My new evening rule is to hard-quit Twitter at dinnertime. All the horror, anger, anxiety & forethought of grief will still be there tomorrow, but I’m better for not spinning in it all night.

Hang in there, John Prine.

Y’all know I’m pretty humble. But there should be a FIELDS MEDAL for the way I just fit all that stuff in the dishwasher.

Shoutouts to this pumpkin + cauliflower + kale soup we whipped up last night.

The values_fn jobber in pivot_wider is so great!

Today’s great discovery is stringr::str_extract with a nice regular expression.

So Pearl Jam has a new album and this review I read calls them a “classic rock” band so I’m dead etc. 🎶

Crap. I got new speakers and amplifier, and now I’m one of those insufferable guys who can tell the difference between mp3 and FLAC. 🎶

DON’T SAY OGG VORBIS

What do you mean there’s not gonna be a third season of Counterpart?? 📺

Home sick, watching Counterpart and tooling around with the Roon API. Precariously close to deciding to make a lo-fi now playing display from a Raspberry Pi.

Is today the day I finally finish Outer Wilds? Time-loops will tell! 🎮

Double vision, after a winter storm.

#mbfeb 30! (I know, I know, it’s March now.) 📷

Took a pretty big leap with this.

#mbfeb 29! 📷 📻

Last month I tried to cancel cable TV. Let me tell you, the cable people really don’t want people cancelling cable TV. Told by Retention that I couldn’t do that without changing my no-longer-available internet plan and needing a new modem Because Reasons, I settled for a nice monthly promotional discount. Not my plan, but an okay outcome and I’m sure exactly what they expect customers to settle for. Then this month my rate went up!

After a series of phone calls in which I was:

• Told that no, no record whatsoever of last month’s promotional rate change is in the system, sir
• Told that Retention’s computers were down so they couldn’t actually make any changes today, please call back tomorrow
• Told that, sorry, this line can’t forward you to Retention, you’ll have to call another number
• Asked if I would be interested in adding wireless phone service
• Given at least three different numbers for my internet-only rate without cable TV
• Disconnected immediately upon finally reaching Retention once again and explaining my situation …

… I unplugged the fucking Tivo, put it in a paper bag, drove it to the Suddenlink office in my town, and spent ten minutes with a perfectly nice customer service associate who cancelled my TV service, verified that no further changes were needed to my internet plan or model, and wished me a good Friday evening. It was lovely and satisfying (not to mention cutting that monthly cost in half).

While I’m happy with my outcome, I’m angry that the upselling and blatant dishonesty about plans and rates is basically impossible to navigate past without the resource of a local storefront and personal flexibility. It occurs that this is a very particular privilege and I’m not blind to it, being nearby enough and free in a late afternoon to just go in to the office. Damn right next time I need anything from them I’m going straight to the shop again.

Climbing with dad, shot by him from below, summer 1997 (?). Five-Eight Wall, Ogden Canyon. Today is my dad’s birthday!

#mbfeb 28! 📷 🧗‍♂️

From a night out together back at Christmastime

#mbfeb 27! 📷 🥃

Turned on the ol’ amplifier, heard its normal click but followed by a distinct and unfamiliar CLUNK and then the amp switched off. Faint smell of burning. Uh-oh.

Wednesday 5am spin is one of my most important escape valves.

#mbfeb 26! 📷 🚴‍♂️

Today I learned about forcats::fct_reorder. It was a good day.

Throwback Tuesday: Happy puppy hurdles the wall after after last February’s record snow.

#mbfeb 25! 📷 ☃️

I really love this (double) album.

#mbfeb 24! 📷 🎶

👍 Liked: mouse-reeve/fedireads

Decentralized social reading and reviewing: a federated alternative to Goodreads!

Walking past the train station, downtown.

#mbfeb 23! 📷

Anyone have a recommended best-of list for Clone Wars? I feel like I need a refresher before I start the new season.

What’s the German for constantly worrying you are confusing Strand of Oaks with Band of Horses?

I’ve been meaning to post an update to my Destiny Stats for a good long time. While I have a long methods post sort of drafted (and have dramatically improved the way I produce this information), I thought I’d share these stats from the Iron Banner events through the Shadowkeep expansion: A plot of my win-loss and score by class, and a visual of total weapon usage. The latter clearly shows that I have a pretty serious fusion rifle problem.

I just finished up the newest Iron Banner event today. I haven’t played much Destiny the past month or so, but got back into it with this week’s event and had a lot of fun.

One of the things that continues to be neat about keeping these records is that the picture, once I finally build it, does tell a story. There’s the Erentil story, obviously (that fusion is so good), but also the numbers for Beloved and Imperative each represent time earning pinnacle in-game weapons, for example. I really like the reminders of the times that I enjoy playing this game that live behind these numbers.