This was inspired by my own need to know about new chargers that pop up, primarily on the route to my mom's house. When you drive an EV, PlugShare is absolutely essential for checking out chargers to make sure they are legit and have no recent problems, but I think there's room for an independent newsletter that lets you know when new chargers pop up on your path.

Also: how the hell did I get this domain name? Thanks to my privacy-minded partner for thinking of it.

Only of use in the US, sadly, since I'm dependent on Department of Energy data.

(Yes, I need to work on my sharing pic game. A picture of the same text that's in the description... ouch.)

Still doing the heads thing. Here we have 36-40 and they be gerblins!

In case you're curious about the pseudo random geometric shapes I started this batch with, you're in luck - here they are:

If you would like to see the rest, they're in a thread over on the Twitterz.

Not So Traditional Media

So I won't be in town, but my family is having a get together this Sunday. There's going to be some festivities for the youngins' thanks to my folks. Slip 'n Slide, water balloon toss, etc.

And speaking of tossing water balloons, my folks asked if I would create a target to put down in the yard so they can launch balloons at it from the deck.

My Dad got the idea that it would be good to use Tyvek since it's all white so the image would stand out. Tyvek isn't exactly the best surface to work on, but I couldn't argue with the contrast idea and he has a bunch extra so it was free, and it's durable, so... Sharpies worked to lay in lines:

Then, because this is clearly a "use what you've got handy" kind of project, we used a pair of random latex based house paints (watered down to various levels) that they had on hand and some overly large brushes to paint it. This was a little extra trying BECAUSE TYVEK.

But also, I was having fun doing something stupid and calling it art. So:

Certainly not the greatest work I've ever done, but it was fun, and hopefully the kids will get a kick out of chucking stuff at it. :)

Also, it kinda looks like a goblin head. I think I've got goblins on the brain lately.

Just got back from a nice long vaca in the States. (I just flew in from Bahston, and bahy, ah mahy ahms tahred.) It was still too short, but I was lucky enough to catch up with friends and family, and even solidify a new friendship. Heck, I even got a story out of it.

(Note that this narrative only superficially follows the classic three-act structure, and doesn't obey contemporary models for "good storytelling," because Life doesn't care if anyone options my screenplay.)

So...

Michellle had to head home after two weeks, which gave me an extra eight days to hang out and get up to all sorts of nonsense. I made the most of it, renting a car to go hither and thither. My BFF from Boston had driven down to DelCo, and we split a hotel room in Media, PA. For four days they went their way, I went mine, and we both saved a few bucks. The last of those days was a trip to Reading, PA. It was swell driving up there on some of the old rural roads I used to frequent, and swell seeing my absolutely screwy friend who makes really bad life decisions.

It's about 10:30pm when I'm ready to head back to Media. Normally I'd take those beloved rural roads, but it's too dark to see the sights, gas is expensive, and the dashboard has been telling me since I picked up the car that the rear driver's side tire is about half pressure. So I say "oh well" and do the sensible thing: take the shortest route by heading east (southeast) on 422, toward King of Prussia, where I'll pick up Rte 252S, which gets me right to the hotel.

422 is boring. No real lighting except at exits, and most of the exits are to "nowhere." Not much traffic that time on a Tuesday night. WOGL is playing so many repeats from the last three days, it's hard to believe they own more than one "greatest hits of the 80s" album. You can credit this tedium for my noticing that the tire pressure was getting lower in that sad sack of a wheel. I couldn't feel it, only see it on the display. The PSI should be close to 40. It had been steady 20 for three days. Now it's 10, 9... Fuck.

I take the very next exit as the PSI hits 5: Rte 363/Trooper. I've passed this exit a hundred times back when I took 422 to my job in Collegeville, but I never actually got off here. And... there's nothing at the top of the offramp, just more road with occasional street lights. No traffic. Shit. I randomly pick "left." PSI: 3.

Thankfully, that random pick was a good one, as 1.4 miles later there's an all-night WAWA open in an otherwise-closed mall-ey area, and it's surprisingly busy. I pull in at about 11pm, PSI 0.

(Some context is in order here. My cell phone plan is one of the cheapest in Canada, and the provider has no international coverage. I have a choice: roam and pay through the nose, or pay $12/24 hour period for unlimited US calling/data. I've managed to avoid it so far, and dammit, I really don't want to pay $12 a day for cell service. Now, back to our story...)

My immediate concerns are that using my phone will cost me, and that I have no US change for the air pump. I could go in and buy something at WAWA -- hell, I even have my old WAWA coffee mug with me, but ho!, the pump is free! Woot!

