Welcome to the /random-thoughts swirling around in my head. Tap the arrow next to the url on your phone to refresh the page each day. If you’re on a laptop, select Ctrl+R (Windows) or Command+R (Mac).
JUNE 2024
06.25
I’m a certified nature nerd, I’ll admit. But something I’d like to see more personal blogs do these days is incorporate nature into their writing. Not every post. Not even every other post. But something, sometimes. Writing about technology, Mastodon, AI, pop culture et cetera is so human-centric.
There’s a big, beautiful world out there that human beings overlook constantly. Have you never seen a hawk or a squirrel or come across an interesting insect? How about a tree or a flower, a river or a mountain? Please write about it. I want to read it.
06.24
A song sparrow ran along the ground with its wings spread as if in a territorial pose straight toward a young squirrel digging for cached nuts in my front yard. The squirrel then gave chase back, but in a playful way. One of the more hilarious things I’ve seen in some time.
06.14
If one of my kids passes gas audibly in my vicinity and I have my computer nearby, I immediately begin to play this tuba video while tears stream down my face. Why you ask? Because I am a man-child. Regardless of how many birthdays I have, I will remain, at heart, as immature as I was when I was 12.
06.13
The Internet wins again: an orphaned crow that grew up with chickens as neighbors.
06.12
Jerry West has passed. RIP Logo.
06.11
Sometimes the algorithm gets it right: Kenny Rogers fakes out Michael Jordan. MJ takes it personally. The only thing this video lacks, and I understand for copyright reasons, is “The Gambler” playing as background music. The segue was right there.
06.10
Woke up with the Wu-Tang song “Bring Da Ruckus” on loop playing in my head. Not mad about it.
06.9
It’s not to say it’s impossible. Giannis and the Milwaukee Bucks pulled off the feat in 2021. Cleveland in 2016. The Heat in 2006. Trailblazers in 1977. The Celtics in 1969. But coming back from 2-0 in the NBA Finals is tough. Luka is putting up big numbers but is about as hobbled as they come. Kyrie is not playing Kyrie-like. Uncharacteristic turnovers. Dallas’ role players are missing wide open threes and keep getting pulled into switches on defense. Stop switching!
Boston matches up well with Dallas. They have a deeper team and everyone knows their role. The Jrue Holiday acquisition in the offseason was big. So was Porzingis. I love watching Jrue Holiday play. He takes the toughest defensive assignment night in and night out. What he does isn’t often reflected in the stat sheet: wearing out the offensive player, deflections, tips, boxing out while his teammate gets the rebound, hockey assists.
You have to love his game though. Have to. He’s always in the right place at the right time. That showed in the stat sheet last night. But watch Holiday any game. He’s walking duct tape covering up your team’s deficiencies and holes. I’d like to see Dallas win, but it’s not looking good. They are being overwhelmed.
06.8
I’m sitting on my back patio typing this. It’s nice and shady back here. My dog is at my feet. The fan is on to keep mosquitoes away. As I wrote this last line, a tree nut dropped onto my dog’s bed. It didn’t hit her but spooked her awake momentarily. There’s a juvenile squirrel fifteen feet away from me. Gizmo the Blue Jay has swooped in to survey the ground beneath the feeder.
I’m not sure how I came across this blog but I enjoyed her essay: (I Am) The Unknown Reader. I wonder how many unknown readers are reading this line now. How many will click the link I provided in my last sentence and now find the blog I referenced. The song sparrows are now dancing their Irish jig in search of food. A tufted titmouse has secured a pumpkin seed and is pecking away as it holds the seed in place. A mourning dove hoo-hoo-hoos away in the trees.
I keep a website because I like to write. I enjoy sharing my words. It’s what drew me to the Internet in the mid-90s: reading other people’s stories and thoughts. I also keep a website because I like tinkering. Fiddling. I like the option to customize the look and feel of a website on a whim. It’s why I could never go all-in on websites like Substack or Medium.
