(Too) Comfortable

It’s time to get uncomfortable, folks. Doing the same things we have always done because they are the path of least resistance is not going to cut it anymore. The times of ignoring the bad for the little comfort benefits are over.

→ Source: Comfortable

We are in… my family are taking part in the boycott tomorrow. We’re cutting off Amazon as best we can going forward. We’ll hopefully prioritize local businesses, but at the very least I’d imagine shopping direct from businesses online, with a priority to businesses that support our causes.

Personally, I’ve been off Instagram and Threads for all of February… and TikTok since January 1… and it’s been a really nice change. Facebook has been read only since February 1, as I run a youth hockey site and need information off that in the short term. Come April, that will go dark as well.

As the other Jason said in the article linked above… Fuck them.

🎵 Blog challenge - Music Edition

I was tagged for this challenge and you know I like to write about music, so here we go:

What are five of your favorite albums?

I currently have over 4,600 albums saved to my library, so this is going to be hard. There are too many favorites to ever limit to five, without leaving something really good off the list… but here are the five I think shows both who I am and albums everyone should listen to:

  • Fugazi - In on the Kill Taker (1993) - Listen
  • Sharon Van Etten - Are We There (2014) - Listen
  • Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (2002) - Listen
  • Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight (2008) - Listen
  • A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory (1991) - Listen

What are five of your favorite songs?

I’m going to go with the five most influential songs in my life - elementary school through college (see Crucial Tracks 001 for more)

  • “It’s Tricky” by Run-DMC — off Raising Hell (1986)
  • “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour — off Vivid (1988)
  • “Smells Like Teen Spirit“ by Nirvana — off Nevermind (1991)
  • “Omission” by Quicksand — off Slip (1993)
  • “Truckers Atlas” by Modest Mouse — off The Lonesome Crowded West (1997)

Favorite instrument(s)?

  • Guitar
  • Bass
  • Drums

These three can make up everything I like, from rock to hip hop…folk and jazz and everything in between.

What song or album are you currently listening to?

My current obsession (for this week) is Bambi by Anxious. (Listen)

From one of my latest Crucial Tracks posts:

It’s everything I like about the (emo) genre, combining the best parts of bands like Fiddlehead, Samiam, Jimmy Eat World, and many other late 90s/early 2000s emo bands. There are a bunch of bands that have tried and are trying to replicate that era and Anxious just does it better than all of them. And to top it off, they are a great live band.

Do you listen to the radio? If so, how often?

Not really, only occasionally in the car driving kids around… usually when they have friends in the car. Sometimes sports talk radio too. (Go Bills!) Usually Apple Music, though.

How often do you listen to music?

Daily! I work from home so there’s a good chance music is playing during the day.

How often do you discover music? And how do you discover music?

Weekly for Crucial Tracks. Each week I seem to find a group or individual that is new to me. I think 1/5 of the releases in my Best of 2024 list on Album Whale were new in that sense last year.

As far as how, I’m working on a post for Crucial Tracks that details all that, since I know I’m far from normal. 😄 I will be sure to share, once that’s done.

What’s a song or album that you enjoy that you wish had more recognition?

I think about underrated bands all the time…and how a lot of them would be huge, if they were new to the world today.

I’m not sure this band would be huge, but I think their second album is severely underrated: Knocking the Skill Level by Garden Variety

It has disappeared from streaming, so I’m hoping that means there is a re-issue coming soon. For now you can hear it on YouTube:

What’s your favorite song of all time?

Another tough one. Right now, I will go with “I Love You But I’m Lost” by Sharon Van Etten. It’s beautiful and hit me at the right time in my life.

You read the answers by the shadows on the wall // We could be great // Drive myself crazy with mistakes // You know I’m better every day // Tell me there’s something I can change // Recall I know what a sanctuary is // Help me deserve you sing me praise // You love me, but you’ll change

Has your taste in music evolved over the years?

