slowing down. taking a moment, looking and listening ..
even in the 20 sec it takes me to grind espresso beans i used to feel compelled to check my phone as if i dont have 20 sec to spare or i am so important that the world really needs my attention in the next 30 sec.
so now when i grind espresso beans i just listen to the sound of the grinding. while it seems like a trivial thing to do, it helps me slow down in other moments especially before i am going to otherwise yell at someone ...
Kanye West's "Gold Digger", which I think holds the title for laziest song rhyming as he repeatedly uses the same word rather than a different one in his couplets
"Gold" by Spandau Ballet. I had this monstrosity of a song infecting me as an ear worm for among the worst 2 months of my life. Now it is my gift to you.
Furikake is a dry Japanese condiment sprinkled on top of cooked rice, vegetables, and fish, or used as an ingredient in onigiri. It typically consists of a mixture of dried fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate
we put it on homemade poke bowls and just about anything Asian that has a fish component to it. if anyone is going to Japan, please get us some. forgot to ask HAG on his most recent trip.
H-Mart has it. I know there's one in White Plains, but don't know how convenient that is for you. They'll have a bunch of different varieties - some that are more seaweed-y, some are more focused on dried oceanic invertibrate delights
we do buy it here at Hmart and local Japanese groceries. the stuff from Japan is seemingly much better, at least the stuff we bought from a regular store
Is that related to “fish floss?” (I think that’s what it’s called). I was just on a flight from SFO to Taipei where breakfast was a choice between an omelette and congee. I never heard of congee so I gave it a try. I didn’t know what to do with the fish floss until I saw the woman next to me sprinkle it in the congee. Not bad. I might get the omelette on the way back
I would revolutionize American education & child care. The US lost its manufacturing edge long ago and its competitive advantage at services is slipping. Having an educated work force is the crux of the services industry.
A program can have knock on benefits. Put it towards student debt. It would lift a huge burden from millions while simultaneously making it possible to boost economic growth. It would open up other possibilities that will reveal themselves in time.
i would think that any type income re-distribution scheme more or less fits this mold, however some schemes seem to be more palatable than others. as for which ones work, i am not sure because all of this is intertwined.
China's population declines for the second year in a row. Like Japan before it, it faces deflationary headwinds over the next 30 years as its workforce contracts in size
clearly the Chinese halt in population growth was deliberate. i wonder if/when other countries will experience a decline based on economic conditions like Japan experienced.
for example, i am continually surprised that places like India where there is the least amount of resources to support more people, there are just more and more people!
even at an individual level, you would think that the economic reality would prevent you from having more kids.
It defies logic, doesn't it? Maybe the environment and economy hasn't reached a point of collapse.
Personally, I think that population is a ticking time bomb. Humans are playing with fire by not addressing climate change because vast global overpopulation will make the inevitable collapse more horrific. I'm not certain if I'll live to see it or not.
Eh, Malthusian thinking is constantly raised throughout history and is constantly wrong.
Honestly our problem is the opposite - too few kids, meaning fewer working age people supporting more elderly people, straining the country’s resources
even with having 2 kids in he US, sometimes is feels a little excessive given the state of the world population.
however on a selfish note, we stopped at 2 because 3 seemed like A LOT of work. i appreciate these decisions are all hyper-personal, so mostly ok w/ however many kids people decide to have or not.
Agree, is totally personal. But I barf in my mouth a little when someone tells me they don’t want to have kids for reasons related to the environment. Gimme a break, you just don’t want to take care of someone, don’t dress it up as some high minded moral choice!
I think in many cases it's not that I think my one additional person is the environmental tipping point, but that I do not want to inflict environmental calamity on someone I bring into the world. A child born in 2024 is going to go through Some Things.
Sometimes there is an employee standing at self checkout checking IDs and pictures. I haven't had a picture for at least 15-20 years and they always just say get one on the way out. The first couple of times the camera was busted so I just never did it. I just show the card on my app and they say, yeah sometimes the pictures doesn't show up. just log out and back in.
When this all started a couple of employees had apologized saying they had to start doing this thanks to tiktokers. I'm not sure how much Costco cared, although I do remember early 2010s they stopped allowing non-card members to pay. I used to go with a coworker and he paid for his stuff.
