Hey, we're getting a Buddhist temple a few blocks down the street. As it was going up, it was obvious that the architecture was different, and it's still only about 90% built, but they've hung a sign and with a picture of the Buddha, and he looks like a nice guy. Ohm, or whatever.

I get Buddhism and Hare Krishnas mixed up, and maybe other eastern philosophies. All I know for sure is, they'll be an improvement to the neighborhood.

In the other direction from home, there's a public grade school. It's far enough away that I can't hear screaming brats at recess, but close enough to walk past on my way to the bus stop. That's about the right distance, so it's nice, not nuts-making.

Seeing so many kids running around the playground, hollering and playing and having fun, is nice, because they're not awful yet. They're compact bundles of potential, still years away from the disappointment they'll eventually be to themselves and their families.

This is just me being an ass, which happens a lot.

I share a shower with Dean and Robert (not at the same time) and there are six hooks for hanging stuff, but a washcloth is always on the most easily-bumped hook. It's right where you step into or out of the shower. Several times, I've accidentally nudged the washcloth, and knocked it to the bottom of the tub.

If it was hanging on any of the other hooks, it would be virtually un-bumpable and never knocked down, so when it drops I always pick it up, and wring it out, and hang in on a different hook.

But the next time I shower, it's again on the most precarious hook.

And just from that, I know it's Dean's washcloth. It might as well have his name embroidered on it. Robert wouldn't keep hanging a washcloth where it's certain to drop.

So when it got accidentally (I swear) nudged during my shower this morning, and fell to the bathtub floor, I used that washcloth to scrub away most of the gross griz and mold that's accumulated in the corners of the shower.

Just doing my bit to keep the house livable. And then I wrung it out, and hung the washcloth on its precarious hook again.

When I lived in Madison, I wrote weekly accounts of breakfast at my preferred local spot, Bob's Diner. It was a great little restaurant, and so old-fashioned that it didn't have a website.

So one afternoon when I was bored, I created a website for Bob's Diner. It was just a landing page saying how great the place was, and a page with a picture of the menu. It was a fan website, basically, and it cost $12 for annual hosting.

My wife chuckled when I showed her the site, so I must've written it while she was still alive — at least five years ago. It got close to zero traffic, and I never told anyone at Bob's, and when it came time to renew the hosting for a second year, I decided not to.

And you know what happened? Nothing. The website stayed alive and on-line, for years, for free. Last time I checked was just before moving to Seattle last spring, and the site was still online.

Which says to me, web-hosting fees must be almost entirely profit. It costs so little to keep a low-traffic website on-line, it's not even worth the time it takes for the hosting company to delete the site when nobody pays.

This morning I checked it again, and after at least four years of free hosting, my website for Bob's Diner is gone. The address now redirects to opentable.com.

So the puny, low-traffic website I spent two hours putting together has been purchased by a giant corporation, just like YouTube got bought by Google, only I didn't even get a commission.

"Kill a Nazi today," says a sticker that I'm seeing all over the west and south sides of the city. Is it a meme, is it a movement, or is it just an amusing sticker?

God, I hope it's a movement.

News you need,
whether you know it or not

• Seymour Hersh: US exploded Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany

• Temple University rescinds health care and tuition remission for 750 striking grad students

• Something strange is happening on the sun, and we've never seen it before

• Climate change is triggering more earthquakes. Big Oil's interests are a factor.

• More than 10 per cent of Australians deny climate change will harm them in their lifetime

Seems accurate, actually — I reckon about 90% of people currently alive will experience some of the hellish consequences of climate change, but a small fraction will be either rich or simply lucky, and do just fine.

For the generation after ours, I'd expect 99-1 is more likely, but nobody seems to give a damn so what the heck, we've all gotta die sometime, amIright?

• Team USA skiers sport climate change-inspired race suits in France

Skiing is an endangered sport, yeah, but this is the dumbest PR stunt I've heard this week.

• San Mateo County pays $4.5M after man dies following Taser deployments

• White cops tackle, arrest black gay TV reporter during press conference

• New deputy gang forming in L.A. County Sheriff's Department, lawsuit alleges

• Georgia law enforcement conducts ‘clearing operation’ as construction begins on ‘Cop City’ facility

• Police said an Alabama man was ‘alert and conscious’ when he left their jail. Video shows otherwise.

Mystery links
There's no knowing where you're going

• Click

• Click

• Click

Clicks ahoy

• How the remains of formerly enslaved people came to rest beneath a Staten Island strip mall

• ChatGPT is just an automated mansplaining machine

• Madeline Kripke assembled what may be the largest personal dictionary collection in the world. It is certainly the bawdiest.

• The sound of the dialup, pictured

• How a shipping error 100 years ago launched the $30 billion chicken industry

• Electrician Alan Lampel has worked on Broadway's longest-running show from the beginning

♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫

• Bella Ciao — Chumbawamba

• Into the Mistake — Van Morrison

Yeah, I know Mr Morrison wrote and sings the song as "Into the Mystic," but I've always heard it as a poetic call to fear no fumbles, and jump where you want to land without too much worrying about screwing things up. To me the song will always be, "Into the Mistake."

Hark now, hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mistake

• Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen — Rufus Harley

• Song for Ten — Murray Gold

• You'll Never Walk Alone — Roy Orbison

Eventually, everyone
leaves the building

• Jen Angel

Jen was a zinester who published Fucktooth and Clamor, and may have been on the staff for Zine World (it's been so long I can't really remember). Sounds like she remained something special until the end. This is what a life ought to look like.

• Burt Bacharach

• Hugh Hudson

• Lloyd Morrisett

• Everett Quinton

• Alan A Ryan

• Charles Silverstein

• Barrett Strong

2/11/2023
Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.
Special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.