I did focus groups and surveys for money. I often would just stock up on toiletries from Amazon when I had gift cards. That shit is expensive so it lets my grocery budget breathe.

I feel like people who support this type of politics are emotionally blunted and stunted. They’ll use his death as a tool of martyrdom for their movement, which this is a prime example of, but I don’t really feel like anyone loved him or mourned him in any genuine sense. I think it’s because they don’t really have any attachment to anyone in a real sense. I’m not saying that other people of other beliefs don’t use grief as a performative tool either, but I feel like most of the problem with conservatives at the root of it all is blunted emotions.

Thank you.

Does that work for Google Play books? Is it an app?

Almost everything on Amazon is cheap trash, and they promote the hell out of all that trash instead of products of any quality. I am also so sick of the click funnels where you search for a specific item and they just give you pages full of knockoff trash as search results even if you go to a specific brand store. It’s nonsense.

Everything feels like it happens so fast now and yet I have nearly no free time despite all this convenience. I did things one at a time and had to make an effort to do things like shop or go to the bank or pay bills or whatever. I cannot believe how many books I read and all the time I spent in the local library just browsing the stacks of all sorts of random shit; it was not routinely pared down to popular books, but had all sorts of odds and ends. I deliberately listened to music by putting a tape in the machine, and it was active listening. Radio was creative and beautiful. The local bar I spent time at was home to all sorts of burgeoning local bands. Food was not “small plates” at trendy bistros, but was sizeable satisfactory portions of ordinary food. A trip to the mall was an adventure, and my mall even had a library branch in it. You went to fish fry dinners at the Royal Canadian Legion on Fridays. One restaurant we used to go to we had to write our order down on a pad inside the kitchen, and the cook would come and slap your food in front of you. If you phoned someone and they weren’t home, you just phoned later on.

Nothing felt shitty and overly marketed and ads just existed and weren’t tailored to you. Television sitcoms lasted 26 seasons and you had to wait until next week to see the next one.

Even social media was better before Facebook, it felt organic and you made friends for life. Even early Twitter felt like this constant humorous conversation even if you didn’t agree with someone. Nobody was routinely crucified for misstepping in public (not that they shouldn’t sometimes). Things were definitely more generic but didn’t feel fake and marketed and inauthentic. Google was better and actually found things and didn’t just spit out a few results and then start adding unrelated things.

I’m not trying to sing the ballad of the boomer in B Minor; I appreciate convenience. I am tired of seeing bloated companies turn everything into shit. I want art and music and local watering holes to flourish. I want food to be good and satisfying. I don’t want every episode dropped at once. I just want things to slow down.

So my advice is slow down. Do one thing at a time. Go places and do one thing. Go to old restaurants. Go read paper books at the library. Go listen to a band at a bar. Do things. Don’t reduce it all to your phone. This is my goal for the new year is to do things.

They’re morons, and they’re just conservatives who want to smoke weed. Whatever your opinion of size of government, you have to have some central systems to run a society.

Mulder!

As an aside, a great deal of CSAM is shared through Facebook, they’ve been asked by CSAM survivors to stop this and they said no. The advocacy survivor group Phoenix 11 submitted six formal questions in the US Congress to old Zuckface fuckface about it, as he deployed end to end encryption which makes this possible, which he dodged like the lying fuck he is. Zuck would sell it himself if it made him a whole dollar and nobody should forget that.

Glad you like! I’ll post a new one today.

I am dead of laughing.

That’s correct! When he left the hospital he changed his voice mail to “hi it’s Nikki, I can’t come to the phone because I’m dead”.

Motley is wildly problematic for many reasons but a damn great band.

I have not heard of it. I’ll look at it, thanks. I’m picky about my service because there’s certain classical music only on certain platforms that I want that I actually can’t buy.

No I hadn’t, thank you! I thought about Deezer simply because it’s European but it’s kind of the same.

Aww Lisa Loeb.

I wish there was an ethical independent streaming service. I buy albums still but it’s hard to discover new stuff without it.

https://www.rock101.net/2023/10/17/did-ozzy-osbourne-actually-snort-a-line-of-ants-ozzy-says-yes-but-sharon-isnt-sure/

Parkinson’s is awful. Stay away from pesticides, they cause it.

Imagine giving the performance of a lifetime while you can’t even stand up, mere weeks before you passed. A God among metal singers.

Also Parkinson’s is the worst, and if you live near a golf course move now because you have a much higher risk of getting it from all the pesticides.