2025

They’re Probably Out to Get Me

I just tested and installed our new wifi-enabled, talking smoke / carbon monoxide detector. As with many things, I think I prefer the older version that was neither wifi-enabled nor capable of talking. I’m pretty sure the smoke detector and the coffee pot will now be conspiring against me behind my back.

What If There’s Nothing Left?

I recently committed to leave every social network that consisted mainly of people being mean to each other. And now all I have left is this place. I have no thoughts worth sharing on whether there was ever a benign intent behind social media, but in the words of Cal Newport, these platforms tell you that “all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time.” But in reality “you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory.” And for free no less.

Shopping Cart Echolocation

I’ve noticed that shopping cart etiquette varies a good bit in the different places I’ve lived. In New Jersey, people just leave the carts wherever. Next to their cars, in empty parking spaces, inside the shop next door, wherever’s most convenient and doesn’t require an ounce of extra effort. In Maryland and New Hampshire, people generally bring the cart back to the stall where you are supposed to return them. The jumble of carts can be a little chaotic but it works.

Pittsburgh is the only place I’ve lived where people not only return the carts to the stall, but properly organize them as necessary. People who don’t even work there will collect carts from the parking lot, and then re-pack the different types of carts in the stall as necessary to make things a little easier for whoever has to return them to the store. I’ll always love Pittsburgh.