I think, sometimes, the things that make life worth it aren't relationships, or religion, or some kind of higher moral calling, but just those tiny, almost imperceptible moments of random human connection, even with strangers. -- I was just coming home from work, standing in the tram, and I started idly tapping on my legs, just kind of practicing drums without even realizing. At some point I started playing along to McCoy Tyner's Passion Dance in my head, and I got to a part of the groove that I really struggle with, and ended up playing it over and over, trying to get it right. Suddenly in the middle of this, something caught my awareness. I looked up and to my right, and saw a probably 10 year old boy sitting next to me, intently watching me practice. He saw me seeing him, and looked away shyly; but once I also looked away, he started very, very quietly, but very distinctly—at least for me—to beatbox. I half-smiled uncontrollably. The tram stopped, he walked past me, and he got off, but for a minute there, it felt like we had our own secret club, that only we knew about, where only drummers were allowed. I hope he went home and started practicing. I know I'm going to.
Art: The details ARE the art, in many cases. I was fortunate enough to see Mondrian's Composition With Lines In Black and White in person, one day, and it was one of the most amazing paintings I have ever seen. When you get up close to it, you see that it has been tweaked, edited, modified, and changed literally hundreds of times. There is not a single brush stroke on this 4-foot-wide disc that has not been altered multiple times. Apparently this hung in his studio for something like 17 years. He would touch it up, change it, modify every now and then, when something looked "wrong" to him. The piece is considered incomplete... a work in progress... which I find incredibly poetic.
I really wanted to like The Years of Rice and Salt as well. Tried it once, made it a third of the way through. Tried it again, made it two thirds of the way through. I'm left with the conviction that Kim Stanley Robinson is a mediocre author.
Joey Shithead, the lead singer of DOA, came into the shop this week. The shop is neighborhood, not the kind of place people not of the neighborhood wander into often. DOA was a foundational hardcore punk rock band, their blood burned with a hatred of Ronald Reagan. I was delighted. It was my 2nd favorite famous person I've served after click and clack from car talk. I bought the bands coffees and got picture together.
I had a goal on goodreads to read 52 books this year. I am at 48 now. I don't think reading with the mindset of reaching that goal is the best mindset to have, but on the other hand missing the goal by just a few books would be very annoying. And reading instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media is an improvement. I will probably set the same goal next year. I have started getting portal submissions approved in ingress now. Which is very nice. It is a great feeling to have contributed to my local PoGo community. (And nice to be appreciated for creating a Pokestop nearer someones house.) So, well not that much has been happening. I am having a nice time though, so that is what counts.
Having a goal gives you the opportunity to measure the results. If you don't reflect on the goal after hitting/missing it, then it was pointless. Maybe next year the goal should be 26 books. Or 100. You don't know until you examine the value you got from pursuing the goal. ===== In other news, I almost read three books this year. I know I almost read them, because they are still on my nightstand next to my bed. In fact, they may be stuck there.... fused to the table... chemically bonded to one another. I have no idea, because it has been so long since I picked them up. I did read other books this year. But I couldn't tell you what they were, right now... completely slipped my mind...
I spent the night in NYC. I met some plastic surgeons and got to catch up wth two old friends. Delta bumped me to first class. Go Delta. I’m working on balance. It’s going ok, but I have everything from canine gonads to trees of heaven to fund-raising to crypto regulations on my mind. I was able to sneak about 1 hour in the MET yesterday and spent most of it with Monet. Monet was a genius with light, but his brushstroke has the energy of a mall-walker. It grosses me out. Oh yes, why don’t hotels put ironing boards away during room cleaning?
I don't think I've ever left the ironing board out in a hotel. I always put it away because the rooms feel cramped enough.
Honestly I don't think I ever saw an ironing board left out when I was a housekeeper. I probably would have been a little tripped out and worry that the guest wanted it out so I would be inconveniencing them by putting it away. Thankful those days are behind me.
My mom has this idea that she's supposed to give her kids money at Christmas. Her dad did it. I suppose that's where she got the idea from. Her dad wasn't wealthy but was careful with his money. He shared his surplus with his kids, all of whom have kids (and corresponding bills) of their own. My parents also are not wealthy but are not at all secure. I don't have kids. I don't know how to tell her while the $150 she gives me is no small sum, at the same time it has little impact on my life. I save money to buy a car or make a house down payment, and anything else is just budgeting. I've spent $150 on baggage fees alone on a single trip. She should be keeping that money herself because it's a lot of money in her budget and, if she wants to do something for me, donate $20 to an animal shelter I adopted cats from. Or if she wants to give it away, give it to my sister who has kids and a lower household income than me. I don't know how to explain this without sounding really ungrateful and arrogant.