I’m definitely open to more, like I really got into alt folk (and even alt country) last year and enjoy that a ton now. I don’t think I will ever not like hip hop and hardcore adjacent groups, but as I get older and “force” myself to listen to more new music for Crucial Tracks, I think I am opening up to more styles and sounds that I definitely wouldn’t have liked when I was younger. What’s that quote? “When you are young, you know what you hate, and when you are old, you know what you love.”

Turns out, I really love music.

(And be sure to check out Crucial Tracks!)

2025

Geez this year is going to be hard, isn’t it?

It’s only January and we have an openly Nazi billionaire (and richest person in the world) with major influence in our new government. Seriously? Fuck Elon and fuck Nazis. Fuck billionaires.

And while we are at it, fuck Snopes for advancing the whole “my heart goes out to you” narrative. How you can watch the first time he did that salute and logically think, “now that’s just him sharing his appreciation with the crowd!” with a straight face. His face was straight determination and borderline anger. There was nothing loving or appreciative about that gesture. That was pent up frustration and relief that he finally has the power to be who he is…

Beyond that bullshit, we’ve had the predictable slew of executive orders targeting the marginalized – trans people, immigrants – as well as the shuttering of many safeguard agencies involved with cybersecurity, consumer protections, ethics, and health. I’m sure none of that will cause any issues in the future at all. Rolling eyes emoji.

For me and my family, the most concerning are the orders targeting trans folks, as I’ve mentioned previously…

Thankfully we spent a good deal of time over the last two or three years preparing for this potential outcome, getting legal documents (passport, IDs, birth certificates, school records) in order as best we could… though we are now at a point where our son is heading off to college next Fall and most likely away from the safety of our house and local community. We’ve been blessed to have friends and family that are accepting and loving and kind, so that unknown is terrifying, honestly.

So with that said, please support trans and other LGBTQ+ folks during this time. Support their work, their livelihood, their humanity. It’s not a time to let things slide and be silent, as the people in charge are working very hard to make sure trans people don’t exist. And it’s only a matter of time before the next marginalized group is targeted for extinction.

I know for some it may be a challenge – whether it’s feeling like you don’t understand or just the limited life experience of knowing only CIS heterosexuality. I get it. Until a few years ago, I was closer to that end of the spectrum than where I am now. And I’m no where near being done with learning and growing.

One of the most freeing discoveries I’ve made for myself has been simply realizing you don’t need to fully understand everything. Because, simply put, not everything is FOR YOU. This is especially true for things that don’t directly impact your life.

You don’t necessarily need to understand why someone is trans or gay or non-binary or choose certain pronouns, for example. It’s their life and they should be able to expect, at the very least, the neutral decency afforded to them as a human being. If you are close to them and they choose to share their story in detail, fine (and lucky you to have such a good, trusting relationship), but otherwise all you need to do is trust the details of the story they ARE sharing with you. (The principle is the same for people of color, other marginalized folks, and victims of bigotry and violence. Just believe them. Just give them their humanity, as they are.)

That’s it… that’s the bare minimum, though I’d argue everyone should be treated with a basic level of empathy too. Once you realize and then assume that everyone is carrying some burden or difficulty in their life and because of that, default to treating them with grace, you’ll live a less stressful and angry and scared life.

Because no one, literally no one, in the LGBTQ+ community is trying to turn you gay or trans or hanging out in bathrooms to prey on CIS people, or “turning trans” to win a race or a fight. Those immigrants you are scared of, the one you’ve been told eat cats, murder white people, and rape women? Those are all stories that are exaggerated and amplified to generate fear and solicit votes.

Fear won in 2024, but I’m going to do my best to make sure it has a hell of time going forward. Please do the same.

Exporting GoodLinks Highlights to Craft

I’ve been exploring Craft more, now that I took advantage of their 50% off for life promotion. It’s been fun discovering all the new features since I last used it, as well as how I can integrate apps like Things and GoodLinks, which I have been using more often.

My most recent discovery has been exporting highlights in GoodLinks to a new Craft document. I think I have a pretty good setup, so it’s time to share!

