Good morning good morning wooo wednesday I am HERE FOR IT. Let’s do this Wednesday shit. Just back from old man time at McDonald’s, where sports guy didn’t ask me about sports and I feel like I extinguished his flame or something with my lack of sports knowledge. There was a severely developmentally challenged teenage boy there with his grandma. The other regular middle-aged dude who sits in the same place all the time as not there and I am worried he died, even though he is obviously more healthy than me. They served me Diet Dr Pepper instead of Diet Coke but who cares, there’s a fountain to fix it. They played “Look out Every Window” by Bruce Hornsby. The wi-fi is still down. Come to think of it that’s probably why the other dude is not there. Been a week now. He brings a laptop. He would need wi-fi. As I left, some 30-something contractors said “hello, son,” to me. Dude I am like 20 years older than you.

Morning McDonald’s contains eternal mysteries. Imagine if Sam Altman and Dario whats-his-name occupied their minds with these infinite mysteries instead of whatever bullshit they do instead. Vonnegut’s envelope, man. Secret to life.

Speaking of restaurants, we lost our sizzle streak last night. The Mexican place we go to on Taco Tuesdays served our fajitas on a non-sizzling iron skillet. This is sacrilige. And it makes my life so awkward because I have talked about this with them so many times and I feel neurotic and persnikkety, even to the point my excessive tipping will not compensate for. So I didn’t say anything. To the staff. But boy, my poor wife and child had to hear me bitch about sizzling skillets for a long time. And I know it’s all my fault for ordering a Tex-Mex dish at a Mexican restaurant staffed by actual Mexicans, but man I need a sizzle. Raw unions in fajitas? Non-charred peppers? NOT ALL RIGHT.

Also they put tomatoes in their fajitas again. Which I had also thought we had sorted and gotten them to stop.

Honestly I think maybe they had a fill-in chef yesterday.

I will keep you apprised on this terribly important matter.

But I’m not wrong, right? Fajitas should sizzle? Am I crazy?

Update: I would like to apologize for using the phrase “job interview” when I was the one interviewing a candidate for a job. I was not looking for a new job. I am never going to look for a new job again. Not to say I won’t have jobs but they are going to have to find me. I should have said “Candidate interview” or something. My bad. I knew even as I was writing it that it was going to cause confusion but “candidate interview” sounds weird to me.

Pretty into this multiple-emails thing. I’m up to… 16. Made new ones for e-commerce and news. Still gonna make a politics one, I think. Torn on that one. Its a pain to enter all these emails into both the Google and Apple ecosystems, since I am using both, but that is mostly done. That’s what McDonald’s time is for. Tediously entering complex passwords into password managers. And trying to get the Verge to let me change my email address. They do not allow this on their site. Kinda lame. You really get the strong sense people don’t change their email addresses very often anymore. I have too many Bandcamp accounts. My Axios emails were coming in on two different emails. Lotta mess to clean up. But it’s good, it’s good. I really love being able to just select “news” in my email app and read all my newsletters. OR hiding them if that is not the thing I need at the moment.

Join the GMHHAY slack! Reply to this email and ask for an invite if you’re a human who likes chatting with other humans about topics such as these within!

Listening to the 50th anniversary re-issue of Tom Waits’ Small Change. I got a good thing going here, have for about four years now. A Tom Waits album hits its 50th anniversary, they reissue it, I buy it, thus slowly filling out my Tom Waits vinyl collection. If all goes well, this will continue through 2030 with the reissue of Heartattack and Vine (always thought heart attack was two words but Discogs says otherwise), when we then arrive at One from the Heart, which I already own, and everything after that.

Gotta have things to look forward to.

Also let me take this moment to show you a piece of music memorabilia that Nick and I both own, one of many random-ass music things we both own, the Tom Waits Small Change promotional piggy bank:

There was an Apple event yesterday and… meh. I mean, I can see the utility of a little screen to sit on your countertop, but I don’t think it’s for me. One huge problem with it is that it is $300, and for just $10 more you can buy a freakin M1-powered iPad which is comparably powerful hardware with infinitely more functionality. This is what I have at Chore House to control the home stuff.

