On mastodon there was a low-key chess tournament to raise some funds for charity, they were inspired to do chess because of Queen's Gambit, so I thought, well, might as well! Everybody was pretty much a beginner so I stomped them all and I thought, well, I might as well keep playing, so I'm back on my chess groove. However, I'm really rusty. Anyway, if you want to play, giziti on lichess. I'm also on chess.com, but the site really annoys me.

I just got a new phone - it's not terribly new, it's a low-end 2019 model (moto g7 play), which is now apparently TWO YEARS AGO - but it's a lot nicer than my previous one. I don't need much on a phone, so didn't go for something newer and nicer. Only not-really-a-gripe: it's USB 2.0, which is good, but it's my first USB 2.0 device, so at the moment I only have the one charging cord.

Apparently L Lin Wood was the attorney for the person who sued Elon Musk for defamation and lost. That feels different now.

Pocket: so I used to be a very happy user of Pocket because it let me save things to read between home, office, and phone pretty seamlessly. I read a fair bit on the commute or at the gym in particular. However, starting last spring, there was little need to coordinate things anymore: I was not commuting, never sitting on a bike at the gym, and only had one computer that I used, pretty much. If I wanted to read something, I could just leave it open in a tab. I stopped using Pocket and reclaimed the space on my ancient phone. Since I got a new phone, however, I reinstalled the app. The unread news articles on it are a little time capsule into that moment right before the shutdowns - rich people somehow getting tests, the first people pointing out that we're probably going to be in this for a long haul unless we really lock down a lot more than we're going to do, naive thoughts about what social restrictions would involve (reducing social contacts 75%... by having fewer social gatherings!)...

I did still dump articles into Pocket occasionally if I intended to read them later, especially when trying to close open tabs, but rarely emptied the queue. Here's an article from June about Trump trying to steal the election! https://eand.co/american-democracy-will-die-in-150-days-f65a651b0791

I hope tomorrow is sunny: they're turning off power for a few hours to do some work. In normal times, I'd go to the office or something. Obviously, that's not what we're going to be doing. And it's going to be chilly outside, so I can't just do stuff out there. In the worst case, I'll unpack some books and assemble bookshelves.

In conclusion, conservatism has nothing to offer the world but death and destruction.