Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1482
Four things I don't know how to do that I would like to learn how to do but am scared or overwhelmed.
Good morning good morning. Hello. Hi. How are you? All good? Do hope so. Wednesday. Just back from dropping Jane off at school. We were first in line, even when taking the slow route, through the neighborhood. Really getting absurd. Love it.
Imagine if every Ezra Klein Matty Yglasias pundit started every think piece with a nice bland paragraph about what they were just doing in their life. Bet it’d be hilarious and wildly anti-populist.
We are listening to the new(ish) Doves album this morning, part of our ongoing process of cleaning out the “to investigate” playlist and giving every album most albums a second chance. I think I got the good songs off of this album already. Wish it was… 10% better? It’s good but it’s no Last Broadcast. Must be hard to continually make banger albums your whole career for like 30 years. What do I know I’ve only ever made one and a half good albums ever.
RIP to Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s accusers, the woman who more or less took down Prince Andrew. Committed suicide following grave injuries from a car crash at the age of 41. I am not much of an Epstien conspiracist but I very much care about suicide, and I admired her courage in speaking out.
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People often say I know how to do a lot of things, but there are four things I would like to learn that I do not know how to do, and I am… sort-of scared to learn? But I’ve decided it’s time I stop being scared of these things, it is only setting me back. And they might be hard to learn all by myself, by reading a book or watching a Youtube video, but they are learnable. What I have realized is that I will only learn these things if someone teaches me, and at the age of 52, that still… bugs me? scares me? Seems like too much work? Something. But I am going to have to get over this because I am realizing I no longer like this feeling.
So, these things are:
Sewing. I used to know how to sew, actually. And the actual sewing part of using a sewing machine is not that hard. But the operating a sewing machine part is overwhelming. Like putting the thread on the thingy and strigning the thread. Emma and I were talking about it yesterday and part of the problem is that sewing machines are all different? ish? I mean, yes, a talented, experienced sewer can look at a new-to-them sewing machine and be like “ah yes that goes in there and that goes in there.” But I need to, like, figure out which sewing machine I am using in my life and learn that one. Does this mean I am going to use Emma’s sewing machine? probably, right? Seems dumb to have two. Anyway, Emma teach me how to use your sewing machine please.
LED lighthing. I keep watching video after video and it is ridiculous and complex and you need a power supply and you gotta solder, maybe, which I only barely know how to do, but more the the point the whole industry is just an absurd fucking minefield of Chinese garbage brands with a few really good Chinese brands thrown in and they all have alphabet-soup brand names and you somehow just have to know that XYJAK is the one good brand. I have watched so many reviews of LED controllers and strips and it is just absurd. Oh also do you try and integrate this shit with Homekit because that radically reduces the number of controllers that work. Or do you just go generic matter and hope for the best? Or not integrate at all that is probably the way to go, right? Anyway this is not theoretical because no one in their right mind is going to make a high-end recording studio in the year 2025 without spraying LED lighting all over the place. I need a tutorial. And probably a soldering refresher. Which leads to….
Welding. I welded once, in a continuing-ed class in like 1987. It was scary. Again, watched tons of videos but still don’t feel ready. Again, requires equipment, lots of equipment, and the choosing of the equipment seems to heavily influence how you weld and learn to weld. Tig, Mig, Arc, yadda yadda I don’t know what any of these words mean. I harbor fantasies and have made myself a promise that the first thing I do when I retire is I will go find some community college and take a welding class. But also I do not really want to wait that long. I was watching a studio build video and the dude made his rolling baffle walls, whatever you call ‘em, out of welded square tubing instead of wood, which is what I was gonna do. And they look so good. I want to do that. Very often I find myself thinking “I could just weld that I wish I knew how to weld.” And I want to just nike do it.
3D rendering. I have never, ever managed to learn 3D rendering. This is 100% because Adobe Dimensions was a lame program and 3D Studio Max and Maya had really really good copy protection in the 90’s so I never managed to get a really solid working version of these multi-thousand-dollar apps back when I was young and learning all software ever via pirated versions thank you Adobe I have given you my god probably $200,000+ in my career that you earned because of your goods being piratable and seriously this is probably why you suck so much as a company now. Anyway, nowadays there are amazing free 3D rendering programs like Blender and Sketchup but that is also exactly part of the problem: feels like I am going to have to learn two apps because I have two different buckets of 3D needs? Small modeling for things I want to print in my 3D printer, and rendering for things like rooms and furniture I want to build, and it seems like Blender for the former and SketchUp for the latter and gawd, man, it is scary just learning one of these apps let alone two. Just noticing now how much “sketchup” uncapitalized looks like “ketchup.”
Anyway, those are the things I don’t know how to do that I would like to learn how to do.
Ooo let’s pretend we are a professional youtuber here: do you have something you want to learn but are scared to? Leave a message in the comments, so we can feed the algorithm. Be sure to hit like and subscribe so you can….
Oh my god I am so glad I don’t have to do any of that for GMHHAY. Thank you, readership. You are the best.
Oh hey this “Saint Teresa” song on the new Doves is pretty good.
Today’s playlist is a “cleanout playlist.” All the songs that have just been sitting at the top of the “To Investigate” playlist for months and months because I love them and am happy to re-listen to them each time I get to the top and start again. It is a little long but that’s mainly cuz of the 19-minute Swans song. God last Swans tour hitting NYC in October and Spiritualized doing Pure Phase in September am I really gonna go to NYC twice?
This Cloud Cult song has been fucking me up for months my god I am so scared to die but if I am judged on the love I was unafraid to show I think I might fare okay. It is simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. The Renegade Soundwave song was re-done for the Rema Rema doc but this is the original version which I did not know it before this, despite, I thought, having all the RSW records, but, then, despite being a Rema Rema fan and an RSW fan I did not know of the connection. I have put the fantastic new Avalon Emerson single on, like, two playlist now and there will be more. Put the Q Lazarus song on a playlist just yesterday. So what, man. This is some quality right here.
Byeeeee.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.