From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXVI

Introduction

This is the twenty-sixth installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, Volume XXIV is here, and Volume XXV is here. Thematically these are all over the map. Geographically they are also all over the map, come to think of it. Well, within California to be precise.

What are albertnet Bits & Bobs posts? They’re more or less random compilations of short form prose I wrote in my youth, typically letters or emails but sometimes essays or graffiti. I post them to albertnet on the off chance that one of them will garner widespread adoration and propel me to worldwide fame, or at least notoriety. Read them in order, out of order, out of ardor, or outdoors in the arbor. Pay attention to the dates because some of these are rather old, some are just old fashioned, and others are merely passé.

October 17, 1989

I wonder how many unwanted pregnancies are caused by college kids using Trojan Magnums when they ought to be using the standard size. You know, guys aspiring for largeness, refusing to accept that their schlongs are merely average. In our school paper, an outfit called ZPG advertises wholesale condoms by mail. They offer a variety pack … I wonder what that is? Different colors? Textures? I can't understand this wholesaler advocating a variety of sizes, unless students are supposed to share, or just collect them like stamps. My roommate T— says his favorite condom is the Trojan Rough Rider. My neighbor, an exchange student from Korea, says he’s fond of leather ones. That's right, leather. If Vittoria made a CX Seta condom, I think that would be the ultimate, though I don’t have any use for such a thing, at least at the moment (sigh).

September 20, 1993

On Saturday I overhauled my Guerciotti over at the Square Wheel where I used to work back in college. (The owner is cool enough to let me use a bench there.) The bottom bracket spindle was pitted, along with the bearing races in one of the cups. The shop got swamped and I went out to the floor to help out, and actually sold a bike. Not such a big deal, of course, but it becomes more impressive when you consider I sold nothing more than a hypothetical bike. The shop didn’t have the right size GT Outback, aka Outhouse (or Compost, another fond nickname for this low-end model). Their stock is really low because business is bad and they’ve run out of credit with all their suppliers. I could’ve sold this kid and his proud parents an 18” bike, but you know how it is: he’s clearly growing like a weed and would outgrow the thing before its 300-mile tune-up. His dad, who had appropriated himself to be the boy’s official spokesman, said, “Well, he’ll be growing at least another four inches,” looking hopefully at the lad, who stared at the point two inches above his dad’s head that he would reach, if he truly did grow four inches. Hope springs eternal I guess…

Having come clean about the kid needing a different size, I faced the prospect that they’d just leave, and buy a bike from a shop that actually had one for sale, vs. ordering one that the kid wouldn’t even get to test ride. So I played up the shop’s free service plan, and how valuable that is. To emphasize the importance of proper servicing, I showed them the pitted BB cup I just pulled off my own bike. If they can’t see or touch the bike I’m trying to sell them, at least they can see this random thingie, right? Besides (I told myself) there’s nothing more impressive than the grease and grime of a real mechanic who knows what he’s talking about and handles real bicycles every day. I didn’t mention that I’m not actually even an employee of the shop. I hope when they come to pick up the bike they won’t ask for me. (“Dana who?”)

November 1, 1993

I was at a wedding where alcohol seemed to be the main theme. The venue was a winery, and each guest was required to have a glass of wine in hand during the ceremony. The bride and groom kind of slurred their way through the vows, very sentimentally, which I found kind of sweet. The drinking only accelerated at the reception, beginning with open bar before the food was even served. By the time the dancing and games had started, everyone was good and heated. One of the games was the throwing of the bouquet, and as usual, the tallest maiden won. Do you imagine that tall women in general have better chances of marrying, just like the taller presidential candidate usually wins? Anyway, following that was the male version, the tossing of the garter. I find this game especially absurd, but it was a hard-fought battle nonetheless, since drunk men tend to play full-contact, whatever the game. The garter (which was little more than a silky, frilly band) bobbed up in the air, was snatched from hand to hand, and eventually ended up on the floor where it was batted about like hockey puck. I was fighting hard, and eventually—likely due to reflexes less dulled than those of my competitors—I came up with the garter. Everybody cheered as I did a touchdown dance, and then the horrifying realization hit me: they’d all taken a dive! It’s only women who earnestly seek the prize of the soonest betrothal; men delay this as long as they can. Sure, it was a good fight, but was only fought in order to appease the woman: “Sorry, honey, I tried, but....” Had I realized this, I too would have intentionally lost. But I, of course, am a born competitor.

January 6, 1994

The Oregon trip went fine. The Landlord’s new computer, an Apple, is fun to play with. This new CD-ROM technology is pretty amazing. I went through this Great Works of Literature on Disc CD, and it’s got a huge number of stories, poems, etc. on there, and shows various pictures, all from the original works, but only in black and white. This doesn’t bother me, since the originals were in black and white, after all; the Landlo’, on the other hand, was fuming mad about something, as usual. I think it’s that I was spending too long reading individual works and not letting him show me enough different features of his Mac. And he seems to have basically given up on those discs that don’t have full-color motion graphics and probably wishes he hadn’t let me stumble upon Great Works of Literature. My best find was “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, and—I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit—I’d never really sat down and really read it closely before. The CD-ROM featured a few sound samples, where you can hear stanzas read by a professional, which was fun. For some reason, I still somehow expected the recordings to be in that cheesy computer-synthesized voice, but no, they were a human voice, in digital stereo. I ended up spending over an hour reading and rereading the poem, before realizing I had lost interest in the technological wonders of the CD-ROM technology itself. I mean, I was reading a printout, for crying out loud. I highly recommend the poem. I guess CD-ROM ain’t bad either.

We also visited Grandpa, Aunt J—, Uncle W—, and [cousin] J— on the way to a New Year’s party in SoCal. I’d sent them a holiday card with a photo, taken at a recent company party. This photo apparently caused a bit of a scandal. Aunt J— gave me an ominous warning over the phone prior to our visit: “Daner, I just have to warn you: your grandfather, well . . . he’s just not the man you used to know. He’s just turned 97, and he’s, well, old-fashioned. W— and I have been harassing him all morning, but he just won’t stop grumbling about the length of your hair. Anyway, he has no tact, so I just don’t want you to be offended if he says something. We’ve tried to get him ready for you, but you know how he is. Anyway, I think your hair is gorgeous, just don’t let him offend you.” I told her I’m totally used to being hassled for my long hair, but I doubt I successfully conveyed to her the extent of my immunity to criticism. All the same, I put it back in a ponytail for the visit, just to make it a bit more tidy.

