Machines that no longer bring me joy

I left Smith Family Bookstore this morning with $30 in cash! They didn’t buy all the books in the box, but only a few were left. I was pleasantly surprised! My gadget fund is so happy with me that now it wants me to go through my typewriter collection and cull out machines that no longer bring me joy. In fact, I started doing just that this evening.

So far I’ve got 4 typewriters sitting in “The Empty Space” (which only remained empty for a few days after Mrs. R took down the Christmas tree)—awaiting a photo shoot and production of typing samples—to post on either Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, or both. I haven’t decided yet. They are all ultra portables, and all of them work. Each one has an issue or two, but most typewriters do—being by definition vintage or antique items. The last decent manual typewriters were made in the early 1980s. So the youngest ones are well over 40 years old. And the best ones for typing on—the most sought after mid-century portables—are in their 60s or 70s.

What’s going on the block—as soon as I can type up print samples, take pictures, write descriptions, and decide on prices—are: an Olympia Splendid 66, a Brother Webster, and two Smith-Corona Corsairs (one pica typeface, the other elite).

By a quick mental count (they’re spread throughout the house), I’ve got 27 typewriters in my collection now (down from nearly 40 just a few years ago). Off the top of my head, there at least another half-dozen typers I could part with, but 4 is a good number for starters. I think probably 15 is the realistic minimum number of keepers to aim for at this point in my life. That’s still plenty, obviously, and will give me a variety of features and strengths for my typewriting arsenal.

Box of books

"The Greenies package says 18 per day is OK but my dad will only give me 5!"

    Later this morning I’m taking a box of books down to Smith Family Bookstore. I’ve got an appointment with one of their buyers. Normally when downsizing my book collection (a rare occurrence, to be sure), I’d just donate them to a thrift store, but this time I thought “what the heck?” and decided to see if I can get a little cash for ‘em. If the yield is good, it might encourage me to downsize more! I’ve got a fair number of cool and interesting books that I’ll likely never open again. Swedish Death Cleaning suggests getting rid of them now so that nobody has to deal with them “later.” My gadget fund would gladly accept the proceeds.

Yesterday we hiked a path on the southwestern slopes of the Thurston Hills Natural Area. I took a camera-lens combo I don’t normally use for nature and wildlife outings, but I was just wanting to use it. It had been pestering my brain for a couple days—the Lumix GX85 range-finder-style camera plus Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens. Since that’s a micro four thirds (2X crop sensor) setup, 20mm equals about a 40 mm angle-of-view in full frame (old school 35mm film) terms, so it sits between the “nifty fifty” and standard 35mm focal lengths. I used it successfully for street photography last summer and fall. Not a birding lens, for sure, but I enjoyed getting landscapes and closeups with it yesterday. It’s very light on my neck (the 20mm is tiny), hanging from a climbing-rope style strap. And now I’m kind of chomping at the bit to get out and do some urban snapping with it, hiking the streets of nearby neighborhoods, downtown, and the university district. And maybe Glenwood and Springfield. Just four months until I qualify for “Honored Rider” status and a free LTD city bus pass! “Have camera, will ride.”

On a sign on a post

Jan. 13, Thurston Hills Natural Area

I may have run out of things to say. But hey, for inspiration, I think of my friend Peter. He has a writing practice; he writes something on Facebook every day—often after stating he’s run out of things to say—or if he doesn’t write he posts a video of himself playing guitar (the music of his people). If he can do it, so can I. Write, not play the guitar. And not on Facebook. My last post there was January 1st. A picture of a little bird, a robin. It was good as a final post. It was a robin on a signpost, in fact. Or a robin on a sign on a post.

I’m not “leaving” Facebook—just not posting. And it might not actually be final. But for now it is. I was ahead of the pack. In the last week, lots of people, upset about Zuck and the whole un-fact-checking thing, are pulling out of FB or at least SAYING that they’re pulling out. Although, there is a counter movement I just saw, something to the effect of “they are doing this shit because they want us to leave, they want to break up our communities—-so we should stay!”—something like that. So I don’t really know what the heck is happening. A Clash song comes to mind, unbidden. It’s not “I’m all lost in the supermarket…” but maybe it should be.

Remember when we didn’t have Facebook, when we didn’t even have Myspace? Hey, remember when we didn’t even have texting or email? Wait, I guess we might want to keep email (even though I know some people who never check theirs!), and maybe even texting. But fuck, don’t you think we all know too much about each other now? Just by passively consuming feeds? There are some people I used to like a lot more before I was exposed to their social media posts. Seriously.

