MOMA!
We went to the MOMA today and I am fried beyond belief, for some reason. Here are some random pictures from today with very little explanation.
First, the city itself, with a view I've never noticed before today:
The choice of background color is remarkable in this next work. In person, it makes the image almost three dimensional when you're viewing from the right distance:
This is an absolutely stunning photograph:
This painting was magnificently dark, but it also had many different shades of darkness:
This was, according to the artist, some kind of cathedral to birds or air or something. Unfortunately, that's not what I saw. I saw the repressive totality of the authoritarian state (potato, potahto).
Conundrum
I like salmon, but C doesn't seem nearly as keen.
"I was going to pick up some salmon, but I don't think you like it as much as I do," I said.
"I do like it," she said.
I've only seen you eat it at Hamido," I said. "Never at home."
"I like salmon," she said. "I just don't like it undercooked or overcooked, which are the only two ways I prepare it."
Pablo Torre Finds Out finds Mamdani
I believe I mentioned a few weeks ago that Pablo Torre won a Pulitzer for the investigative reporting in his podcast
Pablo Torre Finds Out.
Almost no one does sports journalism anymore, but he does, and he's terrific when he does it. What he's also great at, though, is being goofy. Somehow he switches back and forth seamlessly between the two.
He interviewed NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani this week for his podcast, and the entire segment is so funny and genuine. Mamdani is one of the most engaging politicians I've ever heard, and he so clearly embraces life in a way that other politicians (most of whom always seem entirely miserable) just don't.
Vampire Crawlers (completed)
I made it to the end of the existing Vampire Crawlers content today and it's an incredible value at $9.99.
It would have been an incredible value at $19.99, too.
It's a fantastic card game, one of the funnest card games I've ever played, and it fits perfectly into the Vampire Survivors universe.
Highest marks, and if you have a chance to pick it up, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Red Bull
I believe I posted a link to the Wired story when this originally happened earlier this year, but new circumstances warrant an update.
In January 2026, Wired published a story about "Red Bull," a young man who went to Laos ostensibly for a job as an IT manager. Instead, his passport was taken and he was forced to work in a major romance scam operation until he repaid his "debt" (which would, of course, never be repaid).
What made Red Bull different was his willingness to provide an enormous amount of documentation about how the operation worked, including thousands of WhatsApp messages in spite of the risk of being discovered. Even underperforming workers were physically abused, so it was incredibly courageous to expose the operation.
It was, in fact, at risk of his life.
The original Wired story (non-paywalled) is here: He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive.
He did get out alive, but he's still not safe. Instead of work in a computer field, he's waiting tables and lying low. What an awful reward for bravery.
Jonna H-F, a longtime reader, followed this story and contacted the Wired reporter (Andy Greenberg), who connected her with Red Bull, and the result is a GoFundMe to help him settle in a safe country where he can continue his education. He needs to enroll in a university to get a student visa, and there are complications and expenses involved.
This is an extraordinary individual who is entirely worthy of help, and it's a modest fundraising goal (26k).
Here's the link to the GoFundMe, and thank you for considering it: Help Scam Compound Whistleblower Rebuild His Life.
It Certainly Wasn't Flawless, part two: The Return
I forgot to mention a few things yesterday.
One was the train from Grand Central to White Plains had the squeakiest wheel in the history of the NYC transit system. The subway cars can be shrill shrill, at times, but this train took it to several more levels. There was also a screaming toddler that redefined the phrase "Armageddon."
Most importantly, I forgot to mention that the path we took to White Plains was actually Plan D, after plans A, B, and C had all failed.
This is how the trip from White Plains back home went.
The Uber picked us up in one minute. We got to the train station and went for a quick breakfast sandwich (I hadn't eaten for six hours) at a Tim Horton's right by the platform. I tossed the wrapper in the trash, we stepped on the platform, and the train arrived two minutes later.
It was an express train, so we made one stop (instead of fifteen) before we disembarked at Grand Central.
A musician with a violin was playing as we walked up the stairs. I looked at C. "Are you kidding me?" I asked. She laughed.
We needed to take two subway trains to get home. They both arrived within thirty seconds of us stepping on the platform.
On the way home, a man with a guitar stood up and serenaded us (quite nicely, too) for one stop.
"The universe is just *ucking with us now," I said.
It was all impossibly, unreasonably perfect.
Time to get to White Plains? Almost two and a half hours. Time to get home? An hour and thirty minutes. With violin.
It Certainly Wasn't Flawless
As C said, this is the story that embellishes itself.
It was a straightforward trip to White Plains. A fifteen minute walk to an express bus, then an express train to White Plains, then a ten-minute bus ride to the medical center. A little over an hour and a half.
Looks easy, right?
It was not easy.
Right before we're leaving, I see that the express bus is delayed by over half an hour. Delays of a few minutes are common, but 30+ minutes? Never.
That's okay, though. We can just take the subway.
The subway is jammed, for some reason, and then they announce that everyone has to get off before we even get into Manhattan because of track fires at a station further down the line.
The domino effects builds.
Now a ton of people already jammed onto the train who can't reach their destination have to take an alternate line that has it's own traffic already. That subway car looked like the last copter out of Saigon.
We're not going to be able to take the express train because we're miles away (thanks to the bus/fires etc.), but we can still catch a train to White Plains. No problem.
It only has 15 additional stops.
Then, it doesn't even move for a while. I'm getting stressed at this point. We left at 10 for a 12:45 check-in before the procedure on a trip that should have had us there by 11:40.
In the end, after taking an Uber instead of a bus for the last few miles, we made it. Not by much.
That easy trip of just over an hour and a half became an absolute cluster of a trip for nearly two and a half hours.
Tomorrow, the return trip. It was another planet entirely.
Fortunate
At least for now, it seems like I've gotten lucky.
It's been six days since I tested positive for COVID, and even though the first three days were very rough, I felt quite a bit better yesterday and a bit better than that today. I'm still quite tired, but I can manage that over time. More importantly, the sore throat has gone away, I don't have a fever, and my cough is annoying at times but not terrible.
That all sounds like a win to me.
I'm going to White Plains tomorrow for some kind of cardiac CAT scan (just trying to get a more complete picture of how much blockage I actually have), so I'm planning on updating tomorrow but not with 100% certainly.
Happy Memorial Day to everyone in the U.S. And for those of you in Europe, try not to melt!
Ugh
By the time I went to bed last night, I had quite a sore throat, along with a cough.
After coughing all night and waking up constantly, I got up this morning and felt feverish. I took my temperature and had a fever of 101.
We had some old COVID tests (C feels bad, too, although her symptoms are a bit different than mine), so we both took one. Her test was negative.
Mine was not.
So after six years of dodging COVID successfully, it finally got me.
It feels like the flu, and that's my Wednesday.
