Good Morning. Hello. How Are You? #994
RIP John Warnock, Mr. Beast geopolitics, Sinead autobiography, Sherwin Williams' retail tech, hypochondria, the tyranny of tool battery platforms, roofing delays, sequelae of prior trauma,
Good morning! Tuesday! Woo. Much more pleasant when I’m not facing a day of ten meetings, this is nice.
RIP John Warnock. Someone said it yesterday and I 100% agree: I use PDF a 100x more than I ever use anything Elon Musk invented. John Warnock was a true pioneer. Adobe. Illustrator. PostScript. PDF. These things have had a massive impact on the world. Almost all positive. Really an old school computer hero.
Mr. Beast did a video where he had a contestant from every country participate in a sort of Mr. Beast olympics and it was fine, mildly entertaining video, but I am 90% sure that Mr. Beast did not include Taiwan as a separate country? Or if he did, he very much glossed over it in his map. It’s unclear to me if he obfuscated it so that it could be interpreted many different ways, or he outright gave Taiwan to China.
Cue international outrage.
Finished the Sinead O’connor autobiography last night. Big tonal change halfway through the book and at the end she’s like “oh yeah, I was working on this book like ten years ago but then I had a mental breakdown and stopped and then finished it a decade later” and you can tell, but that’s okay I think she nicely covered about everything. I kinda like the non-sequential story part where she picks topics like a person or an album and just writes about that. The part about Prince is insane. The book makes me want to give her reggae album another shot. And it makes me realize there are like five Sinead albums not on Spotify which sucks. Now I need to track them down. Especially the Irish folk songs one. They still have not released a cause of death but… it’s weird. The book seems very happy and like she is in a good place, but also she talks a lot about death and the last chapter talks about how she is kind of broke, needs to go on the road, and can’t because of COVID, and it is hard and she doesn’t know when she’ll be able to again. So that is rough. Anyway, remarkable book, remarkable woman, though I bet it would be very, very hard to be a family member of hers.
Had a lovely day yesterday. Did some work, got actual work product done, that was a nice change of pace. Had a work phone call, couple of work chats. I am working! Just… you know. Without meetings.
Also had to go pick up a can of paint. I needed another can of paint that matches the garage at the new house so I can paint over the conduits I installed. I think I mentioned this but I had to get it from an actual Sherwin Williams retail outlet. So I pre-ordered it, since they let you do this, order your exact base and color online, prepay, tell them when you want to go in and pick it up, and you can be in and out in a couple minutes without having to wait for a bunch of Space Karens (you know, interior space not outer space). It all seemed great on paper but it turns out it’s only great on paper because the store doesn’t bother to mix your paint until they get there. I ask them about this: don’t you guys mix the internet orders in advance so people can just come in and pay? We used to, the employee said, but people would order paint and never come pick it up. But I prepaid, I said. You don’t lose any money even if they don’t pick it up. Well, she said. You don’t have to prepay, and our system doesn’t tell us whether you prepaid or not. Oh. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated with this whole Sherwin Williams retail/ecommerce combination. Feels like a vast endeavor for a paint company, and almost a good idea, but the devil’s in the details and I guess their tech team isn’t quite there. Which is a little sad, I suppose. Seems kind of appealing to “work in tech” but actually just work for a paint company. Seems simple. Probably not a lot of DMCA takedown notices or GDPR compliance or election interfering. I wonder if they have stock options.
Got my finger X-Rayed at a secret UNC clinic that is not in Apple Maps but I managed to find it. It’s actually, like, six clinics in one, and very confusing when you walk in. Sorta laid out like a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop with a central core and different clinic doors on each side. Took forever to find imaging, and then you gotta check in to imaging at another clinic for some mysterious reason. But all that confusion aside, place was clean, everyone was super nice and I was in and out in less than 20 minutes, which is pretty awesome.
And I got my results later that night. Here is what my X-Ray had to say about my finger:
No acute displaced fractures or dislocations third and fourth digits.
