I am still obsessed with the album 10000 gecs . . . I'm sure I'll get sick of it, but I'm listening to this album the way I listened to Paul's Boutique, The Pod, OK Computer, and The Soft Bulletin (among others) and it definitely scratches my brain.
I haven't played with Chat GPT in a while, but it rained today-- resulting in no tennis practice-- so I got to screwing around and I asked it a question inspired by a Beatles lyric and this is the pablum I got . . .
If you liked this song, then you might like 100 gecs . . . if you need some context, listen to the new Switched on Pop . . . or go all the way . . . 1000 gecs . . . or even better: 10,000 gecs!
If you're looking for a horror novel with serious puppetry, Being John Malkovich level marionette skills, then check out the new Grady Hendrix novel How to Sell a Haunted House . . . some of the scenes get a little long winded, but the book is very scary, very funny, and very Southern gothic (and once again, set in Charleston) AND there is an amazing bonus flashback set piece chapter set in Boston back when one of the main characters dropped out of college and joined a radical puppet collective with demonic and anarchic tendencies-- brilliant stuff . . . and Pupkin is a worthy villain and the book has a satisfying (and fairly logical, considering the subject matter) resolution . . . Grady Hendrix is a national treasure.
I played pickle ball today and tennis Thursday and Friday, and I did not fall down on any of those days . . . good times.
Whirlwind day: reverse schedule because of testing; Cunningham had a mental breakdown because of the positioning of her horizontal oblique fetus, and the fact that she needs to buy a car, get married, do a million parent/teacher conferences, get married, plan all her classes, and grade all her stuff . . . all before the baby pops out (although if she gets chased by a fungus person, it will pop out faster than you can say "Ellie) and while I'd never wish a mental breakdown on someone, it did make me less stressed about our first tennis practice . . . things went well, I raced out of school, drove home, let the dog out, made some coffee, and made it to the courts on time-- we only had ten kids out today but that's not bad for the first day, expecting a few more; we focused on the forehand today and did two forehand games-- one where you CANNOT hit a winner-- you can only score by hitting deep topspin forehands, past the service line, until the other person screws up-- and you get TWO points if they hit the net; the other where the server only gets one serve and the returner gets THREE shots, including the return, to win the point-- so in one game you consistent heavy forehands, like Nadal, until you wear your opponent out-- in the other you try to hit forehand winners-- very fun (and I got to play and absolutely crushed it . . . although I didn't play Ian or Ethan, who will be one and two) and then I got home fro tennis and Catherine was at the chiropracter so I got right to work on dinner and made some delicious homemade meatballs (with the help of Hello Fresh) and she was very appreciative-- and now all I need is Auburn to win and I'll be in good shape.
Yesterday, I had leftover tilapia for lunch and I needed some gum before I went back to class and breathed on the students and even though my boss was on the phone when I barged into her office, she fished some gum out of her purse and gave it to me (she said she went into multi-tasking mode, like she does when dealing with her two pre-school age children).
If you're looking for a grim, bloody, disturbing podcast that investigates the unreliability of memory and the possibility that all first-person accounts are distorted and tainted-- a podcast that will make you question your own memory of the life you thought you knew, then check out the newest Serial production: The Coldest Case in Laramie . . . but it's a fucking bleak story set in a bleak place and I've listened to seven of the eight episodes and I doubt there will be a satisfying resoution.
I converted one of my podcasts to text (using Otter.ai) and then cleaned it up and made it into a blog post and it turns out that a podcast is a lot of words, a whole lots of words . . . so if you want to read a whole lot of words, here it is: "Tomorrow I Will Play Video Games, Tomorrow."
So I was going up for a rebound Saturday and some kid continued to box me out, even though I was in the air, and I took a hard horizontal fall but I felt okay yesterday-- good enough to play pickle ball (but not soccer) but this morning I felt like I'd been hit by a train-- mainly on the right side of my body, where I hit the floor, but I was also having trouble turning my neck-- but after trudging through my day, I went out with Ian and hit some tennis balls and then we played a game of 21 and though we weren't playing hard, i almost beat him-- got to 19, made one free throw and then missed the next one, sending me back down to 11 . . . anyway, I'm drinking a Swamp Donkey Pale Ale right now, and hoping when I wake up tomorrow I feel a bit less sore.
