Hello, good morning, happy Friday. I had a tumultuous week - last week I learned that I could have been exposed to someone who had tested positive for COVID-19, but then it turned out that that test was probably a false positive, as a subsequent CDC test was negative. I self-quarantined immediately, but really everyone should be self-isolating regardless at this point. And now I’m one week into self-isolation, so next week I can “isolate together” with other people who have also isolated for two weeks! Yay!
Anyway a week later I think everyone feels approximately like this about the whole situation requiring us to both manage existential anxiety and also continue working:
I also have a strong belief that this whole pandemic situation is going to fundamentally alter our norms around work, social stratification, etc. Like I said last week, the money is there if you care enough, and it turns out a pandemic can be a catalyst.
I have been doing a lot of work this week on a side project - I set up the new Minecraft server for the podcast that my friends Max Temkin and Alex Cox host, Do By Friday - so this week’s newsletter is not quite as chock full of links as last week’s, but there is still some good stuff in there. Oh, and if you like Minecraft, please consider playing on my server and inviting your friends. It’s very cool and pretty, there is a ton of custom content, developing content for it has been one of my main hobbies for the last 10 years. We even have fun activities, like “ice boat racing,” wherein players chaotically drift around racetracks for prizes and bragging rights:
Booze is good for the soul
“Barleywine,” tweets Marty Scott, the Head of Barrels for Revolution Brewing. Barleywine indeed, Marty!
Contrary to its name, barleywine is actually a style of beer. Like so many, its legend begins in the Old World, specifically 18th-century England.
When the craft beer movement in the U.S. kicked off in earnest during the 1970s, brewers put their own spins on the formula. American-style barleywines typically have a bitter, hoppy foundation, as opposed to the richer profiles and fruity esters offered by their British cousins. The style has experienced a resurgence in recent years, particularly among beer lovers who seek out boozier brews.
I had never had a barleywine before I tasted Revolution’s Straight Jacket for the first time last year. But that first taste had me falling in love without any hesitation at all - it’s a boozy beverage full of warmth, with sweet and spicy flavors both up front and in the aftertaste. It’s hard to describe, but it’s magic.
We’re on the back end of barrel-aged beer season, which means you might be able to find some “rarer” (read: artificially held-back) stock hitting liquor store shelves to push it out in favor of lighter spring and summer offerings. If you can find some, nab it, and enjoy.
Going out in style
In a Time of Crisis, a Panicked Nation Comes Together to Watch Nu-Metal Band Trapt Melt Down on Twitter, another Ashley Feinberg banger.
Look I guess if you’re in the middle of a pandemic and you don’t know what to do with yourself, and you have a lot of existential dread about the world maybe ending, you could use that energy to troll people on Twitter. Plenty of people are doing that.
But usually the people doing that are not celebrity musicians tweeting from their official band accounts, and that’s what makes this article really special. Ashley has catalogued a Best Of for all of us, it rules, click and enjoy.
Pokemon Go the fuck inside
At the moment of writing, cities in the USA were following the lead of many in Europe with mandatory lockdowns. San Francisco and Los Angeles, California both announced lockdowns that include mandatory work-from-home policies, and shutting down bars and other high-risk gathering spaces. The most recent World Health Organization confirmed over 160 thousand cases globally, though that number increases every day.
And while video gaming might increase as more and more cities order lockdowns, Pokemon Go is unique in that it requires players to actively leave their homes and socialize outside. This puts Pokemon Go and its many inspirations in a unique position during a time when governments are requiring citizens to stay indoors for the sake of public safety.
Pokemon Go in the Time of Coronavirus is a fascinating tale about the spread of COVID-19 as told through Pokemon Go. Rami Ismail said that it is “very good.” I agree.
Infections don’t real
This meme is unrelated to the story, I just wanted to fit it in somewhere.
In a 27,000-member private Facebook group for first responders who support President Donald Trump, firefighters and paramedics have posted thousands of comments in recent weeks downplaying the coronavirus pandemic that they are responsible for helping to handle.
Posts in the group, which is called IAFF Union Firefighters for Trump and has been endorsed by Trump, scoffed at the seriousness of the virus, echoing false assertions by Trump and his allies comparing it to the seasonal flu. “Every election year has a disease,” read one meme, purporting to be written on a doctor’s office whiteboard. “This is a viral-pneumonia being hyped as The Black Plague before an election.”
As of Monday, there were 4,464 cases and 78 deaths in the U.S., according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Those numbers have gone up, obviously. Like, a lot. I don’t want to give you the current actual numbers, they will just distress you, go look them up yourself if you want. The Monday numbers prove the point well enough.
Anyway there is a group full of the people who are supposed to be doing the rescuing and none of them believe that this virus is real? Are you fucking kidding? Great, awesome. The story is interesting, misinformation is bad, you know the drill.
Bottled water… bad
Kaiji, an 18-year-old in Arizona, hates Dasani water. Besides the “sketchy shit that goes with being a Coca-Cola brand,” he says, it tastes like “watered-down hand lotion.” “The amount of different minerals in that concoction is insane,” he continues. “To the point that the only good part of Dasani is that it’s cold when you buy it.”
I mean the history of bottled water is basically one of imperialism and thoughtless ravaging of the environment, but isn’t it extra satisfying to hate bottled water when it tastes awful despite all of the waste? Mel Magazine “asked Dasani employees and the world’s leading ‘water sommelier’ why even quarantine hoarders won’t touch the stuff,” and the results have been imcrebidle.
You deserve some good animal content
Okay, see you all next week. Please stay home and be safe and healthy.