Pure second child energy.

I’m going to start sneaking in to her room while she sleeps and bottling some of that excess second child energy and selling it to soldiers and personal trainers who need to get hyped up.

Hey everyone, make sure you update your … checks notes … Apple power cord …

Mexican Marines

Sunday // Playa Cerritos, BCS

Mark Twain's use of a typewriter. I wonder if AI-writing is today's typewriter?

Steven Pressfield on going deep:

Everyone wants to succeed immediately and without pain or effort. Or they love to write books about how to write books, rather than actually writing a book that might actually be about something. Bad advice is everywhere. Build a following. Establish a platform. Learn how to scam the system. In other words, do all the surface stuff and none of the real work it takes to actually produce something of value. The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We're like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something - the book you're writing, the album, the movie -and staying there for a long, long time.

What's the go with Mayor Humdinger? Is Foggy Bottom even a real township? Why does the Paw Patrol continue to rescue this evil man?

Tres es compañía (three frames of three humpback whales shot a few minutes ago in El Pescadero, Baja California Sur, Mexico)

Watched the sun set over the Pacific tonight as humpback whales came right up close to the shore so they could scratch their backs on the sand bars. What a time to be alive!

Wednesday frames

El Pescadero seafood stall

I heard you were into Jesus, so I got you some Jesus

For Britt’s 33rd birthday we went to CDMX, Mexico City, and painted the town pink.

Pro Tip: if you’re ever asked what the largest city in North America is, it’s not in the USA. It’s Mexico City.

To celebrate Britt’s birthday we took a walking food tour of Coyoacán in Mexico City with Sabores Mexico Food Tours. 10 points to our guide, Enya, for an excellent tour and secretly arranging a little birthday treat for Britt.

Freddie deBoer on SubStack:

"The 90s were better. They just were. I’m sorry, but it’s science."

In a world consumed by the idea of creating content, Burt Bacharach created the most evergreen content we've seen in recent times: "what the world needs now is love, sweet love."

I'm unsure how many more Om Malik blog posts I can read before I trade in my Canon EOS R5 for a Leica. Please stop taunting me, @Onmyom@mstdn.social :)

Every day I experience another “Mexico moment” and I am hesitant to share them publicly because I don’t want to ruin things here, nor be a stupid gringo. But today was great.

We bought a car back in October but it hasn’t been registered to me yet because to register a car you need a drivers license and to get a drivers license you need residency plus proof of address and a blood test.

Proof of residence is hard because addresses aren’t really a thing in regional Mexico so you use electricity bills and most electricity bills are in the name of a corporation because individuals can’t own properties.

So I find out last week I can get a letter of residence instead of using an electricity bill.

It takes me like four different government offices to find the right person in a back office of an office that is full of young people talking and laughing and this lady agrees to help. We’re talking the back office of the back office of a building without a sign near the building I thought I had to go to.

I need this important letter and she drafts it up, spells my name wrong, we correct it, and then the big boss of the department needs to sign it. By big boss I mean “President of the Municipality”.

He’s busy talking to important people.

She sits there for like three minutes clearly thinking it all through and then she just forges his signature, smiles at me, and hands me the letter.

I get a blood test from a local doctor and I’m now a licensed Mexican driver.

Policy and procedure means everything and nothing over here.

Wednesday in Todos Santos

Wednesday in El Pescadero

If Marie Kondo can give up on having a tidy house you can give up on a whole range of crap. Celebrate quitting, cancelling and giving up. Not everything or everyone needs to be driven to the edge of sanity.

This is on the menu as Fresh Water or Agua Fresco.

Sometime before now Mexicans weren’t taking to actual water that was fresh and without watermelon straws, so smart boffins in Mexico City mixed in some fruit and sweetener, and hey presto, fresh waters and an obesity problem!

Ed Catmull in Creativity, Inc.:

"We aren’t aware that the majority of what we think we see is actually our brain filling in the gaps."

Nick Cave:

“Rather than feel impotent and useless, you must come to terms with the fact that as a human being, you are infinitely powerful, and take responsibility for this tremendous power. Even our smallest actions have the potential for great change, positively or negatively, and the way in which we all conduct ourselves within the world means something. You are anything but impotent, you are, in fact, exquisitely and frighteningly dynamic, as are we all, and with all respect, you have an obligation to stand up and take responsibility for that potential. It is your most ordinary and urgent duty.”

