Archives for 2024

So a couple of life updates. First, over the last few days I apparently ate so many tomatoes and peaches that the corners of my lips are cracked, irritated, and inflamed, and I had to go buy some tallow lip balm from the hippie chick at the Tuesday farmers market. I am on a two day peach/tomato pause because I am a pig with no self control, but fortunately I have a nice rock melon carve up and cooling in the fridge. My tomatoes are coming in all at once and I have been eating them right off the vine and apparently way too many of them.

Second, I have been really working hard at the gym, so I really tried to behave, but the sourdough lady broke out something new- a loaf of dill pickle sourdough and I took one glance at the label and thought “well that sucks because I am for sure not leaving here without that.” I cut two slices up, grilled a chicken breast with a slice of havarti, ONE slice or orange tomato because it has lower acidity, some Duke’s and salt and pepper. It was fucking amazing. It has the essence and flavor of dill pickle, but it is not overwhelming.

Finally, like I said, I have been working hard at the gym, slowly building up my stamina. Today I walked the track for an hour doing a mini circuit- walk 1/2 mile, do 5 minutes on the rowing machine, walk 1/2 mile then rowing machine for 5. I do that for an hour, then I stretch out again and get in the pool. I am only doing 15-20 laps, but I do a lot of resistance training while in there- walking while using the pool weights, mainly focusing on my shoulder. I’ve gotten to the point that I can now do a legitimate freestyle for one lap, but the flexibility is still not there yet.

I want to eventually add some weightlifting, but I don’t want to use free weights and really need to get a trainer to work a program out for me. I think I have so much conditioning and flexibility work that I am going to hold off until when I back in Tempe and do it then. For now I will just keep adding laps and time walking.

I don’t know if I have lost any weight because of my love/hate relationship with my scale, and I limit myself to checking only once a month, but I feel better and Joelle says my “face looks different” and I am buying a smaller swimsuit, so those are all good things. The main thing is I feel so much better and it doesn’t hurt to stand up and my shoulder does not freeze at night, and I can tell a noticeable difference in my lung capacity. Oh- and since I started swimming? No sinus issues at all.

My lung capacity, as I said, is markedly improved. I’ve always been lucky genetically- everything generally works the way things are supposed to and when they don’t it’s because I have pissed it all away. But I still tan like a ten year old Scandinavian and my hair goes platinum, I’ve got strong bones and good bone density, I build muscle easily and if I do the things you are supposed to, lose weight easily and evenly. The problem is I am just a lazy schmuck who falls into bad routines just as easily as I pick up good ones. I let my guard down for a couple days and before you know it a month will go by and I have not worked out. And then years. So now I am just doing what I did when I quit drinking and smoking- this is what we do now, that was what we did then, and there is no point regretting it. But this is us, now. And by us I me and the person in my head.

Related- one of my favorite things to do in the pool is after my laps are done, I just float. I call it doing the manatee, where I submerge my entire fat self except my head, and I exhale. I can feel my body start to sink, and I inhale, and float back up (the benefit of having a lot of ballast, I suppose). And my ears are submerged so all I can hear are the muffles movement of others and the pumps. It’s so relaxing and I am essentially weightless and nothing hurts. Like the Bacta tank Luke Skywalker was in after he nearly froze and had to cut up a tauntaun to survive. Just sit there an focus on my breathing and feeling myself sink and then rise. So nice.

With all the goings on with AI and all the great scifi like things happening, I think one of my favorite sci fi movies, or at least the premise of it, was the movie Johnny Mnemonic, which was based on a short story by William Gibson. The premise was that you could store data in computers in your head with a brain implant, which is not that novel, but what set this apart was that you could record your experiences and other people could view them. Not just view them, though- live the events and experience them- have the same emotions and sensations as if it was you and not them.

It’s not a unique premise, dozens of other scifi shows and books have touched on it- Cyberpunk 2077 most recently called it Braindancing and tons of other shows have had similar things- obviously the Matrix and Caprica and Peripheral and on and on and on. But this is the one that stuck with me.

Think how amazing that would be- to see things the way other people see them. We’ve talked about this before, how our concepts of colors may vary differently, etc. But it’s not just to see them, but to feel them and KNOW them like others do. That would be amazing and think of the uses- relationship counseling, choosing a house with your partner (oh so that’s why they don’t like that kind of design), doctors being able to experience the pain the patient is having, people who can not walk being given the experience of running the olympics, deaf people experiencing how music makes people feel.

