Take A Knee

I was in the shower a few mornings ago when I recalled a memory of something I did as a teenager that was so awkward, embarrassing, and downright humiliating that even the decades-old faded echo of the actual moment caused me to grip the door of the shower and, without thinking about, actually sing a wordless melody at a very loud volume to drown out the memory itself inside of my head.

So, to all you awkward teenagers out there, I'm sorry to say... it never goes away. The mere memory of the dumb things you're doing right this instant will be powerful enough to bring you to your knees twenty, thirty years from now.

That shit's FOREVER.

Anyway, great talk, smell ya later.

The Essential Phone Will Be A Failure

I'm sorry, but Andy Rubin's exercise in hubris, the Essential Phone, is doomed to failure. This phone is supposed to be all about excellent craftsmanship, design, bespokeness, and care. And it's got a lot going for it; the Eddie Munster's hairline-esque screen design, which I actually kinda like, the near-bezel-free face, a ceramic and aluminum case that is allegedly more resistant to drop damage than any other flagship phone available right now...

...but then I see that FUCKING camera icon on their very own promotional screenshots and I realize that nobody at that company knows what the fuck they're doing.

If you're selling on DESIGN and CARE, you can't have a row of five icons where four are circular and then one is skeuomorphic. That camera icon grabs my eye immediately, and solely because it looks entirely off. It's archaic compared to the standardized and simplified iconography of the three icons to its left.

The Chrome icon also sets me off, but less so, because at least it is still circular like the rest of them and therefore feels like it's part of the theme.

This is what bugs me about ALL Android stuff still to this day. Even on the Pixel, which is far and away the finest example of Android hardware AND software working together as a cohesive whole ever made, has these inconsistencies. Just do what Apple does and FORCE all your icons into a set form; it looks great on iOS, it looks great on the Pixel (for those icons that actually adhere to the icon standard, which is Yet Another Android Problem), it WOULD look great here if, y'know, they actually designed that into the homescreen.

I dunno... does the world really need another "premium" Android smartphone that lacks the pure Android experience (such as the Pixel already provides) and features gimmicks (that notched screen, the magnet attachment for accessories on the back that, let's be honest, many other phones have already tried and failed to generate any buzz with) AND the UI/UX look'n'feel inconsistency that comes with the usual offbrand attempts to differentiate BUT NOT TOO MUCH from standard Android?

I don't think so. Good luck, Andy.

Fuck These Garbage Bags

You know how much time I wanna spend thinking about garbage bags? Fucking NONE, that's how much. It should be a fucking binary split-second thought:

• I have garbage bags

or

• I need garbage bags

Of course, like every other goddamned thing in this bloated, end-stage capitalism nightmare of a country, it cannot be that simple. Just like with fucking crackers, chips, deodorant, toothpaste, soap, every goddamned thing, there's 74 fucking varieties to sort through and somehow discern the differences between and for most things I just say "FUCK IT I DON'T NEED THIS SHIT" but garbage bags are one of those essential things that life gets really shitty without fast.

So, every time I buy them I can't remember exactly what fucking kind we just ran out of or like so I grab whichever collection of adjectives looks most likely to not completely piss me off.

This carefully-considered strategy has worked perfectly for lo the many, many years I have been buying garbage bags.

Until THESE motherfuckers came into my life. Yeah, you: Hefty Ultra Strong Clean Burst w/Active TEAR RESISTANT Technology

Pretty much every goddamned word in your very name is a lie. I'm not even a third of the way through the fucking box yet and I've had to punt three fucking bags for ripping while I put them into the garbage can, new and empty. Like, not even the structural failure you get and can kinda understand when you've just overloaded a bag to hell, but no, they fucking rip right down the side just from the simple, low-pressure act of being installed.

And I've had two other fuckin' bags go to shit when I've tried to remove it from the can, with one or both of the handles ripping right the fuck out on the attempt. And it's not due to overloading because we generally don't make that much throw-out garbage, the bag's usually half-full but super-stinky and I take it out at that point even though every fiber of my cheap-ass being would prefer to wait until it's full. And the handles just strip right out, leaving me to have to hug-carry a ripped bag of smelly vegetable refuse and cat poop down to the chute.

It's not like this is a box of Pakistani off-brand 'HUFFTEE" garbage bags I bought at the fuckin' Dollar Store or something; these are spendy-assed, top of the line, fulla technological marvels Hefty Premium As Fuck garbage bags. And, to be clear, I've always bought some kinda Hefty bags and they've always worked without fail until I got these pieces of shit.

So, yeah, don't buy these fucking things. I'm going back to my usual principle of buying whatever has the least number of superlatives on the box.