what else but a Goose Island Bourbon County Stout (this one from 2017) as the final beer from Mike’s basement stash. cheers to you on your birthday, big brother 🍻

Saturday’s beer: Widmer Brothers Brewing’s Chocolate Russian Imperial Stout (2013)
⭐️⭐️⭐️
good beer should still be good after a decade, like this tasty bottle from Mike’s basement stash 🍺

even The Guardian noticed this dumb move: MLS’s arrogant withdrawal from US Open Cup is about controlling Messi Mania ⚽️

This manoeuvring is comparable to a government that favors privatisation gradually defunding public services before declaring they are not working and that only private companies can save them. MLS has privatised and monopolised the people’s game of soccer, or is trying to.

Saturday’s beer: Save the World Brewing’s Danger Noodle Island Imperial Stout
⭐️⭐️⭐️
a little sharp; really good flavor 🍺

Saturday’s beer: Gigantic Brewing’s Most Most Premium Russia Imperial Stout ⭐️⭐️⭐️ another from Mike’s basement stash, a little flat (not sure what year it’s from) but tasty nonetheless 🍺

#lifehacks

The Guardian answers: how problematic is mineral mining for electric cars?

The data we have leaves little doubt that resource extraction will be significantly lower for electric cars compared with their petrol or diesel equivalents as recycling increases.

also:

“[Human rights] problems have always existed in mining,” [Amnesty International's] Dummett said. “I strongly believe that this problem has been exaggerated hugely by opponents of the energy transition, the fossil fuel lobby.”

these concerns sounded like big downsides of EVs; glad to learn they’ve been overblown

via @chipotle - good, well-considered post from the Duke University Libraries: Why We’re Dropping Basecamp

We are not in the habit of running “ideological enforcement” to ensure “quick compliance” from beleaguered corporate executives or whatever it is that [DHH is] talking about in his posts. We simply have our own opinions and our own blogs, and in some cases, we have good choices available to us regarding the companies to which we give our business.

I made a thing: txt2mary, “A Twilio-to-Micro.blog-(and-Twitter) server”

This app is a special-purpose server that accepts SMS text-messages, via webhook calls from Twilio, and posts those messages to Micro.blog (and Twitter (reluctantly 🤢))

p.s. still enjoying Go

Saturday’s beer: Goose Island Brewing’s Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout ​(2017) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ you can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant… though maybe not a beer as silky & strong as this (another one from Mike’s basement stash) 🍺

ok, this is pretty funny: Scomo

we’re leveling the playing field and upholding the Supreme Court’s proud tradition of accepting ethically questionable financial influence. Now, you too can bribe Clarence Thomas just like the billionaires, CEOs, & lawyers with pending cases before the court

just starting it, but the newest Atlantic (Dec. ‘23) is really something. it focuses almost entirely on Reconstruction, including an annotated reprint of an 1866 article by Frederick Douglass, & an actual, full play, printed on different paper in the center of the magazine. print ftw

a few of my officemates

Saturday’s beer: St. Arnold Brewing’s Irish Hello
⭐️⭐️⭐️
sucker for a good name, and I’ll buy about anything St. Arnold’s makes. solid as always 🍺

looking for a Bluesky invite if anyone has extras piling up 🙏

Saturday’s beer: Avery Brewing’s Tweak (2016) -
⭐️⭐️⭐️

tasty, though this bottle hasn’t exactly mellowed; getting every bit of that 17.5% (from Mike’s basement stash) 🍺

saw the Taylor Swift concert movie today: fantastic. she’s so talented & charming; the concert itself, and the immersive way the film was shot, it was just a great performance 🎵 🎬

The supper passed at first like most Parisian suppers, in silence, followed by a noise of words which could not be distinguished, then with pleasantries of which most were insipid, with false news, with bad reasoning, a little politics, and much evil speaking; they also discussed new books.

• Voltaire, describing social-network vibes 264 years ago, in Candide

happy 10th anniversary to An Unicks Bestiary! this comic, medieval-themed collection of *nix tips interspersed with actual illuminated images & real text from 12th-century manuscripts is almost as popular now as it was when I first made it (i.e., not at all)

the amazing UX work continues over at Amazon dot com

I’m intrigued by this new print-only newspaper and wish it all success. I would like to point out, though, that if you find “the printed page an immersive experience without constant distractions” (which I do!), and although they are also online, print magazines do also still exist!