I no longer hand code my site in its entirety. Not even close. I gave that up years ago when I moved to WordPress. I miss this process sometimes, but not all the time. I do still enjoy tinkering and WordPress is flexible enough for my needs. It’s why this site’s look and feel changes more than your average site. I get bored and change things. Then sometimes I change them back.
Rinse. Repeat.
06.7
I sat down to write 2-3 sentences on a spider in my bathroom and those handful of words have now taken on a life of its own. Thanks a lot brain upstairs. It’ll now be a full length essay on my blog in a few days time along with a separate essay about a Blue Jay named Gizmo.
I’m terrible at these short, sweet pieces I had planned to fill this page with. The positive is it gets my creative juices flowing. And so it goes: my prolific ability to write about topics few people give two cents about — or have they yet to discover me? Ha.
On a different note, and one I shake my own head at, is I am going to remove the roman numerals from the top of each day and instead go with an abbreviated MM/D(D). I’m not opposed to roman numerals, but in reading Practical Typography’s “Hierarchical Headings,” I’ve reconsidered my approach. What I’m doing is a different concept than what Matthew Butterick references. For example, I’m not using roman numerals on this page in a hierarchical way such as in an outline or essay format. I’m denoting days of the month. But I feel MM/D(D) is clearer. I do plan to continue using the occasional roman numeral in essays. It’s, as I mentioned the other day, a visual thing for me. A way to break up a thought.
My justification for this is that it’s my website and I reserve the right to play around and experiment with it any way I choose.
06.6
I removed the day/time from my random thoughts entries and my wife told me she didn’t like this approach. The day/time format was how she determined what was the latest entry. A happy medium I am introducing is roman numerals for each day of the month. Hence, today is VI because it’s June 6. The only issue I see with this is when I get to twenty or thirty. Will the multiple Xs flag my site inadvertently for folks running restrictions? I laugh. But as sensitive as restrictions can be, it’s a possibility.
I’m not a fan of social sharing buttons on my blog. I’ve removed them in the past. The research is clear. They are ignored more than utilized by over 99% of your readers. That’s a documented statistic and not an arbitrary number I tossed out there. The actual figure: 99.8%.
Here’s the thing: a small handful of my readers do use those sharing buttons. I’ve asked them directly. And the ones who use them generate on average 250+ referrals on one post because of it. As a consequence, despite my strong dislike for social sharing buttons, they will remain active on my site.
06.5
My daughter’s gerbil passed away this morning. It’s got me in my feels big time. That little critter always brightened my day and has played an important role in my daughter’s life the last few years. Pets are never just pets.
I’ve been enjoying Manuel Moreale‘s blog. I came across it via a recommendation from Mike Grindle on his site. There you have it: two writers on the web worth checking out if you are unfamiliar with their work.
I did a re-design of my website’s homepage. It’s inching closer to an ideal I’m going for. It’s not there yet, but it’s getting closer. One thing I will be changing is the gigantic picture of my head at the bottom. Although I cringe a smidge at having a photo of myself on my website, I do think it’s a nice feature to include: face with a name sort of thing i.e. who’s the guy behind the words you are reading.
I’m no longer including the day and time on my random thoughts page. I may do MM/YYYY to start each month, but that’s it. I find the day/time above every entry to be a visual obstruction. Not to mention, when I have a random thought in my head, I’m not stamping a day/time on each one before thinking it. I’d like this page to reflect more how a random thought operates inside my noggin.
06.4
Nailed it! This goes for Medium and Substack, too.
My ideal blog design — and one I fail at repeatedly — is super clean and simple. I bounce back and forth between a text-dominant website and one with header images. My preference is the former. A blog that looks and feels like a book more than it does a blog. I am still finding my way.
06.3
I don’t know the best or least intrusive way to ask my readers to support my writing with a small contribution, but the way I do it now (at the end of each post) is not my preference. Writing is how I pay my bills. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a small contribution each month, considering how many stories I pump out monthly on my blog. It takes time to write these stories. What’s the best way to do this? I don’t know.
I try to avoid taking ibuprofen as much as possible. Today is not that day.
