Yesterday I got the news I’d wanted - I tested negative for COVID-19 and was allowed to return home. It was so nice sleeping in my own bed. The bad news is that somehow grandma has tested positive for COVID - my only hope and prayer is that she recovers quickly (she has mild symptoms) because she has not actually had any kind of exposure to anyone, let alone anyone new, for weeks. Hell, she’s barely seen me in 3 weeks.
But, yes, I am back to a relative normality, or at least as normal as can be expected after being gone for two weeks.
Today I’m going to make these incredible ribs, and it will be marvelous.
Moodscrolling
I’m tired of reading about doomscrolling, or doomsurfing, or whatever it is that people are calling “I can’t stop reading posts.” I read a huge thread yesterday of someone giving tips about “how to stop doomscrolling,” and I am starting to believe that it doesn’t actually exist. The idea is that people can’t help but keep reading more posts about COVID, or politics, or whatever, and I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I do not believe that people actually can’t help but read more posts. I think that people can stop reading posts whenever they want, and the only thing drawing people back in is boredom, or intrigue.
I don’t think that people are “falling into deep, morbid rabbit holes filled with coronavirus content, agitating [themselves] to the point of physical discomfort.” I think that we live in a society that wants to bring categorization and codification to every action, so that we can half-analyze it and feel more important than we actually are. People claiming that they are reading more posts (that are bad) because they are “doomscrolling” are simply looking to bring more meaning to their lives than actually exists. Or they like drama and gossip.
It’s the same reason that I think people post about Trump stuff all day. I think they just want to feel involved and like they have any autonomy over something that is going to keep happening whether they live or die. It’s grim to say, but the whole doomscrolling discourse is just people trying to bring meaning to their extremely average and standard addiction to using their smartphone. And people wanting to read more about stuff going wrong in the world is the most standard definition of how people consume the news historically - I don’t know, I just don’t think it’s a thing!
Anyway…
Apple is releasing some $549 headphones:
So, it’s definitely going to be interesting exactly how good these sound. Apple has a laundry list of different things that it apparently does differently, promising active noise cancelling and “high-fidelity audio” and some other shit that doesn’t mean anything without people actually testing them. I am very curious about how they sound, because I have some extremely expensive headphones (HD800s) and, honestly, I am always a fan of Apple’s stuff because I have so much trouble with bluetooth, and AirPods Max will likely sound great. The question is…how great? How great can they possibly sound? What does $200 more than Bose or Sony’s over-the-ears sound like? Is it better? How much better? I want to pretend I don’t care and that I’m above all this, but I was one of the few people that actually liked the HomePod. I am also very curious about the fit, because they have memory foam cups.
We shall see.