The Fluffbucket Diaries

The husband got 1/6, only because somebody in an earlier time zone posted the word on Reddit; he used it for the hell of it. Be forewarned if you ever loiter in the Wordle subreddit.

Wordle 229 3/6

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Brain fart on the third line.

Wordle 228 4/6

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Today, we learned that dogs can be skunked in the middle of winter. Even before a major snowstorm.

When I got this ring years ago, I didn’t realize it represented St. Brigid’s cross. I just wanted a simple cross, and this spoke to me. I’ve worn it almost nonstop since.

It’s St. Brigid’s feast day today. St. Brigid, pray for us.

Just experimented with “frying” Spam in the air fryer. Verdict: meh. It’s good in a pinch, but unless you slice the Spam paper-thin, you won’t get the crispness (and definitely not the caramelization) of pan frying.

Had it with two boiled eggs and cauliflower rice. Didn’t quite take care of my Filipino comfort food jones, but it’ll do for a low-carb lunch.

Resisted the urge to start with “money” after yesterday’s news.

Wordle 227 4/6

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Sigh. The New York Times has bought Wordle.

It’ll remain free for now, but it’s unclear whether it will eventually be moved behind a paywall. 😔

A sure sign of cultural decline: A Hormel sweepstakes is offering a chili cheese keg prize for Super Bowl Sunday.

Too many words end with the last four letters of today’s word.

Wordle 226 5/6

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Fr. James Martin on how to respond when anti-vaxxers die of COVID:

“The problem is that even a mild case of schadenfreude is the opposite of a ‘Christian value.’ Jesus asked us to pray for our enemies, not celebrate their misfortunes. He wanted us to care for the sick, not laugh at them. When Jesus was crucified alongside two thieves, he says to one of them, according to Luke’s Gospel, not ‘That’s what you get,’ but ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ Schadenfreude is not a Christian value. It’s not even a loosely moral value. …

“Indulged in regularly, schadenfreude ends up warping the soul. It robs us of empathy for those with whom we disagree. It lessens our compassion. To use some language from both the Old and New Testaments, it ‘hardens’ our hearts. No matter how much I disagree with anti-vaxxers, I know that schadenfreude over their deaths is a dead end.”

Been struggling with the schadenfreude compulsion throughout this pandemic, especially with all the anti-vaxxer and anti-masker noise out there. So glad that Fr. Martin says something about it in today’s New York Times.

I sense a link to today’s epistle reading here.

F won a glow-in-the-dark rosary for correctly answering a quiz question at church today. She’s having a good day.

Tough one.

Wordle 225 5/6

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This op-ed in the Chicago Tribune speaks well for those of us who lament the loss of the Traditional Latin Mass in our archdiocese: “My concern with Cupich’s policy is that it punishes the sane majority of traditional Catholics for a minority who howl on the internet. My concern is that it mistakes an unreal commentariat for real, orthodox Catholics.”

I remember Mom packing lots of towels and T-shirts in balikbayan boxes. And cans of Vienna sausage and corned beef and Spam. Lots and lots of Spam.

Sara Tardiff writes in The Atlantic that Ferdinand Marcos, of all people, seeded this tradition of Filipino immigrants sending giant boxes of stuff back to the homeland. And it keeps going today.

“‘Often when I think of a balikbayan box, I think about when the family receiving it gathers to open it,’ Clarissa Aljentera, a Filipino American writer from Fremont, California, told me via email. ‘And if you aren’t there, someone will put the item aside and make sure you receive a piece … of the U.S.” They’re a reminder to many that they aren’t alone and haven’t been forgotten.'”

Took a while between lines two and three.

Wordle 224 3/6

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Started to worry during the third guess.

Wordle 223 4/6

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Idly watching college basketball: my alma mater, Cal State Fullerton, versus the UC Davis Fighting Veterinarians, or whatever they’re called. This is why I have ESPN+. 😐

Been a while since I’ve posted a weight loss update. (The last one was back in August.) I actually weighed myself Tuesday, but didn’t think to post until now. Nearly 70 pounds gone since I started all this.

I don’t have much to add, except that I marked the 1-year anniversary of this low-carb lifestyle thing earlier this month. Never mind that I’m still 10.6 pounds from my initial weight loss goal. I’m going to keep going, even if I’m doing so with slightly less zeal than I had at the start.

Wordle 222 4/6

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Too sleepy for further comment. Back to bed.

Here’s how to guarantee that I will absolutely block you on Twitter (thus avoiding your horrific content in retweets on my lists): Have “MAGA” in your handle or bio. Or both.

Charlie Warzel: “Wordle’s public reception fascinates and unnerves me because it’s an example of how the internet flattens things—in this case, the stakes of this particular, Twitter-bound discourse.”

In other words, this is why we can’t have nice things on the internet.

Woke up way too early. Apparently I guess really well first thing in the morning.

Wordle 221 2/6

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Had hoped for 3/6 today. Felt so close.

Wordle 220 4/6

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Spent way too much time futzing with yet another Micro.blog theme change for this site. Now using the Tufte theme, which I like much more than my recent design experimentations.

But Micro.blog itself feels sluggish, with changes to individual posts taking a lot of time to show up on the site. This seems typical of late, and cries for help on the timeline seem ignored (or at least unanswered). I’d consider moving on to another blogging platform, but it’s too easy to post here, and I’m too lazy to start over.

I think I’m done with those on social media who fancy themselves cultural critics and religious authorities.

Yair Rosenberg, in a wonderfully fortuitous piece in his Atlantic newsletter, verbalizes my thoughts far more eloquently than I; granted, he’s talking about people who are critics for a living, but the sentiments can be applied to the self-styled critics among the unwashed digital masses:

“The problem with being a professional critic is that you end up consuming so much culture that you stop processing it like a normal person. …

“I know that my own preferences here are not the norm. But when critics lose sight of why most people consume culture, they start missing what makes most things popular. In their search for significance, they forget about the fun.”