Last week I mentioned that it felt like social media, including Mastodon, was sapping my energy a bit. While I find Mastodon to be a friendlier experience than many of the others like X/Twitter, BlueSky, Threads, etc., I felt like there was a little too much that was slipping by my curated filters. I thought I’d step away from the platform for a little while and see how I felt without the interactions.
It’s been 72 or so hours and I’m finding it’s not Mastodon that’s sapping my energy, it’s the world in general. The answer to the Mastodon experience isn’t to step away, it’s to implement a few more filters to calm the chaos that occasionally creeps into the dialogues.
Apple has apparently noticed that I haven’t been on their Apple News+ app in quite a while and has randomly started sending me emails with headlines I have little interest in. This started about a week ago. I put a filter on that as well. And as a quick aside, I still don’t know what Apple is trying to do with News+, because the entire experience is nothing like the “fit and finish” of anything Apple strives for with most of their products. Apple News+ is laden with ads and feels like there’s duct tape and crayons holding the whole thing together.
I am not a housewife. I have never been a housewife. Truth be told, the sight and smell of a dirty diaper would probably make me faint and that’d be long before I ever made it to the actual baby. Who knows what chaos would ensue if that ever happened.
No, I am not a housewife but I have always enjoyed the writings of humorist and columnist Erma Bombeck. Grandma Country had a collection of her books on a bookshelf and one day I started reading “The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank” and voila, I found a writing style I could enjoy.
Erma was on television and in newspapers and wrote books and her name was one you could throw around at a party back in the day. I was sad when I saw she had passed. It was April 1996.
I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT today. That sentence is not some weird pivot, there’s a point to all this. Hang on tight.
Work has embraced an internal version of ChatGPT. I suspect the work version is powered by the actual ChatGPT with just a bunch of work hooks dumped onto the whole affair. After attending a meeting this morning where the meeting leader (otherwise known as “Head of Frivolity”) quickly dispersed a thorough recap of the entire meeting, I asked how she generated this dialog so quickly.
“I took the transcript of the meeting and put it in (work)GPT”. It recapped it and I sent it out as an email.
Clever! So, I’ve been messing around a bit with ChatGPT and decided to put it to the test.
As I mentioned, Erma Bombeck passed away in April 1996. I asked ChatGPT to write a story about a visit to Starbucks, in the style of Erma Bombeck. This is what I got back.
In the great tapestry of life’s little rituals, going to Starbucks is akin to threading a needle in the dark—exhilarating, slightly confusing, and always ending with a sense of accomplishment disproportionate to the task at hand. My journey into the aromatic embrace of the famed coffee chain began on a Tuesday, which, as far as days go, has all the charm of a wet sock. I was in dire need of a caffeine fix, the kind that whispers sweet nothings to your synapses and promises productivity.
Upon entering, the warm gust of coffee-scented air hit me like a hug from an old friend, albeit an old friend who’s a tad too enthusiastic at 7:30 AM. The atmosphere inside was a curious blend of tranquility and chaos. Baristas danced behind the counter with the grace of swans, if swans were particularly stressed and had to remember whether the next order was a venti or a grande.
The menu loomed above me like a challenge from the universe. Deciphering it required the skill of a cryptologist and the imagination of a fiction writer. Words like “Macchiato,” “Frappuccino,” and “Nitro Cold Brew” swirled around, a testament to Starbucks’ ability to make ordering coffee feel like an exercise in exotic linguistics.
Armed with the audacity of ignorance, I approached the counter, where a barista with a name tag reading “Jess” awaited. Jess had the kind of patience saints aspire to, a necessary trait when dealing with customers who believe “caramel drizzle” is a life-or-death decision.
“I’ll have a medium coffee,” I declared, clinging to simplicity like a life raft.
“Grande Pike Place? Any room for milk?” Jess inquired, her voice a calming balm on my indecision-scarred soul.
“Uh, yes, room. Room to think, room to grow,” I mumbled, attempting humor to mask my confusion.
Money exchanged hands—a transaction that felt more like a ceremonial offering to the gods of caffeine. I sidestepped to the designated waiting area, where others like me stood in liminal space, betwixt order and fulfillment. We were a motley crew of sleepy-eyed dreamers, united in our quest for liquid awakeness.
Then came the moment of truth. “Grande Pike for…um,” Jess hesitated, squinting at the scribble on the cup, an ancient rune that purportedly represented my name.
“That’s me,” I announced, claiming my prize with the triumph of a knight returning from a quest. The first sip was a revelation, a warm embrace that whispered, “You can do this.” And maybe, just maybe, I believed it.
