Good morning good morning. I am late once again. I will be late tomorrow, as I gotta catch a train. I will probably not write at all, on Thursday, as I gotta catch a plane. Who knows what Friday holds. I wonder when I am going home. I like it here but I am just sitting around the apartment reading Dungeon Crawler books, so I guess I could just do that at home?

Had some crazy dreams last night. I was a slave but a highly-placed one, overseeing the kitchen in some steampunk king’s retinue. The king was visiting another kingdom and they were having some sort of summit, and I was attached to the kitchen of the host king, overseeing a joint meal, making sure no one was poisoned, etc. etc. The host kingdom had this mythical, supernatural way of julienning carrots with a magical thread and it was fucking awesome and I want a magical carrot julienning thread and obviously I have been reading too much Dungeon Crawling.

I am vaguely worried what will happen when I’m done with these books. I could pick up another fantasy/sci fi sort of thing — another series I was reading earlier this year involving magical plants has a new episode out. But I could also, like, go back to reading Serious Grown-Up™ books about concrete or highways or, gawd, politics. That is the Responsible™ thing to do. But those books are so hit-or-miss. And it has been really fun being addicted to my book. But also it is a pain! Because I am reading to the detriment of basically everything else. And that is not great, especially when I’m up in Boston with a bunch of friends. Emma points this out all the time about reading: either you love the book so much that it consumes your life, and that’s fun but not great, or… you don’t. In which case, why read it?

Let’s see what’s in the queue.

Wow. You cannot filter out read books from the web-based Kindle app. That is crazy. Fine we’ll do it the old way. A Keyboard, how quaint. Anyway! Let me know if any of these books are worth reading. I am mostly done with Marx but I do not care to finish it, I think. You can’t make me.

I watched the last three episodes of Widow’s Bay last night. I had stopped after the big exciting events in episode 7. Felt like a good ending, and I wasn’t loving the show. It has its moments, but I find myself mostly bored. Same could be said of the last three episodes. There were some great bits, but god was it slow. And I am not a fan of the ending at all. Everyone seems to love this show so I suppose I must be doing it wrong. But the important thing is I finished it, and I want credit for it. I am participating in the cultural discourse, dammit.

God. Two more work calls. It’s after noon now. Work work work work work work, as Her Highness Rihanna sings.

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Working through some recently released singles. Just listened to the new Weezer single, “CEO.” I kinda liked it. Maybe Weezer is BACK and no one even knows it. Now I am listening to Valerie June, who has had a change of style with this new single, “Smokestack,” and it is rockin and bluesy and with drums and sounds sorta like Can, rather than her recent historic delicate acoustic ballads. Interesting, interesting.

So this week Tom Waits announced the 50th anniversary of Small Change. This is a very exciting day for me. I own a lot of Tom Waits albums, but never owned the early ones. So, for the last four years, once a year, Mr. Waits announces the 50th anniversary of one of his earliest albums, and I buy it. One Tom Waits re-issue a year. Closing Time, Heat of a Saturday Night, Nighthawks at the Diner, and now Small Change. If all goes well in my life, Tom’s life, Anti-’s life and the world, I will continue this habit until 2030, with the 50th anniversary re-issue of Heartattack and Vine. We will then come to the soundtrack to One From the Heart that he did with Crystal Gale. I own that one, and every release after that, so my Tom Waits collection will be complete. At the ripe old age of 57 years old.

This is assuming they ever send out that Massive Attack / Tom Waits 12” I ordered like six months ago.

Oh hey I was driving down the road yesterday and I saw this on a dude’s dashboard. It is… pretty cool! Some weird little statue in a golden case. His car was immaculate beyond this, not a single additional decoration, no trash. Just this little… relic? I am not sure what it is. Is it religious? K Pop? Manga?

Airtable got bought by Bending Spoons. This is now like five-day-old information, so I apologize for missing The Discourse™ about it, but I have some thoughts, maaaan. First, definitions for the laypeople: Airtable was a cool company that basically made magical Excel spreadsheets. Sorta a (pre-AI) “smart” halfway ground between running your whole company out of brilliant, complicated, custom Excel spreadsheets, or running your company out of project management software like Monday or Basecamp (they’re Nazis, get off Basecamp). They were a pre-AI Silicon Valley unicorn but they have been desperately uncool these days. It is unclear if they’ve just become uncool because everyone is gaga over AI or if they actually had declining use. Probably a bit of both.

Bending Spoons is a company that should be right up my alley on paper: they buy “distressed” but “beloved” tech companies and “turn them around.” There are two ways to do this, the cool way and the un-cool way. Alas, they do it the uncool way. They beat me out for the purchase of Meetup, which was sad. They are known to basically take the PE approach: cut costs and raise prices. If Bending Spoons buys a company you love (like Evernote), you can expect declining service, declining quality and skyrocketing prices. That is sad to me. I feel like my past internet career makes me qualified to say this: There is a different way to do this. You can make an awesome product, double-down on your best customers, fix the cap table and incentives (this one is probably the hardest, and the biggest impact) and let the thing be an awesome company the way, like, Carmex is an awesome company. But, alas, this is not the Path of the Spoon™.

Airtable also seems to have spun out an AI company prior to this deal, which, you know, maybe will be worth lots down the road. So some people are viewing this as a sad end to Airtable, because the valuation was so much lower than the amount they raised, and some people are viewing this as a win for the investors, cuz they got a little cash back now, and they still have the AI company.

It would seem to me that if this is the case, and the investors’ hopes are now pinned on the new AI company, then perhaps they coulda shopped around a bit for a more… shall we say ethical buyer.

That part makes me sad.

I would like to wish happy birthday to GMHHAY reader and longtime friend Ashley. Yesterday. Jane and Emma go to go north and meet up with Ashley and spend her birthday with her and go to the beach and it all seemed very fun and I did not get to go because I am a wage slave. But at least I am one who works at home. But still. No beach for me. But I do have to say Jane came back from that trip so happy. It was clear she had an excellent time.

Jane was also super amped and couldn’t go to bed till almost ten, but at least she slept an hour later this morning. I dare say it all kinda went fine!

School starts in like 10 days. I am not ready to start waking up at 6:30 again. DREAD.

But boy will these GMHHAYs get out earlier.

I HAVE NOT BEEN LISTENING TO ENOUGH NEW MUSIC, SO HERE IS ANOTHER PLAYLIST oh shit caps lock sorry didn’t mean to soubnd like Princess Donut. So here is a playlist straight off the top of my 8,000 song “All the Best” playlist. I might keep doing this for a while. It is fun. I looked up NIN and the last time they played “Get Down Make Love” and it was in 2009 when they did those “farewell” concerts in LA and my god, those shows looked amazing. I wish I had gone. Was even still globe-hopping back then. Dumb move. And I am wondering why there has never been a Think Tree reunion. Those guys still get along, I think? Probably technical.

Ugh I did a walk-n-talk for one of my meetings and I am so sweaty now. Sweat running down my back. Sorry, TMI. I will go change. Love you all. Until tomorrow when I write to you from Amtrak.