Okay, I’ll stop those thoughts before I snowball this negativity train any further.

But I’m kind of old, I’m 64. Many young people haven’t ever even had a Facebook account (I’m told). They are somewhere else. I’m not sure where, and it doesn’t even matter. TikTok? I don’t want to know. I am happy plying my blog. Thanks for reading. :) 

We punted

Early evening here chez Random. I’m on the couch, bluetooth buds in my ears, reviewing possible near-future radio show tracks. Mrs. Random is playing a word game on her phone over in the recliner. Cats are strewn about in close vicinity to the fireplace. We punted our assumed-to-happen hike this afternoon. No reason except loss of turgor I guess. We agreed to shelve the idea until tomorrow. Mrs. R had a productive backup plan: scrubbing lower cabinet surfaces in the kitchen. Bright and shiny now! I spent the afternoon alternately napping and listening to music.

This morning was a long Radio Free Random broadcast, and I was happy to see DJ Hammy (Southampton’s own) in chat, just weeks after suffering a stroke! The part of his brain affected is what controls balance, so he’s been doing retraining and rehab and seems to be making great progress. The DJs of the (mainly UK) Mixcloud Massive group have been filling in for his Friday night and Sunday morning shows, but everybody wants him back in the saddle again soon, of course!

Another RFR-related point: I created a Google Sheet to keep track of the new subscription year’s shows, with dates, times, durations, titles, links and notes. I was motivated mainly by the desire to keep a running total of how much time I’m racking up on the air. A spreadsheet seemed the most logical. I made it shareable: click here.

Other hobbies are in the background, except for reading. I’m about 60% through the massive Against The Day by Thomas Pynchon, and it’s getting better, more interesting, as I go along. Other books have faded into the background, as sometimes happens when I get pulled immersively into the world of a particular volume. That’s where I’m at with this one right now, consuming it on various Kindles around the house, depending on where I find myself in a reading mood.

I’m hoping to be suitably energetic on Friday night: Ed Cole and his Trouble Cuts band, Dan Jones and The Squids, and The Visible Men are all playing at Sam Bond’s Garage! Only five bucks, with a reasonable start time of 9 p.m. Old school Eugene rockers from my own rockin’ heyday of the early 2000s. It’ll be a party!

Blog-talking

Rainy stroll yesterday on newly paved old Weyerhaeuser road in Thurston Hills Natural Area

Waiting for coffee to finish dripping.

I mentioned earlier in the week that TR Kelley had started a Medium account. (I actually started my own Medium account so I could “clap” for her latest post there.) Yesterday I noticed that she had made a fresh post on her Blogspot blog! Welcome back to the blogosphere, TR!

Ahhh, coffee. My morning drug. Cafeto French Roast from Bruns' Apple Market, espresso grind (in their grinder), #6 cone-dripped here at home.

While I’m blog-talking, hat-tips for regular and meaty blogging are in order for My Garden, My Life, SW Oregon Architect Emeritus, Seldom Speedy, and Mrs. Random. My new year’s wish is to see more words (and more often) from the other denizens of my sidebar! If you’re reading on a phone, I think you’ll have to change to “web view” or something like that to see said sidebar. Best blog-reading experience is on a computer browser, of course. But I know lots of people are on the go and do their online lives exclusively on mobile, for better or worse.

My Christmas gadget was an OM Systems Tough TG-7 camera, which I got mainly for its waterproofness. Having used it a few times and shot quite a lot of images now, my verdict is “meh” on picture quality. Not a good low light performer, which is unfortunate because its main use case scenario for me is (or was going to be) out in rainy weather, which tends to be rather dim, by definition! The camera must be held very steady in order to prevent motion blur. I do like a lot of its features, so it might become a sunny day carry for street photography. It’s small and good looking. Has a variety of flash and illumination modes. Logs GPS, temperature, and elevation. And it’s tough. It being a Christmas gadget, I didn’t spend my own gadget fund money on it, so there’s that. Would I get it again knowing what I know now? Probably not. But I’ll make the best of it and find ways to use it!

The future we're living in

Coast Fork Willamette River, flowing fast left-to-right (Mount Pisgah Arboretum, Jan. 9)

I’m typing around and over a cat on my lap—little Fleur, all curled up tight—with the MacBook balanced on the right arm of this rocking chair. Luckily its arms are flat and wide. We just got back from a stroll on the old Weyerhaeuser road at the western edge of the Thurston Hills Natural Area. Good thing we had the brollies in the boot, as it was raining when we started out. But by the time we got back to the car at Quartz Park, the sun was breaking out over the south end of Mount Pisgah. I had to take yesterday off from hiking because I somehow tweaked my left foot near the big toe the day before, when we took our longest hike in some time—Trail 5 at Pisgah/Buford—so maybe I just overdid it. After limping around the house most of Thursday, I’m all good today. Hypothesis: I had overtightened my left boot. So today before hiking I loosened it significantly over the toes. I think that did the trick.