Well, at first Grandpa didn’t realize it was a ponytail, and thought I’d actually cut my hair. He said, “Aaaah, now that’s how I remember—” and at this point the game was up: he realized I hadn’t cut it. “What’s this!” he said, yanking as hard as he could on the ponytail. Ow! That was about all he said for a while. Dinner was fun: Uncle W— dragged out his legendary electric carving knife and was sawing away at the ham when I made a comment to E— that nobody was supposed to hear. I imagined I was speaking pretty quietly, but that thing makes quite a racket when you’re sitting right next to the man wielding it. I said, “The electric model is a big improvement over the earlier, more cumbersome gasoline-powered one.” J—, clear at the other end of the table, laughed and said, “Yeah, you don’t need to run an exhaust pipe out the window anymore!” I hope I didn’t offend Uncle W—. He does seem rather proud of that thing. I was pleased that E— had the opportunity to witness it in action.

April 20, 1995

Mr. Albert has received your gift of the Tom’s of Maine Natural Shaving Cream product with moisturizing glycerin. He asked me to give you his most sincere thanks, and is very enthusiastic about trying out this product.

He was, however, slightly perplexed by the statement made by Tom & Kate Chappell on the packaging; they state that they “use no animal ingredients,” and that “nature does offer wonderful and simple solutions.” Mr. Albert cannot think of anything more natural than animals, and asked me to remind you that the Genesis chapter of the Old Testament very clearly stipulates that Man has been given, by the hand of God, dominion over all the beasts of the field and has at his disposal “every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”  He asked me to inform you that most toothpaste uses sponge spicules for an abrasive, and why not?

One last note: Mr. Albert expressed some concern that the coconut oil used in the Tom’s of Maine shaving cream product may be very high in saturated fats. He requests that you investigate the availability of a “Lite” version of this product. Beef tallow, he suggests, would be significantly better than coconut oil in this regard.

May 4, 1996

I’m bummed because I’m all set to “roll over” my Avocet 40 bike computer (i.e. exceed the mileage that it can display, so it shows all zeroes) but I’ve come to realize that this newer model has a far-left-hand “1” digit so it won’t roll over after 9,999 miles like the old Avocet 20s and 30s. Here I was, thinking I was just miles away from that, well, milestone, but I’m only halfway there. I’ll have to log another 10,000 to roll it over, and I can’t imagine the batteries will last that long.

May 25, 2013

My opinion of the wild turkeys in our hinterlands turned around 360 degrees today. I had considered them a nuisance until early this morning when, riding up South Park, I saw a mother turkey with her little turkey chick riding on her back. It was the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.

But then, heading down Claremont, with the whole road to myself, I opened ‘er up a bit, enjoying the smooth, fast descent (but being ever-vigilant of course). And then suddenly there were four giant tom turkeys ahead, each with the whole peacock-like plumage disk puffed way the hell out, spaced evenly across the road like some kind of patrol, all facing me, bringing to mind a shooting gallery. If I had the Star Trek universal translator I’m sure their gobble-gobble-gobble would have been translated as, “You wanna piece of me!?” I pounded the brakes with a quickness. This was an eight-finger, full-force, Bluesmobile-style-both-feet-smashed-into-the-brake-pedal kind of braking, where I was waaaaay, waaaay back on the saddle so I wouldn’t skid or face-plant. Sure, I stopped with plenty of time to spare, but imagine if this were a month or two ago before I’d trimmed down the ol’  aero-belly, or if the road had been a bit wet! So now my opinion of turkeys has come full circle and I consider them a nuisance again.

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Old Yarn - The Dark Alley Incident

Introduction

This is the seventh “old yarn” on albertnet (following in the footsteps of “The Cinelli Jumpsuit,” “Bike Crash on Golden Gate Bridge,” “The Enemy Coach,” “The Brash Newb,” “The Day I Learned Bicycle Gear Shifting,” and most recently The In-Flight Voyeur). This is the kind of story that would normally be a “From the Archives” item, except I’ve never before written it down.

The Dark Alley Incident – ca. 1993

I was living in an apartment on Webster Street in San Francisco’s Western Addition, aka Lower Haight. This wasn’t one of your better neighborhoods, but wasn’t too rough either. The rent was low and the architecture was really good, mostly Edwardian/quasi-Victorian row houses that were built not long after the 1906 earthquake. Honestly, in those days—and to some degree even now—architecture and walkability were more important to me than safety.

Doing a little light fact-checking now, I see that in the early ‘90s this neighborhood was worse than I’d realized. It was considered sketchy by most San Franciscans, and compared to today had significantly higher rates of violent street crime, largely due to a crack epidemic that lasted until around 1994. The homicide rate was bad enough that the local media often described parts of the neighborhood as a “war zone.” If Internet research had been a thing back then, I might have chosen not to live there.

Still, it was cheap, I had my own room, it was a short walk to my favorite Thai restaurant, and it offered easy mass transit to my office job downtown. Plus, it was only six blocks to the Market Street Safeway where I shopped. And that’s  where this story (finally) gets interesting: if I was willing to take a little risk and go down an alley next to the tall, fenced-off hill where the San Francisco mint is, and then cross over the subway tracks at a place where you really weren’t supposed to, I could cut the walk down to just three blocks. It was practically a straight shot from my apartment, and from the standpoint of convenience, pretty much irresistible.

Granted, this was a pretty dicey shortcut. I can’t remember if there was an actual fence, but if so it wasn’t high (though looking at Google street view I see now that they’ve since built a giant fence, easily 12 feet tall). This wasn’t the classic dark alley of the imagination—long and narrow and dripping wet for some reason—but it was remote and kind of spooky, especially at night. It drove my girlfriend crazy that I took this shortcut, and she exhorted me to go the long way around, but I didn’t want to listen. Perhaps I had some premonition that one day she’d be my wife, with all the authority that goes with that, and then I’d have to toe the line—so I should enjoy my freedom while I still could.

On the night in question, as I headed toward the tracks well after dark, I encountered three shifty-looking characters off to my right in a narrower, perpendicular alley. They wore large black hooded Starter jackets, sagged pants, and ribbed wool watch caps. They were leaning in toward one another, speaking in low voices. Just as I passed their tight huddle I saw a flash of light, which had to be a cigarette lighter. Even back then, smoking a joint right out in the open in this neighborhood would have been perfectly normal, so their discretion meant something. Wow, I thought. How urban … they’re actually smoking crack!

Of course I didn’t gawk or anything—wouldn’t want to draw attention to having witnessed them. I kept my head facing forward, kept walking, minded my own business. I crossed the subway tracks, went around to the front of the Safeway, and did my shopping.

