Notes for September 29th 2023

This will be a relatively light notes section this week as I'm just so busy!

• I was shopping this week and near the tills is the 'non alcoholic' shelf, mostly with alcohol free beers and the like. But there's some wines and spirits. Surely, the gin and vodka is just water with some random botanical notes thrown in for good measure?
• I'm a member of various parenting channels on various Slack instances. And on one, someone noted that their kid didn't wish to attend school this week because they would have to do another "bad guy drill." I had no idea what this meant until the thread made sense of the fact that this was a regular drill relating to active shooters on school property. America, sort your shit out.
• This week I tried cross-posting from Mastodon to Bluesky to see if there's any difference. There is, somewhat. Mastodon is more engaged and more 'like minded,' for me at least. Bluesky is far more Twitter-esque with people still clinging onto social media metrics as trophies; notably follower or like counts. And as a result, Bluesky is way more politically charged than it needs to be. Whereas Mastodon, for me, is more nerdy.
• This week I was a panelist on a webinar for the first time in a while. It went super well and I had a bunch of great feedback and connections made afterwards. I was oddly not nervous about it, which is confusing. But hey, it went well and next week I've about 20 very public meetings to coordinate and participate in so at least I can use this slightly edgy confidence and push it a bit.
• Over the last month or two I've noted that I have had a rash on my skin, around my jawline. It's impeded some growth in my facial hair (I have stubble rather than a beard so it's not super noticeable). It's been very strange to have this happen as I'm not exactly deeply unfit or unhealthy. I'm also not an athlete by any stretch, but I'm in relatively decent health. If this is a random sign of things to come beyond 40, put a pin in it and call it a day!
• We went to see Muse this week. It was a tough show to try to go to as our schedules are bananas and honestly, going to bed felt like the right move. But it was a great show. All the hits were played and the stage show was mental. It reminded me of the misery we endured watching Placebo a while ago, who berated the crowd because folks wanted to take photos or video. Very few people were taking videos or photos at Muse because the show was so big. When you consider the age of the two audiences, no one is part of the TikTok era, so couldn't be arsed watching a concert through their phone.