Jen Myers: It's Not Okay to Start Late

Now when you make art, you can put the whole of your beautifully, painfully created selves into it, and it will be something unprecedented and vital. It’s not “okay” that you started late. It’s powerful.

Saturday’s beer: Bourbon Barrel Aged Old Rasputin XX (2017) ​ ⭐️⭐️⭐️ another delicious one from Mike’s basement stash 🍺

“here at GitHub we’re all about AI but still offer the wrong default selection for ‘Choose which email address to associate with this commit’ approx. half the time.” (I use one (of two) ~99% of the time; even just making it last-one-used would be great. are they trolling me?)

watched the series finale of Reservation Dogs tonight: what a wonderful show. it became more a drama & less a goofy comedy over the 3 seasons, but was still so good (seriously considering a rewatch, which is rare for us) 📺

joined a video meeting today on my phone, at home on wifi, listening with bluetooth earbuds. got in the car & ran an errand, during which the phone switched from wifi to cell data & the audio switched from earbuds to car stereo – and back again, repeatedly – without a hitch. frickin' magic

I’ve been learning to program in Go (and liking it maybe a little too much?), and though this goofy little app was 100% for me to tinker with & use myself, I did put it on GitHub, including a “release” GitHub Action that makes binaries: honey-do

First Aid Kit at Stubb’s. wonderful show, despite a little rain (!) 🎵

I found this “Mother Nature” video from Apple to be really well done: self-aware, serious (but not too serious), & making clear commitments. bravo

we’re being warned of rolling blackouts in Texas in this hottest-ever summer, yet somehow the Bitcoin scammers are profiting off of it. beyond infuriating: ERCOT Paid Bitcoin Miner $31 Million to Conserve While Texans Sweat

Saturday’s beer: Blackfoot River Brewing’s Whiskey Barrel Aged Imperial Stout (2014) 🍺
one of the longest long-shots I brought home from Mike’s basement stash, it’s maybe a little over sweet on the back end but still pretty damn good after 9 (!) years
⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve listened to a lot of Jimmy Buffett in my life, thanks to my older brothers, but the one track I’ve kept & listened to the most over the years is this masterpiece shaggy-dog story: God’s Own Drunk. sit back with a margarita or a cerveza and give this a listen 🎵 Rest in peace, Jimmy

new Tiny Desk Concert by Speedy Ortiz, featuring a song from each of their four albums (including their newest, out today: Rabbit Rabbit) 🎵

I was the best at being second place but now I'm just the runner-up

American hero Megan Rapinoe, in The Atlantic ⚽️

I’ll miss being able to represent our country. I think, a lot of times, that gets lost, when people talk about me in particular: Oh, you guys don’t sing the anthem, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don’t love America. But we do love America. It’s just more in a James Baldwin kind of way, not in a bald-eagle-on-your-shoulder kind of way.

read: Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea 📚. wonderful for its fascinating depiction of little-known World War II history (American Red Cross Clubmobiles). it did sag a little for me in a couple of spots, but especially given the (somewhat) biographical aspects, I recommend it

Saturday’s beer: Deschutes Brewery’s The Abyss (2016) 🍺
maybe a little too smooth after 7 years, but delicious nonetheless (from Mike’s basement stash)
⭐️⭐️⭐️

There was occasionally a little fierceness in his demeanour, but it was directed chiefly against false opinion, of which there is so much to correct in the world that a man of some reading and experience necessarily has his patience tried.

• Middlemarch, on Borthrop Trumbull

this cop culture bullshit alert triggered late last night, and again early this morning. I’m sorry you were shot, sheriff’s deputy 170 miles away in Houston, but I am not going to jump up & join the manhunt (plus it’s an “emergency alert” so I can’t even disable these)

cheers, big brother 🍺

WaPo: Fans waited 31 years for his next novel. It’s finally here. my brother was one of those fans: he was so looking forward to this book. unfortunately today, on the very date of its publication, he succumbed to the cancer he’s been fighting for a little over a year. RIP, Mike.

in the 2nd World Cup game for today, another team in white & blue vs. an underdog in red, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 is showing how it’s done after just 4 minutes. hard to imagine the US 🇺🇸 lifting the trophy with performances like today’s (all due credit to Portugal 🇵🇹, who played great) ⚽️

You say: Oh I’m not afraid it can’t happen to me
I’ve lived my life as a good man
Oh no you’re out of your mind it won’t happen to me
’Cause I’ve carried my weight and I’ve been a strong man

Listen to the man in the liquor store, yelling:

Anybody want a drink before the war?

