Blogging since 1998. By David Wertheimer

Category: Observed (Page 1 of 23)

Still true

I revisited my 25th-anniversary blog post today and discovered that the Eatonweb Portal clickthroughs are functional in the Wayback Machine.

Back then, according to the portal, I described the Ideapad as, “Views, opinions, emotions, essays, proper grammar.”

That’s still pretty much the case. Nice job staying on topic, Wertheimer.

A year later, I wrote up the sidebar description that also still rings true:

3 parts observation
2 parts introspection
1 part links
1 part creativity
1 part stinging wit
dash of sarcasm

Part of longevity is just sticking to it.

Let’s talk about license plates

I love when Steven Garrity writes about car stuff because it gets me to write about car stuff too. Yesterday he wrote a post about the license plates of Prince Edward Island, and I love license plates, so I’m going to parrot him again and share my own, local experience and perspective. (Update: Kottke posted about license plates today, too, just hours after me. Remember when this kind of blog post virality was a thing?)

Seriously: I love license plates. I think they’re endlessly interesting and amusing. Growing up, I played the license plate game for years on family vacations, looking for every U.S. state (Montana was my last). I got to know styles, variants, and updates for all of America, and the plates for eastern Canada, too. Growing up, I hated my local plates, so I tried to design my own (more on that later). I read—past and present tense—license plates as I go by, looking for catchy phrases and humor; I know by alphanumeric sequence which plates in my home state are the newest; I bristle at the new trend of defacing a plate to avoid tickets and tolls—in part on ethical grounds, and in part because it takes away some of my fun.

For better or worse, I have passed on this fixation to my younger son, who constantly tells me about what he sees, although he’s more about the logical order and less about finding words where there aren’t any. We do both enjoy a well done custom plate.

Anyway, Garrity’s post was about the recent history of PEI’s license plates, so let me discuss my own. I grew up in New Jersey, and when I was a little kid, they all looked like this:

New Jersey license plate, 1970s.

They weren’t much to look at, but they get high functional marks, with their high contrast making them easy to read. (I recall at one point learning about how plates’ readability correlates to cops’ ability to recover stolen cars.)

Soon after I started paying attenion, the Jersey plates got redesigned. The state added a New Jersey silhouette to the profile, replacing the center dot, but they inverted the color scheme, and came up with this cringe-worthy style:

New Jersey license plate, 1980s.

Apparently “blue and buff” is a thing to New Jersey, but it makes for an awful license plate. Readability certainly took a hit with this style. And the overall effect was just unattractive.

I had an Apple //c computer growing up, and around 1987 I went so far as to redesign the New Jersey license plate in Dazzle Draw. (Why I didn’t draw it freehand, I do not know.) I played up the Garden State angle, with a Jersey Tomato, and leveraged the Jersey Devil and the new hockey team’s color scheme, making a design with a white background and green-and-red visual elements. I sent two variations with a note to Governor Tom Kean’s office. I’m sure it looked pixelated and awful, but I bet it wasn’t any worse than the blue and buff license plate. The governor’s office did not respond.

By 1993, I had gotten a new car, and New Jersey had updated its license plates again, so mine looked like this:

New Jersey license plate, 1990s.

Readability was back, and the design was both retro and modern with its color fade, but what was this design? We’re giving up on “buff and blue”? The nice state stamp in between the letters stuck around, but in an era when other states’ license plates were increasingly attractive and clever, Jersey got a plate that met outsiders’ low expectations. With minor tweaks, this design persists to present day, thirty years of uninspired license plates on the Garden State Parkway.

Meanwhile, New York was pulling ahead. My childhood memories of New York plates were of the color and then the Statue of Liberty, which were fine—not exciting, but somehow more stately, interesting and important than New Jersey. Like the state and its namesake city, New York’s license plates (like California’s) had some presence, and it suited them.

In 2001, New York redesigned its license plates to showcase more of the state, and they nailed it.

New York license plate, 2000s.