Renewed my annual Mixcloud Pro subscription on December 28—for $135—and since then I’ve streamed 65.5 hours of live Radio Free Random shows. That brings my per-hour cost of the subscription down to just over $2.06—and it’s only been 14 days. My goal is to get it down to between, say, 10 and 25¢ per hour, by the time the renewal date comes up again. Rather silly to think of it that way, I suppose, but it’s similar to when Mrs. Random buys a dress and divides the number of times she wears it into the original cost. The more usages, the lower the per-use cost. Basically, it’s an amortization perspective on things. And a reminder to use the stuff we buy!

Got an email today from T-Mobile celebrating “our first year together”—meaning a year since we started getting 5G home internet from them. I have to say, it’s been amazingly good! Way more speedy bandwidth than we would ever need, with hardly any glitches or downtime. And only $50/month. Hard to believe we subsisted on super-slow but not-cheap DSL from Century Link for so long. But the 5G home option only became viable within the last couple years, and before that we didn’t want any new wires to our house (cable, fiber), so that’s why we stuck it out. Quite astounding, even after a year, to have such powerful connectivity with no wires! Just a router sitting in an upstairs window aimed at the cell tower a couple blocks away. Certain aspects of the future we’re living in are pretty dang cool.

3 from Pisgah, Trail 5 (yesterday)

Help repopulate the amateur/personal blogosphere!

January 1, Fern Ridge Wildlife Area

It would be awesome if the hue and cry over Meta’s new policy (ditching paid fact-checker organizations for a crowd-sourced Community Notes-style system) resulted in more people taking up blogging. I see TR Kelley has started a Medium account—brava! For now she’s pasting in older writing, but I have hopes for new stuff soon. She’s an excellent writer, and there are lots more potential ace bloggers putting their words on FB when they could be occupying more solid space on their own sites. Start a blog, fill your sidebar with links to other blogs, and help repopulate the amateur/personal blogosphere!

Mrs. Random has a consultation with the surgeon next week. And the following week she starts a once-every-three-weeks Keytruda (immunotherapy) infusion regimen, to go through at least June (we think). After talking with the surgeon, we’ll have a much clearer idea when what to expect: when surgery, how long recovery, etc.

Studio B RFR-ing is chugging right along. I love being able to get on the air within five or ten minutes of having the urge, right down here in our main living area. It’s doing radio in the comfort zone!

Totally controversial and contrarian

Jan. 7, Wild Iris Ridge Park

For the record, for what it’s worth, I’m way more okay with crowd-sourced fact-checking on social media platforms than I am with it in the hands of contracted third-party companies, which can totally have built-in biases. The former method is called Community Notes on X, and from my perspective, it works quite well. It’s self-correcting, open-sourced, and powered by the users of the platform. As the Twitter Files made excruciatingly clear, Old Twitter censored like crazy and deplatformed like crazy when posts and posters went against the government’s approved narrative, obviously because, as clearly documented, government agencies were given a backdoor into Old Twitter. I think the crowd-sourced Community Notes-style system is a far far better way of dealing with mis/dis-info without introducing an automatic political bias. That’s just my opinion. Me doing me.

Also, my opinion, I’m sure totally controversal and contrarian: How’s a little disinfo/misinfo going to hurt you? I think we should take some personal responsibility—use our brains and freewill to navigate the data on social media, and we should trust ourselves more than a hired company to decide what “facts” are true and what are not. Lots of “facts” have an automatic bias. “Science” is paid for by somebody, for example. Just because something is published as a scientific fact doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. We know enough about how vested interests control the direction and release of research—i.e. we know better! (See: Big Pharma.)

So, yeah, I applaud Facebook’s ditching of paid “fact-checkers” and going instead with a crowd-sourced system. I seen a whole bunch o’ pearl-clutching ‘bout that today on FB in my feed. It’s almost like some people need an authority to tell them what to believe. I believe in a more transparent, self-governing system, and that’s what crowd-sourced fact-checking is designed to be.

Perhaps related, perhaps not: Where have all the real anarchists gone? The ones I know have become authoritarians (and still call themselves anarchists).