🎵

RIP, Sinéad

but I will rise and I will return the phoenix from the flame I have learned I will rise and you'll see me return being what I am there is no other Troy for me to burn

• Troy, a favorite song from The Lion and the Cobra, a favorite album, start to finish 🎵

something to listen to until their new album comes out: Soft Science, Undone (live at KEXP) 🎵

Siouxsie & the Banshees, Fireworks 🎵

Holiday beer: Goose Island Beer Co.’s Bourbon County Stout (2020)
⭐️⭐️⭐️
it doesn’t get much better than this 🇺🇸 🍺

bookmarked: Guardian Experts' Network Women’s World Cup 2023: “A unique collaboration between some of the world’s best media outlets, bringing a local flavour and expertise to our coverage of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand” ⚽️ good previews of NZL 🇳🇿 & NOR 🇳🇴 so far

my summer reading project is to finally get to a few of the 19th-century English classics on my shelf. just finished The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; next up: Middlemarch 📚

why are we in this timeline, instead of the one where this 2009 video for PJ Harvey’s This Is Love changes the course of pop music, as it clearly should have? 🎵

[youtu.be/STxXS5lLu...](https://youtu.be/STxXS5lLunE)

Duvel Moortgat Brewery’s Duvel Barrel-Aged Jamaican Rum Edition (2021)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

deliciousness in the special glass it came with 🍺

Luscious Jackson, Daughters of the Kaos (do yourself a favor, check out the whole In Search of Manny EP) 🎵

[youtu.be/rLv8Ejfmb...](https://youtu.be/rLv8EjfmbBg)

Friday’s beer: Lazy Beach Brewing’s Poblano Wit
⭐️⭐️⭐️
just enough of the pepper to taste, but not overwhelm 🍺

pretty clever: asimov - “Automatically exclude development dependencies from Apple Time Machine backups”. claims to have saved me ~20GB in skipped node_modules directories

happy Juneteenth! it’s a great day to buy some music from Bandcamp:

June 19 (midnight to midnight, Pacific Time US) is our annual Juneteenth fundraiser, where we donate 100% of our share of sales* to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to support their ongoing efforts to promote racial justice through litigation, advocacy, and public education.

(full details) 🎵

I love this Onion article maybe a little too much: New World Order Holds Annual Meeting At Indianapolis Marriott

“…it’s both affordable and in a nice central location,” said Illuminati organizer [name redacted], noting that the Marriott’s business center had high-speed Wi-Fi, printing services, and a fax machine

Goldfrapp, Number 1 at Glastonbury, 2008 🎵-

an almost picture of an almost full moon

Friday beer: Saloon Door Brewing’s I Must Break You
⭐️⭐️⭐️
nitro from a can that needs a “hard pour” is always weird to me. but smooth & delicious, in this case at least 🍺

I just backed the Kickstarter for Jenn Champion’s next record, The Last Night of Sadness. if you don’t know her, check out Carissa’s Wierd, or her solo music, and see what you think 🎵

I hereby call for a halt to development of all AI-related technologies until the following are resolved:

1. MS-DOS linefeeds (aka carriage returns, aka \rs) are banished from computers forever
2. markdown is available everywhere
3. progress bars show even vaguely accurate progress (looking at you, MacOS)

RIP, Andy Rourke, “the other melodic genius in the Smiths” 🎵

on Barbarism Begins at Home, regularly held up as the greatest example of Rourke’s playing in the Smiths’ oeuvre, he plays writhingly funky slap bass

youtu.be/y_T1NE4Q2…

looking forward to this summer’s “Camp ToB” reading event. not planning to read all six this year, but it’s a fun, light structure that’s brought me to books I would never have read 📚

if a thing is worth using ChatGPT for, it’s not worth doing at all

been listening to a new, very short (5-10 min.) podcast: It’s Going to be OK, by Nora McInerny.

she’s the one from the TED talk, We don’t “move on” from grief. We move forward with it & the podcast, Terrible, Thanks for Asking. this new one is lighter (mostly) & good

morel Talking Heads? if not now, then when? Road to Nowhere 🎵

youtu.be/LQiOA7eua…

Friday’s beer: Avery Brewing’s Tweak (Bourbon Barrel Aged, 2018) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ didn’t even realize this was 5+ years old when I bought it. mighty fine 🍺

to anyone who’s ever been “restructured”, as some of my colleagues were today. you’ll be ok & pitying those of us still stuck here before you know it

youtu.be/2KQjy02eq…

(is this too much live Talking Heads here lately? no, imaginary reader, not by a damn sight)

Talking Heads, Life During Wartime (live, 1983) 🎵

youtu.be/jShMQw2H2…

such energy! (is this what cocaine does?)

