Leftovers & links & reviews without spoilers

ᐅ No diss intended, because I like and still read Reddit, but I’m having more fun here than I ever had there. On this site, there are fewer rules about what we can do or say. There are no ads. I like the colors and the layout, because I picked them. There are a few friends, but absolutely no assholes allowed, except me.

What's best about being off Reddit, though, is that I’m unshackled from their upvote/downvote ‘karma’ system, which I've hated so much that 'AntiKarma' was my usual username.

With Reddit’s karma, every post and every comment is in a popularity competition against every other post and comment. You can ignore the karma factor, sure, and I usually did, but still those numbers always stare at you, every time you're at reddit.com.

On this site, I assume is that someone is reading, because occasionally there are comments. But ...

• How many readers?
• Is the number going up or down or sideways?
• Is today’s post scoring higher or lower than yesterday’s post?

... it's not quantified with a number beside every post and every comment. With some digging I could find such numbers, but since I don't care, I don't dig. I’m just having fun here (hope you are, too), with no upvotes, no downvotes, and no numbers at all.

ᐅ What’s the deal with sparkling water? I drink two different brands of lightly flavored sparkling water, basically bubbling water with a sweet hint of fruit. But only those two brands — every other brand that calls itself the same thing, “fruit-flavored sparkling water,” has a hideous underlying taste like Alka-Seltzer. Who wants that taste?

My wife wanted that funky flavor — she drank thousands of Klarbooms and other brands of sparkling water that’s actually seltzer water. Not me. I accidentally bought three bottles of some similar slop, took one taste and poured them down the drain.

ᐅ I can’t send this company an email, because they don’t have email. I can’t complain on their website, because they don’t have a website. I’ve tracked down their address, so I could write ‘em a letter, but I don’t have a printer and I’m not going to handwrite a complaint to mail it to Quality Transparent Bag, Inc., 110 McGraw St, Bay City MI 48708.

If I did, though, it would say:

Hey — I’ve been using your “easy on the environment” ArmourBuilt plastic bags for years, and my trash and recycling habits haven’t changed, so I’m guessing you’ve changed your recipe to save ⅛¢ per package.
The bags now split about half the time when I’m taking out the trash, and often fall apart when I’m putting a fresh bag on the barrel. So I’m tossing your trash bags into the trash, and buying Hefty™ from now on.

ᐅ I’m trying to be a decent human. Not succeeding, but trying. Usually. Are you trying to, or is it just me?

ᐅ I don’t know why I’m posting this or what you can do about it, but that applies to everything I post so what the hell:

I am certain that I wrote a full-length article a year or two ago, probably on Reddit, about a co-worker who was murdered — but now I can’t find the article anywhere. I frickin’ hate rewriting something from scratch, but it needs to be written. Sigh. Again.

ᐅ May I be a grumpy old bastard for just a moment? This article reviews an art exhibit at New York’s MOMA. I don’t know much about art, and less about Paul Cézanne, and the rest of the article isn’t quite as pretentious as the opening paragraph, but this is painful:

Some of us don’t like the inarguably great artist Paul Cézanne as much as we know we are supposed to. I, for one, have struggled with him all my art-loving life. Others, as I’ve confirmed in recent conversations with Cézanne devotees, are astonished and appalled to hear anything with even a trace of negativity said about him. “Cézanne Drawing,” at the Museum of Modern Art, with some two hundred and eighty works on paper (too many? Not really, because quantity intensifies the works’ qualities), has a cumulative impact that is practically theological for both believers and skeptics, akin to a creation story, a Genesis, of modernism.

ᐅ When personal computers were a new thing, my friends and I were fascinated by text-based games like this. Such wordy games are ridiculously retro now, but (to me, anyway) they’re still enjoyable. That one even has some pictures!

ᐅ Anyone even slightly interested in San Francisco’s movie theaters would enjoy San Francisco Theaters, a site I stumbled across yesterday. Looks to me like they have a listing for just about every building in the city that ever screened a movie or staged a play — and the listings aren’t quick and concise, they’re in-depth with photos from all through most theaters’ history. A whole lotta passion has gone into it, obviously.

ᐅ "Despite their ubiquity and pivotal role in the haptic experience of architecture, door handles remain oddly under-documented."

ᐅ Underwater can be really really deep.

ᐅ Some links work better as mystery links, so I'll offer no descriptions or explanations for these:

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6/28/2021
Leftovers & links