The tire won't inflate. I hear it hissing wetly. Fuck. And fuckin' cheap-ass phone plans. Fine. Fuck.

I call the roadside assistance number on my rental contract, and hear the cash register ring twelve times. They want the street address. I'm like, "WAWA on 363, outside Trooper, just off 422." I'm gently reminded that this is a national service, and that this info is meaningless to them. So I disconnect and use my now-"free" roaming mobile data to check Google maps. I call back with the address. They inform me it will be $78 to change the tire through them, or I can do it myself, or use a third party provider also on my dime. It hadn't even occurred to me that there'd be a tire and tools in the back for me to work with -- I haven't had to change a tire in like a decade, and forgot such things are possible. Turns out there are tools, and a tire, but it's a donut. It's also 11pm, and dark-ish in the parking lot, and I've lost muscle mass in the past few years, and heck, if I change it and don't do a great job, I could kill myself and/or become liable for whatever happens to the car. So I say fuck it, send someone. ETA: 58 mins.

I get coffee, then wait in the car listening to more crappy hair metal repeats, and watch the parking lot in my mirrors. There's someone pushing a loaded shopping cart back and forth, occasionally stopping at cars, which seems weird for this location at midnight. Another car pulls up and uses the air pump. People come and go. 63 minutes later, I get a text update: 23 more mins. Cool. Cool.

Dude shows up 3 mins "early." I think his wife is in the passenger seat. He very quickly and efficiently puts on the donut (nice to have a fancy powered machine in your truck). He finds 2 nails in the tire. Oy. He loads the flat into the back of the rental, says there's nothing to pay because he bills the service. But I tip him $20, despite some legit protestations that it's not necessary.

This is where the narrative takes its "surprising but inevitable turn." (EDIT: No, it's the moment the hero accepts the call to adventure that leads into Act II. Though Joe Campbell would prefer I first refuse, then accept the adventure after an additional consternating event, I'm more a Dan Harmon Story Wheel guy.)

See, I'm in a pretty good mood. I have just hit a landmark of privilege: from my rental car, at midnight, in a foreign country, I fixed my problems with, essentially, a simple "bill me." It's 12:40am, I can't drive more than 50mph, I may or may not be able to put in a claim on my 3rd party travel insurance I bought prior to the trip, but I'm like, "I adulted." I am pleased with myself.

So when the young woman pushing the shopping cart comes up to me and says, "Sir, could you please drive me a mile down the road to the bus stop," I say, "Yes."

The tire guy says, "You're braver than me." I reply, "Paying it forward." And I mutter my new mantra: "Say yes to adventure!"

Note that I'm carefully looking around for her compatriots, and assessing the chances of a carjacking. But I see nothing, and she seems in earnest, and I begin to entertain visions of my heroic, TV-worthy efforts in self-defense should the need arise.

I help her load all her stuff into the back seat. She gets in the front passenger seat and immediately changes the radio to a station mixing rap and pro-Black commentary. It took me five minutes to figure out the radio, but she's a natural, and apparently the new radio boss. And at least it's not Richard Marx. As I start the engine, she explains that her baby daddy threw her out and she has nowhere to go. The abandoned cart drifts through the parking lot on the warm breeze.

She directs me back down 363 the way I had come, pointing at an intersection and then, as I'm about to pull in, says, "No, it's the next one." Oh, okay. We do it again. Again. Well, fuck. And sure enough, the place she finally says is the correct turn is the ramp back onto 422, heading toward KoP. So, it seems, I'm the bus.

Then she says, "Could you help me out with some money?" I lie that I just gave the last of my cash to the tire guy. "Could you help me out with a room tonight?" I gently decline, saying I wish I could do more.

I make sure we don't get on I-76 heading into Philly, and instead end up on Rte. 202 at the KoP mall, which is closed. But she says, "Keep going." She repeats her story, and her request, going so far as to suggest I pull into a hotel on 202 where maybe I could help her out with that room. Oy.

When I again refuse, she tells me to pull into this 7-11-looking place. But it's closed, and I say I don't feel right leaving her off somewhere dark and alone. We keep going. Another room request, another refusal. A more agitated, "Turn here." It's a big intersection. Right after the turn is Pantry Food Mart where she says she can get milk for her baby. Note that there is no baby in the car, and we're now quite a ways from where she started. Also, it's closed. I again state my reluctance to leave her alone in a dark parking lot, so she directs me into the very-open, very well-lit parking garage of the Target across the street.