Saturday’s beer: (512) Brewing Company’s (512) Cab Tripel ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’m not sure the wine barrels make much difference but it’s tasty 🍺

for an inside view of the Writers Guild of America strike, the Scriptnotes podcast has been putting out short “sidecast” episodes with interesting details, since before the strike authorization vote (August is on the negotiating committee; he knows what he’s talking about)

great voices, masterful building in intensity: First Aid Kit, A Feeling That Never Came (Live in Stockholm) 🎵

youtu.be/5Ux_HDJes…

Tucker Carlson is not an anti-war populist rebel. He is a fascist

one of the central targets of the first mass Nazi book burning on 10 May 1933 was Magnus Hirschfeld’s collection of LGBTQ+ literature, the largest in the world and the largest documentation of gender fluidity

@manton catching up on Micro.blog’s latest changes in Twitter crossposting after having one include a cdn.uploads.micro.blog URL instead of the image. do I correctly understand what you’ve posted before – & my own skimming of their v2 API docs – that there’s really no support for media upload?!

The Guardian: Why shouldn’t two opponents kiss each other after a game? ⚽️

Women’s football… has the power to shape a new vision. It is a prism through which you can see a safer, more inclusive sport that can combine competitiveness and professionalism with inclusivity, empathy and a feeling that football really can be a place for all

(it’s also just really good soccer. check it out, if you haven’t lately: NWSL in US, WSL in England, this summer’s World Cup, etc.)

I’ve never butt-dialed anyone, but now I’ve butt-returned-an-audiobook-to-the-library 😑 now I’m “5th in line” so I can hear the last 28% of that book. a modern kind of cliffhanger, I guess 📚

There are days like that. Everybody you meet is a dope. You begin to look at yourself in the glass and wonder.

• Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister

from Julieta Venegas’ latest: Mismo Amor

youtu.be/WnhJ5fljm…

🎵

Saturday’s beer: Dogfish Head Brewery’s Wake Up World Wide Stout ⭐️⭐️⭐️

waiting for the start of Austin FC v Vancouver Whitecraps ⚽️

after some thinking, some planning (characters, setting, and broad strokes of a plot), and lots of procrastination, I finally wrote some actual words for a first draft of what I hope will be my second novel. 553 down, thousands to go! (including those that will probably replace these 553) 📝

I was hoping this would happen: NPR quits Twitter after being falsely labeled as ‘state-affiliated media’

"At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," [NPR CEO John Lansing] says. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again."

the end of 52 official Twitter feeds! looking forward now to where their Mastodon accounts end up

possibly my favorite Liz Phair song ever, from some odd EP or bonus disc, I don’t even remember: Jeremy Engle 🎵

youtu.be/aq58hEkls…

sometimes all you need

is a napkin

Saturday’s beer: Prairie Artisan Ales’ Chocolate Noir ⭐️⭐️⭐️ this single bottle cost more than most six-packs; damn if it wasn’t worth every cent 🍺

“the film” : nice trio of music videos from “the record”, boygenius’ new album

youtu.be/XbOQMaJ1r… 🎵

McSweeney’s: The White Hand of Saruman Will Be Given Only to Uruk-hai Who Subscribe to SaruBlue

Starting April 15, the White Hand of Saruman will only be given to Uruk-hai who pay subscription to SaruBlue. You do not know pain, you do not know fear, and you will taste man-flesh, all for just $8 a month…

Bearers of my White Hand will also have prioritized access to smelling whether a city is rank with fear and will be given a headstart on staining the land with the blood of Rohan. Additionally, White Hand-verified subscribers will be boosted and made more visible to the Eye of Sauron.

