Good morning, fellow noble pedestrian domesticians, how’s the haps? All’s pretty well over here. Buttondown seems to have changed the font in the composer window this morning, to some variant of Times. This is leaving me discombobulated, but, man, I am a writer and I will write. A little font funkery never scared me.

We have one of those giant 12-foot halloween skeletons, as you may know. We dress it up for Christmas as an excuse to leave it up for longer. We have been aware we need to take it down for a few weeks now, but procrastinating. But then Emma had a great idea: have the thing sell girl scout cookies. So she and Jane made this poster sign for Mr Big Bones:

Order some cookies! Click on the sign! If you do, I will take a picture of Mr. Big Bones holding the sign after I print it on Tyvek today and Emma gets it in his hands. You want that, don’t you?

Just back from school drop-off and the grocery store. You may have heard but a big storm’s a comin’, and people down here in North Carolina love to freak the fuck out when a storm’s coming. I, myself, have never stopped being a Great Depression Granny, since the pandemic, and we routinely keep, oh, like six jars of peanut butter, 50 pounds of rice, 10 boxes of pasta, tons of cans in my sweet-ass FIFO can distribution system, of which I wrote extensively “back in the day.” I also make a 21-ingredient vegetable stir-fry most days of the week, so I keep a lot of fresh vegetables on hand. Nonetheless I did buy some cukes and tomatoes, to make some salads with my garden spinach and lettuce. And they still had Jane’s organic apples, so all set there.

Actually, if I am being fair, the main place hit by the storm preppers was the produce section. Rest of the store seemed pretty well stocked. Maybe the whole region still has Covid-shortage psychological wounds.

We bought three boxes of the hot new faux-healthy Mac and Cheese that is sweeping the juvenile population, an item that has the distinction of having the greatest discrepancy between Harris Teeter price and Walmart price I have ever seen. Goodles, as they are called, are $1.89 a box at Walmart, and four dollars and ninety-nine cents at Harris Teeter, for a price difference of 264%, which is just staggering. But I only go to Walmart on Friday and did not want to risk not having any Goodles if we are shut in by ice and snow for three or four days, so I shelled out an extra, gawd, $12 for laziness. Amurica. The old man at checkout called me on it, and called me out for buying Zevia while not on sale. Pointed out that the 12-pack at Harris Teeter had a higher per-can cost than the eight-pack at Walmart, and, sir, I know. Oh, I know. This man speaks my language.

Driving home the 9,000-song playlist of all my favorite music played the OG album version of “Pale Blue Eyes” and it made me all sad thinking of the very last time Lou Reed stepped on stage, five days before he died, when he did “Pale Blue Eyes” with Metric at Radio City, and Emily Haines had to guide him through the song. It was so sad and beautiful. Just like the song. So sad and beautiful.

If I could make the world as pure
And strange as what I see

If I had an emo band these days I would call it If I could Make the World as Pure and Strange as What I See. We would tour with The World is a Beautiful Place and I’m Not Afraid to Die and we would kill it in Baltimore at Ottobar.

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We are listening this morning to Suss, an amazing southern-ambient band, heavy on the deep-reverb slide guitar and harmonica and I love it so much. Major Chuck Johnson vibes, Nick, if you are reading. A dude who used to be a friend of mine from DoStuff media told me about them, I think they’re friends of his. Lost touch with that guy, shame. He introduced me to some cool music. Just looked them up, apparently they live in New York. Well that is disappointing.

It’s SOUP SEASON. I have been making a delicious tom-yum ish soup almost every day for the last few weeks. Sautee ginger, garlic, shallots, sesame oil and thai peppers in oil, then add a ton of vegetables and steam em for a minute. I add broccoli, carrots, celery, snow peas, bamboo, baby corn, water chestnuts and mung bean sprouts. I boil some ramen or udon noodles in the meantime. Then I add some broth, half the noodles, some fish sauce, soy sauces (light and dark), rice vinegar, and xaioxing wine and let ‘er simmer. Voila delicious tom um veggie noodle soup. Every day for lunch It is the best. Was it the Zithromax or the soup that ultimately (mostly) got rid of my two-month-old cough? Who can really say. SOUP.

There is a new Zevia can design. It is their third in, mm, gonna say five years? I know this because Jane was old enough to grasp the new design the last time around, so she must have been at least two. The new design is better, but the new boxes make it very hard to figure out what flavor you are buying, which is a shame. I’m still getting used to it. I sure do wish that brand was bigger, more people loved this stuff, that they got some of those gimme-the-goods like those other hot new sodas like Poppi and and Olipop.

