The Terrible New Normal

8 months ago
Someone* recently said a thing that stuck with me. Paraphrasing:

If you're saying "I'm not comfortable dining indoors right now", you should accept that you're saying, "I'm never dining indoors again."

Because there is basically no chance that things are going to materially improve any time in the next 2, 3 years, or maybe ever. There comes a time when "I'm just waiting for things to get better" is self-delusion. Because they aren't going to get better. This is the new normal. Forever.

* That someone is a particular celebrity COVID pundit who I think is pretty much a putz, and this was in the midst of one of their interminable, equivocating, minimizing, logorrheic twitter threads, so I'm not bothering to link to it. If you know who I'm talking about, good for you.

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Current Music: The Regrettes -- Better Now ♬

Public Health Disservice Awards

8 months ago
Hosted by Neoliberal John Snow:

These awards, also known as the "Snowzzies," acknowledge the achievements by individuals and groups in worsening public health in 2022. [...]

ACHIEVEMENT IN PUBLIC HEALTH DISSERVICE BY A GROUP. "The Clown Car Award." This award is intended for a group or organization that has gone above and beyond to provide a disservice to public health in 2022. This can be for any organization, whether or not they work in public health or a related field. [...]

ACHIEVEMENT IN BEING THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. This award is intended for an individual whose disservice to public health in 2022 directly stems from the fact that they presumably do not understand that there are other people in the world whose lives also have value.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

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Current Music: jwz mixtape ØØ1

jwz mixtapes: 15th Anniversary

8 months ago
15 years ago today, I posted jwz mixtape ØØ1, the first in a series of at-the-time weekly and audio-only 90 minute chunks of music. To commemorate, I have re-enabled all of the old audio-only mixtapes for two weeks.

Scroll down. Farther. Farther. Keep going. No, scroll down really far. There it is.

In the early days, the theme was "music I have been enjoying this week", so it wasn't necessarily new stuff, though I did try to make them flow together well. Occasionally I would do a mixtape with a secret or not-so-secret "what's the connection?" theme, like "songs with Control in the title" or "songs whose titles are 4 character acronyms."

I kept up the nearly-weekly pace for a few years, through mixtape Ø75, running out of steam in early 2009. That's when I switched to the new format of video-only mixtapes, containing only new music. I've managed to keep up the nearly-monthly pace ever since.

Since mixtape 237 isn't full yet, enjoy the ancient history!

Notes:

  1. Track names aren't displaying in the popup audio player because things have atrophied somewhat in the intervening decades. Oh well. Make due. Update: Ok, maybe I've fixed that.

  2. Many of the video-only mixtapes are missing up to 30% of their songs, because they vanished out from under me on YouTube at the fickle whims of the Content Mafia, and keeping track of those shifting sands proved to be far too much work. I tried for a while, but it was hopeless. As Textfiles often says, "YouTube is a video archive in the same sense that a supermarket is a Food Museum."
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Current Music: jwz mixtape ØØ1

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