I Had a Clever Title, But It's Been Forgotten
Eli 24.3 is leaving for Zimbabwe tomorrow for the
SkyRun, which is 56k of incredibly difficult ultra-marathon. He'll be there for a week to acclimatize to the altitude, and the race is on December 6.
We talked on the phone this week about family records.
We have family records for everything (all held by him or me), and also have an endless amount of fun talking about them.
"I wish we had a combined record," Eli said. "Something my kids and their kids would have a real challenge to beat. Like a combined 100,000 step day."
"Maybe the time for that is past--"
"Wait a minute! I'll probably get 70,000 steps during the race."
"Uh-oh, I see where this is going," I said.
And so it did. On the day he runs the ultra, I'll be chugging through Manhattan, trying to reach 30,000 steps to get us to 100,000.
I haven't walked 15 miles in one day in a long time, but we did do 24,000 steps one day in Japan. And it's an opportunity to walk the length of Central Park and all the way down to the Financial District. I think I can get through it.
Here's hoping, anyway.
A Star is Born
We're hate-watching a show on Netflix called The Beast In Me.
Everyone involved in the show mailed it in--writers, directors, producers. The actors, too.
Well, except for one striking example.
"What that episode needed was more Steve," I said.
"They're giving him less and less screen time," C said.
"He's the only one doing his job. They're really handcuffing him with the script. I mean, he barked when the bad guy came in, so he's suddenly not going to know he's behind a door? He can smell him! Why isn't he barking?"
"There's no chance he doesn't smell him," C said.
"It's embarrassing that he's having to do this lowbrow show, but actors have to work. I bet he looks at this garbage script, puts his paws over his eyes, and does everything in one take. He's the only professional in the entire series."
"Has he been in anything else?"
"I don't know. I wonder if he has an IMDb page."
Jimmy Cliff
Jimmy Cliff died.
Cliff wrote and sang many beloved songs (including The Harder They Come, Sitting Here in Limbo, and You Can Get It If You Really Want).
My favorite song of his, though, was Many Rivers To Cross.
Many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover
It's a melancholic, mournful song. Heartbreaking, really. On the album version, with the organ in the background, it sounds like a hymn.
He was only twenty-one when he wrote it.
For years, I thought the first lyric was Many rivers to cross/But I can't seem to find my way home.
That accident made the song deeply personal for me. When you're introverted, it never seems like you find your home. Nowhere is right. Everywhere you feel like the other, the odd one out, the one who doesn't belong.
It haunts many of us our entire lives.
The correct lyrics are beautiful--a masterpiece, really--but it meant even more to me because I got it wrong.
Friday Links!
Leading off, an outstanding read: A Theology of Smuggling: In the early 1980s, in Tucson, activists and religious leaders joined forces to protect refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border. Their collaboration galvanized the Sanctuary Movement.
This is tremendous: Pizzastroika: In 1990, in the last breaths of the Cold War, a delicious act of American subversion unfolded in Moscow. It’s long been forgotten. It shouldn’t be.
A long and fascinating read: The inflammation age: Acute inflammation helps the body heal. But chronic inflammation is different and could provoke a medical paradigm shift.
Excellent: The deepest South: Slavery in Latin America, on a huge scale, was different from that in the United States. Why don’t we know this history?
This is stunning: The evolution of rationality: How chimps process conflicting evidence.
Skip Hollandsworth is an amazing writer: The Hunt for the Serial Killer of Laredo,
From Sean R., and it's dark: Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era.
From Wally (Don Bluth rabbit hole alert): Don Bluth Talks ‘Somewhere Out There’ Documentary and Future Production Dreams. Interesting: The ARC Effect: When Free Books Cost Honesty. This is excellent: Lessons About Power from Middle-earth (Tolkien and Lewis). I like Gabe, generally, but not this: Gabe Newell caps off Steam Machine week by taking delivery of a new $500 million superyacht with a submarine garage, on-board hospital and 15 gaming PCs.
Oxford (1)
I'm still not well, but here are a few pictures from Oxford to hopefully tide you over until Monday.