First off, you will need to edit the GoodLinks export template (Settings > Highlight > Edit Export Format). I ended up with this template, but feel free to customize however you like:

{{#tags.0}}
Tags: {{#tags}}{{name}}{{^is_last}}, {{/is_last}}{{/tags}}
{{/tags.0}}

{{#author}}
Author: {{author}}
{{/author}}

---

{{#highlights}}
*{{created_at}}*

{{content_md | blockquote}}
{{#note}}

{{note}}
{{/note}}
{{^is_last}}

---

{{/is_last}}
{{/highlights}}

You will also want to make sure “Include highlights in Markdown” is checked on this setting page as well.

Then you should install my shortcut.

There are two import questions when you install the Shortcut:

  • First to choose the space for the new note
  • Then an optional Folder selection. I skip that one, as they by default go to Unsorted, which I treat as an Inbox.

The best place to run this workflow is on iOS because the GoodLinks iOS app has a custom action you can create for this shortcut. To set that up, go to Settings > Custom Actions and click the icon in the upper right hand corner to ‘Add Action’.

On that screen, enter a name, choose an icon and a color. For the URL field use:

shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=GoodLink%20Highlights

Then, once you are on an article in GoodLinks and have made some highlights, access the more menu and you should see your custom action up top:

Click that and the end result should be something like this in Craft:

Hope someone finds this useful!

Taking the People Pledge

Adam Newbold, the purveyor of Neatnik/OMG.lol/Social.lol and many other sites, just launched The People Pledge:

I pledge to recognize the dignity and worth of all people.

I will not discriminate against or devalue anyone because of their age, race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, social class, faith, neurotype, or physical appearance.

I commit to treating others fairly and rejecting prejudice in all its forms.

A pretty simple idea and one you’d think would be closer to the default in 2024, but apparently that isn’t the case for a significant portion of the United States, at least.

Everyone deserves the dignity of humanity. To love and be loved. The grace to live their life free of hatred, bigotry, threats, or violence. You may not understand every human, their choices or their defaults, but that is OK… because in most cases it isn’t FOR you. I think we’d do better as a society, if we just realized we don’t have to live everyone else’s life too.

What is consistent across all of humanity, though, is EVERYONE is battling something. Some problem, big or small, and many times, it’s multiple problems at once. A little grace, empathy, and love can go a long way.

I’m not perfect, so this pledge is my commitment to do better every day.

Join us.

Disappointment

As a parent of a trans son and two daughters (all teenagers), I’m obviously disappointed and saddened by the results from last night. Mainly because morality, decency, competency, and facts no longer matter. The U.S. is officially a self-centered, narcissistic nation, though it’s most certainly been that way the entire time. This is just one of the most striking, experienced-in-real-time examples of its personality.

The Democrats are certainly at fault for a lot of the pain we feel today; however, the media has the most blood on its hands – how they simultaneously tore down Joe Biden for his age, while normalizing Trump’s insane economic policy proposals, that if enacted will certainly destroy the economy in the near term. They normalized the racism and hatred of immigrants and “enemies within”… and his obvious cognitive decline as he’s nearly the same age as Biden.

Add on top of that, holding Harris to the usual, historical standard of a presidential candidate while giving Trump a pass as he word-salads his way through an “explanation” of his policies. Or a complete pass on any of the dangerous rhetoric. It’s mind-boggling.

I’m also old enough to remember the experience of the media tearing down a decent human and viable presidential candidate in Howard Dean because he “screamed” with excitement at a campaign event. John Edwards because of an expensive haircut…and so many more, now ridiculous examples.

I hope it’s worth it, risking so much for potential short-term gain. Trusting a fraudster, grifter, and felon to deliver you the almighty greenback. You do you, I guess.

For me, at least for now, I’ve decided to take an extended break from corporate-owned, algorithm-driven social media. You can find me:

I’ll be using RSS and Reeder to follow others on the web.

I’m going to be focused on things that bring joy, while supporting and protecting my family and friends. And friends is a broad term; don’t be shy, and I will do my best to support those in need as well.

Stay strong.

We've gone insane

I have been refraining from posting politics, but this new study is just absolutely insane.

🔗 Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy

Any kind of mass deportation, like Trump and Vance are proposing, is beyond reckless…on top of the racism and xenophobia.