Now, given what I’d just seen down this alley, you’d think I’d finally go the long way around on the way home, right? But I was really loaded down with groceries and just didn’t feel like walking that far. I had multiple plastic shopping bags hung along each arm, all the way down to my wrists. One hand clutched a couple more loaded bags, and the other a big plastic jug of liquid laundry detergent. So I was lumbering along pretty slowly.

Past the subway tracks, when I was halfway down the alley, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t look over—just kept my eyes pointing ahead, seeing what I could with my peripheral vision. The movement was getting closer. I wasn’t sure it was the three dudes from earlier until one of them spoke. “Yo man,” he said, “hold up.”

I stopped and turned. It seemed important to act as casual as I could. Obviously these guys weren’t asking for directions … maybe they just wanted to mess with me. Could be they were sizing me up. I gave a quick chin-up nod, like, ‘sup? The dude looked me over and said, “Whaddya doin’, man?”

I glanced down at my bags, reflecting soberly upon how utterly impossible it would be to run with such a burden, and yet also how ridiculous it would be to abandon my groceries and flee, on the mere speculation that I was about to be mugged. I mean, I’d be pretty irritated if someone took one look at me and decided I was obviously a criminal. So I played it off. “Just doin’ my shopping,” I said. It’s funny: years before this, when I was an awkward teenager, suddenly called upon to speak, my voice would sometimes come out high and weak, like there was a reed stuck in my throat and I was short of breath, but now, when I really might have had something to be legitimately nervous about, I managed to sound fine. Casual, even, I thought.

“Hey man, I see you got detergent there, man, you gonna do some laundry?” the guy asked. He and his buddies were standing awfully close. Was this some preamble while they got ready to surround me? Or was I just being paranoid?

I glanced down at the laundry jug, wondering if it would make a good bludgeon but reflecting that the soft plastic would be more like a wiffle bat. Plus, loaded up as my arm was, I lacked the strength to even lift the jug that high, much less swing it. So I just looked back at the dude and gave another  upward nod. “Yeah. Of course.”

This is the part you’ll swear I’m making up, but I’m not: the dude reached into his coat and pulled out—not a gun, but a box of Bounce. You know, the fabric softener. “Man, you wanna buy some Bounce?” the guy asked. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d pulled out a bouquet, or a puppy. Where did he get that? I wondered. Did he roll some other guy walking home from Safeway?

I shook my head. He persisted: “For the dryer, man, make your clothes softer!”

I shook my head again. “No, man,” I said, feeling increasingly like I was part of some improv skit. “I don’t use that stuff.”

“Aiiight, ‘s cool,” he shrugged, and the three of them shuffled off without so much as a glance back. I faced forward again and resumed my slow trudge home. I resisted the temptation speed up, or to look back. Was that really it? Was the encounter truly over? The whole way home I was simultaneously a) braced for the other shoe to drop, and b) working hard not to burst out laughing. Were those dudes  just screwing with me, or had I passed some test? I will never know. And did I ever take that shortcut again? Honestly, I can’t remember.

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

New Year’s Resolutions — AI Edition

Introduction

It’s that time of year again, when you start planning out how you’ll be better this year. This can be really annoying, especially when you have to read about “SMART” goals even though you know in your soul that “DUMB” ones are better. And now you’ve stumbled across this post. Well, fear not – I’m just as fed up as you, and will try to make this as painless as possible.

As with everything now, I will consider the topic through the prism of Artificial Intelligence. That satisfies the “T” in “SMART” because it’s timely—and for this I apologize. But I must press on, because there are many ways in which we could resolve to use AI better, more responsibly, or less annoyingly. I’ve managed to winnow this post down to five key resolutions.

Resolution #1: Do not pass off AI work as your own

This recommendation probably seems self-evident, and yet it needs to be said. How many times have you read something ostensibly written by a human but obviously ghost-written by AI? It’s kind of amazing to me how brazenly people will paste straight from ChatGPT or another AI chatbot and think they can get away with it. Only an AI could fail to spot the nuances that betray AI-generated text.

Even if AI worked perfectly as a ghost-writer, by using it you would suffer from the neglect of your own intellect. There is an intrinsic value in learning to represent your ideas in your own words, just as you would do when speaking. Ideally, over time, by doing your own work, you will develop a writing style—a unique voice—and this is what makes you you, and ought to keep you from being easily replaced by AI. And the more you write, on your own, the better this voice will be developed, and the better you will do at in-person communication, which is almost always ad hoc. This capability ought to take precedence over the convenience of outsourcing to AI.

I asked ChatGPT to weigh in on this matter, and it said, “If AI helped draft, summarize, or rephrase something substantial, acknowledge it—especially in professional, academic, or published contexts. For your blog, this might mean a light disclosure like: ‘Drafted with AI assistance; final edits and opinions are mine.’” I cannot imagine using AI for drafting, summarizing, or rephrasing anything substantial. I assume that you are reading albertnet right now only because you trust that I can do more for you than an AI chatbot, and that I’m willing to put in the hard work to make the writing witty, entertaining, and concise. ChatGPT’s disclosure would be like the cook greeting you at his or her restaurant and saying, “My gravy is from a mix and my apple crisp is Sarah Lee.”

Resolution #2: Do not trust AI with any info you cannot verify

Obviously one of the fundamental benefits of AI chatbots is that unlike a single-query Google search, you can have a dialogue to get very specific about your question or problem and provide all kinds of context. When this works, it’s great. The trouble is, as we all know AI hallucinates. And to make matters worse, it hallucinates very confidently and feeds you incorrect information very convincingly and assuredly. I spoke with a doctor recently who described a bizarre and yet increasingly typical dialogue with a patient: she asked him why she shouldn’t just take x amount of such-and-such medication, as ChatGPT suggested.  He replied that that dosage would be lethal.

Of course you, gentle reader, are too wise to use AI like that, but it’s surprisingly how poorly it can do even with very basic information. Recently I asked two different chatbots, ChatGPT and Copilot, if my Sigma Sport bike computer is compatible with the power meter on my new bike. I provided the make and model of each, and both chatbots assured me they were indeed compatible. So I tried to pair them and got nowhere.

Both chatbots dragged me further off into the weeds when I started troubleshooting. Copilot determined, definitively (or so it claimed) that my power meter was defective. Based on blinking colored lights, it declared that “your 4iiii is doing exactly what a unit does when it can power on briefly but fails its internal startup test” and that the cause is most likely “internal hardware failure” that is “unfortunately not rare with brand-new 4iiii units.” It then offered to draft a note to the manufacturer to get the device replaced. Its voice was that of the expert advisor, when it was actually swinging wild based on training data of unknown and unverifiable provenance.