As I exited Starbucks, cup in hand, I couldn’t help but marvel at the adventure I’d just experienced. It was a testament to human ingenuity that we’d managed to turn the act of getting a cup of coffee into a journey fraught with choices, challenges, and triumphs. And in that moment, I felt a kinship with every soul brave enough to utter “I’ll have a coffee” into the great unknown. Starbucks, you bewitching siren, until next time.
ChatGPT
This could have easily been written by Erma Bombeck. The sentence structure, the selected adjectives, the whole vibe of the story? Easily influenced by Erma’s style. I am fully impressed.
And here I thought ChatGPT output was going to resemble a dirty diaper.
I am super picky about keyboards. I think it’s because I have been an accomplished touch typist since my 10th birthday. We had a borrowed electric typewriter in the house back then and my mother said, “if you’re going to play with the typewriter, you’re going to use the proper fingering”. So I learned how to type when I was in elementary school and to this day I can still type well over 120 words per minute.
So I’m picky about my keyboard. Blame my mother.
Apple does a decent job with their keyboards these days. The keyboard on my iPad Pro Magic Keyboard is one of the best I’ve ever used and the keyboard on my M2 MacBook Air (one year old today!) is quite enjoyable. I even liked the butterfly style keys on Earl’s MacBook Pro back in the day.
But when it comes to PCs I struggle. Being an old guy I like the clicky, mechanical keyboards the resemble something out a 1985 room housing a mainframe. When I worked for Digital (DEC), I found their LK201 and later LK401 keyboards to be absolutely awesome. But the clicky, mechanical keyboards don’t make for good background citizens when it comes to the Zoom work calls.
As a tenkeyless keyboard it doesn’t have a number pad on the right end of the keyboard, so I don’t have to reach far for the mouse or touchpad. The feel is firm, like a mechanical keyboard, but without the click. The key travel is decent. I can comfortable reach my peak typing velocity on these keyboards. And right now they’re priced right at $25 or so on Amazon (see link above).
Earl doesn’t understand why I have a stack of keyboards in the closet as a result of my quest for the Goldilocks of keyboards.
I just know that I can rapidly type silently about the subject. And it’s an enjoyable experience for me.
Here are photos taken during yesterday’s hike to Ernie’s Falls in Saguaro National Park East. The hike was a little over 9.5 miles. It was a beautiful day. Hiking has rapidly become my favorite recreational sport in the way of exercise.
After having a mustache for a few years (aside from one day in January of this year), I am clean shaven once again. Jamie is well into his barber school studies and practiced his shaving technique on me today. As I told him when he was done, “I’ve been shaved by many barbers. This shave tonight was nowhere near the worst experience I’ve had.” Like other barbers before him, Jamie remarked at how thick my facial hair is. An old Italian barber in Boston told me way back in 1990, “you have a face full of copper wire”. It’s more like silver wire now, but apparently it’s still designed to withstand the elements.
A video of my hike up to Ernie’s Falls in Saguaro National Park East. We had some impressive rains this week so the water coming over the falls was equally impressing.
Back when I was in 10th grade, my geometry teacher stopped me in the hallway after school. We’ll call her Marilyn.
Marilyn asked, “John, is there a reason you only do about 3/4 of your homework?”
Another math teacher, we’ll call him Doug, laughed out loud as he passed by. He was a popular teacher and his laugh was infectious.
Marilyn was looking at me with a look of incredulity. I looked her straight in the eye, while standing outside my locker, numbered 710, and said, “Yes. If I ace 3/4 of the homework I still pass geometry”.
She looked at me for a moment. She was what I considered at time to be a “scary teacher”. She usually taught seniors.
After looking me back in the eyes she simply said, “You’re right!”.
I’ve been thinking about stepping away from social media, yes, again. I’ve been somewhat active on Mastodon for the past couple of weeks and I’m realizing that while it is a much friendlier experience than anything else out there (X, Bluesky, etc), there’s still a little undercurrent of something I can’t quite put my finger on that’s requiring more energy than I’m willing to sink into the experience.
When I start writing less on my blog, it’s usually because my energy is being sapped (or zapped!) by something else. And this week I’ve seen my social media participation go up, peak in a little bit of frustration, and subsequently, I’m struggling to write blog entries. This entry will probably sit in the hopper for a few days until I figure it out that’s it’s going to say what I want it to say.
Ironically, I don’t see Facebook as a social media tool anymore; it’s more like a family and friends communication tool. When I post my videos and my pictures there for folks back east to see, I’m basically offering a 1970s style slide show at a family gathering. I’m cool with that.
But coming up with witty remarks and interesting nuggets to engage with others inside a maximum of 500 characters? It’s not working for me as well.
I’m not deleting accounts at this point. I’m going to take a break, probably starting this weekend.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
