Random Thoughts 1 - Unrelated Ideas For Your Pleasure

Welcome to this blog. If you are reading this, the day came where I finally decided there were enough of these to publish. This is Random Thoughts 1, a series where I write about stuff I didn’t think would fit into a whole blog. 

There is no rhyme nor reason, just ideas.

Don’t use Messenger for pictures for thumbnails

One of my workflows is to send Chris Chrome pictures to transfer them from my phone to my computers. The main point of this is to fuck with him. He just gets to see random unsent messages. Earlier today I took a thumbnail pic with Messenger. It was blurry. My phone was in 1:1 and I realized I could just make it the picture ratio I wanted. It was a lot clearer. Even when I sent it via Messenger again (definitely some compression there).

The dishes never take 5 minutes

Sometimes people lie to me and tell me to do the dishes. That part is not a lie, the part where they qualify how fast it is by saying it only takes 5 minutes. That is a lie. It can take like 1-2 minutes just for the water to heat up. Doing the dishes, even if it’s not a lot, takes awhile. Unless you do them in real time. Stop lying to people. White lies are stupid. I think it can be done in 10 minutes though, but everyone knows that isn’t convincing. 

The 21st of September is not special to Earth, Wind & Fire

Out of nowhere Bonnie sang "Do you remember, the 21st night in September". I realized I'd never heard the lyrics before. I was like why that date? What is the meaning? There is no meaning. It just sounded good. This has bothered so many fans that Allee Willis learned not to let arbitrary lyrics ruin the groove for people. While some fans don't care and just go "owww weee owwwww do do do do do do" like me. Others, also like me, go wait what in the fuck does that even mean? It's not even provocative.

How many people actually read the chip bag?

I was looking at the back of this bag of Yum Yum chips and saw this grandiose bit of copy. They have potato artisans. They craft chip art. Meanwhile Doritos, with its big dick energy has some crap like "warning, awesome with Mountain Dew". Side note, I’ve never had Doritos with Mountain Dew before, I just don’t think Canada fucks with Mountain Dew like that. I was also left to wonder, does anyone actually read the back of a bag of chips, see that copy on the bag, and go, hmmm yes Yum Yum does have better potato artisans than Doritos and change their mind? Please let me know if you do. 

Antibacterial eye drops are uncomfortable

I am resisting the urge to rub my eye. I got the conjunctivitis and this is problematic. I am contagious and don't want to infect people. So I went on over to the pharmacy and got the polysporin eye drops. Now my eye is itchy, feels clunky and I have to resist touching it. I need to let the medicine do its work. However this eye gunk is disgusting. I am not a fan. Don't get eye infections. Do not recommend. Thankfully you can get the Polysporin eye drops without a prescription. 

Temu sold me a really good portable vacuum cleaner

Really good is an exaggeration but it is effective for removing the dirt and hair from the disgusting people who use my car for Uber. They are all lovely people, but I am surprised by how quickly the car gets gross. Smudges, hairs and dirt galore. I got the vaccuum cleaner for 40$ off Temu to see and damn it's proper. It has done a great job of making sure my car stays relatively clean. It's not a miracle worker vacuum, but for 40$ it is exactly what I needed for on the go messes.

Signing up for merch sites can get cool flash deals

Over at Sticker Mule they offered me 50 buttons for 20$. I was like wait, that is like 40 cents a button. I could make like 150$-200$ off that batch. It also made me realize this could be a strategy for building an inventory of lower price items. By watching for specials like this, I can get a lot of items, for a lot less money. Then as I sell them, the profit will go into paying off my mistakes, buying expensive items I couldn’t sell. Plus I want stuff I can easily transport with me. Buttons, stickers, pins, little items. Stuff a drunk person would give me 5$ for. 

Expert cat people videos are wild

I see a lot of cat content on Reels and TikTok. One of the things that always baffles me is how these people are so certain they know cat behaviour. I know we can study them and make some educated guesses. But people act like they can speak cat. They do all these breakdowns on how to communicate with your cat. Then in real life, I meet cats who behave with all kinds of contradictory behaviours. I just want to know how the cat people on TikTok are so sure of their knowledge. I bet some of them are liars. Do cat scientists reinforce it all? There are never sources.

Vacations are pretty important

Even when we were poor as a kid, my parents found ways to get us out of Montreal. Whether it was for the day, or a weekend, we found ways to take vacations. When I became an adult I did not travel much. I got caught up in the rut of my life and neglected the wanderlust. Then I got older and realized that travel is good for the soul. Especially if you make art. The world is pretty big and until you go somewhere that is not like home, it’s hard to see that. But vacations are travel based on rest. I’ve not done a lot of those and am excited for July, to chill in Puerto Rico. 

South Park’s Danger Deck DLC is Stupid Hard

I spent the whole game (The Fractured But Whole) wrecking stuff. Foolish me, I did not save the macaroni heal summons as I did not realize they were finite. There is a way to unlock more summons but I need to survive 3 very hard fights. So far the entire Danger Deck experience is me getting wrecked. The whole game was pretty easy and now I’m being demolished. I’ve never seen a DLC difficulty spike like that before, but I’m barely a gamer. Anyway, be prepared for that if you, like me, play the old game to prepare for the new South Park game dropping this month.

Ormstown’s 6+ was a weird thing

Apparently if you come from the Valley you may have encountered this thing called 6+. On paper the schools failed the smartest kids and then sent them to this thing called 6+. It was kind of like cegep, a system to bridge the gap to higher education introducing the necessary behaviours in a slower way. Also it was doing grade 6 again in French.  They took more trips and other cool stuff. In reality a bunch of kids, in only this one section of Quebec, ironically the smart ones, had to do a whole extra year of school due to an experiment that inevitably got shut down. Weird. 

There were some random ideas for you. 

Live Long and Prosper Everyone