Of course the whole reason I reached out to AI on this in the first place is that I’d never messed with power meters before, and knew nothing. And yet, just having human-grade intuition and skepticism ended up being more valuable than all that training data and lightning-fast research capability. I distrusted Copilot’s conclusion, figuring hallucination on its part is more likely than a hardware defect. So instead of wasting any more time online, I tried a different bike computer to see if it would sync, and it did instantly. What a relief, that I didn’t start some needless warranty replacement process and waste some tech support person’s time, only to end up looking like a jackass. I’m still grieving over the fifteen or twenty minutes I’d spent pointlessly troubleshooting with AI. I should have experimented with the second bike computer in the first place, before asking AI for help. (Why didn’t I? I was intimidated and wanted my hand held. This was a poor instinct.)

This isn’t to say AI is never an appropriate tool, of course. As I’ve blogged about before, it can be very helpful in all kinds of technical matters, such as scripting HTML. But you should only use it when you can verify its output experientially instead of blindly trusting it. For example, when ChatGPT helped me implement the copyright footer on this blog, I knew the instructions were valid because I could see the footer for myself (as can you, below).

Resolution #3: Limit the influence of “secondhand AI”

Now that we’re all using AI chatbots more and more, it’s easy to forget that most of the AI that affects our lives is behind the scenes. We think of AI as a productivity tool, but that’s just the chatbots; most AI is developed by corporations to drive algorithms that try to grab and hold our attention, which ends up reducing our productivity. To make an analogy, a chatbot is like smoking a cigarette and getting all the benefits it provides—e.g., the drug, the rich and satisfying smoke, and the coolness—while AI-driven algorithms are like secondhand smoke that doesn’t taste good, doesn’t make us cool, and just gives us cancer. I hereby nominate for widespread adoption the term “secondhand AI,” meaning the AI that drives us instead of responding directly to our queries. (Yes, I was being facetious about the “benefits” of smoking. Just making sure you’re awake.)

So the gist of this resolution is to try to limit our exposure to secondhand AI, or at least the extent to which we let it shape our behavior. Instead of looking at the books Amazon suggests, get more of them out of those little free libraries, or from the “Staff Picks” section of your bookstore or library, or ask your friends for recommendations. Stop letting YouTube and TikTok thrust content in your face. And instead of letting Spotify choose the music after your selected album or playlist is finished, configure it to just stop (i.e., turn Autoplay off). Why? Because the crap it chooses doesn’t belong in your ears or brain. All these algorithms share the same central flaw: they select for stickiness, not quality. They can’t judge quality because they have no taste  … just the ability to carry out endless A/B tests and learn from the results.

Resolution #4: keep AI out of your messy human stuff

The most sensitive human interactions—consoling, arguing, advising, listening—might present the most tempting use cases for AI. After all, here’s a platform that can give you guidance, suggestions, actual written content, etc. without judging you or getting distracted or running out of time or patience. But this is also the area where I exhort you to close the laptop, lock your phone, and sort things out on your own. (Using a close friend as a sounding board is fine.) Why? Three reasons.

First, what if AI came up with the perfect thing to say, and in just the right way, and you couldn’t resist and just delivered its sensitive message verbatim? This might work, but what if the person you’re having the difficult dialogue with detects the distinctive AI diction and figures out you used a chatbot? This sends the message that you cut corners, that you couldn’t bother being sincere and authentic—that you outsourced your role in the interaction. This could (and probably should) be deeply offensive to the other person.

Second, if you struggle during the dialogue, and the other person perceives your vulnerability, I think that can only help. Instead of being perfectly articulate and glib, why not let your difficulty be plain to see, so that the other person can tell the struggle is mutual? Meanwhile, if you have “your” thoughts perfectly rendered with the help of AI, won’t you be more inclined to doggedly stick to that script, instead of letting the dialogue go where it needs to?

Finally, engaging in this struggle on our own is good for us. Inhabiting this discomfort, instead of trying to settle the dialogue with maximum efficiency, is bound to lead to the kind of soul searching we ought to be doing anyway. And, like with anything, we get better with practice, which is important, because we won’t always have the opportunity to stop and consult AI during a social crisis. Thinking on the fly will go a lot better if you’ve done the time working through the messy human stuff on your own.

Resolution #5: don’t replace humans with chatbots

According to this article, about half of the teens in a Common Sense Media study reported they use AI bots “regularly, not just for entertainment, but for venting, emotional support, and companionship.” And according to this article, “About one-third (31%) [of American teenagers] actually claim that dealing with AI companions is more satisfying than talking to a human being.” It seems incredible to me—that is to say, I’m amazed that I find myself even  weighing in here—that anybody should need to be advised against using AI in this way. How did we get here?

I cannot get past the most obvious issue which is that every minute a person spends typing into a void (or talking, I guess they have voice mode now) is a lost opportunity to bumble around in the real world and have the opportunity to meet people, one or two of whom could potentially become a friend. Can’t we all agree that there is a nonzero chance of making friends just by leaving the house? And that the chance of forging a real friendship with an AI chatbot is zero?

Okay, fine, I don’t personally struggle with social anxiety, and I should try to empathize with those who do, but it’s difficult, particularly since I myself was a social pariah in grade school, and then things got worse in middle school, and I’m constitutionally shy, but I did manage to eventually learn how to get along. But setting all that aside, how good is the strategy of replacing human interaction with programmatically easy, safe AI companionship? I’ll cite one article, from the Columbia Teachers College:

According to research from MIT, for example, people who are lonely are more likely to consider ChatGPT a friend and spend large amounts of time on the app while also reporting increased levels of loneliness. This increased isolation for heavy users suggests that ultimately, generative AI isn’t an adequate replacement for human connection. “We want to talk to a real person and when someone's really suffering, that need to feel personally cared for only grows stronger,” says George Nitzburg (Ph.D. ’12), Assistant Professor of Teaching, Clinical Psychology. 

Gosh, this last resolution seems like the literary equivalent of a plate of bulgur wheat salad with a side of kale. I hope it has so little to do with your life that you can just flick it off your sleeve like a booger. And then resolve to get fewer boogers on your sleeve to begin with. In fact, why not resolve to get that number down to zero?

