Partner: “Oh, wait, I don’t think I actually finished watching S2 of “Slow Horses” like I thought.”
Friend: “Wait, the “Fargo” seasons are each standalone?”
OK, listen up people, let’s get our shit together. It’s almost the end of the year. Some of you are wildly off your game.
It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
Have I mentioned that I’m kinda ready for 2023 to go away? Well, I will later on, in detail; book it! But here’s my car, up on a flatbed tow truck. Something (a brick, a Caltrans truck driver guessed) fell off of a vehicle ahead of me, blew out the front and back tires, destroying the front rim in the process (revealed later in the day to much frustration). I focused on making sure my daughter was fine in the passenger seat and got the car over into a closed lane and, having blown a tire on the Bay Bridge before, knew that the safest thing I could do is try to get off the damned bridge, slowly, but with urgency and maybe some pleading for the tires to hold.
Whew. Glad I had that second cup of coffee.
Eventually I got a great, super on top of it and quick arriving tow truck driver (Juan, from Ready First Towing) and then found some tires from another great dude (Jeff from Richmond Tire), and the ordeal appeared over.
It wasn’t.
Rim was wrecked. And because there’s not a ton of Fiat places anymore — the place I bought the car from in Berkeley, I found out that day when calling them, is out of business — getting one was going to be a real hassle.
Me: Ugh, well, I guess it goes back on the flatbed and back to Oakland. Thought in brain: $$$.
So we drove it back to Oakland. Where it sits today.
I left for Portland a day and a half later.
I’ll keep the whining minor. Everybody’s got shit happening, so I didn’t want to get too far into it. But I will say that my daughter’s dog threw up five times the night before the Fiat-fiasco and she was so sick she almost feinted and we all three had a terrible night’s sleep (yeah, the dog, too), got up super early in Oakland and headed over in staggeringly bad traffic as usual to Marin for school.
The tire thing happened on the return trip.
Life’s interesting. Always.
And yeah, I’ve needed a break from 2023 for a long time. Some years are better than others and I remain grateful for the good things, relative health and whatever kind of emerging new happiness I can get out of various new paths in life. But sometimes you just need to get away and over-eat and maybe sleep a lot in a town perfectly suited for that.
Techno shit.
I’ve never been an ardent believer that there was some universal conspiracy from Big Tech to “reset” one’s beloved settings, though I know that often the default position for new apps is “everything on so as to annoy you with false urgency.”
But I may be rethinking my stance.
Though YouTube TV is my provider, I have already gone in and switched off their desire to show me the score of some sporting event I’m recording (I’ve never understood this — clearly not created by a sports fan). And yet — AND YET — not that long ago I noticed that AppleTV (the streaming device, not the channel) knew that both the Warriors and 49ers were my “favorite teams.” Now, remember, AppleTV is not my live TV provider. But Apple took it upon itself to post spoiler scores on its home page.
Why?
Seeing it, I was annoyed (granted, no great feat). I made a mental note to figure out what was up and fix it, which promptly went into the “Can Not Remember Mental Notes” file until yet another score of a game was ruined when I signed on later to watch.
But it gets worse.
My beloved Dubs have squandered numerous big leads and otherwise lost in depressing fashion more times than I care to remember this year. But as my partner and I were watching a recent game — delayed; and yes I used my hand to block where any spoiler scores would be — and there we were, we being the Warriors and two of the team’s biggest fans, immensely enjoying a huge Warriors 4th quarter lead, when all of a sudden AppleTV — not YouTube TV, even though they are the entity recording the game in the cloud — flashed an alert in the upper right part of the screen that said something like “tight game: Warriors up 1 point in 4th” or something close.
What the actual fuck?
Super annoyed, we fast forwarded through the formerly enjoyable romp of a game until the Warriors were indeed down a point, then pressed play. They steadied the ship and built a lead. We calmed down. Then — still watching delayed, by the way — another alert popped up that read: “Nail biter: Warriors blow lead in 4th” or whatever. Definitely said nail biter.
POV: My head exploding.
The Warriors did in fact blow the lead and did in fact lose. I jumped online to find that — whoa, lots of other people hated this Apple intrusion as well, especially soccer fans. What the hell was AppleTV doing? For its part, YouTube was keeping its promise to hide scores from me, but Apple the Interloper stepped in for no clear reason. So I got some online tips, went into my AppleTV settings and discovered…a bunch of ridiculous toggled-on options like scores for teams I follow, “close game” alerts and even a separate “exciting game” alert.
No. So much no. Nada no.
I’m sure my friend Jason Snell knows why this is happening, or better yet why it even exists, but periodically I like to prove to him that I know how to search the internet to solve problems instead of just texting him. I fixed the settings (up in Portland as well). Still grumpy, obviously.
Bad Apple!
“Netflix Wrapped.”
I wanted to share some love for Rick Ellis and his tireless reporting and commenting on the state of the television entertainment juggernaut. His “Too Much TV Newsletter” on Substack is something I’m already recommending but Rick was also a level-headed reporter — a rare commodity — during the long WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which I greatly appreciated.
But this? Oh, this just makes me mad for not having thought of it myself, which is why I want to share it. Damn you, Rick. Here’s the link and the idea is so simple it was easy to overlook: “What Streaming Services Could Learn From Spotify Wrapped.”
I mean, I would love this from ALL the streamers. (With the caveat that it be done well, naturally.) Imagine a year of television and movie viewing, illustrated in quirky, informative ways. Yes to that. (And yeah, they already have your viewing habits in a data dungeon — don’t kid yourself.)
“The Architecture Of Happiness.”
Thanks to a couple of readers here who alerted me in the comments on a previous post, I was turned on to “Home” on AppleTV+. Most people know I’m ALL IN for everything design and architecture, particularly the modernist variety, which is why I had a strong crush on “The Cabin Chronicles” as witnessed below:
It’s why I read Dwell and essentially any shelter porn I can find. To not know of “Home” seemed a little ridiculous but we’ve been over the demands of TV before and I’m afraid I just can’t watch everything (coughs).
So I watched and loved it and “Home” is something very different than either “The Cabin Chronicles” or, most likely, anything I’ve yet to discover on the spectrum of good design or good architecture, illustrated by video. “Home” is about so much more (at least in S1 — I haven’t made it to S2 because I’m savoring it with an obsessed partner). “Home” is about how architecture and change and the creation of things inside and outside by crafts people and for people in a community produces lasting, impressionable change.
If it’s not on your radar, I’m trying to put it there.
And it’s also a perfect place to drop this little nugget: I’m moving again.
I know. I know. Hey, it’s not me — it’s 2023, man.
I’m moving from Oakland, sadly. (Still absolutely loving Portland.) I don’t know when — before spring for sure and maybe, who knows, February? Or is that a different move (ducks)? That could actually happen as well.
I’ll keep you posted. Because I know you love stories about moving. (My new book: “Stories About Moving.”)
Even though I hate leaving Oakland (what shame will I have wearing my “Oakland First, Always” hoodie?), the good news is I’m moving in with someone you kinda know.
People or.... things.... that give sports scores before you can watch the game are an abomination! As a swing shifter for 20+ years, I watch delayed most of the time. Here's a place where modern technology is a killer. 😱
I really like Bavarian Professionals in Berkeley for my Mini but I’m not sure they do Fiats. Maybe they could recommend a place?
I would LOVE a Netflix wrapped or something like that