This plate brought lots of good elements together: the state outline divider, the slogan, and a collage of statewide geographic features across the top, from Niagara Falls to the Adirondacks to the Manhattan skyline. It was handsome, easy to read, interesting and memorable. A great license plate.

My car at the time was registered in New Jersey, so I missed having that license plate on my vehicle. By the time I got a new car, in 2015, New York had moved back to the orange-and-navy theme of the 1970s, ditching the geographic elements, which were beginning to seem fussy, in favor of a simple, clean layout.

New York license plate, 2010s.

This design was… fine. Easy to read, plays off the past, curved lines and fonts give it some style, the shade of orange matched the NYC taxicab fleet pretty well. I didn’t love it, but there was nothing to dislike, either.

The same cannot be said of the current New York plates, which adorn my car now. They are emblematic of much of the Andrew Cuomo administration: well-intentioned, earnest, but failing to stick the landing.

New York license plate 2020s.

We are back to the previous geographic elements—all of them! Plus the Statue of Liberty returns, and now there’s a lighthouse, and some clouds. “Empire State” has been sacrificed for EXCELSIOR, which Cuomo loved to use, presented in an overly bold and blocky font, while the stripes atop the plate fall at an odd height and fail to tie the design together. The overall effect is amateurish. Kind of like something a middle school student would design at home, only this time it’s on every new license plate in the state.

Governor Kathy Hochul hasn’t expressed much concern over the current New York license plate, which is just three years old, but perhaps her successor will. Maybe we’ll get something inspired for the next decade. At least the current plates are easy to read. Excelsior.

Chasing the conversation

A number of years ago, I made a conscious decision, based around privacy concerns and ad trackers, to minimize my time spent on Facebook and Instagram. It wasn’t especially hard; I deleted the Facebook app on my phone and diverted my attention elsewhere, and that was that. A little bit of righteous indignation goes a long way.

I have largely stuck to my decision and I’m no worse off for it. I’m not a Meta heathen; my accounts are active, and every now and again (a couple of times a month, I’d guess) I look through my feeds. I occasionally post to one or the other, when the moment is right. (And I use WhatsApp, because every group chat that’s not immediate friends now defaults to WhatsApp.)

Mostly, though, I’ve chosen to keep current on the news and chatter of the day, rather than the personal posts of social media. And for a long time, getting the best information of the moment meant hanging out on Twitter.

For the past nine months or so, the once-vibrant Twitter community has watched with concern as its new owner has put the service on a path of self-destruction. Competitors are now rushing to take its place, from grassroots distributed platforms to scrappy startups to, now, Instagram, in the form of Threads. Like many others, I have accounts on all of them.

Perhaps in a few months or years one of these systems will be our collective hangout like Twitter used to be. In the interim, though, it’s all rather overwhelming. I find myself completely at a loss as to which short-form posting platform to open. I’ve been flipping indiscriminately around all day without rhyme or reason. And still in muscle memory is that Twitter search is best for in-the-moment breaking news, so I’m still there, too, quieter but not gone.

What to do? We have so many decision points now. For one, where are my friends? My business colleagues? The interesting journalists and pundits I follow? The push news from the sources I trust? The fantasy baseball content? Darth?

Then: who do I want monetizing my feed? Elon Musk, on a site where he’s pushing extremist views? Or Mark Zuckerberg, whose platforms I so deliberately left not long ago? Or Jack Dorsey, whom most people blame for this situation existing at all? Or no one at all, via Mastodon, but leaving so much behind?

Or maybe—just maybe—I should just let go?

It may be time, at least for me, to stop chasing the conversation. It’s not really a conversation, anyway, not most of the time; you post, I post, they post, once in awhile someone replies, and once in a great while an actual conversation ensues. We’re all so used to this cadence that we don’t realize we don’t need it. But I know I don’t: my time away from FB/IG proves it. I just need to extend that motivation.