Daddy Threw Out His Back Again: An Epic
06.2
Played the “War, What Is It Good For?” song while driving my kids to school this morning. I may need to find my paisley headband here soon.
It’s a shame America is not a more bike-friendly nation. Where I live is considered by some to be bike-friendly. This depends entirely on where you decide to ride your bike, because as someone who has ridden their bike in this city, I’ll tell you one thing: there are for sure some drivers on the road who wouldn’t think twice about running you off the road. Can be rather terrifying.
06.1
It’s Saturday, so of course I failed to sleep in.
MAY 2024
Friday, May 31, 2024 @ 6:50 AM
When you watch Luka Doncic play, you are witnessing greatness in real time. Luka in the NBA Finals is gonna be a show. Boy Wonder is a destroyer of worlds.
Thursday, May 30, 2024 @ 7:20 AM
I’m listening to the audiobook version of Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Rubin narrates himself. Although it hasn’t been outright said thus far in the book, it’s clear he is a practicing Buddhist.
Wednesday, May 29, 2024 @ 1:58 PM
One of the epiphanies I’ve had while documenting my random thoughts is that I am a prolific compiler of topics I don’t think many people give a s—t about. For example, earlier in the day I was going to add a random thought about the name I had given to a Blue Jay that frequents my feeder. He comes here every spring and sets up a nest behind my backyard.
What happened, however, as I was writing this out was that it turned into what is now a 1,000-plus word essay on Blue Jays and the connection between the name I bestowed upon said Blue Jay and a dog I once had when I was in tenth grade in high school. Coincidentally, the name of this dog I once had for a short period in my life is also the name of the dog my grandpa later had. He named his dog what he did because he had made a dog house for my dog with this name who had disappeared one night.
And that’s what happens to me when I sit down to write a few words on a topic. I don’t write a few words. I write 1,000 words. But even the 1,000 words isn’t enough, so I write 1,000 more. And then I never get to adding a 1-2 sentence random thought because now it’s like condensing it down to an elevator pitch for this lengthy essay I just drafted.
Which is to say that my random thoughts page has turned into what it was meant to be, which is more a scratchpad than anything. Not a bad thing necessarily. It would be more ideal, obviously, if I wrote about topics other people cared about, but that’s not my life. I like things that I guess, if I’m being honest with myself, most people don’t care about. Maybe they do. I really have no idea.
Do you care about Blue Jays or spilled coffee?
Tuesday, May 28, 2024 @ 11:09 AM
I’ve long used my iPhone in grayscale mode. I am now using grayscale on my laptop. Severely underrated hack for minimizing distractions and the urge to aimlessly surf the web.
Monday, May 27, 2024 @ 6:45 PM
Our family movie for the night: The Delta Force, starring Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin.
Sunday, May 26, 2024 @ 10:08 AM
I finally have a barbell to lift. Kinda. It’s a thick limb from a tree that is the perfect length and weight. I feel this is what Paul Bunyan would’ve done.
Saturday, May 25, 2024 @ 2:30 PM
My kids are no fun. I tried convincing them to go with me to a nearby basketball court to play 3-on-3 pick-up. We’d walk up and say, “We got next,” then proceed to shoot jump shots in perfect form, only backwards, as if backwards is the correct way. We’d do this with a completely straight look on our faces.
They said no.
So, now I am out here all by myself in the driveway shooting backwards jump shots. I want to make it clear here I am not talking about backwards granny shots or simply throwing the ball backwards over your head. I’m talking correct form. Everything in order. Only backwards.
Friday, May 24, 2024 @ 1:10 PM
The state of my mood typically comes down to one thing: did I write today?
Friday, May 24, 2024 @ 9:32 AM
The original Road House with Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott is a cinematic masterpiece. Convince me otherwise. The remake with Jake Gyllenhaal appears to be an intentional/unintentional comedy of errors. It may go down in movie history as one of the single worst films I’ve ever watched — and I love a good bad movie. But this is not a movie so bad it’s good. It’s a movie so bad, it’s just bad.