 Other candidates for New Year’s resolutions

If you don’t overmuch care about AI and are just looking for general inspiration as you contemplate your own resolutions, here is a wide assortment of suggestions: 

• If you’re over 50, get the shingles vaccination
• Improve your balance
• Discover the power of loafing
• Configure a mental firewall
• Dodge the exercise gumption trap
• Stop discussing politics
• If you have kids, try to unplug them
• Consider donating blood this year
• If you’re over 45, get a colonoscopy
• Learn how to cure your hiccups
• Switch to a proper razor
• Adopt the “Dutch reach” when getting out of your car
•  Stop pushing STEM
• Learn self-compassion
• Master multitasking
• Cut out cream and sugar
• Avoid bad movies
• Develop a family Internet use policy
• Avoid phishing attacks
• Switch to a wax chain lube
• Try these life hacks
• Hold yourself more accountable
• Avoid bad restaurants
• Be ready for an earthquake
• See the bigger picture
• Switch to a better keyboard layout
• Stop worrying about goals
• Try to have more fun

Further reading 

• New Year’s Resolutions
• One-Size-Fits-All New Year’s Resolution
• New Year’s Resolutions - Dental Hygiene Edition
• New Year’s Resolutions - Let’s Get It Right This Time
• A Wide Net Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
• The DUMB Approach to New Year’s Resolutions
• New Year’s Resignation
• A Scattershot Approach to New Year’s Resolutions

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

2025 in Review - The Quiz

Introduction

As I close out 2025, I want to give my readers a little quiz about the topics I covered on albertnet over the past year. You can consider this quiz open-book (because after all, how could I police this)? 

Now, you might recall that I did a similar quiz four years ago, which might have annoyed you because all the multiple-choice answers were correct—that is, it wasn’t a quiz at all, but a farce. Well, fear not: this time there’s really only one right answer per question. And you don’t have to wait until next week for the answers … they’re right down at the bottom of the post. As a special bonus, I will award a merchandise prize to the first reader who gets a perfect score and reports it to me by clicking here. (Obviously you’re on the honor system here...)

2025 in Review – The Quiz

1. Which of the following is not a New Year’s Resolution that I recommended last January?

a) Get control of your dog – If you are a dog person, it might come as a real surprise to you that what you consider either adorable or at least lovably rambunctious misbehavior is actually a drag for grouches like me. For example, I’m out for a walk and your dog comes bounding over to me and tries to run up my body, his front paws raking my legs and groin, and you call out, “Don’t worry, he’s friendly!” And I’m thinking, fine, you’re probably friendly too, but would you windmill me like this?

b) Take better care of your teeth – If you don’t always brush, and/or seldom floss, then it’s time to face the fact that your teeth and gums are probably disgusting. If your parents spent a fortune on orthodontia, it’s a shame that you’re taking such poor care of their investment. And if you didn’t get orthodontia, your teeth need all the help they can get.

c) Stop wearing a COVID mask alone in your car – In the early days of the COVID lockdown when nobody know what was going on, we did all kinds of silly stuff, like forensic-grade wipe-downs of shopping cart handles, and wearing a mask in the car. But it never made sense to wear a mask when driving alone, did it? Are you worried you’ll give your car COVID?

d) Stop using my hairbrush – This one really only applies to my younger daughter when she’s home from college. So, L—, to be clear, it’s actually okay if you use my hairbrush on the sly such that I don’t even know about it. But when I have to look for it, I get nervous … what if you took it to a slumber party and lost it? As you know, it’s my oldest possession so I’m inordinately fond of it.

 2. Which of the following is not one of my five recommendations on how to improve your LinkedIn profile?

a) Rework your headline section – Here is an example of a good Headline:

>>Growth | Digital | Generative AI | Culture Cultivator | Mentor | Advocate |Outside the Box | Clarity Bringer | AI/ML | Driving Innovation | Flawless Executation| Podcaster | Olympian | Frontends | Evangelist | Stakeholdering | C++ | pDOOH | Rainmaker |Delivering Scalability| Solutionist

I’m not just supplying that as an example of what a tech worker would list; I’m telling you to literally copy and paste the above into your Headline (except “Executation” which was to make sure you’re paying attention).

b) Create an entrepreneurial vibe – Rank-and-file employees, be they wretched “individual contributors” or pathetic “middle managers,” just don’t get any respect. They’re as despised as tourists. But people love entrepreneurs. The trouble is, we can’t all be entrepreneurs, and if we were, we probably wouldn’t bother to fine-tune our LinkedIn profiles … we’d be whispering right into the ears of angel investors. But there’s another way forward: figure out what other type of –preneur you might be. Choose from the following or invent your own:

• Hellapreneur – like an entrepreneur but better
• Contrapreneur – has a startup that bucks current trends; for example, launches a new flip phone to corner the digital detox market
• Epipeneur – this person is launching a startup despite having a severe peanut allergy
• Codependepreneur – spins his wheels on yet another doomed startup because between him and his partner they’ve convinced themselves this thing is viable
• Saagpaneur – wants to open an Indian restaurant

c) Refine your Experience section and make it data-driven – For example, instead of just saying, “Performed software QA testing,” put, “Via disruptive and visionary software QA testing, reduced operating costs by 37%, saving $2.3 million in one year while improving CSAT scores by 24%.” The recruiter reading this, whose BS detectors will be lighting up like crazy, will think, “Oh, good, he’s also a storyteller! We can always use more of those.”

d) Have an AI chatbot help you revise your profile – As we all know, affinity bias is real. That is, if you and the hiring manager both went to UC Berkeley, you’ll have a leg up. Well, this affects your LinkedIn profile too: since it will only be read by bots, it should be co-written by a bot. Any of these AI LLMs will be sure to prune the unimportant stuff, like how you graduated summa cum laude (because who speaks Latin anymore?).

3. When I solicited advice from ChatGPT about how to monetize my blog, which of the following was not useful feedback that it provided?

a) “Your Blogger page view count is inflated” – The chatbot warned me that, although albertnet received 1.2 million page views in the preceding three months, the vast majority were probably from bots, scrapers, SEO crawlers, and AI training bots, so turning on Adsense would not generate any appreciable passive income

b) “Here is a boilerplate privacy policy for your blog” – When I asked it to help me compose my privacy policy (something I’d neglected to do for like 15 years), it provided a response that was mostly unusable, but did have some good points, and if nothing else prevented writer’s block and paved the way for my own policy, which you can read here and which I’ve linked to in my blog’s footer

c) “Here is what you need to achieve GDPR compliance if your blog uses cookies” – It gave me a nice rundown on what the GDPR requirements are, and I felt I could trust it not to hallucinate because this is such widely available information

d) “Here’s some example HTML script to invoke the traffic tracking” – It spoon-fed me actual HTML that I could paste in to my blog to start tracking various metrics

4. Which of these passages is not from my Ode to Thrifting?

a) A pair of Docs for only forty bucks? / I’ll take ‘em ‘cause they’re only barely used

b) Of course there’s all the stuff you’d never buy / Such pseudo-brands as George and Charter Club

c) Upon the racks of thrift, the brands they lie / Forgotten names that once did softly shine

d) But when I think of forking out full price? / No thanks – I’ll opt for thrift and toss the dice

