Friday Fun

Things are coming your way, out there somewhere tonight

As always, here’s a collection of things that didn’t warrant their own post this week, even a post generated by a bot.

• Just hours after I posted a ChatGPT “post” about the 49ers quarterback position, Tom Brady announced his retirement and it sounds like this one might stick. This makes sense to me for a few reasons - one, I’ve been predicting it before the season started (now, I need Aaron Rodgers to do his part and do the same and suddenly I’m a GENIUS!). Two, Brady looked good last year but VERY reticent to take a hit (which I get). And third, I had finally come around to the idea of Brady maybe joining the 49ers. For the last few years, it’s been a CONSISTENT rumor that he’ll join the team, even when it made no sense. This year, with Brock Purdy and Trey Lance both injured and The Handsome One leaving in free agency, it starts to make more sense. So, of course, he’s retiring and hanging it up. Fairly sure, this time he means it.

tombrady

A post shared by Tom Brady (@tombrady)

• I don’t know if it’s just me, but Gmail - once a stout defender against spam - suddenly delivers at least one or two laughably spam emails a week. And it utterly baffles me who is falling for this shit. When I get an email from “TeDdY” at a gmail address and the message looks like this, it’s like they aren’t even trying:

OUR REGULAR MEMBER

thank you for choosing OUR geek squad service, we are reaching out to remind you that your geek squad annual maintenance service is expiring on 17th jan, 2023.

we would thank you for the completion OF the one year maintenance plan.

we will auto-renew your plan AND charge against your account.

we understand that you are hence not get through to you when we tried to contact.

E-STATEMENT:-

Order NO:  QC0SA9C04

SECURITY info:     geek squad protection

expiry:       one YEAR

paying METHOD: Auto Debit

Is the goal just to see if I respond and it’s a valid email address? There’s a phone number I didn’t include here, and I guess if I called it, they’d try to get my credit card, etc. But man, I’m flummoxed at how low-effort this is. I guess I’m GLAD because I suspect it’s not that successful, but also curious. Are these guys just idiots, or is this all it takes to rip off some folks?

• Like many others, I’m deeply into watching The Last of Us. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to call Episode 3 one of the best episodes of TV I’ve seen in QUITE some time, and there were barely any of the fungus-faced zombies. In the climactic scene in the episode, there was this beautiful, sad violin song. My brother pointed out that it’s been used a lot, to similar effectiveness. This article talks about it specifically. I also didn’t expect to be so emotionally moved by a Linda Ronstadt song earlier in the episode, but here we are.

  

• Finally, I listened to an amazing episode of a podcast called The Radio Ga-Ga Podcast, which is on hiatus right now but breaks down an album track by track. The episode I listened to was about OK Computer. That episode is here, but also mentioned that if you align OK Computer and the subsequent album by Radiohead, In Rainbows, and play Track 1 from OK Computer, then Track 1 from In Rainbows and so on, they flow as if originally planned that way. Blew my mind. Here’s a Spotify playlist to make it easier for you to listen yourself.