Fascism and defacto support for Putin rise in the EU. Hungary's Orban has blocked many moves to help Ukraine. Hungary rotates to the EU presidency's in 2H24 too. Now Slovakia's newly seated PM Robert Fico is coming through with his campaign promises of rejecting support for Ukraine. I swear, these Eastern bloc countries have institutionalized Stockholm syndrome
they can smell bribes, sorry that should be "enhanced subsidy programs," from a mile off. I notice the Hungarian government has decided they're perfectly happy to keep routing EU money to political allies instead of exiting as a matter of principle. Chiseling reactionary twats.
Trump continues to defame E. Jean Carroll and goad the presiding judge. Judge threatens to kick Trump out of the trial as TFG just can't control his comments
Democrats flip US House seat in Florida (FL-35) in a special election by 2 points. This district was recently redistricted and has had only one election in 2022 - which was won by the GOP by 11 points. The 13 point swing is an important bellwether in political momentum going into elections. The Democrat ran on centrists platform, while the GOP candidate ran with a full-throated MAGA approach.
GOP majority is now down to 2 and expected to go down to 1 after special election to replace George Santos in a month. The battle to replace Kevin McCarthy is expected to remain GOP as that is a 35+ point red district. However, the DEMs have an unhill battle in the general election due to gerrymandering and a higher proportion of incumbents who are leaving office.
Visiting Pops in Phoenix, and he, step-Ma Chitwood and I always watch a movie after dinner. Last night it was an early Denis Villanueve film: Prisoners, with Gyllenhall, Jackman, Viola Davis, Paul Dano. Dunno how I missed it upon release in 2013, tho I had just started seeing the ex, and it certainly wasn’t her kind of movie…so that’s likely how.
I saw the Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at the Met. Agree it’s an amazing venue. The space lost in my suitcase for my suit and dress shoes was well worth it.
Some guy wants another chance to catch fewer catches for fewer yards under a worse coach so he can potentially get an inferior degree from his previous school
Andy Alfieri in the portal as a grad transfer. He has two years to play two. Dude switched positions a lot, doing the coaching staff a solid. I wish him well and glad he gets his diploma.
Something small that has much bigger benefits than the effort
slowing down. taking a moment, looking and listening ..
even in the 20 sec it takes me to grind espresso beans i used to feel compelled to check my phone as if i dont have 20 sec to spare or i am so important that the world really needs my attention in the next 30 sec.
so now when i grind espresso beans i just listen to the sound of the grinding. while it seems like a trivial thing to do, it helps me slow down in other moments especially before i am going to otherwise yell at someone ...
A song with "gold" in the lyrics. Please supply a link to the song.
Kanye West's "Gold Digger", which I think holds the title for laziest song rhyming as he repeatedly uses the same word rather than a different one in his couplets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFdvCyKemAw
Goldfinger. Shirley Bassey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1nK7q2i8I
"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1nK7q2i8I
Heart of Gold by Neil Young. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3IA6pIVank
I like this cover by Passenger, too.
https://youtu.be/ZK2jbHacbbM
thx. i get lots of good music suggestions from the DBD
Gold teeth and a curse for this town
Were all in my mouth
Only I don’t know how
They got out dear
https://youtu.be/zYwCmcB0XMw?si=HfpkPA9Ocf3p0YfF
Fool''s Gold (grooverider remix) by the Stone Roses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oKVRx73FW8
Gold Teeth on a Bum by The Dillinger Escape Plan
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/01pNRBcDit8pRRXKAasEIA?si=Z_afloy8RLiiIDgI61oa-g
YouTube: https://youtu.be/szRCctpztjU?si=r_Lz2KFk1_VVuN7H
Your Gold Teeth II by Steely Dan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzAJqKll6hI
"Gold" by Spandau Ballet. I had this monstrosity of a song infecting me as an ear worm for among the worst 2 months of my life. Now it is my gift to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntG50eXbBtc
An under-rated sauce / condiment / topping / spread
Furikake
Furikake is a dry Japanese condiment sprinkled on top of cooked rice, vegetables, and fish, or used as an ingredient in onigiri. It typically consists of a mixture of dried fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate
we put it on homemade poke bowls and just about anything Asian that has a fish component to it. if anyone is going to Japan, please get us some. forgot to ask HAG on his most recent trip.