I just received a letter from Payroll saying they've approved a bonus of $1,100 to be paid to me before Christmas - my boss applied for it in secret after I completed our massvie office shift (along with a 24 beer advent calendar from her!). I was thinking I'd just chuck it towards paying my car off but your words have me thinking I should do something more with it. Thanks for that.
Receiving gifts is hard. It is a learned skill, and does not come naturally to most people. You need to get out of your head, and into hers: This is her expressing something to you that is hard. Not easy. Honor where the gift is coming from, not the gift itself. Receive it fully and generously and with your heart. Appreciate the giver. Anything less is dishonoring the gift, and disempowering the giver... devaluing their gift, at the very moment they are most vulnerable and exposed. - Then put the money aside. Months later, you can spend it on her. Take her out to dinner. Get her that thing she wants/needs that she wouldn't buy for herself. Never tell her where the money came from. You both win.
This is probably the right answer. It's still weird in my head because it's effectively absorbing the cash into my budget and then deciding to take it back out of a budget months later. I do think there's some responsibility on the part of the gift giver to understand how their gift impacts the recipient. It's why pets are almost always a bad gift. I also get tripped up putting myself in her head because I don't grasp why she thinks cash is a great gift. It was when I was 15 or 20, but at 38 when she's 71, it isn't. It feels kind of infantilizing.
I hear ya... but you are still 15 in her head. Especially now that she's 71, and her perceptions of the world are narrowing down, new memories are harder to store/recall, and she spends a lot of time in her old memories. The gift isn't about you; it's about her. Accepting it generously is going to make her happy. And that's just a nice thing to do for another human being, regardless of your relationship with them.
you could always donate the money yourself to an organization of your choice or emphasize that you don't want anything for Christmas, including money, and you'd be more happy just spending time with her. I am sure that even if she doesn't have much she's giving to you from the bottom of her heart because she loves you and wants you to have the money more than her. This may be how she feels giving in the holiday season and you can just put a smile on your face and act extra grateful, perhaps you could even do something for her with the money. Home improvement, pay a bill for her, etc...
You know how everyone you know knows that bitcoin is fuckin' done and over and everyone should feel bad for ever owning any? And how if you meddling kids weren't so busy wasting your money and energy on pie-in-the-sky get-rich-quick schemes America Would Be Great Again or some shit? Bitcoin is at $3400 right now, down from a high of $19783 in Dec 2017. That's a retrenchment of 82%. But then, GE is at $6.66 right now, down from a high of $32.88 in July 2016. That's a retrenchment of 79%. I know a certified financial analyst whose entire portfolio was buying and selling GE futures. Ain't no financial whiz-kids berating people for owning GE on Twitter.
I still have my two measly ETH. Purchased for $1200 each, now worth about $30, IIRC. So I have no reason to do anything other than hold them. Forever, really. (Unless they go up to $10k each, at which point I sell and buy myself a brand new Indian motorcycle.)
Meanwhile over at the WSJ: Mr. Kapteyn, in an interview, said the model is consistent with a “sharp slowdown” in global growth, but not the end of the business cycle.“We find that on several dimensions, the behaviour of the data over the last four quarters in the U.S., Eurozone and Japan is completely incongruous with any of the recessions that took place since 1980,” write Pierre Lafourcade and Arend Kapteyn of UBS.