She says she needs a cart. Lo and behold, a maverick cart is right there. I figure this is the moment, and agree to drop her here. I turn off the car, pocket the keys, then check out the cart. The cart is locked, but she doesn't care. I help her unload her stuff, some onto the sidewalk, some into the cart. I repeat that I wish I could do more, and express my sincere hope that things work out for her, and, less sincerely, I atheistically say, "God bless you." It's then, under these bright lights, that I first notice that she's in an unbuttoned shirt and bikini top, and is several months pregnant. Sigh.

The drive back to Media from there is longer than I remember, longer still on a donut. I almost hit a deer on 252, but it's a place I've hit one before, so I was cautious and it paid off. I pull into the hotel parking lot at 1:28am, a little self-satisfied, but also disappointed that I couldn't -- or wouldn't -- do more. I climb out, reach behind the passenger seat for my bag...

And this is where the narrative takes its final, inevitable turn, because OF COURSE my bag is not there.

At first, I consider blowing it off. I left my computer in the hotel room, after all. I mean, that bag only had my... passport, two credit cards, two pairs of prescription glasses, a tie clip from my dead uncle, recently-acquired pictures of my nephew and niece, and Canadian cash for my return. FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.

The younger me might have shrugged and called it a night. Mostly out of fear, but rationalized. I can get another passport, cancel credit cards. The lost cash is annoying, and won't help her much, but hey, she needs it more than me, and if she can figure out an exchange, fine. I can get more pics, and I'm not super attached to that tie clip (which is in the form of Reddy Kilowatt ). The glasses will cost me, alas.

The 55-year old me said, "Nope." I got back in, and started back to KoP.

EDIT: Et voila, the turn into Act III.

I'm livid. Engraged. And outraged. I want to drive very fast, but a donut and a few cop cars in the shadows keep me to a civil pace. I genuinely tried to help her. I'm sorry I wasn't willing to buy her a room, or risk whatever she might do to it after I left. I'm sorry I wasn't willing to hand her cash. But to steal from someone who'd been nothing but polite and kind... LIVID.

I started practicing what I'd say -- or do -- when I found her. IF I found her. I imagined driving around for an hour looking for her. I imagined getting into an altercation, and police being called. I imagined finding my stuff gone (hidden, maybe), and being forced to call the police on someone who's evidently having a real shitty time of it and doesn't need more shit. And then I had this inspired notion, a kinder approach, maybe enough to head off any more trouble.

I was almost surprised to find her where I left her, sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by her stuff. And my bag's there. I leave the car, pocket the key. I kneel and start going through my stuff and say, "It looks like you grabbed my bag by mistake." Genius, right? She gets an out, it's non-aggressive, etc.

And she says -- I'm still wowed by this -- she says, "I thought you said I could have it."

And for only the second time that night I looked deeply into her face, and I'm telling you that I'm not sure she didn't believe it. She was not altogether there, whether because of chemical impairment, brain stuff, or just having had enough of this world. She sat there, passive, blank.

She had rifled the bag, moved some things, but everything was still there. Maybe she didn't think I'd come back for it. Maybe she didn't need anything she found, or didn't look too hard. Dunno. I repeated my affirmations just the same. I hope the false God was listening.

On the drive back, I quickly moved from self-congratulation for my "calm bravery" to feeling again that I should have done more. Like, why not use my already-paid roaming data to look for a shelter? Why not give her the American cash I really did have? I know I can't solve her problems, or fix her. But it gave me some real hard perspective on how far removed I am from the troubles of people in her place that I spent way more thought on my bag and our confrontation than I did on how to improve her situation. Still, the anger at the "betrayal" lingered. And still I went back to the hotel.

Got back at 2:30am, and was too wound up to sleep right away. I had to get up at 6:30am (my Boston friend is an early riser), get brekkie, and return the car to the airport by 10am. The tire cost me $145 all in (the changing service, plus the tire), which turns out not to be covered by the 3rd party insurance I purchased. My friend picked me up from the airport, we drove the five hours (plus one hour in additional stops) to the Boston area, where we spent time with their chaotic family and the dogs who really hated me, before I got to bed around 11pm, and slept until 10:30am Wednesday. Slept so late, we didn't get into the city that day.

My friend told my story to their sister, a public defender in Massachussetts, who said I had made a really bad call. What if the cops had stopped us on the road, and she had drugs, a weapon, or a warrant, or claimed I had kidnapped or assaulted her? Note that in Mass, being caught carrying a gun in a car is a mandatory 6-month jail sentence -- the sister sometimes represents truckers who are stopped, searched, and jailed for that. PA isn't so strict, but the point is well-taken. I had been concerned first for my own safety, then hers, but not the potential legal risks if things had gone south. So add that to all the other stuff I didn't consider.