Giving up a 15 year short form posting habit would not be easy. I enjoy having an outlet for sharing thoughts in writing (see also) and with social media there’s a built-in audience. But then, audiences are elusive; sometimes my posts get some attention, and oh the dopamine hit that comes from a retweet, but sometimes I float a thought at the wrong time of day, or that the algorithm doesn’t dig, and fewer than 20 people even see it. With the fragmentation of the landscape, it’s all a crapshoot now.

I’ve been carrying around an old copy of “The Power Broker” for a good while. This could be a great time to commit myself to it. And a hundred other things that don’t require a social media feed.

Six-word reviews of the restaurants in my neighborhood

(With long-memory apologies to Paul Ford.)

Absolute Bagel: a bit far and worth it.

Au Jus: pretty decent BBQ, inscrutable portion sizes.

Blue Marble: a pricey little scoop, but yum.

Bosino: we tried it once, were underwhelmed.

Broadway Bagel: makes a solid egg and cheese.

Broadway Restaurant: fun there’s a greasy spoon nearby.

Cafe du Soleil: bubble dining was a pandemic highlight.

Cheesy Pizza: gloppy, sketchy, and not my style.

Famous Famiglia Pizza: Eli’s favorite. I’m not sure why.

Flor de Mayo: tried it twice. Got stomachaches twice.

Guacamole: now it’s called Pico de Gallo.

Just Pho You: meaning to try it, haven’t yet.

Kouzan: pretty decent Japanese, but no delivery?

La Vera: not bad, but not our go-to.

Lenny’s: best for their whole-wheat everything bagel.

Malecon: we order from Pio Pio instead.

Mama’s Too!: delicious, unique pizza. Try the pear.

Manhattan Diner: like Metro, but not as good.

Manhattan Valley Cuisine of India: Nate didn’t enjoy, but I did.

Metro Diner: Reliable, high quality diner. Excellent bacon.

Naruto Ramen: fine, but wish it was great.

Nobody Told Me: good food and unique summer cocktails.

Ollie’s: mediocre Chinese, displaced by Shun Lee.

Ozen: sixteen years and we’ve never gone.

Pio Pio: every time we order, we’re happy.

Popeye’s: they undercook their chicken for juiciness.

Regional: cute; we tried, but it’s meh.

Sal and Carmine Pizza: fantastic slice joint, a regular purchase.

Serafina: Italian. Reliable. Amy loves their focaccia.

Street Taco: impressive decor but for the weapons.

Shun Lee 98th St: sure, it’s franchised, but it’s great.

Super Tacos: a solid, authentic Mexican food truck.

Sushi W: great omakase in an unlikely location.

Szechuan Garden: we tried it once, were underwhelmed.

Sun Chan: college students say it’s good sushi.

A Taste of Ecuador: Riverside Park food truck; tasty empanadas.

Texas Rotisserie: so-so BBQ, but good lunch special.

Thai Market: great neighbor recommendation, a weekly staple.

Westside Market: a supermarket, but great tuna salad.

WingStop: we shouldn’t, but yeah, we do.

Wolfnights: fussy for the sake of it.

Drafted 2021/10/15 at 2:46 pm. Published with updates for openings and closings.

Busking

Instead of the usual musician or candy-seller, we encountered a gymnast performing for money on the 4 train this afternoon. With a boombox playing Michael Jackson and a mouthful of one-liners, he did one-arm flips and off the ceiling-mounted bars, then tried to entertain us as he asked for money.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “if I didn’t kick you in the head, you got nothing to be angry at.”

“Gentlemen, if you can’t do this, please donate accordingly.”

“Ladies, if your man can’t do this, please come to my place… it’s right by the subway and I have cable.”

Across from us, a 7-year-old boy turned to his mother: “We should go to his place.”

Drafted 2007/09/03 at 9:56 pm. Published unedited.

Sedecordle is the best -rdle

You’ve been playing Wordle the past few months, haven’t you? Who hasn’t? It’s a great little game, a couple of minutes of diversion, deep thought and great satisfaction. I play it almost every day.

