The first time I played Scrabble was with an old university friend and his wife. They both fancied themselves expert Scrabble players. Both bright and talented folks and lovely people. I won the game and the last word I played was DILDO.

I have never again played Scrabble again since I figured I could never top that. Also they never asked me to play with them again either.

yup, I’ll take “Things that didn’t happen” for $500, Alex.

the libertarian pipe dream

At home I have a Fellow Ode Gen 2 which I use with a V60 brewer. At the office I have a Fellow Opus (a decent entry level conical grinder) which I use with a Clever Dripper (an immersion release brewer).

My old hand grinders are the Helor 101 and the Knock Feld2.

Back up cameras and 360 parking detection sensors. Heated and cooled seats. Android Auto with integrated Google Maps. New cars are so much better than my old beater.

Getting nice in-ear monitors with replaceable cables is so much better than wireless for me. Great sound quality and they weak link that always breaks (the wires) is now no longer an issue. I’ve had the same IEM now for 10 years and just change the cables every couple of years.

Higher quality electric coffee grinders. I have been using pretty nice hand grinders for years ($100 to $200 range) and while they were good, the consistency and general quality of life improvement gotten from these nicer electric grinders has made a significant improvement in both the coffee quality and my time/life quality related to making coffee daily.

Rand McNally has just entered the chat

Xiamen, a city with a population of more than 4 million people, is directly across the Strait from Taiwan.

triple shots of espresso

Deep Space 9; Adventure Time, and Gravity Falls

While fucked up, at least Xi and Mao are nominally real (though their particular origin stories and revised histories are also just as made up as those of the religious bunch).

Even after growing up with the deeply entrenched racism of rural Georgia, I was shocked at the overt and outspoken racism of Boston and the area around it.

Techno fascist says what?

Yup, also south Georgia historically gets missed by most hurricanes. Now that area has been hit by two in a matter of weeks. These are not coastal areas but 100+miles from the coast.

Time to read Zen again.

Rural southern Georgia: 300m to the only gas station/convenience store in town. 10km to the nearest real supermarket, medical center, pharmacy, tiny library, dentist, and a couple of restaurants. 30km to the nearest big box store (Walmart). 100km to the nearest small regional airport. 120km to train station.

Not starve or be homeless.

still relevant

I was using two already older but pretty good and not cheap hand grinders (Knock Feld 2 and Helor 101). But I recently got the Fellow Ode Gen 2 flat burr grinder ($300) for V60 pour overs at home and it was a complete game changer. At the same time, I took the somewhat recently purchased Fellow Opus conical grinder to the office to use with the Clever Dripper and now my coffee both at home and at the office are substantially better than before.