H-Mart has it. I know there's one in White Plains, but don't know how convenient that is for you. They'll have a bunch of different varieties - some that are more seaweed-y, some are more focused on dried oceanic invertibrate delights
https://www.hmart.com/ourstores
I've seen it at 99 Ranch 99, whichever order you want to use. They're good on plain rice.
we do buy it here at Hmart and local Japanese groceries. the stuff from Japan is seemingly much better, at least the stuff we bought from a regular store
Is that related to “fish floss?” (I think that’s what it’s called). I was just on a flight from SFO to Taipei where breakfast was a choice between an omelette and congee. I never heard of congee so I gave it a try. I didn’t know what to do with the fish floss until I saw the woman next to me sprinkle it in the congee. Not bad. I might get the omelette on the way back
Brewster's Trillion: You are gifted $1 trillion but can only spend it to benefit the United States through a program. What would you improve?
I would revolutionize American education & child care. The US lost its manufacturing edge long ago and its competitive advantage at services is slipping. Having an educated work force is the crux of the services industry.
CALegends.com.
The country just seemed better when Cal was contending for national championships in the revenue sports.
A program can have knock on benefits. Put it towards student debt. It would lift a huge burden from millions while simultaneously making it possible to boost economic growth. It would open up other possibilities that will reveal themselves in time.
i would think that any type income re-distribution scheme more or less fits this mold, however some schemes seem to be more palatable than others. as for which ones work, i am not sure because all of this is intertwined.
maybe that is exactly that college football needs so that Cal football can be great again!
The Cal Band.
Cal band great!
UBI
Social housing.
Dismantling the two party system.
Nigerian official needs your help in recovering over $7m cash. Wait. Oh, they really did need help.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-jersey-67983818
DBD Street Journal
China's population declines for the second year in a row. Like Japan before it, it faces deflationary headwinds over the next 30 years as its workforce contracts in size
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China
clearly the Chinese halt in population growth was deliberate. i wonder if/when other countries will experience a decline based on economic conditions like Japan experienced.
for example, i am continually surprised that places like India where there is the least amount of resources to support more people, there are just more and more people!
even at an individual level, you would think that the economic reality would prevent you from having more kids.
It defies logic, doesn't it? Maybe the environment and economy hasn't reached a point of collapse.
Personally, I think that population is a ticking time bomb. Humans are playing with fire by not addressing climate change because vast global overpopulation will make the inevitable collapse more horrific. I'm not certain if I'll live to see it or not.
Eh, Malthusian thinking is constantly raised throughout history and is constantly wrong.
Honestly our problem is the opposite - too few kids, meaning fewer working age people supporting more elderly people, straining the country’s resources
even with having 2 kids in he US, sometimes is feels a little excessive given the state of the world population.
however on a selfish note, we stopped at 2 because 3 seemed like A LOT of work. i appreciate these decisions are all hyper-personal, so mostly ok w/ however many kids people decide to have or not.
@But the 3rd just gets raised by the first 2....@
I have three - just gotta channel Boeheim. Zone D, baby!
Agree, is totally personal. But I barf in my mouth a little when someone tells me they don’t want to have kids for reasons related to the environment. Gimme a break, you just don’t want to take care of someone, don’t dress it up as some high minded moral choice!
I think in many cases it's not that I think my one additional person is the environmental tipping point, but that I do not want to inflict environmental calamity on someone I bring into the world. A child born in 2024 is going to go through Some Things.
Judge blocks Jet Blue's merger with Spirit. Good news for consumers, bad news for Spirit shareholders.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/investing/spirit-airlines-jetblue-deal-stock/index.html
Oh shit. That is going to take more than just deep bowing and apologizing
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/business/fujitsu-post-office-scandal-compensation/index.html
people should have been jailed for this, just not the people who were jailed. Absolutely disgraceful and it's been limping along for years.
Lemme guess. The software was held blameless. Or rather, it was never seriously examined.
The hubris of humans, replayed again and again and again...
Costco cracks down on card sharing. How am I supposed to get ridiculously large blueberry muffins now?
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/business/costco-membership-card-sharing/index.html
Go through the self checkout!
Sometimes there is an employee standing at self checkout checking IDs and pictures. I haven't had a picture for at least 15-20 years and they always just say get one on the way out. The first couple of times the camera was busted so I just never did it. I just show the card on my app and they say, yeah sometimes the pictures doesn't show up. just log out and back in.
When this all started a couple of employees had apologized saying they had to start doing this thanks to tiktokers. I'm not sure how much Costco cared, although I do remember early 2010s they stopped allowing non-card members to pay. I used to go with a coworker and he paid for his stuff.
Inflated
Ego
Nwodim.
She funny.
