So, the verdict on AirPods Pro 2nd Generation: holy crap are these an order of magnitude better than the first gen. The noise cancelling alone is worlds better. I’m not used to the feature that listens to your voice and lowers the content of the audio you might be listening to, and there are some other bells and whistles I haven’t sorted out yet, but these are nice.

I’m headed into my GP for the first time next week in I-don’t-know-how-long for a general physical checkup; it’s been so long since I’ve seen him that he changed practices and is now in a different part of town. The goal here is to get an update on my regular bloodwork, with a focus on cholesterol (something they don’t check when I go in for cancer annuals). My blood pressure and heart rate have all remained low during the post-cancer phase but I want to make sure my heart is healthy and I’m not pouring grease in the pipes.

Theoretically I’ve got a new set of glasses coming from Warby Parker in a new frame style. There was some online confusion when I had to upload my pupillary distance information that got stuck, so I had to call and sort it out with someone online. They assured me the order had gone through, but I still have an order stuck in their cart on the website, so who knows? Update: it hadn’t gone through; a follow-up phonecall solved this.

This is the first big change I’ve made to a frame style in probably ten years or more, and I’m a little nervous. The frame size is larger than the ones I’ve been wearing which should give me some more distance for the progressive part of the lenses—and my reading prescription has changed so it’ll be good to get that updated. This is a little more of a distinguished professor/creative director look—I’ll share a picture when I get them.

I’ve been using a particular sticker vendor for probably six years now, and I was always very happy with their service, along with monthly promotions they’d run to do one-off shirt designs and other things that I found very handy. It was a surprise, then, when I got a promotional email from them last week where the founder expressed his support for Trump and added some tone deaf lying bullshit about respecting all people. He followed it up with another email a few days later claiming his staff had received death threats, which I would gather is further bullshit, as well as playing directly from the right-wing false victimhood playbook. Luckily, I’ve got another sticker/t-shirt vendor, and will be ending any association with his company.