I was in a musical a couple years ago. A singing and acting role. I hate musicals. But I liked this one. Maybe because an acquaintance wrote it, and asked me to be in it. I was basically an old-timey circus barker's ghost. Haunting the warehouse full of old props, etc., left behind by multiple generations of this circus family. It was a fun production. Everybody else on stage was a professional, and continues in their acting professions today. A ballerina/dancer/actress in NYC. An actress in NYC. An LA-based comedian/actor. Three staples of the Seattle local musical theater industry. Etc. We follow each other on Instagram and Facebook and pretend to still know each other. On Sunday, one of the local actresses needed a ride from the airport. I live about 7 minutes from SeaTac, so offered to give her a ride. She was going all the way to the north end of Seattle, but getting to hang out and chat and reminisce with a beautiful, outgoing, gregarious, fun woman is a task I will gladly sign up for. We had a lovely time chatting, singing Tom Lehrer songs (she does a Tom Lehrer tribute in drag), and neither of us even noticed the shitty Seattle traffic, terrible weather, or anything else. My wife and I have been really nesting ever since our wedding two years ago. We rarely go out any more, choosing to stay home together and just BE with one another. So getting out and talking to someone else for a bit was a nice change of pace. Then, on Sunday, I went with my brother and kleinbl00 to see a Mongolian metal band play at a seriously shitty dive club in Seattle, El Corazon. Other than getting to hang out and chat with two of my favorite dudes for a while, Tengger Cavalry was a great show, and surprised us with being their own opening band - doing an acoustic set of traditional Mongolian folk tunes - before coming back on stage and blowing the doors off the place. Great show! And, my wife and I are going to be traveling with the rugby fan club to away games this year, in New Orleans, NYC, and Austin. Maybe Toronto, too. So apparently we are emerging from our shell of isolation? Who knows...?
Yeah. I'm a supporter of the whole American rugby movement in general, the MLR as a league, the Men's and Women's Eagles (national team), Sevens tournaments, and the Seattle Seawolves team. I played briefly overseas, and fell for the sport. Now, I love to watch the sport, and love the community that gathers around rugby. Lots of positivity, camaraderie, family-focus, and good sportsmanship is required. Pretty cool group of people.
Nice! Good to hear - I've watched a bit of the MLR, looks like it's coming along really nicely in terms of skillset and talent; lots of passion, just quite rough but you entirely expect that at this stage of the competition. Need to sit down and commit some time to it though, here in NZ it's very easy to let other comps fall by the wayside as a player and viewer (took me like.. until this year to watch the 6 Nations properly) as we've got so much going on in our own land. Where did you play overseas?
The MLR was kinda scrappy low-level play its first season, I admit. The first time the Seattle Seawolves ever played together was at the first pro match! But throughout the season, some really great players got some visibility, then got chances to play with the Eagles, and now there is a lot of buzz around the US's national XV and 7s teams. People are talking about the US in the Olympics...! This season there is a LOT more international involvement. The US and Canada are now both considered "native", so that expands the MLR's player pool to really strong rugby cultures in both Toronto and BC. There are also agreements and player exchanges between the MLR and France, Ireland, Uruguay, Samoa, and other national leagues. So we are going to get MLR players on the field and getting experience from top-level international players, too. That will up everyone's skill and visibility. Anyway, I played for the Budapest Exiles in Hungary. Since my time (late 1990's) they have become A Thing, and are pretty well known and respected. When I played there, we were a drinking team with a rugby problem. :-) I'd never played before, so they put me out at 15, told me not to get in the way, and if I got the ball to run like hell over the top of anyone that got in my way. I did that pretty well, being a 200lb winger.
Hey that's excellent - I do think it's getting better and better each year, it's just a new comp and a country still finding it's feet in the 15s game, but now that country's are taking 7s seriously rather than a feeder comp for the 15s game, things are cranking right up! I spotted the international agreements, that'll help the quality and interest, which will hopefully inspire young guns to take up the sport! Ahh the drinking team, I've neared that stage now. Once I used to play alongside professionals, future and current All Blacks, Highlanders and Otago players, but I was a halfback in a world of men built like fridges, so after my third bad concussion I stepped away from the highly competitive side of things. My club was Varsity in Dunedin, has the illustrious title of producing the most All Blacks in the country! I loved the "slap the newbie on the wing" option. Always works, they either stay out of the way and stay safe or they get stuck in and stampede people. I take it you were the latter! I've been meaning to watch more of the Tier 2 comps but always lacked a team to get behind, reckon Seattle would be a good option?
