Much to my horror, I misspelled Anna Wiener’s name last time. I’m giving a free copy of her book to the person who responds with the most creative punishment for me to endure.

The delightful Cabel Sasser reminds us Eudora used to have a spiciness filter. On outgoing mail. Obviously, the fact that this did not become a default, system-wide feature on all internet-connected software is further proof we are living in the worst timeline.

Related, the messaging app Telegram has a new “slow mode” that will restrict how often people in a group can send a message, from twice a minute to once an hour. 

Ohio might have accidentally legalized weed? There’s a bit of a legal limbo right now where the state just legalized hemp, which contains less than 0.3 percent of THC, but there’s currently not a crime lab in the state that can properly analyze just how much THC a plant actually contains . The current recommendation is “not to indict any cannabis-related crimes”.

@phillygirl is gettin' cocky with her tweet curation and has gifted us with not one but two surefire hits:

A thread of the worst in building design, architecture, carpentry shortcuts, and general building hazards. (She was giggling like mad from the other room over this one)

Simone Bales, in extreme slow-mo.

Verizon sold Tumblr to Automattic, the company that runs Wordpress, for reportedly less than $3 million. 

I don’t even have a joke or anything, I hope Matt Mullenweg can make Tumblr fun again. Or at least an alternative to TikTok for the nerdy kids who don’t want to lipsync.

One of my latent, useless mutant powers is I can pick the proper sized Allen wrench on the first go pretty much every time. I have no idea what to make of this absolute unit.

Of course, pilgrimage sites (think: the Grand Mosque in Mecca) are on social review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. And they’ve got super high ratings! Well, except for this one-star review of the Western Wall: “no food allowed too many people for spiritual visit only a lot of security free transport from the first stop great falafel”.

📚 🎬 🎧

Ramp Hollow — what I read on my summer vacation! Or: the book everyone should read instead of Hillbilly Elegy. This is a pretty academic history of Appalachia and how capitalism basically ravaged it. It’s dense but quite readable and full of global history with a very local perspective. If you’ve been as frustrated as I have with the bullshit narrative of coal miners in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and the condescending media portrayal of mountain poverty in the era of “economic anxiety”, white identity politics, and the opioid epidemic, this is worth picking up. Goodreads review.

The Muppet Movie — We tried watching this with our five year old, got about half-way through before he made us shut it off. Too many bad guys with guns after Kermit and Miss Piggy! The Muppets are one of my earliest media memories and, I gotta say, they still hold up for me. I hope the old shows become available soon (the rumor is Disney’s holding them for their streaming service?)

Givin' It Back — An immutable law of the universe is if there’s a Motown version of a song, that is the canonical version of that song. The story the Isley Brothers tell about this one is they were tired of white musicians making hits of their songs, so they decided to make their own cover album. And it smokes. Their version of Love the One Your With is guaranteed to make you get up and move.

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