A smart Australian government would’ve sorted their colonising the indigenous population problems out before the Internet.

UnClobber by Colby Martin 📚

“In the essentials, unity; in the nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

From Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull 📚

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

D.H. Lawrence:

“the world fears a new experience more than anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old experiences.”

Anthony shared this signed cover art in today's edition of The Sizzle and very few images can conjure up so much nostalgia. I still remember visiting the shareware kiosk (computer in a box) at Video Ezy and downloading the shareware version of Doom onto two 3.5" floppy disks.

In You're a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass) by Mike McHargue 📚:

"You are a miracle because 86 billion neurons in your brain form into thousands of structures and networks, built from a map created over billions of years to understand the world you live in. But sometimes, you are a pain in your ass because all these networks are running a playbook that’s been around a lot longer than you have. The cells in your body have survived through the eons by eating every delicious calorie they come across, allowing fear to make them run, and using anger to make them fight for their lives."

Spotting a scam email

The most Mexican thing I've seen yet is a guy who has a table to sell so he's just carried it around the neighbourhood singing out if anyone wants to buy a table. Take that, Zuckerberg, and your stupid Marketplace.

Don't believe everything AI tells you. This bio sounds right, but it's not. From what I understand I've never been in Vogue, The Knot, or Martha Vomit Stewart Weddings. I am not a founding member of the AFCC, and I've not been Sydney-based for over a decade. I also don't write my couple's vows.

Dan Shipper writes:

"Honestly, I’m usually annoyed when something gets trendy"

and I felt seen. So his article Permission to Be Excited About AI obviously spoke to me.

From Love Matters More by Jared Byas 📚

"Social media encourages the myth that who we are is defined by the opinions we type. But the older I get, the less interested I am in how well people can script their beliefs in front of a computer and the more interested I am in how tenaciously they go about grinding out their moral existence. I’m impressed when someone can get up every single day, determined to be a better human being than he or she was yesterday. Typing out what we “stand for” is easy. But loving well isn’t. I am not down on typing out our opinions—clearly. I’m only down on thinking that typing in and of itself constitutes an ethical life. May we stop thinking that becoming the kind of person we want to be is as easy as typing “me too” at those we agree with and “stupid people” at those we don’t. That’s a distraction from the real work of being human. And I’m ready to work."

The duo behind Instagram - who sold for good coin and then left Instagram/Facebook in 2018 - have a new thing and it's right in my ballpark. Think TikTok's algorithmic feed but for text: artifact.news.

The many branches of the Fediverse by Per Axbom.

Do you know the most disappointing thing about the United States of America?

That the entire narrative of and about the country is defined by a small handful of topics recycled so quickly that outsiders often don't even know which Police Officer killing, which mass shooting, which disappointing President, or which sexually abusive old white male you're all angry about this week. It's hard to keep up, and you need new stories. Not new fake stories so the rest of the world thinks you're cool again. You need new truths so the new stories just kinda flow pretty easily.

Or be like Iceland. No-one ever hears about Iceland unless it's a photo of some cool landscape.

Luna just asked Britt, “will you ever kill me, mummy?” And honestly, at the age of four it’s impressive that she’s already assembling friends and enemies lists, and that I got an auto-invite to the friends list but her mother required some investigation first.

It might be 8yrs late, but you're finally getting my book: The Rebel's Guide To Getting Married is coming in 2023. It's a book about planning a wedding with intention and purpose, written by yours truly, Oz's most hated celebrant & I'm writing live on my wedding blog.

Every time Buzz Aldrin comes up in the news or conversation I think of this Rhys Darby standup piece from 15-odd years ago. Starts 2:30 in.

Current status: forgot to put coffee in the percolator.

Throwback to that time ten years ago when I had awesome not-grey hair

Judging by the many different recordings I'm hearing and also seeing pop up on the web of Rick Rubin doing the circuit to promote his new 📚 book, The Creative Act, he's much better in conversation than the written word. I'm reading the book and I'm struggling to stay tuned in.

📚 The Art of Growing Up by John Marsden:

"A friend of mine told the story of driving along a country road one day with her little son, when he remarked: ‘Look at the beautiful tree, Mummy.’ She replied: ‘Yes, it’s a manna gum.’ There was a long silence from the back seat, broken at last by her child asking: ‘So is there a name for everything, then?’"

Current status: horizontal at El Pescadero