This new study shows the economic impacts:

  • a quick, one-time deportation (which they recognize would be almost impossible), would cost over $300 billion and require between 220-400k new government workers and ICE agents.
  • a longer term deportation strategy of say 1 million deportations per year would cost almost ONE TRILLION dollars over 10 years and require over 30k new government employees and agents.
  • mass deportation would reduce the U.S. GDP by 4.2 to 6.8 percent (which is the same decline we saw during the great recession of 2007-2009), reduce federal and states taxes collected by over $75 billion annually, as well as reduce contributions to social security and medicare by $28 billion annually.
  • the impact it would have on the construction, agriculture, and hospitality industries would lead to an unemployment rate of 8-12% and increase housing prices (due to reduced new home starts) and food costs (either through reduced supply or increased costs to pick and process food.)

Throw this on top of his tariff plan and you have a recipe for the complete desctruction of the US economy.

In contrast, the cost of this could do any of the following:

  • build 40k brand new schools
  • fund the Head Start program for 80 years
  • pay the tuition and expenses for in-state college for almost 9 million students
  • build almost 3 million new homes

A single year of the program is:

  • nearly twice the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health.
  • nearly four times the budget of NASA.
  • nearly three times as much as the federal government spends on child nutrition.
  • more than the government gives out in the Child Tax Credit program.
  • eighteen times more than the entire world spends each year on cancer research.

And people think this is a good economic plan?

New Reeder!

The new version of Reeder is out and it is glorious.

Reeder is by far the most used app on my phone. It’s been my go to RSS feed reeder since 2011 and I’m pretty sure it was one of the first apps I bought for my iPhone, after switching from Android that year.

Like most app addicts, I’ve tried a LOT of RSS readers and services over the years, but I always came back to Reeder as my app of choice. It’s beautiful, well thought out, and rock solid.

When I saw the developer of Reeder post about a beta version of a new version of Reeder this year, I immediately volunteered for the TestFlight. It turned out it was a completely re-thought out model and approach for the app, which I honestly didn’t understand at first and was hesitant to put it through the paces.

Then a little over a month ago, I decided to give it a go after the developer added an OPML import function, which would allow me to add all of my feeds to the app. Since then, I’ve been using it 100% of the time for reading RSS, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Micro.blog… as well as my YouTube subscriptions and (most recently) my podcasts.

Beyond the app design (still top notch and beautiful) and usability, the new Reeder has some great perks and solves a few issues for me:

  1. Unread counts = anxiety inducing and for no good reason. NONE of what I have in there is life ending if I miss it… even though I enjoy following most all of it.
  2. With the downfall of Twitter and social media spreading out to places like Mastodon, Bluesky, and Micro.blog there are a lot of apps and feeds to browse. It’s a chore to keep up with them… and all three of those have taken a back seat at one point or another this year. One app, one feed is glorious. The timeline sync keeps me tethered so I don’t re-read things I’ve already seen — it’s all pretty seamless.
  3. Turns out, Reeder is pretty good for watching video AND (at least through my testing over the last 24 hours) listening to podcasts. There are dedicated views for Video and Audio, which also tracks what I’ve seen so it’s easy to keep up with what I want to watch and read. I’m hoping this can replace my podcast app too, as I’m starting to realize that app is another inbox that feels unwieldily and a chore to maintain.
  4. Low Maintenance - no marking items as read, deleting un-listened podcast episodes from a queue, or anything else really. I REALLY like the low to no maintenance aspect of the app. If I don’t happen to see something in my feed, I can either rely on serendipity of it showing again some time OR I can browse specific feeds or services to do a deep dive if I really need to…

With that said, there are some things I’d like to see added like the ability to reply natively within the app, the ability to set up your own custom feeds (like Audio and Video), and more services (maybe Instagram and Threads?)

I get that this app won’t be for everyone, but if any of this speaks to you, I couldn’t recommend Reeder more.

Announcing Crucial Tracks

I am super excited to announce the launch of a newsletter project with my friend Chris (aka The Itinerant Printer). The site is called Crucial Tracks and it focuses on the songs that made you who you are today.