I do not trust LG to make my home equipment. I don’t trust anyone, really, that puts thing on a cloud, any cloud, doesn’t matter who’s. Apple Secure Video and Cloud shit is clever and good but I vastly prefer to store my own shit at home, which Secure Video doesn’t let you do for some reason.

By the same token, I vastly prefer PoE when possible to WiFi. Apple HomePod Minis are great but they’re wifi only and it takes fucking forever to connect to them unless your internet is like Wifi 6 and super fast and a perfect signal. I have a HomePod Mini 12 feet away from an AP, with one wall in between, and it will barely connect. PoE is an infinitely greater pain in the ass to install, ditto on-premesis serving, but once done it’s all so much better.

And, like, I’d not delved yet, but are these LG devices really going to not talk to some LG server? Definitely not gonna be the guinea pig on that one.

Also, at this point I am so far in on the vastly better Unifi ecosystem it all seems moot. Of the Apple/LG home accessories announced yesterday, the only one Unifi doesn’t already offer is a thermostat and a) I don’t need one and b) I suspect it’s only a matter of time. Also Unifi just added Matter support in v11 of their gateway software.

Also HomePod Minis have temperature sensing and they should totally use the thermometers in HomePod Minis for temperature sensing for their thermostats if they’re gonna actually “go all in” on home stuff but I bet they don’t and you’ll still have to hang that dumb external temperature sensor in a second room. But that is software, they could maybe add that someday in the future.

But I bet Unifi beats them to it.

I know HomeAssistant is “the way to go” for the true home automation nerds but that’s a bit… well not too much for me, but right now Unifi is doing everything I need with a better interface, less hassle. I might someday add Home Assistant if there’s something I need that Unifi doesn’t offer (thinking drapes), but I would prefer to wait until Unifi does with HA what they just did with Matter. We shall see.

The ONE thing I think is really cool about this new HomeView, though, is the automated fast user switching, which everyone has wanted on iPads forever and man, they better be rolling that out to other platforms soon.

Got my final two cards and my driver’s license in the mail, so my wallet has now been fully reconstituted. I bought one of those wallets with an airtag thing on it, and it’s too thick, I don’t like it. I am going to go back to my old wallet type, super thin, and use the Pebblebee card. BUT I have been thinking, I think I am going to have two wallets? only carry a single card and my ID with me at any time, and then a second wallet with my Nimbus, Pool, Storage, and backup cards in it, never take that out of town. I’ll use this airtag wallet for that more hefty backup one. This way, hopefully, 1) I won’t ever lose my wallet again, because of FindMy, but 2) If I do, I’ll only lose one card and my license, which would be way less catastrophic.

Also a thing that sucks is my new license does not have RealID on it anymore, so at some point I am still going to have to go to the DMV. Fuck.

OH and for some reason Chase decided to replace not just my card, but Emma’s, even though I did not report hers lost. And they inexplicably sent her two cards with two different numbers. No idea what is up with that.

ALSO, if I log into my Chase account, my credit card balance from this month is just… gone. Like it says I owe nothing. Which is… definitely not true? I had so much shit on there from this painfully expensive month. And now I’m worried I won’t be able to pay it and it will fuck my credit up. It is slightly concerning. At best it will probably mean like an hour on the phone or some shit. ugh.

Jane threw a small fit at the playground yesterday but it only lasted like 2 minutes but still, end of a good three-day run. She was good at bedtime, though. We had a nice talk this morning about her dislike of compliments and I told her I don’t like them either, did she notice how the other day when Grammy complimented me I got awkward? I don’t say “no! stop!” like she does, but I get why it’s uncomfortable. She liked that.

Then told me to stop talking about it.

We added two songs to our Daddy-Jane playlist: one by Beborn Beton and one by Black Submarine. It was nice. She is swell. I like my daughter.

Most of the time.

Darryl from Turkish Delight made a new video for their song “Smooth Karate,” originally released on my old record label, Archenemy, one day to be risen again. It is great. Enjoy.

Talk tomorrow fair friends. TWO DAYS UNTIL CHORE WEEK BEGINS.