Flying away from NYC at night:
That looks much better when you enlarge it than it does at this size.
Here's the building where Eli 24.4's graduation took place (the Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Christopher Wren in 1663).
I promised a picture of us, so here you go:
This is Eli's college at Oxford (Nuffield) at night:
And to keep it classy, there's this:
Book!
I'm a bit ahead of schedule with the current set of revisions on
This Doesn't Feel Like the Future.
After significantly rewriting part one, part two has also been edited, and I'm moving on to part three. The goal is have to a fully cohesive draft by the holidays, which gives me about five weeks.
These drafts are different, though. I'm moving pieces around and changing emphasis, but I'm not adding much now. A bit perhaps, but it dwindles with each successive draft. I'm able to be much more focused at this point because there's less correction needed. I still have concerns (I always have them), but they're dwindling, too.
Still probably looking at fall next year, or the holidays, but it's not so long after already working on it for (I think) four years.
Then, another game, but I may take a break of a few months first.
Celebration and Plague, Intermingled
The trip to Oxford was fantastic. Truly wonderful.
I also don't recommend taking eight-hour plane flights twice in five days. Unless special circumstances demand it, of course, as they did.
I have plenty of pictures--including one of a celebrity shark--but it will be a few days because I'm sick (I believe I may have been sick already before I flew over). I powered through it, including almost 30 miles of walking in three days, but now I'm wiped out.
Sharks. Strings hanging from ceilings. Hot water. All these things will be discussed, as well as plenty of pictures from Oxford, which is an entirely unlikely combination of super-intelligent people, various citizenry, and Harry Potter tourists.
Complicated.
Oh, and Eli 24. 4 now his has Master's degree, after a ceremony which has been performed for over five centuries. Also, the University of Oxford was in existence several centuries before the founding of the Aztec Empire.
That was not part of the ceremony.
Valve
Valve announced a slew of hardware last week: the Steam Machine (a powerful mini-PC), the Steam Frame (a standalone VR headset), along with new controllers for each (the new Steam Controller, which you can see in the Steam Machine article I linked, looks particularly excellent).
Here's what I don't understand, though.
Valve basically prints money because they are an extraordinarily dominant distribution platform. They're the best, by far. Their profit margins must be enormous.
Hardware, on the other hand, is expensive. The profit margins are much lower. And PCs are ubiquitous. How much of an additional market could they possibly be opening up?
They might be trying to make inroads into the console market (they mention aiming for "console pricing"), but that will be a very tough nut to crack.
I'm glad they're doing it because innovation is always good for the market. I'm just a bit baffled as to what the financial case is for Valve.
England
I'm still in Oxford and will be until late tomorrow. I hope to have pictures for you on Wednesday.
That is, if I went. The airports are a complete shitshow in the U.S. right now, with incredibly long delays for security and flights, and many flights are being cancelled. If I didn't make it, I'll just post today as normal, but let's hope for a break.
Also, Winter Burrow was released last Wednesday, a charming, delightful survival game I've written about previously. If you're interested:
Winter Burrow. It's also on Game Pass.
The Banned Instrumental
C told me this story on Tuesday.
Link Wray, in 1958, released the instrumental "Rumble."
It doesn't sound forward-thinking today, but in 1958, the pounding of the drums and raggedness of the guitar was revolutionary. It's been cited by many (including Jimmy Page and Iggy Pop) as a seminal influence.
Because of the sound, and also the title "Rumble," which is slang for a gang fight, some radio markets refused to play the song. It climbed to #16, anyway.
Let that sink in, though: radio stations refused to play an instrumental. Including stations in NYC and Boston.
A nice read here: ‘Rumble’ Aims to Upset the Rock ‘n’ Roll Canon: A documentary based on a Smithsonian exhibition is wowing festival audiences.
A Ridiculous Scenario
I sent this message to Eli 24.3 today:
I'm literally watching U17 Tajikistan v Burkina Faso because I can't watch any ESPN channels. This is cruel.
He was highly amused. I am not.
Since I have YoutubeTV, which is in a carriage dispute with Disney, all ESPN channels (and ABC) have been off their streaming service for almost three weeks now.