That would be so fucking cool. And it would also get to solve the question I always wonder about- do other people have a voice in their head all the time like me and does it act the same way? Do they hear the voice when they type? When they shower do they hear the voice say grab the cloth, grab the soap, get a good lather, is that a new mole you should check that out in the mirror, etc. Obviously it’s not always there, because I, like everyone else, go on autopilot while the voice and I are exploring other things. Is your voice dictating this as you read?

And I just realized if I hit publish on this and it turns out I am the only one with this voice the Bethany Police Department is going to get a bunch of phone calls from all over the country asking for a health and wellness check on John Cole. And then me laughing as my dad unexpectedly gets hauled to the hospital in a straightjacket for an eval because everyone in town knows me as “JG” and dad is “John Cole.”

This is fucking amazing:

The Biden administration on Monday unveiled a new, multi-agency regulatory initiative to target corporate practices that officials claim are designed to waste consumers’ time and needlessly burden them with red tape, in order to maximize profits.

“I think we can all relate to this,” White House domestic policy advisor Neera Tanden told reporters Friday.

“For example, you want to cancel your gym membership or subscription service or newspaper. It took one or two clicks to sign up. But now … you have to go in person, or wait on hold for 20 minutes … just to opt out,” she said.

Dubbed the “Time is Money” initiative, the actions will make it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions, get refunds, submit health care and insurance forms online, and access high-quality customer service.

In my dream world, after Harris and Walz win and we win the House and Senate and expand the court and give DC and Puerto Rico statehood, we could have Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter both quit their seats and create the Bureau of Eliminating Annoying Corporate Bullshit and just do shit like this all day. Just get all the consumer protection agencies on steroids and start eliminating shit and making it fucking PAINFUL for corporations to be shitty businessmen. You buy a car, and it needs a new engine or major overhaul in the first 20k miles? You get a new one. No month long waits for repairs and part. You get a new one. They can take the old one, repair it, and sell it used. Or don’t and think about what they’ve done. I don’t fucking care. A salesman tries to sell you a car and adds on 10k worth of bullshit that comes standard already or should, they owe you the cost of what they tried to screw you out of times two. Fucking end car dealerships while we’re at it.

Fuck yeah.

It looks like the livestream shitshow last night featuring dumb and dumberer is paying off for them both:

The UAW has filed federal labor charges against disgraced billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk for their illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.

After significant technical delays on X, formerly known as Twitter, Trump and Musk had a rambling, disorganized conversation on Monday evening in front of over one million listeners in which they advocated for the illegal firing of striking workers.

“I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, You want to quit? They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.”

Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for going on strike, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act.

It’s a serious charge and could be a real problem for Musk, but let’s ignore all that and just soak in the sheer fucking beauty of that press release. As you all know, I am a heterosexual man, but Shawn Fain and his team have me mildly aroused. It’s so fucking nice seeing people in positions of power writing and doing shit the way feral bloggers have for a couple decades. Fucking beautimous, that fucking press release is. God damn.

Last night’s event didn’t just go poorly for Elon, either:

Again, whenever I talk about things like this, I am not taking things for granted, but it sure FEELS like Trump and his team are deep into pants shitting territory. My only real question is when Trump will start publicly firing people? Before or after the DNC.

Then we’ll get the “new and improved Trump ver 11212.2” by the compliant media, and we’ll read pieces about how Trump is laser focused something and different somehow this time. That will last about three days before he does a rally in Pigfart, Alabama and tells the crowd that black people shouldn’t be allowed to vote and that the real reason he wants to close the border is because all Mexicans smell funny to him and by the way did you notice how nobody talks about the real benefit of oceans rising is more beach real estate. And the crazy thing is I only made up two of those things, he actually said that about beachfront property last night in his chat with Musk:

Musk and Trump were talking about geopolitics when Trump pivoted to discuss existential global dangers — in his fashion.

“The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean’s going to rise one, one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years. The big — and you’ll have more oceanfront property, right?” the former president said. “The biggest threat is not that. The biggest threat is nuclear warming, because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power, and we have to not allow anything to happen with stupid people like [President Joe] Biden.”

He’s so fucking dumb it’s painful. He’s the greatest fucking advertisement for the inheritance tax ever. I have no idea if he has a voice in his head but if he does I know god damned well it is drooling. Fuck, it hurts my head listening to him.

That is it for me. I am off to have some cantaloupe and watch, well, I think I am going to watch an X-Men movie I haven’t seen since my drinking days, or the before times, as I call them. Speaking off, I guess I missed another anniversary of my quitting drinking. Oh well.

Tuesday Night Open Thread But Probably Not as Good as Betty’sPost + Comments (223)