Yeah, and it is easier to watch this season, too. CBS is going to be showing a "game of the week" from the MLR, and the schedule has been configured not to conflict with other major US tournaments, etc. The YouTube channel for the MLR is good, too. Usually posts the full games, commercial free, within about a day of the match. And you can hear the Ref as well, so it helps Americans understand whats going on... :-) This season, the Seawolves are the reigning MLR champions, and have a lot to prove. Last season, the Glendale Raptors (Colorado) were our major competition, and beat us twice. But we beat them in the championship, and that's what counts. This season, they have had a LOT of player turnover, so I am not sure how effective they will be as a team. They are the big question-mark. New this season are the Toronto Arrows and RUNY. Both teams have a very mature and professional club scene, and deep pools of local players to draw from. In fact, several of the key Glendale Raptors players were on loan from RUNY, and have gone back to their home team now. These are the two teams that worry me the most... we have not seen them play (much), and they have a number of really excellent players, and come from a region with a culture of rugby. They could both be the dark horses this season, and could surprise a lot of people. Welcome to the MLR! "...I've been meaning to watch more of the Tier 2 comps but always lacked a team to get behind, reckon Seattle would be a good option?..."
Debating on attending the RPS's family holiday party or not. An invitation was sent via social media, to her. Not to me. I wasn't connected with her mom on social media up until very recently. It's possible she forgot to send me an invite. It's possible that she just assumed that by inviting her daughter she was also inviting me. It's also possible that I'm specifically being excluded and specifically was NOT invited. You can't exactly call someone up and ASK if you're invited to a family holiday party or not. I went last year. I don't think things are any more icy now than they were then. To everyone with a pleasant or at least respectful relationship with their parents, value that please. Thank them for not being dirtbags. After finally healing from bronchitis and taking weeks off of biking, my mileage is finally starting to get back up to where I would like to be. Had my first 20+ mile day in weeks on Sunday and that felt good. About to go try for another 20.
Just got a thank-you note two years later. $17 to $137, crazy. https://explorer.bitcoin.com/btc/address/15ALB4JtiW3sCdgWJteJAi4nkaCegGQYU2
I'll take a virgin marguerita. Apparently a good virgin marguerita will have a tiny bit of alcohol in it... go figure. Either way, I am tired of talking so much for the past week and I sought silence. I finished a novel and started another one. It's given me a lot to think about in terms of how much time I have wasted over being in love... but I think it made my writings richer. wiser. ... possibly understandable with the gaps of pregnant silence I am trying to fill the second one. I also have been drinking so much water lately that at night, before I go to bed, if I look at a digital screen then I will start releasing tears. Donate to Wikipedia if you can.
This week was godawful and I've fully decided to leave this job, but hell I'm flying to New Zealand tomorrow so I'm sure as shit not going to worry about it for the next couple of weeks
i'm going back home in two days and thus finally have the ability to cook delicious food: what are some things that i should make
have you tried keto _______________________________ Sorry that was the one comment on that whole page that legitimately gave me an audible chortle. Anyway. Don't know your interests, don't know your skill level, don't know your available equipment, don't know your dietary restrictions but I can tell you that any recipe with more than 500 reviews on allrecipes.com is so completely bombproof you could probably substitute salt for sugar and have it turn out okay (don't test this). I can also tell you that anything in the New York Times has probably been vetted by professionals well past the point of reasonability, but their palette may not match yours. I can tell you that baking is far more sensitive to precision than cooking and I can tell you that anything on cookingforengineers.com will overdetermine all recipes to the point where you probably can't fuck them up without studious effort.
just about anything, for realsies - i'm not picky i can ass my way through most things that aren't baking without worrying about it and as long as i have a written recipe baking generally works okay - i was thinking about making a chocolate babka for krimmas because i made one before that turned out super nice (courtesy of the good people at NYtimes cooking section) i have an oven w/ stovetop, a grill, a griddle, and more than enough pots, pans, knives, etc - also an immersion blender i got for last christmas and a regular blender, and a rice maker, and a crockpot and by "i have" i mean my parents none personally although grubski is a little quiet nowadays i was thinking i could reenliven it with some christmas break cookery, possibly including ideas/recipes suggested by hubskiteers so if that sounds nice i'm gonna be posting some of that - maybe with a catchy gimmick it could catch on: "holiday hubski hfood" or somesuchlike audible chortle is a good band name alsointerests
skill level
equipment
dietary restrictions
One more week of work - then off for three weeks. Get to visit Christchurch and have Xmas up there with my family, should be able to get up into the Port Hills and take in the Summer sun. New Years might be spent in this little place called Kanuka Vale - a plot of land in the bush towards Akaroa that's been built up to host a few families; full of hours of tracks! Or I may come home to the city and party up, not too sure what I want to do just now. I'll take a week or two away from the gym and sports, just live and relax for a bit - really looking forward to it. https://imgur.com/a/v9Xmeyi found some cool flowers too.