I continue to be a proud subscriber to The Guardian: Guardian owner apologises for founders’ links to transatlantic slavery

The restorative justice fund will support projects in the Gullah Geechee region and Jamaica over the next decade after consultation with reparations experts and community groups.

just bought tickets to see First Aid Kit later this year - seen them once before, at ACL Music Fest. this performance, in fact: It’s a Shame, live in 2017: 🎵

youtu.be/mWlPYG1jp…

nice interview (& hilarious pics) with Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, and Phoebe Bridgers, aka Boygenius. their self-titled EP is a real favorite; can hardly wait for “the record”, out next Friday 🎵

Saturday’s beer: Lone Pint Brewery’s Gentleman’s Relish ⭐️⭐️⭐️ best nitro brown ale I’ve ever had 🍺

as expected: DE. STROYED.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a masterpiece. (and I finished it just in time for today’s tournament) 📚

Saturday’s beer: Texas Ale Project’s The Caucasian ⭐️⭐️__ pretty good but more bitter than I expected 🍺

less than halfway through Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and something about its sweetness & poignancy has brought me to tears multiple times. it’s not at all cloying, just really resonant. (a little worried it will emotionally destroy me in the end) 📚

opening day of the Tournament of Books!

each weekday two works of fiction go head to head, with one of our judges deciding which moves forward in the brackets… with post-match color commentary from two “experts”

this has long been a great source of titles for my TBR list 📚

Eleanor Catton on similarities between our relationship to the internet & that of sociopaths to their victims:

Algorithms are flattering you by adapting themselves to what they think that you want; they can see what you desire & they’re very good at shapeshifting

The Besnard Lakes, Silver Shadows:

youtu.be/LI9uWyoYg…

psychedelic 🎵

Weekend beer: Founders Brewing’s KBS Hazelnut ⭐️⭐️__ good! (though not quite as good as I’d hoped)🍺

“Always remember, mine Sadie: life is very long, unless it is not.” Sadie knew this to be a tautology, but it also happened to be true.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow 📚

The Dead Weather, I Feel Love (live) 🎵

youtu.be/C4G3iZ2oW…

the changes to Dahl’s books aren’t the end of the world, but they really do stink. The Nation: Let Kids Read Roald Dahl’s Books the Way He Wrote Them 📚

adding a preachy smiley face to a book written by an angry genius

when you make a grocery run for a few things and it’s Spring Bock season 🍺

Twenty One Pilots - Goner 🎵

youtu.be/fc4wlY7nH…

really enjoyed reading Teaching Black History to White People, by Leonard N. Moore. short & written in a conversational style, it’s an unblinking survey of Black/American history. bonus: the ebook is free this month from UT Press with code UTXBHM 📚

when ur life is tuff

Goose Island Beer Co.’s Bourbon County Coffee Stout (2022) 🍺 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ celebrating hitting my goal of literary agents queried. your move, universe

‘Loud, dirty and simple’: Leicester’s punk collective for older women 🎵

Not caring what people think is “definitely part of the punk ethos”, said the 70-year-old drummer for Venus Attax. “Punk was anarchic and what’s more anarchic than older women letting rip?”

Natalie Merchant, Verdi Cries (live):

youtu.be/ez9TcPMy1…

oh holidays must end, as you know all is memory, taken home with me the opera, the stolen tea the sand drawings, the virgin sea all, years ago 🎵

amazing comic today for Dinosaur Comics' 20th anniversary (!) read the “haps” below it for a nice post from the creator

To celebrate 20 years I thought, okay, maybe I'll change the pictures just this once.

the forecasts for freezing rain were… correct

live at Reading Festival: Run the Jewels, A Few Words for the Firing Squad (Radiation) 🎵

youtu.be/kW_Wvwz7T…

Saturday’s beer: Pinthouse Pizza’s Jaguar Shark: Enchantment Under the Sea 🍺 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Saturday’s beer: Southern Star Brewing’s Bombshell Pils ⭐️⭐️__ Not my typical weekend style, but a tasty way to toast this brave Texas brewery 🍺

courtesy of the this article and some tipsy online shopping: The B-52’s, Mesopotamia

youtu.be/Hq6IJ94A7…

turn your watch back (about 100,000 years) for one of the best EPs ever 🎵

last summer I decided my novel manuscript was too long. trimming here and there turned into yet another ‘final’ edit, systematically reviewing every sentence. I finished today! From 101,295 words down to a svelte, page-turning 93,751 📝

happy Public Domain Day 2023! time for a Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot/Hardy Boys crossover? I haven’t used Serial Reader for a while, but they already have a bunch of the newly-released works available 📚