h. Play

It was one of those antic TikTok (2022 I think) about how palm trees only live for a hundred years and that most of them have been planted in Los Angeles a hundred years ago, which meant some kind of apocalypse very soon. Think hundreds of trees falling left and right, dead.

Well. It hasn’t happened yet I guess. I was looking at those when doing laundry. They are so tall. Not sure that was supposed to happen either. Plants adapt too. They live longer than expected, in better shape. So do we.

January 2014 was the longest January of my life. It’s always a long month, but that year it felt like it would never end. A divorce and bracing yourself for all the things that need to happen to recover and thrive, will do that to you.

Ten years later, it’s probably the fastest one? It’s basically almost done.

Great projects, beautiful and trustworthy people around will do that.

(previous shots)

I took this 2024 version at an understaffed CVS, which could be anywhere in the nation I imagine.

My pharmacist was processing orders, answering the phone, leaving voicemails, filling out forms and giving vaccine shots. He probably does security and restocks the workroom as well as closing the whole building at 10pm.

He was 30mn late with my appointment due to one of those customers who are at the pharmacy every single day of the month.

“I saw the we’re hiring sign at the door, I see that you could use some help!” I said. He replied “yeah, that’s fake they won’t hire. Maximizing profit, all that.” I nodded and hummed slowly.

Also fuck that virus forever.

“Developers will not accept a 30% fee just to be hosted on app stores. That’s straight up robbery, there’s no way they accept that.” -me in 2008

Oh, I was so wrong! Developers are fantastic at business /s. They only see a shiny new toy and if you give them the ability to play with it, you can do whatever you want to them.

In 2024 though thanks to the EU, Epic’s lawsuit and a bad economy, folks are starting to wake up. ’bout time.

Y’all need to fight harder and faster and stronger. This app store insanity needs to fucking go.

(scale: 1 blue square: 500mm) (rain on the notes)

This is a representation of my halftogon house section. The roof is flat and green, hence the “hair”.

The dotted line represents the platform on which a small sunken living room would be.

Basically I lowered the second bedroom by one meter, allowing the space above and between the ceiling to serve as a living room area.

This works with a sunken area around 1700mm high (5’9), enough to semi stand and go up and down the stairs to access the elevated space.

Why this? Because this would create a screening space that I’d rather not have permanently in the living room otherwise. I was thinking about a cart for TV at first, but that’s probably super annoying.

With a small sunken living room for watching stuff, I put the TV away and make it a more agreeable way to watch it as well., theater like.

Of course I would put some bookshelves and probably some planters on the left side (south) and along the stairs. That would add some shade and cooling as well (hot air goes up).

The bedroom under would benefit greatly from being underground by one meter, guaranteeing it from being hot at all times in a desert environment.

Structurally this doesn’t change anything which means that this doesn’t impact finances too much. I would just need to dig an area of about 10-12m², which is not that bad.

Yup.

If I could have told to my dad when he was about to get married, freshly starting at a new company that he will never leave that “imagine that in 2022 a company would reach out for a job for which I’m the perfect fit, that the recruiter and lead LOVED my resume and absolutely wanted to see me the next Wednesday, and that I would never hear back from them ever again, and that this company almost made one billion dollars in profit last year?” (this happened, yes!)

He would not have believed me. Straight up nonsense.

He was employed for life in one company. I worked for a lot of them, did my independent sting, widened my skills to pay the bills, reduced my expectations and took Ls left and right, despite ticking all the boxes needed to get the career you want.

Now if you’re starting a career or trying to keep it, basically in your early 30s in 2024, it’s kind of super fucked? There are all of us older who kind of just started being stable and will keep working until we die, many decades later. Boomers will still be here in 15 years (2039), some still working. Don’t forget that they’re a huge population in numbers. There’s AI, and it’s just the start and already impacting like crazy. And you have so much less experience and phones and notifications fucked up your capacity to focus.

Not a good look.

It’s absurd how much when and where we were born, two variables we don’t control, decide of so much of our lives. That’s so unfair.

But I feel strongly that we’re global and advanced enough as a human society that we could reverse that and counter balance very effectively, today. Yes, UBI y’all (the economy is just databases with payments due back in 40-50 years, when the people making those important decisions in those databases, will be long gone; it’s a joke). Let’s call it Universal Income, even. Or Living Credit™, I don’t care.

The internet isn’t fun anymore. Actually, that statement isn’t severe enough to reflect how bad the internet is these days, so let me try that again: being online in 2023 2024 is a fucking nightmare. There are only three websites. They are all designed to make you angry because it’s the most profitable emotion. Your aunt was indoctrinated into fascism by a page called “This country used to have real bin men” after she liked a meme about glass milk bottles in 2012. Every boy you went to school with has a podcast about football now. Your Mam once warned you about spending too much time on the computer but now spends eight hours a day playing Hay Day on her phone. AI was meant to let us lie in fields and read books, but instead it’s being used to show you what Breaking Bad would have looked like as an anime.

Someone snapped at Rock Paper Shotgun! It’s pretty true.

I stay on my RSS regime with a dash of Tumblr. Those allow me to follow reasonable folks sharing stuff. It’s healthy. It’s out there.

Quit those apps designed to make you a fucking goblin, y’all.

I’ve been indulging a bit with Larry David’s famous show lately, which is ending this year. Curb has been quite big in my life as it was a staple of our evenings with my partner back in the early 10s.

It taught me so much English. They repeat every line four times! And it’s 100% conversational stuff that happens every day. A gold mine for someone trying to get into a culture and understand what to do in public.

Except for copying Larry. I never did, but I happened to be in situations where I kind of was him.

One time we were at a friend’s rooftop hot tub chilling and one of his friend had a daughter who dared me to throw her in the water. She was fully clothed. It’s summer.

After maybe 15 minutes of taunting me I sure did throw her in there, with a lot of laughs flying in the air.

Well, her dad didn’t laugh at all.

He was supposed to drop her off at her mom’s later, and now she was wet. The kid was like “I can’t believe you did!” and I was like “it wasn’t that hard, you’re not that heavy!” and her dad was like “not cool, man”.

To this day I feel bad and simultaneously, not bad at all. It was water, not battery acid.

Pretty, pretty, pretty good times.

lmao