Therapist was six minutes late. Could’ve been worse, he’s ghosted before.
I did a lot of talking. So I guess this is the kind of therapy it is, where I’m revealing things to myself and he’s kind of like a sounding board.
We were talking about the tension between the career I have for money, which itself exists to support the liberal capitalist lifestyle I have set up for myself and my family and the activism work I do for very little money.
And he did say one thing that helped me. “They say you should talk about your goals.”
I reflected on the fact that I don’t love talking about my day, because even when it comes to simply putting a post out there on the Internet on behalf of a good organization, that’s not exciting. I bore myself at the thought of talking about that extensively.
But something I could talk about would be the observation I’ve had – of the past activist organizations I’ve worked with, they’ve been heavily reliant on the corporate web as part of their social media strategies: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram – all these platforms actively working against the missions of the activist organizations.
We’ve been monitoring this attempt to break away from the centralized, corporate internet and introduce the world to the decentralized, human internet. Wouldn’t it make sense to work toward platforms that specifically are for activists and people who want to use the Internet without providing DAU metrics for evil tech giants?
The lump itself is that layer of fat squishing through the hernia hole. I’ve literally got everything plugged up. When I eat poorly enough to trigger something like acid reflux, it gets inflamed and pretty painful.
I could get it operated on now, but the doctor’s like “with your BMI, there’s a higher chance of recursion.” So I guess the hole could open back up again. And could you guess what the doctor at the “Duke Metabolic and Weight Loss Center” thinks I should do?
The Doctor recommends a GLP-1 like Ozempic or Zepbound.
And he’s happy to show me his work. He types in my current weight and target weight and he shows me this custom text file that tells me the percentage success rate with GLP-1’s.
I’m seeing what’s happening and I’m thinking of asking him. I’m thinking of asking him The Question. But I don’t have to, because he tells me. “Yeah, this is just something I whipped up with ChatGPT.”
Now my basic stance on GLP-1’s is…okay, that’s interesting. It really seems like they’ve been prescribed with a lot of more frequency in the past five years. But, I’m 38. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could take the resources that would pay for a lifelong medication and direct them toward lifestyle?
Like, let’s at least try, right? Maybe I can talk to nutritionists. Dieticians. Workout coaches. But my insurance won’t pay for any of that. And the funny part is, given the weirdness with insurance companies and GLP-1’s, there’s no guarantee they’ll pay for this for the rest of my life.
And also, like, I probably don’t need to get to BMI 30. I have a sense the odds of my surgery would go up if I lost something like 15-20 pounds. But this guy framed it as if I needed to lose 40 and fast. Is that because ChatGPT tells him to or did he have a cool conversation with a pharma rep?
Because of a joke I made to a Discord server, I am now compelled to listen to Soundgarden’s “Spoonman,” as well.
I woke up and I really did feel the need to listen to some Jesus Chris Superstar songs, which is eerie, given the timing. When I first started dating Erin, the theater company she worked for was putting on a staging of JCS around Easter time and that’s how I became familiar with the music.
Anyway, Roofman, the movie, was kind of flat to me. Just like….a straightforward look at how this real-life criminal played by Channing Tatum lived kind of a boring existence while creating felonies against the corporation of Toys ‘R Us. And, hey, I’m sure the shareholders of Toys ‘R Us are not sympathetic victims, but the movie in 2026 doesn’t provide the same righteous defense of noble criminality as if he were ripping off Jeff Bezos. Clearly not what the movie cared about, but it’s how my mind works.
Said mind wandered and I started looking at Letterboxd before the movie ended, which “spoiled” the fact that “Roofman” is based on a true story.
They cut out the entire part where the Roofman had to leave the Toys ‘R Us Store and live in an abandoned Circuit City, which I think would have been more of an interesting commentary on our life and times.
Challenge: Engage in criticism of this game without mentioning “windows” or “voice acting.”
Legends Z-A excels as a prototype of the new kind of Pokemon city we could get. Sidequests integrated with the city. Imagine if modern cities had locations like the museum, the sewers, the abandoned laboratory and some – some – of the key wild areas.
The Battle Royale is initially an extremely compelling gameplay loop, working alongside the new battle system to create a sort of mini-stealth hunt-and-deploy tactics game. Unfortunately, LZA does not want to put in the time to keep this compelling for more than 30% of the game, so it eventually becomes a barrier to progress rather than an end unto itself. Still, I want a version of this real-time system to return.
On the whole, this does not reach the revelatory heights of Legends: Arceus. Limiting you to Lumiose shouldn’t be a main part of the reason, but the limitation is felt due to the initial lack of wild areas. Imagine if there were unique Pokemon and battles to be found in the museum, the old building, Quasartico, etcetera. But the wild areas are the limits of ingenuity for this game.
Still, if you’re a Pokemon fan who’s been enjoying the Switch era and not a weirdo who gets personally enraged whenever the Nostalgia Factory fails to hold up a mirror to your imagination and clone whatever $300 million production budget chimera you’re imagining, then Legends Z-A is worth your time. There are great Pokemon to find, a fun new battle system to engage in, and some discussion to be had about the dangers of nostalgia.
Also, I don’t care about windows. I hope the windows in Gen 10 are even worse.