I was poor for a couple years, and really poor briefly. Worked a low-end job and made bad decisions (read as "chased trim"). Spent a winter in a cheap, shitty "apartment" with on-again-off-again heat (couldn't pay the propane bill -- the water in the toilet froze over), eating pasta sandwiches for dinner with the one light on, etc. But even then I still had a shelter. And food of sorts. And a car I could gas up to get back and forth to the job I had. Way better than her situation. Nowadays if things turned real bad, I could work at a gas station, liquidate some inheritance and stay afloat, couch surf with friends in a pinch, and, as God as my witness, never go hungry again. But her? Homeless, pregnant, young, black, alone, possibly not of tremendous mental capacity (temporarily?), maybe under-educated... And she's not even in the lowest possible place.

I believe that people in positions of privilege -- like being a middle-aged, college-educated white male professional -- owe more to the community than someone like her does, and that we're all in this together in the end. As a super Lefty, I'm really disappointed -- angry -- with myself that I didn't stop to think beyond "get this woman out of my life" and "I want my bag back." (Wanting my shit returned is 100% okay, as is being angry about the theft. I'm not beating myself up over that.) I could have given her $20, or $40, or gone to a drive-thru, or gotten some groceries. TBH, I could have gotten her a room. I could have slowed down to think about her instead of myself, to at least ask if she would consider a shelter if I could find one. I had enough going for myself to get my rental's tire fixed in the middle of the night, and didn't use it when faced with a real person in need, a person looking me in the face, not some abstract point of sociopolitical discussion among friends. I mean, I even have the privilege of moral self-flagellation via blog while sitting unemployed on the couch in my home, after a three-week international vacation, while complaining that I don't want to do "mindless shit work" just to make a few bucks. And where is she now?

In short: when it was inconvenient, I lacked the courage of my convictions. This stuff -- social justice, poverty, homelessness, etc. -- matter to me. But if people like me find reasons to not step up, or shirk the opportunities that almost literally fall into our laps, how are things going to get better?

My new mantra remains, "Say yes to adventure." My new wisdom is, "Think it through." But my new moral code is, "Do better."

I hope she's okay.

Lugging a hundred thousand gold pieces to the Astral Plane was perhaps more trouble than it was worth, but I did score more points than other recent ascensions.  Also notably fun was intrinsic magical breathing and protection from shape changers.  Oh, and I brought my backup bands with me, the Beetles and the Ants.

Sayonara Ferret the Demigod...

You and the soldier ant and the giant beetle and the giant ant and the giant beetle and the soldier ant and the giant beetle
went to your reward with 4291074 points,
Excalibur (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
The Tsurugi of Muramasa (worth 4500 zorkmids and 11250 points)
Snickersnee (worth 1200 zorkmids and 3000 points)
Werebane (worth 1500 zorkmids and 3750 points)
Dragonbane (worth 500 zorkmids and 1250 points)
Trollsbane (worth 200 zorkmids and 500 points)
      19 amethyst stones (worth 11400 zorkmids),
      15 emeralds (worth 37500 zorkmids),
      13 fluorite stones (worth 5200 zorkmids),
      13 agate stones (worth 2600 zorkmids),
      10 sapphires (worth 30000 zorkmids),
       8 rubies (worth 28000 zorkmids),
       8 opals (worth 6400 zorkmids),
       8 jade stones (worth 2400 zorkmids),
       7 black opals (worth 17500 zorkmids),
       7 citrine stones (worth 10500 zorkmids),
       7 chrysoberyl stones (worth 4900 zorkmids),
       6 amber stones (worth 6000 zorkmids),
       6 topaz stones (worth 5400 zorkmids),
       6 jasper stones (worth 3000 zorkmids),
       5 dilithium crystals (worth 22500 zorkmids),
       5 turquoise stones (worth 10000 zorkmids),
       5 aquamarine stones (worth 7500 zorkmids),
       5 garnet stones (worth 3500 zorkmids),
       4 diamonds (worth 16000 zorkmids),
       3 jet stones (worth 2550 zorkmids),
       1 obsidian stone (worth 200 zorkmids),
       5 amulets of life saving (worth 750 zorkmids),
and 110484 pieces of gold, after 84679 moves.
You were level 28 with a maximum of 542 hit points when you ascended.

Apparently a picture of whales breaching the plains of the American midwest had achieved viral fame, so someone decided to join the fun with a photograph of bison stampeding through the ocean.  While the whale tableau was obviously faked, however, this scene was decidedly real.  The pranksters had imported a small herd and somehow coaxed the thousand-pound animals into Lake Tygart, West Virginia (perhaps because no amount of coaxing could get them into the ocean).  A crowd of onlookers gathered on the shore to marvel at the sight.  That was where I found Thomas Boutell, clutching one of my daughter's stuffed manatees and looking as befuddled as anyone.  Soon people everywhere would be risking life and limb to spoof famous memes without using any editing software.

