Welcome to the TOA June Newsletter! With summer fast approaching, I know time is at a premium for you, hurried reader – let’s just jump right into it.
Writing Rules of Thumb update
I recently wrote about eliminating ‘verb to verb’ constructions in my writing. This isn’t the first time I’ve commented here about the points of emphasis I use to guide my writing or proofreading. However, since I tend to scatter these thoughts sporadically throughout multiple posts, I thought I would gather these ROTs together for you, curious reader, and assemble them in one place for easy reference.
Here are the current ROTs I keep in mind as I write:
*When stuck, just write down the most important idea
*NO outlines – sketch instead
*When an ending appears, grab it
*Verb ‘to’ verb is no good...
*Express shock and rage and grief through meticulously detailed observation
Running sabbatical update
The running joke (!) around these parts is that it takes so long for me to post something that by the time it goes up the content is no longer relevant. I disagree slightly – I don’t think the content I put up is ever relevant – but, being keenly insecure about these petty criticisms, I try to get certain posts up in a timely fashion.
Alas, I came close with my recent thoughts on running… but in the end, no cigar
Breaking: Hubway blue itself...
After several years as ‘Hubway’, a new sponsorship agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield resulted in the entire bike share system I use almost every day being renamed ‘Blue Bikes’. This change also came with a fleet of new bikes, a topic I will post about
The Official TOA World Cup Preview
Germany.
Finally, the T does something right…
The MBTA announced a new program for the summer – for ten bucks, you can get a pass for unlimited trips on the commuter rail for that weekend. I love the idea. The MBTA runs a really simple business – they sell the ability to get from one place to another. Any idea they have that creates more trips is consistent with the point of their business. Unfortunately, those ideas seem to be few and far between these days. More of this, please!
UPDATE – TOA Book of the Year
You know, reader, I think we are going to skip this again... oh well. There's always July...
Maybe we’ll just skip the award this year. If the Nobel Prize is allowed to skip, surely the TOA Book of the Year award can take a year off?
More links…
June is a good time for little reminders about the importance of being happy with simply being yourself. It might be a stretch to say the following link exemplifies this idea in full, I suppose, but I'm a little light on recommendations this month so we'll just have to give it a go.
This is a review I read a few months ago about Tim Kreider’s We Learn Nothing. This isn't a standard review of an essay collection because the review in question is written by Jennifer Boylan, a subject of one of Kreider's essays.
It may be true that we learn nothing over the lifetime we are given on this little planet of ours. If that is the case, however, then it must mean that I knew all along the value of being happy with the way I am.
… and fake links…
AKA - if I wrote for The Onion…
Headline: Trump demands North Korea pay for US-Mexico Border Wall as condition for starting nuclear talks.… and descriptions of links…
I know there is a TED Talk out there that describes a highly successful Vanguard investor. This investor basically outperformed 99% of the portfolios on the website. After controlling for all the variables, it became clear that this investor possessed one quality that differentiated him or her from the others – this investor was dead, and had been for a long time.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t dig up the link, so we’ll just have to settle for my summary here, reader – to invest well, (1) buy an index fund and (2) DO NOT TOUCH!
… and links that explain previous items from this post...
Not that the joke should require explaining, of course, but let’s be thorough today, rushed reader, so that we all have time to watch the new season of Arrested Development in peace...
OK, we are running out of steam here… and is that really it for the World Cup preview?
Look, when it comes to tournaments, anything can happen. Throw in the caveat that the national teams rarely play together so no one really knows how good the teams are… who could really preview such a tournament? Plus, longtime readers will know I don’t help anyone when I preview major soccer tournaments.
I suppose if you were trying to get clever you might bet on France, Croatia, or Columbia. Teams that play with great energy and intensity are in vogue right now so maybe it’s worth having a look at... but yeah, turns out such information isn't easy to find, so let's guess... Iran is probably good at running (editor's note: this might actually be true, and Iran is stingy in defense, so...)?
Whatever, let’s all just enjoy Japan’s three group stages losses before jumping on an underdog's bandwagon, shall we? Plus, as the Men In Blazers once joked, this is only the men’s World Cup. The real World Cup is next summer.
So, did you leave the apartment at all?
I did, in fact. On one sunny May afternoon, my group at work took a break for ice cream. This prompted me to ask some of my colleagues what their ‘flavorite’ was.
Anything else?
I don’t have a ton going on this summer – no trips planned, no vacations, no weddings to attend. Such a light calendar means I have a few extra bucks kicking around. One way I’m
Currently, I have four shows lined up – U2, Lake Street Dive, Chvrches, and Courtney Barnett. Of the four, I’m easily looking forward to U2 the most. The other shows will be a good time but going to see the old dudes play just down the street from my apartment will definitely have a little extra meaning for me.
I still remember very clearly the exact moment I decided I wanted to go to this concert. It was on July 12, 2015, the same day my mom died. Everyone understood how my mom was doing and various friends and family were visiting throughout the day. I was sitting out back at the hospice house when I got into a conversation about the U2 show a couple of these visitors had gone to the previous night. As they were describing how much they’d enjoyed the show, I realized how disconnected I’d become that year from the rest of my life. I thought going to concerts might be one way to get myself back on track – though I’d always liked music, I’d never gone to a concert before. I’ve been patiently waiting for U2 to play in Boston again ever since.
The wait finally ends in late June. The early returns on this tour’s set list are mixed – I think I would say I’m very much in favor of eleven or twelve of the songs whereas the average U2 show from their last two tours clocked in at closer to fourteen or fifteen. Still, eleven or twelve ain’t bad. Those numbers are higher than I’ll get at any of the other shows I’ll attend this year.
More importantly, it leaves plenty of room for improvement when I go to see U2 during their seven farewell tours.
Thanks for reading this past month.
See you in June!
In the next month of... True On Average...
1. Is there an alternative to the plausible fact?
2. We go back to the pause button.
3. Introducing… The Marshmallow Index