I’ve been working with some groups that try to get tenants organized to push back on the abuses of various types of landlords. This was my first campaign seen from beginning to end.
Tenants in Durham came out to City Council’s late October meeting to support an ordinance that would make it a misdemeanor for landlords to collect rent on slum-like conditions, including lack of water and multiple fire hazards.
Four members were initially skeptical and hostile to the ordinance, hemming and hawing on whether it would put Durham in conflict with the state legislature. But dozens of people came out, pushed back, and spoke out.
The ordinance passed 7-0.
This isn’t a magic wand for tenants living with these conditions. It’s not within the scope of the city’s powers to enforce a penalty for the crime of being a slumlord. But it helps tenants put such landlords on notice. It helps tenants in a lawsuit seek rent abatement. And it helps tenants in eviction court to get the resources they need.
Our book club theme for September was “banned books” and our nominations list included this one, Looking for Alaska by John Green, Sold by Patricia McCormick, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.
Interestingly, the one we settled on by a substantial margin was the book that wasn’t banned by a typical Western and Christian-influenced censorship apparatus. Whereas books like “Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Fun Home” are banned for exploring queer identities, “Verses” was censored in over 20 countries due to controversy over its portrayal of Islamic mythology. The book’s place in history is anchored by the fatwa declared by Iranian religious leaders more than thirty years ago. The bounty placed on Rushdie’s head did eventually lead to an assassination attempt by a random New Jersey man just a few years ago. (Rushdie survived and published a memoir revolving around the violence).
The uncomfortable thing about online discourse of this book is that there seems to be a micro cottage industry of people who use this book as a way to grind an axe against Islam as a faith. Looking for videos on the book will often surface a dark muttering of commenters who say that the fatwa controversy surrounding “Verses” justifies everything they think about Islam and Muslims.
A befitting irony for the novel’s themes of narratives that are imposed on people and events is that this is hardly a book dedicated as a polemic or committed to poking a finger in the eye of Muslims. It can be irreverent – cheekily so. There’s cynicism about organized religion and since Rushdie was born into a Muslim family, he uses the backdrop of Islamic history to make some points. But if you’ve ever read a satirical retelling of Christian Biblical events, like Lamb by Christopher Moore or seen The Life of Brian movie, you’re already familiar with this approach from writers emerging from Christian worldviews.
Ultimately, my favorite chapter of Satanic Verses is one of the several allegorical visions that alternate with the main plot. It involves a village that has become extremely devout due to the power of a prophetess and is now embarking on an arduous pilgrimage on foot to Mecca. The chapter’s title, “The Parting of the Arabian Sea,” indicates what the final obstacle will be for these pilgrims. I suppose one could walk away from this chapter and say “wow, Rushdie really portrayed some truths about the darkness of religious extremism,” but I came away feeling like this was Rushdie’s acknowledgment about the power of faith and some of the downsides of steadfast skepticism.
Faith is a well. One can draw strength from it, but that well can be poisoned. In a desert with no other reservoirs, one can become so dependent that it leaves you vulnerable to corruption. But in the harsh conditions of reality, an oasis can still be the only reason we preserve and find respite.
I guess I just felt like Rushdie’s views on the faith background he came from are a little more nuanced and complex than the discourse would have you think.
I’m watching Drop and it’s a solid thriller – sort of displaced in time, because it uses the sort of broad strokes that I imagine an old school thriller would, but it’s dependent on modern technology.
Do you know I’ve never seen Rear Window? Hell, I’ve never seen Psycho. I have the DVD. I picked it up at a library sale all the way back in Arlington, but I’ve never “made the time.”
Over the summer, a slew of bands began to make similar announcements on social media: They’d be pulling their music off Spotify, the largest streaming service in the world.
It started in June with indie rock quartet Deerhoof. Within weeks, groups like Xiu Xiu, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard and Hotline TNT followed suit. The wave of departures continued into September; most recently, The Mynabirds, WU LYF, Kadhja Bonet and Young Widows have all decided to leave Spotify. So why are musicians — many of them independent — removing their songs from the most popular streamer globally, which has nearly 700 million users?
All artists cite Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s ties to Helsing, an artificial intelligence defense company…. In 2021, Ek’s venture capital firm Prima Materia invested more than $100 million into the German startup. This past June, Prima Materia raised more than $700 million for Helsing, where Ek is now also chairman….TheFinancial Times reported that Helsing is now producing its own drones, aircraft and submarines.
I suppose one of the more significant things to happen to me recently is that I got rear ended on my way to pick up my kid, leading to the car being totaled and us having to buy a new one.
The best thing I can say about our car habits is that we’re a one-car family, so I guess our emissions could be worse. But whatever car we do have, one of us drives it daily and when I do it, it’s several inefficient trips.
I suppose this would have been our opportunity to go EV, but the payout from the insurance -while generous – was $9,000, leaving us with a a total budget of about $20K. You can get like a used Nissan Leaf for under that budget, but there were just a lot of question marks regarding an EV that may have been traded in because it got damaged.
The point is, the ultimate choice of car was a compromise. It’s all gas, not even a hybrid. It’s the biggest car I’ve ever consistently had to drive, despite the fact that it’s a “subcompact” SUV. It’s struggling to get 25 mpg at the moment. It kind of feels like I got owned.
I guess I owe the planet a couple of trees or something.