5. The brutal 105-mile mountain bike ride I did on the Canyonlands White Rim Trail taught me that:

a) If you travel to a sufficiently isolated place like Canyonlands, you can be so dwarfed by giant reddish rock formations towering above you that you never need to see the celestial heavens again, if feeling insignificant is your thing

b) Regardless of how much experience we have, middle-aged cyclists have no business trying to keep up with Division 1 collegiate cross-country runners

c) During two-day driving trips, an all-taqueria-all-the-time approach to dining is totally worth it, even if it causes percussive flatulence that disturbs the much-needed pre-ride good night’s sleep

d) Clif and/or Kind bars are actually inferior to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for long-distance cycling, especially in the heat

6. Which of the following is not a classic O.G. move, according to the albertnet-featured columnist “Ask an O.G.”?

a) Making pour-over coffee instead of using a Mr. Coffee or (shudder) a Keurig

b) Using a traditional double-edged razor instead of the modern plastic type with the blade cartridges

c) Buying your music on vinyl instead of CD or (gasp) Spotify

d) Sticking with standard bike handlebars and levers instead of the narrow, flared-out bars with goofy levers that stick out like chicken wings

7. Which of the following does not represent my take on the usefulness of locknuts for Presta valves?

a) If you have a commuter bike with Presta valves, use the locknuts or not, at your whim

b) If you have a folding bike, use the locknut because this type of bike tends to actually have Dunlop valves

c) If you have a backup “rain bike” that you mainly ride on the indoor trainer, you better be using noise-canceling headphones, in which case you can use locknuts or not, because who cares if they (or your valves) rattle?

d) For your flagship road or mountain bike, run tubeless with locknuts, and if anybody makes fun of you, send them my Presta valve locknut blog post

8. Which of the following strategies is not among my recommendations for when your loved one buys a juicer?

a) Let the juicer-buyer fail – It can be so hard to just stand by and watch a loved one fail, but in the case of a juicer, it’s actually the best thing you can do. If the purchaser perceives a battle of wills between the two of you, his judgment is bound to be further clouded. Just watch and wait, and when that first batch of kale, cucumber, carrot, and beet concoction comes out, accept the proffered glass willingly. Your vain attempt to avoid wincing, grimacing, puckering, or even gagging, and the pleasant smile you try to arrange, will be duly noted. In fact, you will be invoking the juicer-buyer’s empathy.

b) Be alert to collateral damage – If you have children, watch for any warning signs that they are coping poorly. Seeing a juicer in action, and knowing it was purchased intentionally, may cause them to doubt the foundation of reliable, competent parenting they rely so heavily upon.

c) Lead with empathy – Remember, this buyer is already in a highly vulnerable state … if she weren’t, she wouldn’t have bought the juicer in the first place! So instead, as strange and inappropriate as this may feel, thank her for thinking of the family’s health. Remember, if you’re going to eventually pick up the pieces and move on, you need her to feel like you’re on her side.

d) When the time is right, “disappear” the juicer – Out of sight, out of mind. Spare your family the ongoing trauma of repeated attempts to make a palatable vegetable beverage. The juicer-buyer may well assume the juicer is just “hiding” and may even feel secretly relieved not to have to try again.

9. I challenged the three leading AI chatbots to write a poem in dactylic trimeter. The topic I assigned was the reckless behavior of choosing to bike up Lomas Cantadas, a brutal climb, just to celebrate one’s radical freedom. Match each passage below with its author: ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or Dana.

a) Turning to torment, no reason persuades me, / Pain blooms in muscles yet joy is commanding

b) Wisdom, alas, is a flaw when you’re mired / In glory, in notions of being a man

c) This is the freedom to throw all the rules about, / Knowing the payment and what it will cost him

d) Madness is mettle, a jest I renew, / Lomas Cantadas — I suffer for you

10. The term MAMIL—middle-aged man in Lycra—lacks a widely recognized corresponding term for a middle-aged woman in Lycra. Which of the following proposed terms is mine?

a) SOMAT (slightly overweight middle-aged totty)

b) OWL (older woman in Lycra)

c) WILMA (woman in Lycra, middle-aged)

d) MAVIS (middle-aged vixen in spandex)

Answers

Here are the correct answers. 

1. (b) – “Take better care of your teeth” is not one of my suggested Resolutions. Although this is fine advice, I did not propose it in 2025; it’s from my 2018 post about New Year’s Resolutions. [Source: A Scattershot Approach to New Year’s Resolutions ]

2. (d) – “Have an AI chatbot help with your profile” was not one of my suggestions in this post. I don’t actually believe that AI platforms have affinity for one another. (And incidentally, it was a human career counselor who advised me to remove summa cum laude from my LinkedIn profile. I left it in, but translated it to English.) [Source: Five Tips for Improving Your LinkedIn Profile ]

3. (a) – “Your Blogger page view count is inflated.” ChatGPT did not caution me thus. In fact, it was a sucker for raw data and showed a serious lack of skepticism around page view stats. Blithely assuming that page views represented real readers, it calculated that if I were to turn on Adsense, I stood to make about $2,000 a month in passive income from this blog! It did provide a number of caveats, such as how my results might be affected by the geographical location of my readers, the positioning and type of ads, ad targeting, how well ads match my content, user engagement, and so on. But the question of bots vs. human readers didn’t cross its mind until I prompted it very specifically on this. Gemini failed similarly. This kind of “big picture” thinking is a major weakness of AI platforms, I think. [Source: What Is ChatGPT Great At (and Not)? ]

4. (c) – “Upon the racks of thrift, the brands they lie / Forgotten names that once did softly shine.” This was penned by ChatGPT, and shows once again that AI is pretty bad at poetry. Too general, and sacrifices meaning for adherence to the meter. [Source: Ode to Thrifting ]

5. (b) – “Regardless of how much experience we have, middle-aged cyclists have no business trying to keep up with Division 1 collegiate cross-country runners” is not one of my takeaways from this brutal ride. Actually, the young cross-country runners only put the hurt on Peter and me for about the first forty miles. Eventually their rambunctiousness caught up with them, or perhaps it was just the well-earned capacity for endless drudgery that Pete and I have built up over the decades, but we were all equally knackered by the end. [Source: Biking the White Rim Canyonlands Trail With Young Bucks ]