Thursday, May 23, 2024 @ 9:08 AM
As I drove down the residential area behind my son’s school, a chipmunk darted across the road. Tucked in his cheek was a nut (or perhaps multiple) half the size of its head. To my knowledge, there aren’t any chipmunks in my neighborhood. Perhaps there are some deeper in the woods I can only assume. So whenever I have the chance to catch a glimpse of a chipmunk, it makes my day. They are the some of the cutest little creatures on this planet.
Wednesday, May 22, 2024 @ 1:21 PM
Overheard while on a run today: “You are not allowed to go down to the creek by yourself just because you want.”
When I turned around, a woman was walking a dog on a leash and said, “I was talking to the dog.”
Apparently the dog, a golden retriever, had escaped from the yard and decided to venture off on her own to a nearby trail.
Wednesday, May 22, 2024 @ 6:12 AM
Yesterday marked fifteen years since my dad passed. I like to remember all the other days he was alive and not the day he died. I will always think of May 21 as my dog’s birthday and not the day my dad died.
Tuesday, May 21, 2024 @ 9:44 AM
Motzie turned 16 today. She was born May 21, 2008. Seems like yesterday when we drove down to Danville and picked her out. She was the only girl. She barely looked up at us. Too busy battling her big brothers trying to nurse.
Monday, May 20, 2024 @ 1:42 PM
Mourning doves are not as peaceful as you think — not with each other. The dominant (fe)male does what I refer to as a bullrush. Head down. Charge. It’s entertaining. I get after them sometimes though. The dove being chased looks sad when this happens.
Sunday, May 19, 2024 @ 3:05 PM
My daughter’s team won their semi-final soccer match that went to penalty kicks. Super physical match against an elite North Carolina club. The winner went to the championship game. They then beat a team from Johnson City, Tennessee, in the championship 1-0. Our goalie was amazing all tournament long. I also like to think Ahmad’s blessings had something to do with it.
Sunday, May 19, 2024 @ 8:07 AM
As my daughter and I walked to a coffee shop in Downtown Greensboro, a homeless man asked me if I could buy him some food. His name was Ahmad. At first, I thought he said Omar. Then he said, “No, Ahmad,” and I responded, “Like Ahmad Rashad from Inside the NBA” and he laughed. He asked where I was from and I told him Charlottesville. He said he was from Boston, Massachusetts, and asked if I’d ever been up that way. I said I’d never been that far north. As I shook his hand, he told me good things were coming our way and wished my daughter and I well.
Saturday, May 18, 2024 @ 10:45 AM
Greensboro Playlist includes Goldfinger, Joey Ramone’s cover of “What a Wonderful World,” “Disintegration Anxiety” by Explosions in the Sky, and Patrick Swayze’s “She’s Like the Wind” et al.
Friday, May 17, 2024 @ 1:45 PM
There’s a squirrel in my backyard, who I nicknamed Little Girl, that lights up when she sees me. No matter where she is in the yard, she runs down toward me. She has the cutest look on her face. Is it because she wants to eat my brain?
Friday, May 17, 2024 @ 9:37 AM
I’m working on a screenplay re-make of World War Z starring Brad Pitt, but instead of zombies, we get brain-eating squirrels. Updated title: World War Sciuridae.
If I were the casting director, our all-star ensemble would consist of: Scrat (Ice Age), Woody Harrelson, John Malkovich, Wendell Pierce (“Bunk” from The Wire), and Jennifer Lawrence. Our Greenland would not be in Greenland at all, but New Zealand where squirrels do not reside.
Steve Buscemi would be in the movie, too, because Steve Buscemi is in every Hollywood movie ever made.
Thursday, May 16, 2024 @ 1:31 PM
When I was a child, my friends and I walked down the side road next to Phenix Elementary School one afternoon. From there, we entered the row of trees between the road and the school. I was six or seven years old. We came upon a dead cardinal laying on the forest floor. I rushed home and told my parents someone had killed the state bird of Virginia and that we needed to report it to the police immediately. It never dawned on me the bird could have been attacked by a hawk or died of natural causes. My parents did not report the death of the cardinal. Therefore, no suspect was apprehended. I was reminded of this while on a walk with my wife yesterday where red feathers were scattered alongside the trail, presumably from a hawk attack. I’ll never forget you little cardinal from my childhood.
