The Grocery (Part Two)

I noticed a few things on my most recent grocery trip. I figured I could write about them.

The biggest one is in the signage. Multiple signs now indicate that aisles are one-way only, though I also noticed that with all the management at the front of the store, there wasn’t much enforcement going on. I think I counted three times I saw someone going the wrong way? The signage is such that it’s hard to miss.

The mask policy is still the same, as in, there hasn’t been one. Most of the shoppers still do, as do all the staff, but I also noticed more people going without than last time. It could be that I wasn’t looking, though.

Lastly, there was a moment while I was bagging everything when someone else came up to the self-checkout station and started scanning, but was stopped and told to wait as I finished. I imagine this was in place before, but on previous trips, instead of being able to find out, a staff member came up and started bagging items after I had already scanned as I was still checking out, so I can’t say for certain.

I guess we’re surviving? So far, at least, yeah, we’re surviving.

-F

Collab

Writing collaboratively is an interesting process, especially once you’ve gotten used to having it be a solo activity for so long. Some of it is just a loss of control with regards to certain aspects of the story. If you’re both pantsing (that is, “writing by the seat of your pants”) then not only do you not know where the story is going to end up, you might not even know what’s around the corner. Sometimes I find myself floundering, unsure of how I can guide any of the characters in a way that helps my writing partner.

In general, the same techniques used in improv have worked. The most quoted, “say ‘yes and’” has been a good enough baseline and I’m sure with experience, others will follow. The opposite end of the spectrum is also helpful, though. Having an outline and assigning bits and pieces, so long as people understand that outlines can change, can also end up being productive and gets rid of that fear of ruining plans.

I don’t pretend to be an expert in any of this. I’ve only recently started doing it as a way to keep social with some online friends. It’s a good way to stay accountable at the very least, and it has helped.

-F

More Thoughts About Spoilers

I don’t know how I got into this mindset, but whenever someone tells me something they might consider a spoiler, if I ever read or watch or play that thing they’re talking about, I assume they were lying? The first example that comes to mind is a narrative game called Firewatch, which has a twist that can come out of left field if you’re not prepared for it. And even then, after watching a video where someone mentioned it, I had a hard time piecing together just how it had happened while playing. Like, I knew, but I hadn’t accepted it yet.

Maybe it’s that I just don’t care? That seems like an elitist way to phrase it, though. “Oh, you shouldn’t care what other people say happens to these people” seems awfully mean to the people who do really care, and have good reasons for caring. That’s one of the points of media, after all, to provoke empathy. And it’s not like I made a conscious decision to ignore knowing the ending, it just sort of happened, if that makes sense.

In a way, I might compare this to what I talked about when I complained about biopics because those are kind of spoiled by default. People know what happens to Freddie Mercury, for example, just like how pop culture has made the initial genre shift of Psycho less effective. But both of these can be made up for with good elements elsewhere, compare Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Gus Van Sant’s near-shot-for-shot remake and you’ll see what I mean.

This also ties in with a recent trend of creators feeling like they need to be smarter than the people they’re catering to. Westworld ran into this most directly -- series head Jonathan Nolan mentioned changing the twist of an episode because people on Reddit had already guessed the twist they’d been going for. And that seems like a weird way to be making something to me, just shoveling in twist after twist without a thought to cohesion.

The twist in Firewatch, upon reflection, is actually thematically cohesive with the rest of the work. I won’t talk about it here, but it does tie in with the game’s themes of coping with loneliness and dealing with familial issues. So maybe that’s why I didn’t mind knowing about it ahead of time. It seems difficult, to me, for something with a twist for a twist’s sake to have a similar effect, but those media will likely be hamstrung by the passage of time anyway. Once everyone knows what’s up, it’ll fade from the zeitgeist, never to be meaningfully talked about again.

-F

When I Can Do Everything, I Can't Do Anything

I’ve written about writer's block on this blog before, but what I didn’t mention as much was this age-old quandary: how hard is it to pick something with a swath of options in front of you? For example, imagine a menu with a seemingly limitless number of dishes, and you’re just staring at it unable to parse what any of the descriptions mean when the server comes up ready to take your order. Compare that to a similar scene but with only a few dishes on offer, which presents an easier decision.

Writing this blog is kind of like that, except the restaurant has a magical kitchen that can make anything you want, and you keep coming back week after week wanting to eat something different every time. It’s difficult to pare down the possibility space in that situation, even though, intuitively, each week reduces the possible choices by one.

This is what things like my Raindrops on Roses series are supposed to come in, reducing the options, but there are weeks I don’t really have it in me to write about what I like in the capacity that I feel these things deserve. So instead I just ramble on whatever topic and push it down the line. There are a couple solutions, and I’m trying some of them, but they haven’t started working just yet. Hopefully soon.

-F

Algorithmically Generated Consent

I’ve started listening to the algorithmically generated playlist that Spotify makes for me every week -- I’m actually listening to it as I write this -- and it’s been fun! It’s a lot of music that I’ve never heard before mixed in with some that I had, but only through other sources. It’s never anything I’d really go out of my way to look for on my own and that’s a cool thing.