To everyone’s delight, Wordle quickly spawned knock-offs, all in the open-source, free-to-play spirit of the original. I play a bunch of them. There are all sorts of variants, from words to maps to songs to movie stills. They all have their charms, and the internet is a little more fun as a result.

As someone who likes word puzzles, I’ve spent most of my -rdle gaming time on the letter games, espeically the spin-offs. Wordle begat Dordle, which is two wordles solved simultaneously; that led to Quordle, and the multiplying went from there: eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. Many of them even use the same codebase.

You can play them in order, which is fun, or you can just hit the best ones: Wordle, the original, and Sedecordle.

Wordle is a brain teaser, great for all the well-documented reasons. Sedecordle is a puzzle: 16 words, 22 total guesses, each attempt painting in different parts of each grid. It is part word search, part crossword and part jigsaw puzzle, requiring dexterity and clever construction to find every word in time. It takes a few more minutes than Wordle, but like any good word game, the satisfaction that comes from completing it is great.

Sedecordle is inherently solvable, but not easy. I try to crack it in as few as 18 rounds, but I still lose outright maybe once a week. A word with multiple uncommon options (PATCH, MATCH, WATCH) can quickly undermine the day.

The others? All worthy, just not as satisfying. Dordle is a great little trifle, as is Quordle (although their word choices are much more esoteric). The 32- and 64-word options are noble but more of an endurance exercise than a game; they use every single letter, and with patience it’s just a matter of filling in words. Octordle alludes to the promises of Sedecordle, but the eight word grid is not as compelling as sixteen.

So: sedecordle. Enjoy.

Twenty years past

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversay of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York. You know this, of course. This weekend, many corners of the internet will be commemorating the occasion.

I have never been one to look back on the event in great detail. Many people do (Anil Dash, for example, every year) and I appreciate their reflections without feeling much need or desire to add my own. I lived it, I wrote down my reactions in real time, and for me, that has been enough.

Speaking of which, my memories of the day and the week were chronicled here on the Ideapad, and I still recommend reading them; the page is both contemplative and raw, and it holds up. Also, for really raw writing about the event, my friend Adam’s firsthand writeup is chastening.

At the newsstand

It was a blazingly hot summer afternoon as I walked the dog. We walked down Broadway, where an electronic sign announced that both interstate lottery jackpots were around a quarter-billion dollars. I felt like daydreaming on my dog walk, so I stopped at the newsstand with the lottery terminal.

“One Mega Millions and one Powerball, please,” I said to the older man working the newsstand.

“One of each?” he said.

“Sure,” I replied, “maybe they’ll both come in.”

He paused a beat while the tickets printed. “One is enough,” he said.

Wasabi the Best in Show winner

Few things make me more giddy than seeing a Pekingese, so when a gorgeous Pekingese takes Best in Show at Westminster, I’m pretty much in peak dog-lover form.

This is Wasabi:

Yes! Make my day, my week, little new best friend of mine.

A winning Peke is not rare; it hasn’t even been that long. My previous BFF Pekingese Malachy won Westminster in 2012, and then there’s the (in)famous Danny, who won Crufts (the British equivalent of Westminster) in 2003, only to be accused of having had cosmetic surgery. He was exonerated, as all good pups should be.

Congrats to Wasabi, and thank you for starting my week off with a grin.

An incomplete list of the incomplete lists I’ve posted here over the years

An incomplete list of things our year-old Labradoodle chewed up while left home alone, July 2019

An incomplete list of things my son has figured out how to spin since discovering the Beyblade

An incomplete list of words starting with the letter “K” as suggested by the K-112 class at PS 87 this morning

An incomplete list of plot twists crammed into the 15-episode first season of ‘Smash’

An Incomplete List of Rock Stars I’ve Met in Unexpected Places

An Incomplete List Of Famous People I’ve Stood Next To In Public Restrooms

Things my dog has eaten

I also have a draft (incomplete) list of an incomplete list of animals we’ve been told our white-and-black Australian Labradoodle looks like (Dalmatian, cow, panda bear, etc.).

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