Let that sink in. Google, a 350B company, is fighting Disney, a 94B company.
Whatever their dispute amounts to, it's nothing more than a rounding error for either one. In the meantime, though, we all get screwed so that someone's division can stay on plan and get a few more VPs promoted.
Blech.
Appalling Without a Free Trial
This was Cs lunch today. I was shocked into silence.
Ack. And ack again.
"Don't knock it until you've tried it," she said.
"Some things--like pickle and peanut butter sandwiches or child trafficking--can be rejected immediately," I said.
SOCIALISM? STEVE, LET ME TELL YOU. SOCIALISM IS THE RUIN OF EVERYTHING
Said the man on the Upper East Side Friday morning when I was walking from the pool to the ferry.
The people freaking out about Mamdani are generally the people who already have so much that nothing Mamdani does could possibly hurt them.
It wasn't much of an election. An intelligent, earnest young man versus a sleazy, aging predator or a slack-jawed idiot. Easy choice.
Do I agree with everything he said? No. Do I need to? Also no.
It's Definitely Not In a Mall
Some of you asked me for a picture of the suit, and I'll probably share one of me with Eli 24.3 after the ceremony next weekend. In the meantime, here's the door I mentioned:
I described the door to Eli and he said, "That's exactly where you get a suit."
Laser Printer (2015-2025): A Celebration
I purchased a monochrome Brother laser printer in 2015 for $89.
Two novels and 25,000+ pages later, it's nearing its end. An incredible, reliable piece of technology, with minimal costs for toner. One of the best values I've ever hard.
A personal statement from the printer:
I've known adventures, seen places you people will never see. Inkjets! Who needs inkjets? I've printed tens of thousands of pages with sweat in my eyes, felt wind in my hair, had toner cartridges changed and even the drum. I've seen it, felt it all...
A long life of service, lived well.
[POLITICS] Dick Cheney (1941-2025)
At its heart, American conservatism is a fantasy. It's a vision of a world too evil to be saved or cared about, and fearsome enough to justify any and every impulse toward cruelty and violence that a person might have. A world resolutely unworthy of knowing, except as a danger. A world in which you will always need a gun, and to shoot somebody with it, instead of just lusting for both.
Because the world isn't actually like that—because, in general, people are just people, and mostly want to live peaceably and get along with each other—most American conservatives must mainline Fox News (or Newsmax, or whatever) directly to their brains at all hours in order to remain within the fantasy that both sustains and degrades them. In this respect, Dick Cheney got luckier than most American right-wingers could ever dream. Fanatics with brown skin crashed commercial jet airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, at a time when, as vice president under the harebrained and banally evil George W. Bush, Cheney for all practical purposes ran the most lethal death-dealing apparatus in the history of the world. He got to spend seven years deciding who the bad guys were and how to kill them. He got to scrawl the simplest possible moral calculus across the world in blood. He lived the dream.
Yeah, I think that covers it. No notes. Read the rest here on Defector: Dick Cheney Departs the World He Made.
Shopping
Eli 24.3s Master's ceremony is next weekend.
He downplayed its importance (he said it's a checkmark on the way to a doctorate), but I wouldn't let him get away with it. I'm flying to London next Thursday and staying the weekend (in accommodations on campus, which are both cheap and very cool). He admitted this week that he needed to celebrate the occasion more, since we're both terrible at celebrating ourselves.
I don't really have a suit, unless you count the one I was wearing 30 years ago (which still fits). It's far out of style (if it was ever in style) and I wanted to get something that was a bit more current.
This is how you buy a suit in Queens.
You go on Reddit and find out everyone recommends the same guy, who has a shop behind a locked metal door in an industrial district. You drop by and step into the deepest rabbit hole ever. The showroom is very small, but the space behind it looks like it goes on forever (both back and up). C went with me because I know nothing about clothes, and she picked out something that actually fits (always a problem for me). The tailor made a few small adjustments and now it's in my closet.
Oh, and over half off the retail price everywhere else. I don't know how. As long as it doesn't unravel like as sweater before next year, I'm happy.