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
Fascism and defacto support for Putin rise in the EU. Hungary's Orban has blocked many moves to help Ukraine. Hungary rotates to the EU presidency's in 2H24 too. Now Slovakia's newly seated PM Robert Fico is coming through with his campaign promises of rejecting support for Ukraine. I swear, these Eastern bloc countries have institutionalized Stockholm syndrome
https://balkaninsight.com/2024/01/15/fico-orban-meeting-in-budapest-courtesy-call-or-bromance/
they can smell bribes, sorry that should be "enhanced subsidy programs," from a mile off. I notice the Hungarian government has decided they're perfectly happy to keep routing EU money to political allies instead of exiting as a matter of principle. Chiseling reactionary twats.
Trump continues to defame E. Jean Carroll and goad the presiding judge. Judge threatens to kick Trump out of the trial as TFG just can't control his comments
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4413901-judge-threatens-to-kick-trump-out-of-court-reports/
Democrats flip US House seat in Florida (FL-35) in a special election by 2 points. This district was recently redistricted and has had only one election in 2022 - which was won by the GOP by 11 points. The 13 point swing is an important bellwether in political momentum going into elections. The Democrat ran on centrists platform, while the GOP candidate ran with a full-throated MAGA approach.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4413475-democrats-flip-florida-state-house-seat-special-election/
GOP majority is now down to 2 and expected to go down to 1 after special election to replace George Santos in a month. The battle to replace Kevin McCarthy is expected to remain GOP as that is a 35+ point red district. However, the DEMs have an unhill battle in the general election due to gerrymandering and a higher proportion of incumbents who are leaving office.
SCOTUS to take on a fishing case, which has much broader implications as to executive vs. judicial branch powers
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/17/supreme-court-biden-agenda-executive-policymaking-power-00135966
Newsom vetoes tackle football ban for under-12, keeping Democrats from re-arming the GOP with ammo for the Culture Wars
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/17/california-youth-tackle-football-ban-00135985
This a difficult issue to get your arms around…
A day after Nikki Haley said that the US has never been a racist country, Trump goes out of his way to call her by her birth name - Nimarata
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/politics/trump-attacks-haley-birth-name/index.html
10 more months of this! 🤮
GOP House committees move forward with attempt to try to corner Hunter Biden with Congressional subpeens
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/hunter-biden-comply-new-gop-subpoena-issued-lawyers-say-rcna133696
PRO
DBD AV CLUB
Visiting Pops in Phoenix, and he, step-Ma Chitwood and I always watch a movie after dinner. Last night it was an early Denis Villanueve film: Prisoners, with Gyllenhall, Jackman, Viola Davis, Paul Dano. Dunno how I missed it upon release in 2013, tho I had just started seeing the ex, and it certainly wasn’t her kind of movie…so that’s likely how.
Pretty good drama.
does opera count in this category?
had a nice night out at the Met. saw Bizet's Carmen in a very modern retelling that was actually very well done.
while i am not an avid opera-goer i have been a handful of times over the years
- there were plenty of young people in the crowd
- people still dress up for the opera
- the Met is a stunning venue
- the music was fantastic
- the best part as the modern interpretation that made it fun and lively
I saw the Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at the Met. Agree it’s an amazing venue. The space lost in my suitcase for my suit and dress shoes was well worth it.
the NY Times review was not compelling but i enjoyed it
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/01/arts/music/carmen-bizet-met-opera-review.html?smid=tw-share
also the lead soprano, Aigul Akhmetshina (27) was amazing
Was it an audible and/or visible version?
both
ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE
Some guy wants another chance to catch fewer catches for fewer yards under a worse coach so he can potentially get an inferior degree from his previous school
https://twitter.com/latbbolch/status/1747092061797613825
Heh...before clicking on the link my thought was, you mean like JMS did last year?
Connor Stallions launches his own Cameo account.
https://twitter.com/FOS/status/1747419541510971803
This is an interesting chart
https://twitter.com/fball_insights/status/1747063136505524396
I would have liked to see DeSean Jackson's numbers detailed out like this
CAL
UCB students back at school
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2L0J3zrQ8j/?igsh=NTYzOWQzNmJjMA%3D%3D
Go Bears! 🐻
Andy Alfieri in the portal as a grad transfer. He has two years to play two. Dude switched positions a lot, doing the coaching staff a solid. I wish him well and glad he gets his diploma.
https://twitter.com/aalfieri_05/status/1747435624817480112