Category — Uncategorized

I don’t know if this is true, but if it is, I kind of love the idea of randomly ringing a phone and talking to whoever had the curiosity to pick up.

020 7930 1397

This is the number for this phonebox on Parliament Square. There’s normally a queue of tourists waiting to get a photograph with it, so give it a call sometime. Who knows who you might speak to. pic.twitter.com/1Asxpozx0V

— Nick Walker (@nickw84) May 21, 2022

Anyone in the UK want to try this?

Remember my quest for the perfect mint once we stopped being able to get our vegan Wilhelmina mint from Trader Joe’s? Well, we returned to Newman’s Own peppermints, except those mints were also discontinued. I am terrified to tell you about the newest mint we’ve landed on in case they also disappear. But here it goes: The Perfect Mint.

Jila is the closest in taste to the Wilhelmina mint. Not overpowering. Few ingredients. Lasts a long time. I feel like it’s a 10 along with the Wilhelmina. The Wolvog thinks it’s slightly better than the Wilhelmina, and the ChickieNob thinks it’s slightly worse but the taste is growing on her.

Please Jila Mints, do not stop producing these. I cannot go back to testing mints.

I would like to be the kind of person who can identify trees. I’m not into flowers, though I imagine that interest may grow once I have trees on lock. But I’d like to be the kind of person who can casually drop things like, “Look at that amazing Eastern red cedar” or “That’s a beautiful white ash.”

How would this enhance my life? I’m not sure. But birds have been difficult because they’re always moving, and trees are… stationary. I can take my time and not feel rushed. I found a tree identification site similar to eBird except for large leafy things. I mean, yes, all trees are large in comparison to a bird, but this site is literally documenting enormous trees.

Tree identification. I added it to the retirement list. Maybe it’s a better fit than birds.

I read an interesting idea on The Imperfectionist about why you shouldn’t set up new habits. Or a more nuanced read: Setting up new habits is kind of like not being yourself.

To start a new habit, “we first need to become the kind of person who does those things all the time. You want to become, say, the kind of person who meditates, or writes or makes videos or podcasts on a regular basis, or finds more time for your kids.”

Meaning, if you are working to not do something that you brain is telling you that you want to do (such as scrolling mindlessly) then you’re trying to be something you’re not. You first have to become the type of person who doesn’t scroll mindlessly, and then you can add your new habit — the kind of habit a person who doesn’t scroll mindlessly would add. Or, another example, changing my sleeping habits. My brain wants to stay up late. I’m trying to turn myself into someone I’m not by going to bed early.

They go off in a different direction, finding the problem with the idea of focusing on establishing the new habit vs. just doing the thing you think you should do. But where I got stuck was thinking about how to do something different, I need to not be me on some level. Because me isn’t doing that thing. It’s not a natural fit.

Though they have a workaround that they explain, too.

What’s one thing you could do, today, that you know would be a good way to use a small portion of your time, and would you be willing to actually do it? I’m precisely not talking about “relaunching your meditation practice”, but instead just meditating once, today.

Food for thought.

P.S. No Roundup tomorrow. Meet you back here on the weekend.

The game This Image Does Not Exist is super hard. Four is the most I’ve gotten correct in a row.

You’re being shown 30 images like this:

And then you have to click the robot if you think it was generated by a machine or the artist if you think it was generated by a human.

Which one did you guess for the one above?

(It was machine-generated)

My end score for that round was 17 out of 30. What’s your score?