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
Whale watching in Baja
When you look down at just the right time // whale watching in El Pescadero, Baja California Sur
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.
Zoológico de Chapultepec // Mexico City’s free zoo
Mexico City’s zoo is free to access, and weirdly, equal parts cool and scary. I’m Australia animal enclosures are 1) large and spacious, and 2) very, very, very securely separate from humans. It’s very hard for humans to touch or be close to animals.
But at Zoológico de Chapultepec I could very much just jump into the lion’s area.
Every day in Mexico I’m confronted with the stark difference between Australia’s “let’s assume you’re stupid, we’ll try and stop you from dying” modus operandi to Mexico’s “let’s assume you’re smart, we’re not going to try and stop you dying”, which honestly, from an intellectual point of view really appeals to me.
“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.”
The Rebel's Guide to Getting Married
Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing.
They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own.
They spend decades in pursuit of something that someone convinced them they should want, without realising that it won’t make them happy.
Don’t be those people. Don’t be those people in planning your wedding.
Reject the status quo. Reject the norm.
Embrace who you are. Embrace the idea that people like you two get married like ’this’! Embrace your weirdness, your uniqueness, the things that make the two of you a couple.
This is the way of the rebel.
This is the way you’ll find in The Rebel’s Guide To Getting Married.
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.