Focal area of calcification is seen along the radial aspect of the base of the proximal phalanx middle finger at the MCP joint. No prior imaging is available for comparison to assess interval change, Findings could relate to calcific tendinitis or possibly be a sequelae of prior trauma.
“Secuelae” is a great word gonna remember that. Anyway, I know I hurt that finger at some point in my past, I can’t remember if that’s the one I fell onto on concrete steps in the brutalist Greening Building at UAF, or the one I dislocated while stealing Adrien Grenier’s limo. But apparently my past is coming back to haunt me.
The splints feel great when I’m wearing them, but when I take them off to type or wash my hands, I swear to god, my fingers feel worse than when I started wearing them.
And my blood pressure has not particularly improved, so I am pretty sure I’m dying. Had a whole day of hydrochondria yesterday which was just great. Convinced I had covid, convinced I was having a low-level heart attack. Super fun day.
I should probably suck it up and pay the $3k/month to go back on the weight loss drugs but it’s so expensive and I need that money for house renovations and it is just depressing when are these things gonna be covered by insurance. America. So instead I am trying to eat less salt which is the worst cuz salt is the best.
Fucking aging.
Since I was down by the X-ray place I went to the hardware store and picked up a bunch of things. But there were certain things I could not get cuz America and Capitalism is a scam these days and… I mean this whole situation where you can only get certain tool brands at certain hardware stores was fine, I guess, back when tools were electric, but now that they’re battery-powered it is bullshit. Every tool has its own battery system and this whole thing should be illegal. Why is it we have just abandoned the perfectly good system of universal batteries like AAA and 9Volt in this modern era for a bunch of shitty-ass proprietary battery systems? How is this good for anyone? You have two options: stick to one tool platform at the expense of tools you really need — my platform does not have a good baby chainsaw and it drives me bonkers — or break the seal and maintain two, three different platforms and descend into madness. It’s a faustian bargain. Why can’t Elizabeth Warren turn her attention to the tool industry instead of, hrm, which crusade could Elizabeth Warren abandon. How about the Aerojet L3Harris merger opposition. Let that one go and give us interchangeable batteries for tools. Man.
Had a meeting with the roofer yesterday and the long and the short of it is my roof is delayed by at least two more months. They are thinking of installing the main roof, then coming back and removing shingles and installing the solar shingles when they arrive from back order, but I’m just not sure this is the way to go. Unless they can install all the wiring, too, so I can get moving on the spray foam. Apparently the solar shingle manufacturer has made a host of improvements to the product and are shipping me the new product, which is definitely something I want but, man, this project gets delays and delays, but I also knew that and that’s probably fine. He’s coming back with his electrician in the next week or so and we’ll discuss whether we can get the wiring in in advance. Also the solar tile company is going to pay my electric bill for the two months it’s delayed, so that is pretty cool.
I brought Jane to the meeting at the new house and gave her my phone and while the roofer and I were talking she wrote notes to me. She wrote one that said “daddy you are talking to that man don’t get too tired. And drink lots of water💧💦.” And then she wrote another one that just said “Bees 🐝” which I think is maybe an Oprah Winfrey joke re-told through me since she doesn’t actually know the Oprah Winfrey joke.
Anyway, this is all not that interesting or impressive, I realize, but man that roofer sure was impressed with her, pre-K, writing these things to me. And I was like “yeah yeah very impressive, sure.” And thinking man, if he only knew.
The other day I was in the kitchen with Jane and she said something along the lines of “so assorted is the opposite of sorted” and it struck me like lightning bolt that “assorted” is “a-sorted” like “asexual” is “a-sexual” and wow yeah, I never realized that. I don’t know where she got that. Did she figure out the a- prefix and infer it? Did she see it on a Youtube video?
I have no idea.
Shoegaze playlist for you. All new. Well, 10 out of 12 songs. Don’t know anything about this last band Wisteria but what a closer. Awesome. New Slowdive. New Drop Nineteens! How surreal. Was good friends with one or two of them at different times in the last thirty years. Happy they’re finally making another record. And touring! That is gonna be surreal. Bought a ticket for the Boston show but not especially hopeful I will make it up. But a man can dream.
Until tomorrow, friend.