UPDATE—relevant Glenn Greenwald video regarding Meta's new policy:

https://rumble.com/v66wldd-system-update-show-384.html?start=458

Weird synchronicity

Today, looking south from Wild Iris Ridge Park's main path near parking lot

    I have not been rising fresh in the morning ready to blog lately. Often I’ll move from making coffee directly to activating Studio B for a morning RFR show. But not today. Instead, I made a to-do list of sorts, in order to summon a bout of productivity. Then I had breakfast and went grocery shopping. Then I checked off (actually, struck thru) a small handful of the list items. Then I took a nap. Then we went for a hike at Wild Iris Ridge park. Back home, after lunch and another nap, I finally got on the air (enjoy the program recording here). THEN, after dinner, we watched S1E2 of Psych. 

Speaking of Psych, there was a weird synchronicity in the episode. Earlier, during my radio show—using a randomized arbitrarily derived playlist—I played Bananarama’s cover of Shocking Blue’s “Venus.” I knew the Shocking Blue version, but for some reason I had no idea that Bananarama had covered it. I mean, why should I know that? It only “…peaked at number one in the United States, Australia, Finland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Switzerland, while reaching number two in Germany and the top-ten in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom (number eight on the UK Singles Chart, matching the same peak of Shocking Blue's version). It also topped the US Dance Club Songs chart for two weeks.” (Wikipedia)

ANYWAY, during this evening’s episode of Psych, main character Shawn Spencer at one point impersonates a spelling bee master and grabs a shopping list next to him on the desk for the words (much to Gus’s consternation). One of the words he gives is “banana,” which the contestant (hilariously) asks him to use in a sentence. And the sentence he replies with includes a reference to “Venus” by Bananarama. So weird, dude!

Hey! My rambling turned into a blog post. Love it when that happens. Thanks for reading.

I’m lowering the per-minute cost

Dec. 30, North Bottomlands Loop, Howard Buford Recreation Area

It’s small-screen season. The TV room upstairs is now activated. I rewatched The Truman Show the other night; such a good flick. Then, finding comparative references on TTS Reddit posts to The Prisoner (1967-8 TV series), I watched the first four episodes of that show last night. Brilliant! Then tonight, Mrs. Random and I watched S1E1 of Psych, the fantastically written, casted, and acted 2006-14 comedy TV series, which we binge-watched starting around this time last year. Soon, after blogging this, I’ll go back upstairs to finish E5 of The Prisoner.

 * * *

Since re-upping my Mixcloud Pro subscription on December 28, I’ve logged 52 hours and 16 minutes of Radio Free Random transmission time. For every additional minute I broadcast, I’m lowering the per-minute cost, right? Check out the recordings here.

* * *

No deep thoughts for me tonight. That’s entertainment!

Tracklists and show names

For weeks I have not bothered to add tracklists to my Radio Free Random archive recording posts; in fact I haven’t bothered to keep track of tracks at all, even during live streams. I just couldn't be arsed. You know, sod it! But last night I got back to it. It’s actually kind of fun and quite rewarding to have a tracklist by the end of a show. I also got back to my old naming method: three words picked at random but in order from the song names. Here’s last night’s:

Mercenary Romance Machine (348 min.) - Saturday, 6:04 p.m. - 4 January 2025

Annie Haslam - Wishin’ On A Star

Neel - Sensuous

Men Without Hats - I’m In Love

Ex Hex - Waterfall

Talking Drums - You Do Cry A Lot

New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream

Crystal Castles - Mercenary

The Go! Team - Ladyflash

Indians In Moscow - Big Wheel

Vivabeat - Blue Guitars

Marianne Faithfull/Tommy Mandel - Save Me

John Cale - Everytime The Dog Barks

The Walker Brothers - Death Of Romance

Scott Walker - Rawhide

DEVO - Uncontrollable Urge

Mission Of Burma - That’s When I Reach For My Revolver

Scritti Politti - P.A.S.

XTC - The Somnambulist

Faust - Krautrock

The Partridge Family - Singing My Song

The Ting Tings - Fruit Machine

The xx - Fiction

Roxy Music - The Bogus Man

Wire - Mannequin

Buzzcocks - Why Can’t I Touch It?