* No bison were harmed in the making of this dream, but I'm an absolute wreck.

If you have CBS All Access^W^W^WParamount Plus, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is everything you liked about old Star Trek plus all the coolness of the newer Treks.

If you have Showtime, The Man Who Fell to Earth is fantastic.  Chiwetel Ejiofor deserves all the awards.

Some small OnePo improvements and fixes:

• Making links to other pages the traditional way, via the "link" icon and the dialog box, works again on the iPhone.
• You can also make links by just pasting a link to any page straight into your post, without clicking the link button. When you do that, a nice automatic preview and link appears. We've had this for ages, but there was a dumb bug that broke it for most cases, except YouTube. All fixed. Here's a nice example (and a cool game):

You'll note I didn't have to create any content for that, I just pasted the address of the page straight into this post. This is based on the "open graph" tags that websites already provide for the benefit of Facebook sharing.

• Speaking of the automatic link feature: pasting a URL like that in the middle of your text once again splits the text into two sections, with the link preview in the middle.

As I mentioned, you can still make links the old-fashioned way too.

(At this point I don't care that I'll never be able to buy the domain onepo dot com. I'm still going to call it that, because how can you not?)

Just a quick one to let y'all know I started the Draw 100 Heads challenge today (with a fantasy theme, of course) over on my Twitter account.

If you'd like to check it out, I started a thread, so you should be able to come back to this link as time passes and find all of them...

https://twitter.com/mrlich/status/1542564568274190336?s=21&t=6tuEhcRXrvdpQ-ii_Qtmgw

Did some drawing tonight. My newest character in a new D&D campaign we're playing just over the summer. We're a troupe of bards.

My character (Quinn) is an eloquence bard, and he's a changeling. Think of him as the face of the group.

Anyway, I started drawing him previously, but hit that point where I just decided that I hated everything about that version so I started over tonight.

So far, I'm a bit happier about it.

Of course, by next week...

More music reviews from those same three CD cases!  
​​​​​​​Track 1:  A brief mention of hellfire, but otherwise just high levels of peppiness.  ***
Track 2:  Not so peppy, and imagines an end to many avoidable deaths.  Still not bad.  **
Track 3:  A quiet meditation on a shadowy location.  **
Track 4:  Aha.  Exactly one dead bird, but a very moving eulogy for her.  ****
Track 5:  This song has only 7 words.  It's easy to listen to, at least.  **
Track 6:  Again no obvious physical death, but a genuine classic that can't be ignored.  It's about spiritual death, perhaps?  *****
Track 7:  One dead brother, lauded with exceptional peppiness.  Bring tissues.  *****
Track 8:  A bright love ballad that suddenly threatens to burn down cities and hear the lamentation of the women as they are also destroyed.  ****
Track 9:  An extremely peppy hymn to a baby destined for salvific sacrifice.  ****
Track 10:  A cheerful day in the park, then BANG, nuclear holocaust.  Mrs. Ferret claims to hate this song, but this time she played along bravely.  *****
Track 11:  A great song that possibly threatens death by drowning, but I think that's just metaphorical.  ****
Track 12:  A young man has become a petty criminal for reasons that are unclear to him.  He probably didn't kill anyone, but who knows?  **
Track 13:  A remixed version of track 6, probably the singers' best-known song.  It's been covered by a heavy metal group. *****
Track 14:  Dead leaves remind us of the inevitability of aging, loss, and death. ****
Track 15:  I can't find anything to particularly like about this one, but they can't all be hits. *
Track 16:  This song literally refers to the death of raindrops, but no one cries about dead raindrops, right?  **
Track 17:  After this remix/sequel of track 12, my son said "That song is so good, why is it so short?"  This made me very happy. ****
Track 18:  Entirely instrumental, with hints of track 22.  Reasonably peppy. ***
Track 19:  There's no trigger warning in this song about the suicide of a gentleman in otherwise pleasant circumstances. ****
Track 20:  Wow, a second consecutive suicide, of a man in less pleasant circumstances.  Who compiled this album?  I don't like this one as much, probably because it's not as peppy. **
Track 21:  Definitely refers to death, but I'm fairly hopeful that this is just a reference to the death of a love affair. Brief and lacking pep. **
Track 22:  More relationship death, but peppier. ***
Track 23:  A rocking ode to individual isolationism that contrasts a peppy beat with a less-peppy message. ****