And yet, it worries me a little, because while I do like most of the songs that have been thrown my way, it either means I’ve let the algorithm collect enough information on me to make some pretty accurate guesses or it means I have no taste and will like so many things. I’m actually a little partial to the second reason; it means unless a song is mastered poorly, I can just let it slide into the background. But the first fear is still right there and a bit more worrisome.

One of my resolutions for this and every year was to be “out there” on the internet a bit more, and that’s meant opening myself up to these sorts of metadata collection schemes. I’m sure Google knows all about me, and not just because Blogspot is a Google-owned property. Mostly I hope to just be ignored to an extent, with billions upon billions of people using the internet, the fact that I am probably just a bit of data amongst all that is actually a little comforting to me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t notice when personalized content gets thrown at me.

Youtube’s algorithm is a bit weird, for example. I don’t have the space nor the ability to go into exact details, but the things it tends towards more “controversial” (especially politics-wise) content being rewarded, especially at a quick output. So on completely unrelated videos, I’ll see something with a headline trying to be eye-catching and a little “Recommended for you” tag under it and all I can do is say “Huh.”

Maybe that’s comforting too, that they still guess wrong. Not all the songs on Spotify’s playlists are ones I like, though I’m sure they notice when I skip over them. I do think the black-box nature of the algorithm is scary, of course, but it also makes it difficult to do more than just gesture at it.

A bit of a disclaimer, though. There are algorithms that do more than just recommend media to people or sell ads based on interests. Credit scores, for example, have started determining more than just if someone can pay back a loan, which I think is harmful and dangerous for the same reasons I find the former ones ineffectually weird at times. They could get things wrong. But also for the same reasons, all I can do, from this blog, at least, is mention it.

-F

The Grocery

The grocery store just down the street from me by and large uses self-checkout stations. Presumably, this is to keep labor hours down, but also, in this period of pandemic, it helps minimize contact between employees and shoppers. If you ring up a large number of items, a manager will still step in and help out, but they’ll ask you to step back as they bag things for you. All this makes sense, and I appreciate it.

One thing that did throw me off, though, when I went earlier last week, was their policy on reusable bags. I’d brought a stack of paper bags with me because I was expecting to use a large amount of plastic otherwise, and got stopped at the door and told I couldn’t use them.

I get the idea. It’s a potential point of contact, a variable that the store can’t control. These things have to be minimized. I had already thought of this; if someone was going to ask to help with my bags, I was going to decline. They didn’t know that, of course, and outwardly, I looked like a young’un with no mask and some headphones on. I probably looked like I absolutely didn’t care.

It did get me thinking, though, as I went through the store, what other precautions were they taking? There was a maximum occupancy notice on the outside, for example (though I don’t know how they were keeping track), and there were stickers on the floor so you could stand a safe distance away from the deli counters, but also, policies I’ve seen other stores implement didn’t seem to be in effect here. Restricting aisles to one-way lines, for example, would help keep customers at a distance from each other. I didn’t see any of that, and there certainly were a lot of times it would have helped.

Or the most basic of cautions: If I had an item in my cart and changed my mind, what happens to the item I stuck back on the shelf? The freezer door handles, were those disinfected?

Obviously, I can’t expect any sort of public business to be absolutely safe, but I also know that this sort of business will do the bare minimum of safety if it thinks it can get away with it. I don’t really watch TV, but I assume they’re the type of business to praise the hard-working nature of their low-level staff in their advertisements without acting in their interest.

I don’t have a fix for this, or I didn’t in the moment, at least. It wasn’t like I was going to start an argument or try and run past with my paper bags. And I certainly don’t begrudge the effort that’s already been put in, nor do I want it to stop any time soon. If anything, I’d want more things like this. The thought of an essential service just keeping up appearances worries me, though, and that’s what I wanted to write about.

-F

Ah Yes Tuesdays Are Made For Blogs

A common observation in this day and age is that with all the chaos consuming the world, one of the most difficult things to remember is what day it is. Twitter accounts like @And_Dads_Car reminding people of specific days (Saturday, for this specific account) have comments under each post praising that, if it weren’t for them, they’d have no idea what day it was. And sure, some of these comments are probably facetious, but not only are there a lot of them, but I’ve seen similar events have happened in real life, too, so it’s not like I can’t believe this phenomenon doesn’t exist.

All that being said, it’s not something I’ve noticed in my own personal life, and for a while, I was struggling to explain why. Really, I think a part of it has to do with these blogs. Not exactly the act of blogging itself, but when I do it.

Here’s a bit of “how the sausage is made” for you, I don’t really write blogs in advance. Sure, I might think of a topic or two, or have a backlog of topics (I already have an idea of what I want to write about next week, for example), but I don’t really have too many notes in advance besides that. I’m a “pantser” one might say. And this isn’t the only writing project I keep assigned to a specific day -- there are multiple. With only one at max per day, it’s been much easier to think about things like, “Ah, today’s the day I write my blog” or whichever project it is. I’ve been keeping up this pattern for long enough that it just works now.

-F