing. It stuck with me.
The other day, I was wondering if Obama is following his own advice. Dude has probably made a hundred million dollars since he stopped being president. Do you think he has given, oh, $90 million of that away? How rich do you think the Obamas are these days?
Neptune is coming to Carrboro, to Cat’s Cradle and I am so excited. Neptune started in Boston in the 90’s and have put out like ten records or something. I, as a partner in the Archenemy Record Company, put out their first album in 1999. I really fucked it up. Like I took forever getting the thing pressed and I was short on money and Jason would call me all the time asking what was up and I was embarrassed it was taking so long so I would just not answer the phone for days and eventually Jason started calling every single day, which really was a brilliant move. And the pressure would grow and grow and I would feel more and more guilty, which would of course redouble my commitment to not answering the phone and it went on like this, him calling me every day, for months. Eventually I think it was Sean who broke the logjam and was like “you could just call him and say there’s a delay and it will be a few more weeks” which was the truth. It’s funny. In hindsight, I mean, I was this kid, well, I was 26 I guess, but still. I had almost no money and I was committing a good chunk of what I did have to getting this album put out and there really was no need to be embarrassed, but I was.
Anyway, eventually, I got the album done and manufactured, but CD and an amazing vinyl edition with a sheet metal cover that Jason had supplied. And the thing sold but not amazingly, because it was before the internet and we only had moderately okay distribution outside of New England. Ironically I still have maybe ten copies of the vinyl and a box or two of the CDs still in my storage unit so I think I’m going to just bring them all to the show and hand them over.
I’m sure Jason will appreciate that. Just what you need to add to your tour van. Fifty pounds of PVC and sheet metal.
Justa mix for you today. Jane and I had a lovely Daddy Jane Dance Party (Fiesta de Baile Daddy y Jane) last night to Goldfrapp. Went through about 20 Goldfrapp songs man, that woman really has a lot of hits. Er, sorry, that band — Allison and Will — really had a lot of hits. Will played with Moondog did you know that? And Tears for Fears. Storied Carreer, Will Gregory. Good late-era Ting Tings song (it continues). Great new stuff from Death Valley Girls, US Girls, Algiers, BJM. The new Lil Yachty is bonkers I love it so much. Some old classics. And this great track “Mariah” I had completely forgotten about but came on randomly yesterday when I was dropping off some eBay packages at the Pak Mail. Great tune. Got me back into Anna Shoemaker.
This feels short. I had something else. But I forgot it. I was so close. Dammit. Write things down, Rick. Alas. Till tomorrow, then. Farewell, friend.
whoa, neptune is playing out again? throwback!
unrelated: i always forget where you live because your neighborhood sounds so exurban, yet i always assume (not having ever been there) that chapel hill is a big town!