Everyone has moments in their life that are defined by music. Whether it’s a song that introduced you to a genre of music that changed your tastes and style, or a lyric that made you think about the world in a different way. Songs can represent relationships. Songs can trigger memories. These are all crucial tracks.

Once or twice per month we will feature an interview with interesting people from all walks of life. (We’ve got a pretty amazing list!) And in between, we will be focusing on new releases and tracks that have moved us.

The plan for December is interviews with Chris and myself, as well as our year-end lists. Then we will kick off the new year with our very first guest interview.

Head on over to the site and subscribe – you won’t want to miss this!

The Kids are Alright

Yesterday I took two of our kids to Toronto to see the band Lovejoy at the Danforth Music Hall. Over the course of the morning, news was shared that folks were already lining up at 9am. We obviously couldn’t make it that early, but we were able to get to the neighborhood around 3:30p/4p.

We started off by taking a walk through the neighborhood, admiring all of the cool shops and doing a bit of record browsing at Kops Records, before taking a pass of the line outside the venue. The doors were still at least 3 hours away, which also meant 3 hours of waiting in the sun. The kids still wanted to take part in the wait, so we did. I immediately ran across the street to Loblaws to buy snacks and drinks since it was hot. We then settled down to pass the time.

The most obvious thing we noticed was that the line stretched from the venue entrance to the nearest corner, then south on Broadview Ave. The second thing was how dedicated and prepared these folk were – chairs, makeshift sun shades, and umbrellas of course… but also crafts and music and singing and merriment. Many folks shared the Lovejoy themed things they made, the food and drink they bought, and other supplies they brought to the experience.

Beyond the great people watching, it was amazing to see the group self organize – there was a person doing regular welfare checks: updating the time remaining, reminding folks to hydrate and take shade breaks, and sharing other pieces of knowledge and sometimes supplies. There were folks passing out leftover food and drink, people collecting autographs of all the line-goers on their t-shirts and flags (and even bodies), cosplayers taking photos with anyone who asked, and various other forms of entertainment. There was no shortage of things to take in, even while sitting still on a side street in Toronto for three plus hours.

I thought this was amazing and inspiring. Even beyond the instant community that popped up for this event, the vibe was joyful and open. You could tell these fans were having a good time sharing this experience with people. It gave me hope that the world isn’t just a hateful place where we are under the constant threat of active shooters (true story: there was a potential shooter threat in my neighborhood while we were in Toronto) or a place where fascist laws are being passed that seriously endanger my kid.

I shared as much (albeit in fewer words) with the seemingly like-minded dad standing behind us, though his bewildered look caught me off guard and I didn’t expand on the thought. Yes, these kids weren’t the “standard future” you’d expect anyone to be excited for, but that’s exactly the fucking point. “Normal” looking people are doing a really great job at fucking this world up – whether it’s climate change, racism, fascism, capitalism, all of the LGBTQ targeting – the status quo isn’t working. And these kids know it.

The more I thought about this, the more I thought these kids were just as punk or radical as I ever was (or am), and it has nothing to do with the genre of music. It’s the DIY attitude, the creativity, the sense of community, the looking out for one another – the acceptance of everyone and every thing. Those are the things I saw. Not the hair or clothes or any identity markers. That’s the surface stuff that can distract you, especially if you don’t care to look any deeper.

It’s also no different than any other out-group of young people, whether it was the skaters/punks/hardcore kids when I was younger or these kids now. Which is why I was surprised that anyone who was a part of that growing up, couldn’t see the analogy to this group of young people now.

For as much as the people caught up in our status quo love to talk about freedom, these kids have it right. For those on the right, freedom is literally a personalized, selfish freedom (the end-all, be-all of “I can do what I want”) vs. real freedom where people are free to be themselves without judgement.

I really hope these young people don’t get caught up in the apathy and jaded feelings that trapped my generation (though as the parents of these kids I write about, we may have the last laugh!) They truly have the capacity to make the kind of changes we need to save this world.

In the meantime, let’s listen to the kids a little more, please. They know a lot more than they are given credit for…

I know I couldn’t me more proud of my three.