Defiant Sloth

Stumbled upon a pull-tab that oddly looks like an angry JD Vance. I don’t like it, and I didn’t win.

So I took the bait and am using the rebooted Reeder app, and I like it.

The gist this time around is it turns various feeds into a primary scroll list, synched by timeline position across devices. Having used RSS for years, I worried I’d miss a particular blog, but the new habit is actually less stressful and more manageable than previous iterations of the app concept: just open and scroll. If you think you missed a blog, you can always go to it (and Reeder does seem to sync your position within those individual blog feeds), so you can double-check without the glaring unread count haunting you.

While it does take getting used to, I like its implementation of ideas. Sorted feeds for videos and audio, as well as bookmarks and read later features if you want them. Having one aggregate list for everything (called ‘Home’) isn’t so different from, say, NetNewsWire’s ‘aggregate ‘Unread’ view, which I usually used day to day, so the adjustment is minor. Additionally, you can filter out feeds from the Home view that update an inordinate amount daily (e.g., Political Wire), and so I’ve just been checking those manually. Not a big deal.

Overall, the app is marvelously polished for interaction and pleasurability, and if you can get over the opinionated changes that diverge from 20+ years of RSS reader design paradigms, it’s absolutely worth trying.

A few days overdue, but had a great time at the MN State Fair. Went a few days, including the low-key opening on August 22nd (which also was an attendance record at 138k), and the final Sunday (also a record at 256k). There wasn't a food highlight this year, but stuck with a few staples:

• Pronto pup + corndog combo is the right approach).
• Baba's hummus bowls have become a new go-to as well.
• The butter vat dipped corn on the cob, obviously.
• Midway Men's club burgers and beer, of course.
• Tried a malt at Kiwanis Malts — fairly good, will bring it into rotation
• Spaghetti Eddie's pizza on a stick still hits
• We missed an opportunity to get Hmong Union Kitchen's sticky purple rice on a stick (alas, it was sold out when we tried), so will need to see if they keep it for next year
• Notable non-food: The Horticulture building redesign and exhibits were satisfying — seed art was fantastic this year (it seemingly leveled up to a true art form), the scarecrow competition was wild, and the flowers, always a must-see. Talent Show was solid (we missed the semifinals but saw the opening big show event at the end). The Garden for all-day karaoke, as always, a must for vibes.

A new trick we pulled off this year that will definitely be part of the flow for next is scooting to the fair -- we found an easy route from our house that's just a joy to use with minimal car traffic interference. Until next August...

I’ve been the same exact way Nick Heer does about a number of small iPhone interactions lately (mostly stemming from the Dynamic Island and dimmed always-on screen). Worth a read if you feel the little pains, too.

Playing a Dragon Quest game immediately lightens the mood and lifts the soul. I’d credit the culmination of its color palette, the boisterous soundtrack filling every scene, and the whimsical designs and dialogue. Perfection. Dragon Quest is comfort gaming at its finest.

Agree with the take here (we need an “iTunes for streaming TV”), but doubt it’ll ever happen — though it seems like YouTube TV is the closest to achieving this. One of the biggest hurdles for getting eyeballs in this major transition isn’t paying for streaming, it’s the friction between everything.

Fun piece from the ‘rebooted’ Minnesota Star Tribune on the state’s long-standing lake party franchise, Zorbaz. We bumped into one of these unintentionally on a winter retreat to Nisswa last year, and now feel like we need to visit a few of these in the summer. It’s a… curious place.

Six Colors' Interview with Zach Gage on Puzzmo and specifically, Pile-up Poker. He’s got an agreeable rationale for why it’s limited to five hands per day, something I’d been curious about since it was launched.

Ingenuity in ’re-agriculture' has led to successfully transitioning out of factory farming into medicinal tinctures, mushroom coffee blends, and solar panel surplus energy. “If all goes well, the profits from mushrooms could exceed what the farm was generating from hogs during the best of times.”

The most magical restaurant on the North Shore has, and always will be, New Scenic Cafe.

Watched the Olympic Men’s Basketball game at Roscoe’s in Duluth. Dive bar with the sound on was the chef’s kiss of vibes to enjoy the USA win in.

Looking up at the St Paul Cathedral after dinner around the corner on Selby Ave. The architecture is a major landmark of the neighborhood, and the reverse view from its summit perch oversees Saint Paul’s downtown.

A lot of eyes on Minnesota over the past few days, and I’ve enjoyed seeing the country awash in midwestern banter. Also proud to see a representative from our state on the presidential ticket — Tim Walz is a tremendous, well-engineered asset and temperament on the national stage.

Great new video from coffee guru James Hoffmann covering celebrity coffee products. Few have captured the egotistical rationale (me = “founder”) and business machinations (scaled but mid production) driving this celebrity trend than he does. It’s still all about merchandising recurring revenues.

Kudos to Matt Birchler’s simple declaration about the AeroPress making a phenomenal cup of coffee. I agree that regardless of how skilled you think you are with pour overs or other methods, the AeroPress delivers an impressively consistent cup without much room for error.

Say what you will about the Mall of America, but the architects and teams running it have designed and deployed some great sustainability measures throughout, including balancing the plant ecosystem with ladybugs to combat the aphids during hatching season. (Via @rationaldoge@hachyderm.io)

A sad reality for the book industry… via No one buys books - by Elle Griffin:

in 2020, only 268 titles sold more than 100,000 copies, and 96 percent of books sold less than 1,000 copies. That’s still the vibe.

Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario requires constant reading breaks in order to stomach the existential and horrifying material, but it stands as one of the most important politically speculative books of our time. 📚

As breweries continue to excel at their core product, but look to monetize in adjacent ways, several in Minnesota have tuned to both hop water (N/A option) and THC seltzers (part of a growing $180M revenue state-wide business that now includes taps).

While the THC seltzers are a genre of beverage unto their own (several have experimented with both light flavoring/zero calorie options, like Chill State, while others have loaded ingredients to create a more substantial beverage, like Trail Magic), there is increasing sophistication in the hop water offerings, and they have gotten so good I enjoy them more than half the time vs grabbing a beer, especially in the summer.

Surly

Was just out on Lake Minnetonka with Surly’s offering, simply called Sparkling Hop Water, and it was a very pleasant alternative to keep the DD (me) from intoxication. The citrus + mosaic hops smash through the light but bubbly carbonation, fulfilling on its promise to deliver the flavor you’d be looking for, all in a package with minimal ingredients (but including Vitamin C!) and 0 calories. Can design is a little Liquid Death-like and extreme for my tastes, but it’s what’s inside that matters.

Overall, this one reminds me of a flavored La Croix can, so if that’s your fix, this is a good option.

Fair State

A clear winner here is the set of hop waters from Fair State. They batch a set of cans for each hop predominantly used — so they’ve got a Citra & Centennial, a Citra & Galaxy, and more recently, a Hop Water Plus that features mosaic and strata hops paired with 50 mg of caffeine (because everyone seems to be finding new ways of pile-driving caffeine into our system). Each of these tastes, rightfully so, unique based on the hop(s) used, and I love the large format 16oz cans.

The Citra & Centennial is my favorite, I could drink this all day — it’s a super bright and super hoppy chug, and it will convert you to the hop water cause.

Fulton Hop Water

First of all, this can design is just lovely. Fulton has had an iteration out prior to this with an even more charming design, but I couldn’t find it as it looks like they changed the product to fit into their Hop Kingdom Family. It’s now called Hop Kingdom Hop Water, and I imagine it tastes the same as before. This one was a fairly chill, lightweight can when I originally tasted it, and I imagine it hasn’t changed. It was (and still isn’t) clear what kinds of hops are used in this, so your mileage of taste expectation may vary. Given that it’s kin to their variety pack of IPAs, it’s anyone’s guess. But this is a nice option to have if the other two I mentioned here aren’t available.

It’s better than Lagunitas’s option, which honestly I would have as a backup but never as a first choice.

It’s too bad these local cans aren’t more easily found across the state (so many nationwide grocery stores, like Whole Foods, stick to more national brands like Lagunitas), but I’ve spotted Surly and Fair State at several liquor stores and spots like Kowalski’s. They’re an excellent substitution for alcohol, but they’re also just a stellar beverage option.

A few photographic impressions from the roadtrip from the Twin Cities to west-side Michigan and back. Our excursion out on a pontoon along the Muskegon harbor of Lake Michigan was a highlight.

A list of some lists, from Field Notes. A quintessential kind of post for the notebook brand, really.

So... Cyan released a remake of 1997’s adventure game Riven (the sequel to Myst) this past month, and I took the plunge to nostalgia-surf my way to nirvana. And it worked. This game is tremendously engrossing, and every bit as intriguing as it was for my 12-year-old self when I played the multi-CD-ROM switching original. And I feel like I can solve most of its densely-layered, nonlinear puzzles without a guide this time.

This isn’t a long-winded review of any kind — just declaring that this game is wonderful, escapist artistry steeped in what I guess I’d call historical video game design. It'll bring you joy if you only just move around its environments, let alone solve its puzzles. Huge kudos to the Cyan team for rebuilding and adding perfectly-tuned modern updates the quintessence of the puzzle-adventure genre.

Caught up on a few posts from The Obsessor, and came across a recommendation for a new camera app called Pure from Trevor Walsh. Reminds me of the early iOS days of experimental apps — no image preview, just tap anywhere on the screen, it captures a photo, and limits you to 12 per day. It’s good.

Is there any other state in the US with such a breadth of grocery store non-dominance as Minnesota? Great piece by Adam Platt at MinnPost on the state of affairs. Big Kowalski’s fan, even if it’s only 2% marketshare.

We went cruising across Vermont last week for a vacation, staying in a variety of towns (including Burlington, Stowe, Waitsfield, and Woodstock). Lovely place. It's very much a "Wisconsin of the eastern US plus mountains", as we visited a number of dairy farms and tasted our way through a terrific breweries. I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked, but... here are a handful of shots (specifically of the beer and cheese we tried).

The Alchemist’s legendary Heady Topper IPA, tasted off the draft line at the brewery near/in Stowe. Really nice campus there.

Fiddlehead’s IPA, which I saw in a can at just about every restaurant and bar we frequented.

An excellent pack of Plymouth Cheddar. We nibbled our way through this paired with a bottle of Ira Sylvan Trousseau wine, unintentionally good together.

The Waterbury Club Lager, brewed by Prohibition Pig. Apparently they were heavily inspired by signage across the street and “copied it nearly to a T” as much as they could, in all fairness.

A package of the Willoughby Cheese by Jasper Hill Farms. Alas, we didn’t get a chance to visit this farm, but ate this while staying at a farm B&B, so kind of worked out.

For consistency’s sake, I usually always pose a photo of a water bottle. This was taken at the Billings Farm in Woodstock after a short bike ride there. Aluminum bottles or bust.