Emchap's Shit from the Internet 10/7/20 🍠
I am back at work after a lovely four day weekend that served to keep me from totally collapsing into a sphere of omnidirectional rage, which is about all I can ask from time off these days. I hiked around a very haunted former zoo with a friend and shot the shit and ate cookies and it was a small moment of mostly-normalcy in the midst of This Our Present Moment. It was good to get out of the house.
I am generally an anxious person, and when I’m overwhelmed that manifests in some sort of weird contagion mental loops. I worry about things being dirty and (the slightly healthier part) am calmed by cleaning. It’s one of those things where my brain turns in on itself.
This year, because I don’t leave my house ever and have the energy level of a potato due to Everything, my house is legitimately dirtier than it normally is, and it’s impacting my mood in ways that are laughably obvious while also being mostly beyond my energy level to deal with. But last night I rallied just a little bit, and spent 20 minutes scrubbing my gas stovetop while listening to a very soothing podcast. I felt better than I had all day.
Shit to read
I have a meeting at work that’s sometimes functional and sometimes a way to share anxieties and hang out in a non-recorded setting with my coworkers. Today, one of the attendees shared this story about an IoT hack of a chastity cage (no you don’t need IoT sex toys, stop buying them) from a company that didn’t include a manual key override. Anyway long story short I got to explain the logistics around chastity cages to my coworkers, solid morning.
This escalating thread of TikTok duets starting with one dude’s musical number about being in the grocery store is a small bright spot.
Because this is the NYT I don’t think it quite so heavily hits the irony-poisoned Actually I’m Laughing part of Trump’s whole Deal, but nonetheless I thought this was a good article about how he’s forced a reshaping of political comedy. It’s also I think an explanation in some ways of why most people I know in my age bracket think that, like, Sarah Cooper is intolerable while she is beloved by older folks.
Supportive Girlfriend Shouldn’t Be just caused me to choke on my drink.
Crows think owls have bad vibes.
I to some extent question this article’s analysis of American birth rates (it’s easy to keep birth rates high if you make birth control and abortion difficult to access!) but on the whole I thought it was a good exploration of what makes people more or less likely to have children now. (tl;dr you have to subsidize it and have supportive partners or it’s way less appealing.)
I thought this was a sweet article from a recovering addict about Biden’s son.
This piece from The Root is very good.
A friend sent me this piece about the paralyzing feeling of dread that’s engulfing us all right now and I think there’s legitimately something to be said for looking at Plague monastics for an emotional framework right now.
I will read literally anything about TikTok house implosions.
Shit to eat
Decide that you’re tired of fussing with Aeropress iced coffee after the second time in as many weeks that it spits hot grounds onto you somehow.
Commit to being a cold brew bitch.
Coarse grind coffee. You’ll use half an ounce per end result cup of coffee, so, as much as you want. I did three ounces.
Put the coffee into a glass jar, and cover it with as many cups of water as you did ounces of coffee.
Leave it in the fridge for a while. Overnight? A day?
When you’re ready for coffee, dump the jar into a fine mesh strainer over a bowl. Don’t press on the grounds.
Rinse out the jar, dump the liquid back, toss the grounds or turn them into a craft or whatever we’re doing now.
Get a cup with a bunch of ice, and pour half a cup of coffee concentrate in with half a cup of water. Top with cream and simple syrup. Enjoy.
(Adapted from The Kitchn’s cold brew recipe.)
Shit to watch
This new Mark Kendall sketch, which is particularly funny if you’re Atlantan and still very funny if you’re not.
It’s been a long time since I watched vlogbrothers regularly, but I thought this most recent video from John was interesting. It feels like we don’t have much of a map quite yet for what internet content and communities look like over years and years and years with that degree of popularity; Ze Frank doesn’t seem to have had the same community aspect, Allie Brosh just disappeared until she came back, Homestar went dormant as the creators moved on to other things and the technology that powered it became obsolete, The Toast wasn’t nearly so long-lived.
I enjoyed this video about veganism at different price points.
Shit to buy
Claws up. (They’re on siesta until October 10th, so, buy then I guess.)