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Optimus Prime Day

The first thing to keep in mind is that every time I hear the words Prime Day, my completely normal brain automatically grafts Optimus onto them. I was never...

I don’t even think we’ve talked about this, and I just made sauce three times in a week, so. You should never buy pasta sauce from a jar, you respect...

You once threw a big party every year in the middle of July which, due to circumstances, began at 10:30p, ended at 4a, and involved several hundred bottles...

Solve the thing once

Get into carry for long enough and you end up down a very pointy rabbit hole. Knife carry is wild, y’all. Knives have been optimized with an inch of their...

Akahoshi, five times

It begins, for our intents, with the book and its corresponding Reddit thread. There is a guy, and he decided to beastmode ramen to such a degree that, well,...

On Tuesday, we’ll be launching our first open consulting slot for the first time in two years. I am mildly terrified about it! I am more-than-mildly dreading...

The picnic pro, again

After eight days of 104º weather, it finally drops to 78º and you are, like a normal person, invited to 41 picnics at once. Also like a normal person, you...

Get the better one

Look, I know they look the same. I’m trained to find the differences. One has two ribbons; the other has only one. One comes with more sheets. The paper...

Monte Carlo (for Justin)

We haven’t talked about cocktails much lately, which is for a reason, but there is now something to discuss in the middle of the blazing summer, peak...

Lettuce is at peak right now. We must discuss it. If you don’t have lettuce in your crisper in June, you’re missing out on one of the most important...

Q2, three years

It arrived the day before my second shot, the shot that let you out in the world, sort of. It felt less like a midlife crisis than a rebirth, although let’s...

Space iPad, 1 month

The thing is dressed up as a laptop for a permanent halloween of the computing spirit. There is a trackpad, clicky keys. The keyboard even lights up. There...

Scattered gathering rules

A few scattered rules for gathering that nobody seems to tell you about. Groups favor circles Layout-wise, people like to sit in a circle. Trying to hem...

Not for everyone, maybe for you

If you want to know what the inside of my brain sounds like, you could do worse than the Deep Ark, a brief eight-hour mix of mostly nineties IDM. It is...

Lore Guy comeback

There are many genres of baseball star. One of them is the record-breaker who goes against all received wisdom and changes history. One of them is the person...

Bluetooth as surrender mechanism

It should be present, perky, wanting to help. You turn the device on and it connects. It tells you it’s connected. Status is relayed. This is feedback,...

The fancy furniture curse

This is the problem: you finally get that chair or that table, the one you had been coveting for years, the one that you know has the lore and the aura and...

The value of a simple wreck

I woke up, showered, went downstairs to begin my work day, and then heard some form of the end of the world. There is major construction happening four doors...

I won’t say the household has perfected popcorn, but we’ve come close, and people keep raving about it. It has once again come to this: people think I am a...

I’m writing this on an iPad. I have owned it for six years, materially half of the iPad’s existence. The keyboard is beaten to absolute hell. I have written...

Look, without him there would be no Cadence & Slang, no Draft, nothing. None of it. He is why I do what I do. He built his own building from the ground up,...

Good atoms are as few atoms as possible

Add an atom to the pack and you’re increasing its weight. This is obvious and the essential tension. You want to add all of the atoms, give it all of the...

How to buy a water bottle

It seems like you’re thirsty. I get it! You’re active, doing lots of cool stuff, and you’re a human. Humans need to drink a lot water every day – more than...

Public service announcement (phone down day)

Due to apocalypse, we exist in a moment of capacity collapse, where we have consciously chosen for it to be “hard” to hang out for more than 90 calendar...

You think a clover infestation is trivial, but that’s where you’d be wrong

You have a problem. The ceiling is leaking. Clover has taken over your garden. Part of your roof collapsed. You seek help. This is easy, you think. There is...

You have a face

A video went viral recently, god help us, because a woman went over to a man’s place and could not believe he has a good skincare routine. He must be...

A reminder: hugs are free

Upfront PSA: The number of you who corrected me that asparagus is not a cruciferous brassica can only be measured in scientific notation. Sorry about that;...

Pilsner pack (nothing to hide)

Beer is an imperfect thing that requires controlling nature in defiance of god in order to make many versions of a thing consistently & well. Faults happen....

Green leafy stick text

We have referred, briefly, to asparagus before, but we haven’t really gone deep on it. You know that you should only be eating it when it’s in season in your...

The problem is that the markers are very good. They are probably accurate on a level that would impress Pantone. Really the best antecedent is Pantone: you...

I went to an art fair this past weekend and brought a fragrance nerd, and the entire time she validated what I had always suspected: the high-end art world...

Bags in bags in bags

We’re back on our nonsense over here, which is to say that we are traveling. I traveled too much at the beginning of 2023 and spent most of the rest of the...

Some brief links that sum up a lot of what text is about. On fast fashion This piece on Shein doesn’t convey much about the mindset of thoughtful consumption...

We have talked a lot about craft as applies to clothes over the past year. There are people who work in small ways, forming direct relationships with their...

I get on a fair number of airplanes, unfortunately, because the whole point of doing so is not the flying but the getting there. No sane person likes the act...

We bought a company and then nothing happened

Both of my main pens are made by Lamy, which until recently was family-run for three generations. Now it is owned by a giant conglomerate, and I am...

Right leaf, right time

Camellia sinensis is basically a small tree. Like every tree, it grows leaves in the spring. As those leaves mature, they get larger (duh) and hardier (also...

They’re from Perth, but what else is even in Perth? You hear Perth and think of some sort of mirage. Unlike other Australian cities, Perth is never...

Flip, click, repeat

It tears through the problem space of ecommerce like it is a supplement company dressed as a hypebeast drop. It is neither. They sell fidget toys. Fidget...

Fun fact: a group of designers is called a “disagreement”

You’ve heard of the concept of a fun fact. Water swirls the other way in the southern hemisphere. A quarter pounder with cheese is called a “royale with...

I recently read a thing about Phoebe Philo, who built a minor cult following at two fashion houses in the aughts in rapid succession, retired, un-retired,...

Sometimes I forget that I do things that track, on face, to be completely unhinged. Like the bookmarks file.

Find 12, ditch 10, buy multiples of 2

This always happens. You get into this period of transformation and try a lot of stuff out. Some of it works. A lot of it doesn’t. You’re picky. You stick...

It all starts out innocently. You meet me at a party, or a dinner, or a yoga studio, or you’re posted up next to me at a café. We hit it off. You get my...

Cup as teacher, cup as intent

Text is supposed to be a durable canon of wonder, or so the page says. One of the things I’ve strenuously tried to follow is no dunks, because on the...

Earth’s only iPhone case

“What are you up to after this?” “Getting a new iPhone case.” “That’s a big moment!” “Is it?” “Yes! You hold that thing every single day, and most people you...

Build a wall of shaving cream that blots out the sun

One phrase that now lives in my head rent-free is “state of shopping,” courtesy of Blackbird Spyplane, our nation’s paper of record. They write mostly about...

February 29, 2024

I’m doing Soup & Bread next week. Soup & Bread is a monthly winter-to-spring thing at legendary (and sometimes deeply flawed) cultural institution the...

No gods but sourcing

February 27, 2024

Enough of you liked Zingerman’s text that I will continue to write about them. There is, as mentioned, a lot of ground to cover, including some stuff I omitted.

An object for the whiskey man

February 22, 2024

The dim realization of its price unfolds in slow motion, as if you wonder: is that a currency conversion thing? You recall, once, how in Mexico City you went...

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