Thursday, May 16, 2024 @ 9:18 AM
Rabies in squirrels is extremely rare and there has never been a documented case of a squirrel spreading rabies to a human. But imagine if they were a more suitable host. We’d all be screwed. Imagine a rabid squirrel chasing you around in the backyard like they do other squirrels when fighting over a food source. Pandemonium.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024 @ 6:35 PM
There are two kinds of people in the world:
- Those who fold their pizza in the middle of the crust and eat it like a sandwich, and
- Those who don’t fold their pizza but choose to eat their pizza with their top teeth touching the cheese first followed by their bottom teeth on the crust
I don’t trust the latter.
Which brings me to another question: is my wife a folder of pizza or a top teeth on the cheese eater of pizza? The fate of our love may be at stake here.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024 @ 1:47 PM
I imagine the squirrels in my backyard think the bird feeder is not a bird feeder, but a squirrel feeder instead. And when they see a bird fly over, they say to their squirrel pals, “Quick! To the feeder. We must not let these pests conquer our food supply.”
Wednesday, May 15, 2024 @ 7:08 AM
Dogs Spinning Around In Circles Before They Lay Down: A Poetry Anthology
Tuesday, May 14, 2024 @ 11:00 AM
Where Did the Opossum Go: A Children’s Story.
Tuesday, May 14, 2024 @ 10:13 AM
I’m eating a breakfast muffin while my dog snoozes away in the kitchen listening to Buddhist monks practicing their morning chant on Spotify. Outside an opossum licks dew from a hosta by my workshop while a trio of squirrels lose their collective mind that an opossum is in the backyard. Their backyard.
Monday, May 13, 2024 @ 8:35 PM
In an effort to get my dog settled for the night, I placed a small speaker in the room with her. She tends to get restless at bedtime in her older age. I made a playlist years ago of Buddhist monks chanting on Spotify. My dog is currently listening to Evening Chant and sawing logs.
Monday, May 13, 2024 @ 10:52 AM
About a month ago, I trimmed my facial hair down to the shortest it’s been in ten years. At first, I liked it and thought I’d keep it this way. I had stubble and a slight stache, but no real beard — not like I’ve had the past decade. I looked, in ways, like a presentable human being. A gentleman, dare I say. Less the fuzzy rascal of my mid-30s and beyond.
However, as my facial hair has begun to grow back in full, I realized the beard is a-callin’ my name and I must heed its call. The sun is shining overhead and there’s no better protection of one’s skin than the hair on one’s face. Not to mention, if you’ve ever grown a full beard, an especially long one at that, it’s hard not to return. It’s like reaching the peak of a mountain and looking down on the valley below. You’re never the same. Cranking up your car and returning to civilization holds less appeal.
Monday, May 13, 2024 @ 7:06 AM
IT’S A VISUAL THING FOR ME, but I like essays that start with the first handful of words capitalized. Small caps with a touch of spacing. This technique is mostly absent from the web from a design standpoint, but still common in print — magazine stories in particular. Anyone else like this? It’s a lead-in. A typographical beauty in my eyes.
Sunday, May 12, 2024 @ 4:30 PM
It’s Mother’s Day and I have a feeling a lot of pizza is being ordered today. Dads be like, “I got dinner tonight, babe.”
Saturday, May 11, 2024 @ 4:37 AM
I have a magical ability to wake at 4 AM on the weekends. It’s like a gift — only it’s not a gift I want. I’d really like to sleep until 7 AM for a change.
Friday, May 10, 2024 @ 6:33 AM
Dear pollen, please ease up. Yours truly, my goopy left eye.
Thursday, May 9, 2024 @ 9:45 PM
I just published a story about a friend taking a s—t. I may lose subscribers, but I feel it was worth the risk. A timeless classic in my estimation.
