Irony is the fifth fundamental force of the universe, so I bought a new iPhone 16.

Not a "pro" version. There's only so much oblivious over-consumption I can handle. (Did I need a new phone? No. Do I need one at all? Well, not a "smart" phone.)

Anyway...

I had some time to kill in Alpharetta last Friday, and there was some big Avalon Mall (They're big on names beginning with "A" in Georgia.) with an Apple Store (at the Avalon Mall in Alpharetta, Georgia). Mitzi had the good sense to tell me to order it online for pickup at the mall and avoid the crowd. Worked like a charm.

"Dynamic Island" is a big yawn. The new camera button makes it harder to figure out by feel which way the phone is oriented in my hand. I suppose I'll get over that eventually. Feels like a gimmick.

One thing I forgot about is the switch to USB-C from Lightning means I can't use my IR camera on my phone. I still have an iPod, so I can use it on that. Likewise with an external mic I have but seldom use. (Never use? See "over-consumption," above.) And we have to have two different cords in the car, depending on who's using their phone for CarPlay. And the charging stand next to the bed is now irrelevant.

I bought the 256GB model. I checked my iPhone 13 and I had 5GB "free" on my 128GB model. I'll probably keep this phone until the iPhone 20 comes out. (If we're all still here and Apple is still making iPhones.)

It's almost head-spinning, the cognitive dissonance. We're hurtling headlong toward disaster, but still gotta put new tires on the RAV4. (Going with the Michelin CrossClimate II, because of course. If we ever do get out of Florida to New York, they're pretty good on snow.)

Why do they call it the "poly-crisis"? Why not "multi-crisis"? I think that's much more hip.

For whatever it's worth, I have no clue who Joe Rogen is. Clearly, I'm old and irrelevant. I read about him a lot, but never listened to his podcast and don't wish to do so.

Grocery stores are greedy. I've been buying Publix store-brand raisin bran for months. (Gotta feed your microbiome.) It was $2.46 when the name brands were like $6.00+! Well, yesterday I bought a box and it was $3.15! That's a 28% price increase, about 10x the rate of inflation.

I double-checked (maybe triple) with the Supervisor of Elections office, and my ballot is still showing as having been counted.

Can't be too careful these days.

We can't even look forward to having this thing resolved this Tuesday, unless Trump wins. If he loses, which we may not even know for some days, then it'll be a shit-storm of election denialism. If he wins, it'll just be a shit-storm.

Patti Griffin has a song called "Please Don't Let Me Die In Florida." Seems relevant.

Where's the "spaghetti model" for the oncoming shit-storm? What category is it? What surge can we expect?

God help us all.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:14 Thursday, 31 October 2024