6. (c) – “Buying your music on vinyl instead of CD or (gasp) Spotify” is not something this columnist considers an O.G. move. In fact, he stated, “If a music lover still has the record player he bought as a teenager, and all his original records, plus perhaps a few select purchases to round out his collection, I’d consider that O.G. But when wealthy people buy modern turntables with multi-layer plinths, decoupled motor systems, and carbon fiber tonearms, and painstakingly replace their CD or MP3 collections with pricey records, that’s more of an epicurean thing than O.G. (Not saying it’s bad, mind you. Just not O.G.) [ Source: Ask an O.G. ]

7. (b) – “If you have a folding bike, use the locknut because this type of bike tends to actually have Dunlop valves” is not one of my conclusions from this post. It’s a total red herring here. [Source: Presta Valve Locknuts, aka Valve Rings ]

8. (d) – “When the time is right, ‘disappear’ the juicer” is not one of my recommendations. This would be helping the juicer-buyer to delude herself, instead of facing the fact of her error and learning from it. [Source - When Your Loved One Buys a Juicer ]

9. Here are the authors behind each poem exerpt:

    (a) – “Turning to torment, no reason persuades me, / Pain blooms in muscles yet joy is commanding” – ChatGPT

    (b) – “Wisdom, alas, is a flaw when you’re mired / In glory, in notions of being a man” – Me (from my “Ode to Lomas Cantadas”)

    (c) – “This is the freedom to throw all the rules about, / Knowing the payment and what it will cost him” – Gemini

   (d) – “Madness is mettle, a jest I renew, / Lomas Cantadas — I suffer for you” – Copilot

Once again, AI generally does a fairly poor job of maintaining sense when it’s trying to get the meter right, and Gemini didn’t even get the dactylic trimeter right. The outlier is Copilot which I think did remarkably, perhaps even frighteningly, well. [Source: More AI Smackdown - ChatGPT, Copilot, & Gemini Write Poetry ]

10. (d) – MAVIS (middle-aged vixen in spandex) is the term I suggested. Help me make this a household word! [Source: Ask a MAMIL ]

Scoring

9-10: You are a genius! You probably know this blog better than I do.

6-8: Excellent! You’re either just very good at taking tests, or you actually read my blog pretty faithfully in 2025.

3-5: Solid! It seems you’re actually pretty familiar with albertnet, even if you fell off a bit this past year.

1-2: Good! I’m impressed you made it all the way through the test!

0: Not so bad! Next time perhaps you’ll actually take the test instead of just skimming my post!

<0: You are either magical, a space alien, or an emoticon of a person with a big nose and a goatee.

Did you win?

If you scored a perfect 10, email me here and let me know. If you are the first perfect-scoring reader, I will respond to your email and make shipping arrangements for your special prize!

—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXV - Holiday Edition

Introduction

This is the twenty-fifth installment in the “From the Archives — Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, and Volume XXIV is here. There is no common thread running through all these volumes, and they jump around in time and place, so you can read them in any order, disorder, preorder, reorder, or backorder. You can skip around, rip around, take little sips, mouth the words with your lips, and dip in and out.

What are albertnet Bits & Bobs? They’re passages recycled from old letters or emails to friends or family. For this special 25th edition, today being the 25th and of December no less, I’m doing something different: all of these are taken from my past holiday newsletters, which—being satires of the newsletter genre—tend to be a little dark. So brace yourself … in fact, you may wish to fortify yourself in advance with some spiked eggnog.

1999

This year has been really fun and exciting. We’d have liked to travel overseas like most of our friends do, perhaps to see some ruins, maybe in Greece, but we didn’t. We did go to Moab, Utah, for camping and mountain biking in Canyonlands National Park. The Slickrock trail made E— cry, and we came home early, but we had a great time!

Another big thing we’ve been doing this year is trying to buy a home. We’ve learned a lot about classics, charmers, indoor/outdoor living, and understated elegance. Unfortunately we can’t seem to afford anything. But those of you who have been to our apartment know we’re just fine where we are!

If you aren’t mentioned in this newsletter, please don’t feel bad—we’ve been so busy it makes us forgetful. One thing keeping us busy has been business travel. On my last trip I found out the hard way that the cough syrup bottle has to be stored in an upright position. During my layover in Denver, in the airport bathroom, I discovered that the syrup had completely emptied itself into my travel bag! It was the cherry flavor, bright red and really sticky. As I was washing the things in my toiletry bag, it fell into the sink, and because of the little electric eye, the water turned on automatically and filled the bag before I could stop it. The syrup got all over everything in my entire bag—my socks, my underwear, my shoes, clothes, everything. The airport janitor says it happens all the time.

2002

We did a newsletter three or four years ago and just never really got around to writing another one. So, let me fill you in on what has happened in the last few years. I sure hope you remember us.

We bought a house a few years ago, in Albany, after a whole bunch of unsuccessful offers. It was a very frustrating process. E— even cried, but I didn’t. I guess you could call me the “man of the house.” We got a cat too, M—, and we were really excited about her for a while but now we have a baby, A—. She is so cute. She’s really, really smart. Like today I gave her her lunch, and then handed her a wet paper towel to see if she would wipe her own face. Well, what did she do? She tried to wash her foot! I’m actually a bit worried because I’m told that exceptionally intelligent babies are a lot more work. I guess that’s the price you pay.

A— is so fun to watch when she’s playing with other babies. She’s very assertive. She takes away the other kids’ toys, which isn’t very nice but you have to admit, those skills will be very useful when she’s an executive of some kind some day. That’s what I tell people, at least people whose babies haven’t lost out to her. Actually, it’s mostly the non-parent friends I tell this to. I’ve definitely learned that some people don’t want babies of their own, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love babies. They even “get” the kind of parent-style joking that we parents do. It’s very subtle. For example: this friend of mine (no kids) takes me aside one day, and gives me this little speech about how not everybody is going to be as interested in the details of A—’s development as somebody who has a baby. And at first I’m thinking, What is this guy talking about? And then I realize he’s joking! Total deadpan. That was so funny.

2003

So, about this Christmas season. I’m just going to say it: above all other feelings, I just find its obligations oppressive. On top of that I can’t stand the music. Those songs get stuck in my head and just sit there, agitating me like a chunk of peanut stuck in my teeth. I try to get rid of them, try to do a song-graft with something equally catchy but non-holiday-themed, but it’s futile and I get the mental equivalent of a tired, sore tongue that can’t stop pushing against the nut fragment. Why do I hate the music so much? Beyond how insipid it is to begin with, it’s the way the songs are enhanced, groomed, and molested. Usually you hear this music in malls and stores (I haven’t heard a caroler in decades). These places have two objectives in mind when meddling with the music. First, they believe that it’s old and tired and needs to be freshened up (when actually the whole holiday is supposed to be about honoring tradition). Second, many of these venues don’t want to be exclusionary, so they have to stick to the non-specific winter holiday songs. Shrinking the list of candidates means that the remaining songs become terribly overplayed, like “Winter Wonderland” and “Jingle Bells” (which was originally a Thanksgiving song, by the way).