I wrote it while sitting in my car waiting for my daughter’s soccer practice to end. I was laughing the whole time I typed away on my phone. Other parents occasionally peered over at me because my laughter could not be contained within my four door sedan.
Thursday, May 9, 2024 @ 9:01 PM
Find humor in the absurd. I have this written on the marker board in our kitchen. It’s my life’s motto. It’s how I make it through each day.
Thursday, May 9, 2024 @ 8:23 PM
I have a hard time being serious. It’s terrible for my mental health.
Thursday, May 9, 2024 @ 11:01 AM
My worst fear come true. Last night, in an effort to find my focus, I put on my Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Call it paranoia, but I always blow inside my headphones before putting them on just in case a spider or another insect has made its way into the cupped headphone piece. You never know.
A few seconds later, I felt a tickle in my ear. I yanked off the headphones and inside was an earwig crawling around.
It took a few minutes to get the earwig out. It simply wouldn’t drop onto the floor. Kept hiding away and hanging on for dear life. I had to use a plastic spoon to fish it out.
After releasing the earwig outside, I walked upstairs, grabbed a Q-tip, and doused the end with rubbing alcohol then thoroughly cleaned my ear where the earwig had tickled in the event the earwig dropped some eggs off in leaving.
Doubtful, but I’ve been down the YouTube rabbit hole.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to enjoy my headphones again. I’m also wondering how long the earwig had been there. I fell asleep with my headphones on the night before.
Please, no.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 @ 11:34 AM
Back to the “Jason” subject. I once ate lunch on Friday the 13th with a screenwriter who wrote one of the Friday the 13th movies back in the 1980s. He was a contributing writer, as was I, at The Nervous Breakdown (TNB), an arts and culture magazine that has since gone defunct.
Coincidentally, this writer, Daryl Haney, who I knew as “Duke” and “D.R.” and not as “Daryl,” (he didn’t use Daryl as his pen name on TNB) grew up in Charlottesville where I lived at the time and still do. I had written a piece about my imaginary friend named Jason for TNB and he had commented, “I once had a Jason character in my life.” No one then, at TNB, realized he was Daryl Haney from Friday the 13th: The New Blood (Paramount Pictures).
He had returned home from Los Angeles to visit family where we met up at a local grill to shoot the s—t. While in conversation, I realized his niece was in my daughter’s pre-school and ballet class. I also realized the current day we were sitting there eating lunch was indeed Friday the 13th.
Small world.
Lots of Jasons.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 @ 7:15 AM
I walked out onto my back patio this morning to check on my dog and my crow friend, Mr. Jones, was going apes—t as was my squirrel friend, Little Girl. An opossum was standing on the fence rail.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024 @ 6:38 AM
His name was Jason. Denim short guy from high school. He had the same last name as another Jason at Randolph-Henry at the time. Same grade I believe. Rhymed with “Huffy,” as in the bike.
Coincidentally, my imaginary friend’s name when I was growing up was Jason. A very popular name in the 1980s.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 @ 9:55 AM
A red Arkansas Razorbacks crewneck sweatshirt and well worn denim jeans that smelled like he’d wallowed in a deer carcass. He’d leave them hanging over the edge of the wicker laundry basket in the bathroom. I remember him this way, too.
It’s not a derogatory way to think of my dad. The smell was on purpose. He was a hunter.
I’m fairly certain he either rubbed his clothes on a deer carcass or sprayed deer spray on his clothing to help attract the deer. It was an overpowering aroma of which my mom would get after my dad for even placing his soiled hunting clothes near the rest of the laundry: dirty or clean made no difference.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 @ 8:47 AM
The single largest opossum I have ever seen in my life ventured over from my neighbor’s yard into mine just as we were gearing up to leave for school this morning. As someone who grew up in the sticks, I’ve seen my fair share of opossums and this one takes the cake.
I tried to shoo it from our yard but she paid me no mind and went straight for the drain pipe. My son Henry saw it first. Absolutely monstrous. I’m assuming pregnant or an alpha male of some sort. If the former, perhaps it had some little baby opossums in her pouch underneath.
