I first noticed the story about the epidemic of phone theft in London about a week ago because of some Aussie chick who chased her thief (unsuccessfully) and was so pissed off she tracked down all the CCTV footage of the crime and posted it, after which it went viral.
Hey. It’s me, JB, apologising for clogging up your inbox if this means nothing to you, but… if you’ve been waiting until World War 3.2 appeared on Kindle Unlimited so you can read it for ‘free’ (whereby ‘free’ I mean you agree to give Jeff Bezos your credit card number and possibly some of your DNA every month)… your time is here.
I just spent a very satisfying hour entering every verified instance of Anthropic stealing my books to train their AI into the official settlement claim site. Not so satisfying? I only had five claims to make because my useless publishers didn’t register the copyright of most of my books.
Man, what a week! Monday was a public holiday. Tuesday, I caught up with old mates. On Thursday, I had to take the car to the shop again and get myself into the city for a skin check. (One minor BCC to come in December.)
Man, I don’t know where I am this week. That holiday on Monday was always going to put the zap on my head, but I think I made it much worse by working through the weekend. Both Jane and I were on deadline, so we just pulled normal workdays on Saturday and Sunday, and then had Monday off, which was nice.
I enjoy flicking through Substack Notes of a morning, looking for an essay I might enjoy. Occasionally I’ll find something like ‘Light Travels at the Highest Possible Velocity’, a Sherman Alexie story I read one Sunday morning in bed which delayed my getting up by an hour.
You will have to walk down the hill in the hot sun and pay a strange man four and a half thousand dollars.
It sucks.
No, I’m not talking about street cred. My mum says I will always be cool. But as the temps climbed inevitably towards summer, my long-faithful air conditioner breathed its last. A circuit board died, and this thing was so old that there was no way of replacing it. Thankfully, you, the generous taxpayers of Australia, stepped up and covered the expense, since the aircon was in my office, where I work daily to accrue legitimate deductions to my pre-tax income.
Three or four times a week I drive past a barbecue joint on the edge of the Gabba, tucked in under a freeway on-ramp, as all of the best barbecue joints in the world are. I’ve always meant to get in and check it out, and with Sir Havoc visiting Brisbane yesterday, I finally achieved my dream.