I want to comment on one song in particular that I cannot stand: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It’s just plain stupid. You mean to tell me this was the first year Santa encountered fog, and that he couldn’t have the elves make him a powerful headlight? Couldn’t the songwriter have thought of something more plausible, like Santa took pity on the poor deformed reindeer and created a position for him, at the head of the group no less, just to show those other snooty reindeer a thing or two? That would be a lot better lesson than the one we really get: that you should be loved and included based on your usefulness. My indulgent sense of moral outrage is not satisfied. I want to see those other reindeer pay for their earlier bigotry. The other thing I hate about this song is that it’s inextricable from the made-for-TV movie, so you can’t hear it without having all the cloying visions return, like how you picture dancing hippos when you hear that song from “Fantasia.” So I have to picture those cutesy reindeer with their absurdly oversized eyes, and that stupid elf Hermey with his swoopy blond hair, and the abominable snowman with the messed-up teeth. And now, as a parent, I even have the Rudolph board-book that, of course, A— loves. So I read it sweetly, suppressing the snideness that threatens to creep into my voice (although I can never help embellishing the story; for example, Rudolph’s nose is red because he’s a drunk and all the blood vessels in his nose have burst; Clarice is attracted to him only because he’s an outcast and she wants to gall her father; Hermey the Misfit Elf is actually kind of a narcissist; and the Abominable Snowman only wishes he were abominable, when in reality he’s just as uptight and judgmental as everybody else).

2004

I have to admit, it’s been really tough trying to think up what to say in my newsletter this year. So much has happened, and yet I’m still in the same place I left off at after last year’s edition. And beyond that, I just don’t feel like I’m in the right spirit, I guess you could say. It’s time for jolly things, and happy things, and I guess I feel happy enough and jolly enough until I start thinking about writing the letter itself. I talked to a friend about it, and he said he totally understood—that given the shaky state of world affairs, he couldn’t get into a cheery holiday mood either. But he totally misunderstood me. I’m talking about the little, private humiliation of not having anything impressive to report.

Well, not humiliation, really, but what I mean is that a Christmas letter is supposed to be high-spirited and optimistic because of how well the year has gone. And though it hasn’t been a bad year, I just somehow feel like my family came up a bit short. For example, I’ve always been a bit embarrassed when people ride in my station wagon, because it’s so old and doesn’t even have drink holders. Well, this year we went out walking with another young family and I felt the pain all over again, because their stroller had drink holders! So I looked at my second-hand stroller closely for the first time, and not only does it not have a drink holder, but it’s just old and beaten and kind of corroded. So whenever I’ve tried to think of happy things to say about my family all I can think about is that stroller. So tawdry.

And that’s not the only thing that’s giving me writer’s block. I look back on the year and my kids were just, well, I don’t know, they just screamed and melted down and made all kinds of messes. Not very impressive, which they seem to know themselves, and E— and I don’t kid ourselves that we’re much better.  Home life is just one fiasco after another it seems (well, I don’t make messes, though sometimes I get irritated and maybe break a few things and E— calls it a tantrum). It’s like somewhere along the line this family just lost its pride. Maybe I’m not the only member of this household who notices the shabby station wagon and stroller.

2005

A magazine called “Real Simple” appeared in my bathroom. It’s an easy read. It really is simple. There’s a recipe in there called “Cupcakes with Ice Cream Frosting” that has only two ingredients. One is “cupcakes.” I’m not kidding! Anyway, there’s a column in “Real Simple” where readers write in with their time-saving tips. I’m going to send them this one: stop worrying about cleaning out the car. The next time you forget the diaper bag, you’ll be glad you can get by with what’s strewn on the floor. We keep a bag of clothes in the back that we intend to donate to the Salvation Army. When we’re really behind on laundry, it’s nice to be able to dip back into that bag to dress the kids.

I wish life could actually be “real simple.” Ever since I became a parent, it seems like things have gotten completely out of control. Kids just seed chaos constantly, in practically every interaction. For example, A— broke down crying during an argument she started about whether “Mulamimoto” (the name of her imaginary cat) begins with an “M” or an “R.” She’d asked me how it was spelled, and I correctly answered “M,” and then she totally refused to accept this answer. How can I teach her to read when she refuses to obey the most basic rules about what sounds a letter makes? I finally capitulated, just to shut her up, and as if to cement the new spelling she made me program the imaginary cat’s phone number into our phone, with the label “RULAMIMOTOR.” Fine, kid, whatever. L—, meanwhile, will fixate on some food item, cry because it’s not presented quickly enough, stop crying when she gets it, but then start bawling all over again. Why? Too hot? Too cold? Too much? Not enough? Not living up to its promise?

But despite being frazzled a lot of the time, I think my attitude was generally pretty good this past year, and that my enduring emotional health must surely rub off on the kids. Still, I sometimes worry. Tonight A— asked me to play a game with her. I expected it to be our standard game, in which I surgically remove her appendix. But tonight she announced she wanted to play a new game: Deathbed. I told her I didn’t know that game, and she told me we could make it up together. It went fine. At the end I told her she had to speak her last word. Her choice: “Done.”

Other albertnet holiday posts

• 2025 Last-Minute Online Holiday Gift Guide!
• 2024 Online Holiday Gift Guide!
• 2023 Last-Minute Online Holiday Gift Guide!
• 2022 albertnet Last-Minute Online Holiday Gift Guide
• 2021 albertnet Online Holiday Gift Guide
• 2020 albertnet Last-Minute Online Holiday Gift Guide
• The 2019 albertnet Online Holiday Gift Guide
• Interview With Santa Claus
• The 2018 albertnet Christmas Guide
• The Christmas Eve Doldrums
• A Cure for Holiday Consumerist Bloat
• The Black Friday That Wasn’t
• Santa Denial, and How Lance Armstrong Taught Me to Lie
• Fiction — The Happiest Christmas Story I Know
• My 2012 Holiday Newsletter: the Cat’s POV
• My 2011 Holiday Newsletter — Head Lice!
• My 2010 Holiday Newsletter — Importance of Santa Mythology
• Holiday Mall Report: the Lotion Sniper
• My 2009 Holiday Newsletter — Retail in the UK
• The Suppressed 2008 Holiday Newsletter
• Descent Into Chaos: My 2005 Holiday Newsletter

 —~—~—~—~—~—~—~—~—
Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.