Tuesday, May 7, 2024 @ 6:29 AM
For the record, I have nothing against denim shorts. There’s a nostalgic element to denim shorts for me. My dad wore denim shorts. They were entirely too short and his wallet hung lower than the bottom seam. They weren’t overly tight though. This is how I remember my dad. Denim shorts, an Old Well baseball cap, and a long sleeve baseball tee. You know the kind. Blue sleeves with a white front.
Monday, May 6, 2024 @ 9:32 PM
I don’t understand skinny jeans for men. I really don’t. Why is this a thing? When I was in high school, there was this guy two years ahead of us — I’m blanking on his name now — who wore what we referred to as “nut huggers.” And they were shorts. Denim shorts. It looked to be a painful choice of attire.
Monday, May 6, 2024 @ 7:59 PM
I finally fixed our refrigerator. No more weighted slam ball keeping the door shut. Hallelujah!
Monday, May 6, 2024 @ 6:48 AM
It’s like tweeting, but without the death threats.
Sunday, May 5, 2024 @ 8:09 AM
The worm-like strings of pollen from oak trees you see all over the place right now are like “flying…” What’s the word? Ah, I can’t say it on my blog. Otherwise, it’ll get flagged for something inappropriate. I think you can figure it out. It rhymes with “genus” but said as if it were plural. Of the vulgar nature: “ticks.” The technical name is “catkin” or “ament.” They are part of the reproductive system of the oak tree. They are the male flower parts — and they are everywhere.
Saturday, May 4, 2024 @ 8:15 PM
Last night as I lay in bed, I watched a house centipede and spider cross paths at the base of the wall. They both seemed to think of the other, “Not trying this guy.” Then I fell asleep and dreamed of house centipedes and spiders.
Saturday, May 4, 2024 @ 8:10 PM
Forget everything I said earlier about switching to ‘Atkinson Hyperlegible’ and ‘Lexend.’ I think I’m set on ‘Spectral’ for body and reverting to ‘Inter’ for headings. Spectral is a clean font and looks nice on my laptop. There was too much of a playfulness about the Lexend font. I couldn’t bring myself to keep it for long-form essays. It has its place, but my site doesn’t appear to be a good fit.
Saturday, May 4, 2024 @ 8:30 AM
May the Fourth be with you. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Saturday, May 4, 2024 @ 6:13 AM
While at my kids’ soccer games in Virginia Beach last weekend, we parked behind an SUV with a satirical political bumper sticker that read:
GIANT METEOR 2024
Just end it already
That about nails it.
Friday, May 3, 2024 @ 9:50 AM
Allison texted me yesterday while we both sat in our respective school car pick-up lines and said, “Make me laugh. Say something funny.”
I texted back: “Birds can’t fart, but imagine if they could and we could hear them.”
Friday, May 3, 2024 @ 12:03 AM
The New York Knicks being relevant again is great for the NBA. Sure, Knicks fans can be a delusional bunch at times, but it’s because they love their team. Jalen Brunson is that dude. Supporting players like Hart, Anunoby, Hartenstein, DiVincenzo et al know their roles and excel in them.
I only wish Julius Randle was still suited up. He’s out for the season after undergoing surgery for a dislocated right shoulder earlier in the year. I love watching Randle play. He’s like a 90s throwback: physical, throwing his body into his defender. Hence, unfortunately, the dislocated shoulder.
Thursday, May 2, 2024 @ 11:55 PM
I’m a huge typography nerd. You have no idea. Recently I came across a more accessible font (“Atkinson Hyperlegible”) created in collaboration with the Braille Institute. It was designed with low vision readers in mind. I tested it out on the site as the body font briefly but opted for Lexend instead. I went with Atkinson Hyperlegible for the Headings.
Lexend was designed to aide reading comprehension for those with dyslexia. I feel the latter is easier on the eyes as it relates to body text for long-form reading, which is what this site is mostly. It’s possible you are seeing both now so long as my cache has cleared.
Thursday, May 2, 2024 @ 2:15 PM
I’m going to fix this broken dresser drawer once and for all and it won’t be in vain.