A weekly note

Last week’s blog therapy session was worth it. Much less FOMOOF this week.

I’ve been processing a bunch of papers and cables and random bits and bobs in boxes throughout the week, and that’s been strangely distracting as well.

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It has rained. A lot! I just had a tea on the deck in the rain and it felt really good. 

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The only remaining urge I have for smoking is the memory of the excuse it provided to stand out in the rain or the cold or the sun and enjoy a few minutes of just being. The toxins aren’t great and it smells really bad, but there was quite a lot to enjoy about place and company.

I remember experiencing Ireland’s workplace smoking ban—the first country in the world to do so—when we made a trip in 2005. A quiet pub would go empty as everyone went out to have a cigarette. Huddled around doorways in the rain is a great way to make conversation with new people and there aren’t many other excuses to do so.

Anyhow. It’s been over 10 years since I would classify myself as “smoker”, so that’s nice.

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Music edition!

Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn, and Placebo all released new music this week. Is it the 90s in the UK again?

Damon Albarn’s new album sounded exactly like him, but nothing like Blur. Jarvis Cocker’s track sounded like Jarvis Cocker, but not Pulp.

Placebo sounded exactly like Placebo.

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I’ve had Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better in my head on and off for the last couple weeks, except it’s an imagined version by Phoebe Bridgers in line with her “I would do anything” vocals from Graceland Too.

The imagined version is pretty great, I wish you could hear it.

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I hate it when she opens her mouth

It’s amazing to me how much you can say

When you don’t know what you’re talking about

While re-listening to Punisher today, I caught these lines on ICU, which of course reminded me of all-time great lyrics from Talking Head’s Psycho Killer:

You start a conversation, you can’t even finish it

You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything

When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed

Say something once, why say it again?

Similar vibe.

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This is extremely silly, but I joined spacehey, the new MySpace clone thing. I don’t expect to use it, but it felt fun to join something new. I’m debating putting my last MySpace bio up for kicks.

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If you haven’t read Robin Sloan’s Notes on Web3 yet, do. There’s so much that’s exactly right on.

Favorite points:

• Exhaustion of current options: “If you are 22 years old, Twitter has been around for about as long as you’ve known how to read.”
• Immutability of blockchains: “I like things that can change and grow, then vanish.”

Many things about social networks were fun until they became massive corporations that were able to purchase or similarly squash their competitors while creating this boring landscape of not-entirely-innovation.

And now the next wave is here: where Facebook renamed themselves Meta before launching anything and is now buying up any company doing anything remotely interesting with the concept so that it can wrap it in advertising and make it suck.

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Any time I see the word “meta”, the number 35658 floats through my head. At least my eye no longer twitches. Previously.

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Enjoy the week! 🍻