Brian Eno - Needles In The Camel’s Eye

The Swallows - Surf Song OR

The Rolling Stones - Ain’t Too Proud To Beg

Beastie Boys - Shadrach

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Buster Voodoo

G.A.A.G. - Down At The Show

The Donnas - Gimmie My Radio

John D’Earth - The Overture/Shady Jady

Tommy McCook, The Upsetters - Cloak & Dagger

Jimmie Lunceford & His Orchestra - Four Or Five Times

Africa - Louie Louie/Ode To Billie Joe

Bob Dylan - Ballad Of A Thin Man

Starship - Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now

Lou Reed - I’m So Free

Iggy Pop - Lust For Life

David Bowie - Golden Years

David Bowie - Rebel Rebel

Tiger Trap - Treasure

The B-52’s - Revolution Earth

PJ Harvey - The River

The Blow - Nothing

The Dollyrots - Penny

The Pipettes - Dirty Mind

The Fiery Furnaces - My Egyptian Grammar

The Moody Blues - Isn’t Life Strange

Michael Janisch - Serenade Of The Seas

Adele Sauros - Beautiful Anger

Kate Bush - Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time)

Cyndi Lauper - She Bop

Björk - Venus As A Boy

Herman van Veen - Tonight (live)

Klaus Nomi - Lightning Strikes

Klaus Nomi - You Don’t Own Me

Sharp Pins - Is It Better

Juice Newton - Angel Of The Morning

Dolly Parton - The Little Things

New York Dolls - Personality Crisis

Traffic - Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory

Foghat - I Just Want To Make Love To You

Little Man Tate - Hey Little Sweetie

Isotope 217 - La Jeteé

Jonah Jones - Moten Swing

Lennie Hibbert - Village Soul

Why Bonnie - Dotted Line

Cate Le Bon & Group Listening - The Light

Vincent Gallo - Was

The Soul Lifters - Hot Funky And Sweaty

The Upsetters - Touch Of Fire

Ben Seretan - New Air

Houston & Dorsey - Ebb Tide

Young Jesus - Brenda & Diane

Laura Branigan - Gloria

Camera Obscura - Pop Goes Pop

Hovvdy - A Little

Arp - Il Sogno Di Monica

It's like they're all there

Dec. 30, North Bottomlands, Howard Buford Recreation Area

Just waiting for leftover dinner to heat up in the oven. And waiting to see if my brain has anything to offer to this blog today. It’s become a kind of stupid point of pride, I guess. I want to blog something every day, but then again I don’t want to be boring. Hah.

Today I had a nap dream involving an old friend/co-worker from my former job at the natural foods store—Ron. We were talking outside in the store parking lot. At some point it occurred to me that Ron has been deceased for most of a decade. And I called him out on it—“Hey, you’re dead! Right? You’re dead!!” He just gave me a sly smile, turned around, and walked into the store, his white hair morphing into black—which it was when I first met him, many years ago. Strange and rather hilarious.

Ron’s not the only dead friend who has visited my dreams lately. There’s been Joe and David, too. It’s like they’re all there, just on the other side—and they visit on occasion!

Breathe here now

View east from Royal Ave. path, Fern Ridge Wildlife Area (Dec. 31)

Here’s to the first real day of the year, past the holiday-focused nature of past weeks. Umami, prosaic, a stepping away from the sweet and celebratory—that’s what I’m talking about. One-two, buckle my shoe. Back to being flush with reality—truth in energy—a deeper joy than the forced calendrical consensus of Christmas commercialism.

Let’s hear it for things as they are! I mean how they really are, right here right now, not as click-baited and commentated in the caustic and cruel caverns of manipulating mediation breathlessly broadcasted to every laptopped and handheld device.

Breathe here now. Happy January 2nd!

It means more to my gadgets

Golden-crowned sparrow, Howard Buford Recreation Area (December 30)

Arbitrary odometer reading, observing change from 4 to 5 in the least significant digit spot. Yay. (Read that in monotone robot voice, pls.)

I.e. HAPPY NEW YEAR, it being the Western dominant culture’s return-to-zero, or "1/1" in the calendrical cycle. It means more to my gadgets than to me. New spreadsheets, new file folders, and attempting to remember to use the new annum numeral when setting or inscribing dates. My gadgets are important to me, so therein dwells some caring about New Year’s Day and the New Year. I have many file-producing and file-containing gadgets that use dates: cameras, Kindles, digital recorders, computers, phones, to name a few categories. It's a Gadget New Year.

I don’t make resolutions. My last vow was never to make another vow. Ongoing self-agreements are the most I’ve got in that direction. There is no necessary connection with the calendar for those. They’re continuously updated, at best becoming good habits like nightly flossing—or good abstentions, such as no booze (since June 2015) or no pot (January 2022). But okay, this morning I’ll drink a toast of hot black French roasted coffee to the fucking new year! Huzzah!