retrograde

i just read the disease of optionality: why smart people stay poor before dinner, i'm in that article and i don't like it. i've been saying for a long time that i'm constantly working on a million things at once, and this article has made me realize i need to stop and focus. especially now, this couldn't have been a more timely intervention.

...

emotionally, today was rough. i'm a mess. but in retrospect it was nonetheless a pretty good shabbat. i finished writing up an article on using AI to build models in freecad and blender, even though i'm not thrilled by how my print model came out.

then we headed out in the rain - with our broken umbrellas from last winter - to meet with a friend from cape town who's here on a program for a couple of weeks. she brought mr smear watercolors and a really good quality sketch book, which he showed genuine gratitude for, and we talked non-stop until she had to go, and gd had consumed too much caffeine :P

after we got home, ate breakfast and relaxed for a bit, mr smear - with a lot of patient harassment - helped me wash the floors, after which we sat down to watch akira.

the movie is not the same as the manga. there's a scene where one of the girls is "lightly" violated, and holy shit, we had to have a talk about what we'd just seen. the violence is intense, but after total recall, well... 🤷‍♂️

i took mr smear out to throw the frisbee again, and it was a fantastic opportunity to talk about some serious stuff; afterwards, we took our now "traditional" little walk over the bridge and around to return home, and mr smear confided in me that he doesn't know how to process the fact that as anti-sport as he is, he's enjoying rollerblading and frisbee 🥹

while doing a bit of cloud-watching, he also came up with something inappropriate that made me feel bad for laughing, so i made a meme of it (which he's not happy about, he doesn't like my concept for his joke nor the fact that i used AI to generate it):

anyway, i made a model of it, perhaps he'll be able to do something with it:

after showering, we watched the wonder years over dinner, and every episode just amazes me more and more that something of this calibre and this educational value ever made it on air for so long. it's magic.

we chatted with my mom, and then i read a little bit more of the light fantastic to mr smear, who called me a "weenie" because i started falling asleep while reading again :P

...

right now i'm not sure if i'm clearing my desk, thinking about focusing, or going to bed.