Ploafmaster General

Nobody who’s been aware of Spanberger for more than the past year should be surprised, but it’s still enraging to see her fall back into the same “moderate” bullshit that party establishment types favor. What a dummy.

Skipped riding my bike today in favor of working on bike stuff. I trued the front wheel (enough) for the grocery bike, did the same for a wheel I will use on the purple Raleigh, and did the initial build on the rear wheel of the grocery bike. Productive!

For reasons known only to the content gods, I have seen a lot of recent recommendations for videos/articles/live performances of the rock duo Angine do Poitrine. I’ve listened to a few tracks here and there, but tonight I listened through both albums: 2024’s Vol. 1 and this month’s Vol. II. I feel internally conflicted about all of this.

I’m going to ignore the visual performance aspect for now except to say that I think it rules. I cannot imagine how long it takes to apply the makeup, and performing with those crazy-large masks seems like a serious challenge. Hats off.

The music is where I need more time to digest. Their overall sound makes me think of a neo-psychedelic jam band, but shouting, “Now, with microtonal fretboards!”. The second album adds a bit more prog rock flavor, yet both albums feel somehow melodically shallow—ironic, given the microtonal strings. On the other hand my enjoyment of electronic music helps me, I suspect, appreciate the undulating and modulating looped nature of their tracks. Loop decks are fundamentally an electronic music technique even when used with acoustic or electric guitars, and the resulting performances/recordings often share those layering and building qualities. I also find their music makes me want to dance despite the frequent use of odd and/or shifting time signatures. They may be pretty fun to see live.

Conclusion: needs more research. I like what they’re getting at, but I could use a little more variety. I’d love to see them in person, but the closest they’re coming to Richmond is Washington, DC. On a Tuesday. During the school year.

It doesn’t matter how much I listen to EDM or 90s hip hop or abstract Hong Kong jazz, something about my musical taste reads so strongly as “middle aged white guy” that Apple Music just served me up some Steely Dan.

It doesn’t matter who they put in the photos. When a Virginia political flyer refers to “Richmond politicians” I know it’s from some mostly/all white conservative group.

I am so happy about the election news coming out of Hungary.

It only recently occurred to me how much popular conceptual aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes may have primed people to accept and use LLMs instead of actually researching (to say nothing of declining search engine quality).

I just saw an incredible bumper sticker that said, “my bike takes me places the cops would never go“.

I don’t exactly feel like an oracle for being right about this.

I don’t want to underestimate Trump’s awfulness but I kinda feel like we’ll get yet another news update tonight about Trump “pausing” for 48 hours or some BS because of some “productive negotiations” that Iran will immediately deny.

Trump’s threats to Iran sound increasingly like my threats to take away my daughter’s phone when she gives me attitude.

I love it when you call a place on a holiday to see whether they’re open and the first thing they say when answering the phone is, “we are open regular hours today.”

HOME 🥱

Finished the red-eye leg of our return trip. Now we loaf (ploaf?) around BWI for nearly 4 hours before the short hop back to Richmond.

This new fixed gear short film from FOAD Gang is sick: youtu.be/Z4JzGVDDT…

Here at LAX with hours to go before my red-eye flight home, I’m working through everything that we did this week. We only just buried my mother-in-law near the end of March, but my wife decided we should use spring break to visit my grandmother in California while we still can. So off we flew across the country a week ago in order to sit in a car for so many hours and miles in LA County traffic.

The kids loved the trip, and my wife and I largely enjoyed it. I’ll have a few follow-up posts about particular activities, but for now, here are some highlights:

• Lots of excellent time with my grandmother, laughing and reminiscing. We treated her to lunch late in the week, and got to see my great aunt Anne Marie who also lives in southern California.
• My rental car: a 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric car. My whole experience with this thing was excellent, and really want one (or something similar) when I get my next car in a few years.
• The food and coffee: unsurprisingly good, at least relative to what we have in my far-smaller and less diverse home town. We had terrific Latino food, dumplings, ramen, and even some solid Italian food. And the coffee! I’m already missing Loquat in Silver Lake.
• Tye people: I didn’t have any negative expectations about the people here, but I felt like folks were pretty friendly across the board. Retail employees, security guards, random folks making small talk, etc.

I plan to post some photo-heavy follow-up on visits to Joshua Tree (too short), Griffith Observatory, and the Neutra House, but that’s it for now!

Spending the next several hours at LAX mentally processing our family trip out west, sifting through photos, watching YouTube, charging devices. As ever no matter how good the travel, it’ll be great to return home.

Yippee-ki-yay…

I just had what may be some of the best tonkatsu broth I’ve ever tasted.

I will have much more to say and show about Joshua Tree National Park later, but lemme say that the Joshua Tree Rivian Outpost is a terrific fast charging location.

My rental car this week in LA is a 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5, and lemme tell ya, I am in love with this thing.

SUPER hyped that I got to visit The Cub House #bike shop in San Marino. Everyone was mega friendly and helpful, and the whole vibe of the place was chill and welcoming.

At 12:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time I hit the pillow, nearly 11.5 hours after leaving my house in Richmond, VA this afternoon. I’m wiped.

The USC men’s baseball team is on this flight heading back to LA.

Almost finished with our layover at BWI, ready for the long flight to LAX. My 9YO’s first flight, and everyone’s first time to LA except for me. Not keen on the long trip, but looking forward to seeing my grandma.