Transition to Android is going okay. I still mostly stand by it. I wanted a big-ass foldable and Tim Apple decided I couldn’t have one. Liquid Glass is abysmal, even with the reduced transparency option. But it has not been without its problems. Several of those problems are Apple’s fault. I made the calculation that I could use the online, web-based version of iCloud for my notes and passwords. This was a mistake. The online version of iCloud is abysmally slow, non-responsive, almost completely useless. I moved my five or so notes most-used on mobile back to ToDoist, which I was using years ago. It really is how absolutely stunning how bad iCloud online is. I mean, I literally have never used a slower web app, you gotta wait a full minute to see a single keystroke. Also the new Apple passwords app? Not part of the online iCloud suite at all, and no Android version. One Password has been completely enshittified so that’s not really an option either.

Also Apple Music stops playing whenever a modal dialog box pops up which is insane. Absolutely sociopathic. And I’m convinced the shuffle algorithm is broken, it plays two songs by the same artist in a row constantly, which is statistically borderline-impossible on a playlist as large as mine. But again: Apple’s fault.

Watched a video yesterday where a Youtuber 3D printed a model of a potential new foldable iPhone, that is supposedly coming out this fall, that supposedly people know the aspect ratio of. I am not sure this Apple foldable will lure me back. First, the aspect ratio is “optimized for video.” The thing about my Z Fold 7 is when you open it up, it is a giant square. Which I love. But people who use their phones to watch tons of video don’t like this, because there’s so much “wasted” space on the top and bottom of the screen. The video unfolded is “only” one centimeter bigger than the video folded. Never mind that the folded single-screen is already huge, and a centimeter is actually a TON of extra size in mobile video. I just don’t watch a lot. What I do is non-video social — Instagram some, but mostly Threads and Bluesky, which are light years better in this large square format. And I use a browser, which rules in this format because you can get desktop sites, which seems unlikely to be possible on the Apple fold.

Between my Apple Watch and the open-source Air Play software, other Apple transition issues are mostly solved. I do desperately miss two Safari features, though: their built-in readability clone, and the magical “hide distracting items” functionality where you can tap on shitty things in websites and they disappear in a magical poof that is infinitely satisfying. I am using Brave as my main browser, though, so most ads are non-existent anyway.

But the thing that might make me switch back is that there is a super loud auxilliary alert whenever a text message comes in and you are using CarPlay and I cannot for the life of me figure out where it’s coming from. It plays even when all sounds are muted and all notifications are turned off. It’s maddening. It’s like 2x as loud as the music you’re listening to. Deafening. And it happens with every text message and I need it to stop.

And I am no longer the guy who’s gonna go into the BIOS or some shit I got things to do, maaaan.

The UK has approved, in certain circumstances, Wegovy doses up to three times the current maximum dose of 2.4mg. I have been thinking for a long time that I would like to up my dose. I don’t know if i need to go to 7.2mg but I would like to hit, mmm, 3 ish? I find this trend very promising and I hope it makes it to the US and I hope they make a manner to fine tune things more. Currently the only way to do it is to double- or triple-dose yourself with multiple shots. Which, I mean, fine I guess. I don’t mind the shots. I’m happy the pill form is coming but I doubt I’ll use it. Every time I use the shot I feel like a hero in a space sci fi movie where I have been wounded by the alien and I need to jab myself with magic medicine so I can keep on fighting. It’s great.

Gymnastics yesterday and Jane is obsessed with these Minecraft rip-off magnetic blocks in the gymnastics kids playroom/waiting room. And yesterday she showed us what she built and she built a Minecraft “storage facility” and, you know, as a daddy who is currently building a storage facility (it’s almost done, I swear), this brought a tear to my eye. Maybe she’ll take over the business. Maybe she’ll make an appearance on the greatest TV show ever, Storage Wars.

So proud.

Ambient playlist for you today. Includes the aforementioned Suss, my friend Nick’s breakout best-selling (er, streaming) ambient project, and new Pullman, which is very exciting. Managed to snatch a test pressing of the new Pullman off of Chris Brokaw’s Bandcamp, feel well-chuffed about that. Also several acts from this new label I am obsessed with, but we will talk about that another day.

Keep the faith. Stand with Minnesota.

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