9.9.2026 – lazymaxxing fan

lazymaxxing fan
and finding low-effort ways
to improve my life

Adapted from the Guardian Opinion piece, Want to start lazymaxxing? Here are some low-effort ways to improve your life by Arwa Mahdawi where Ms. Mahdawi writes:

The rich world is currently in thrall to tech-enabled self-optimisation.

Or as some people (people you do not want to end up seated next to at a dinner party) call it: humanmaxxing.

We’re told we should track our biomarkers and optimise every second of our days, often in complicated and joyless ways.

If that works for you, great.

But, personally, I’m a big fan of lazymaxxing and finding low-effort ways to improve my life.

Weekend lie-ins are obviously one, drinking coffee is another.

A 2025 study found that morning coffee drinkers were 16% less likely to die early of any cause.

Swearing is also surprisingly good for you: uttering a profanity can decrease physical pain and increase focus.

And while I can’t go so far as to say that bingeing Love is Blind has health-giving properties, I did unearth research concluding that enjoying trashy films is a sign you’re a well-educated cultural omnivore.

I still haven’t found a study proving that lying on the couch, eating crisps, reading thrillers and ignoring your obligations is good for you, but I live in hope.

I tell people that I wake up ready to leap out of bed, start off my day with some calisthenics and then a quick 5 mile bike ride … but if I lie real still … the feeling goes away.

I tell people I like to avoid anything that makes me sweat which is why, of all activities, I prefer swimming as I can’t tell if I am sweating.

Nothing gets me going like a free afternoon and a rocking chair and a stack of books within reach.

When talking about things to do and see I embrace Dr. Johnson’s. “Worth seeing. Not worth going to see.” (He of ‘a sea voyage is all the fun of jail with the chance of drowning thrown in’ fame).

One time at work, I had to go to this employee workshop where everyone was handed a deck of cards.

There was one word on each card.

Eager.

Helpful.

Dynamic.

Words like that.

We had to take the stack of cards and seperate them in half and keep the words that best described ourselves.

Then do it again.

Then do it again until we had one card left.

Then we had to stand up and read our card outloud.

In a way I was kind of proud that I ended up with … lazy!

Years ago my brother Paul and I found ourselves going out to eat with a brother in law who told us all the many things he had on his plate that needed his attention.

After a few minutes, he paused and sighed and said, “I guess it’s better to have too much to do than not enough.”

Paul stared out the window for a moment and said, “I can get by without having too much do.”

For some reason, Paul and I have always got along.

I’m a big fan of lazymaxxing and finding low-effort ways to improve my life.

9.8.2026 – can do craziness

can do craziness
rise, ebb, froth, an incoming
frenzy of fountains

The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can give

gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,

and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

The Poet Compares Human Nature To The Ocean From Which We Came by Mary Oliver in A Thousand Mornings (Penguin: New York, 2012).

High tide and rip currents toss havoc shoreward and ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains.

9.7.2026 – will continue to

will continue to
reflect profoundly stupid
and ugly present

Based on the article, Will hordes of influencers, weed smokers and mid-point talkers bring down the US Open? by Aaron Timms at Flushing Meadows (The Guardian, 9/7/2026), where Mr. Timms writes:

People have been complaining about the volume of the New York crowd for decades. But this year the noise at the US Open feels different. This year noise at the noisy slam has become A Problem.

How bad are things really, though? It’s true that the grounds at the US Open this year have felt at times oppressively crowded. But the shoving obliviousness of the fans – the constant staring at phones, the almost universal lack of spatial awareness, the inconsiderate jostling in the interminable lines for the courts and the drinks and the $38 French dip sandwiches and the tiny free canisters of Dove deodorant – reflects nothing more than the poisonous effect of tech and commerce on culture at large. The tournament is drenched in commercial influence: more than it is a series of tennis matches, the US Open is a showcase for brands shilling everything from yogurt to $100,000 cars.

Changing the crowds at the US Open would mean changing society – throwing away the phones and the chatbots and the Bluetooth microphones, rejecting the delusions of the attention economy, saying once and for all that no, in fact, you will not “get ready with me”. It would mean embracing a life of community and human contact and non-screen-mediated concern for each other. But until the distant day when that happens, we’re stuck, I fear, with more of the same – and the US Open will continue to reflect our profoundly stupid and ugly cultural present.

It would mean throwing away the phones and the chatbots and the Bluetooth microphones.

It would mean rejecting the delusions of the attention economy.

It would mean saying once and for all that no, in fact, you will not “get ready with me”.

It would mean embracing a life of community and human contact and non-screen-mediated concern for each other.

But until the distant day when that happens, we’re stuck, I fear, with more of the same.

It means US Open will continue to reflect our profoundly stupid and ugly cultural present.

In church yesterday, the sermon was about Jonah and God given second chances.

Jonah got a second chance and followed God’s commands to go to Nineveh.

Ninevah?

The Bible refers to it as a Great City.

A city great in wickedness.

A city, according to what God says as recorded in the Book of Jonah, where there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.

Profoundly stupid.

People who cannot tell their right hand from their left.

Boy howdy!

Welcome to Nineveh!

9.6.2026 – one second left twice

one second left twice
not over ’til fat lady
reviews video

Some items without dispute from the Michigan – Western Michigan football game in Ann Arbor on September 5.

Western outplayed Michigan.

Western deserved to win.

Michigan earned the loss all on its own.

Michigan has a drug problem as Western drug Michigan up and down the field.

Bryce Underwood is not answer and may be the problem.

Michigan’s game plan over the last 50 years and multiple coaches of playing to not lose rather than playing to win produces unwatchable television and unnecessary hardship.

And …

On the next to last play of the game, a Western Michigan defender went out of bounds and returned to the field of play and touched a live ball, stopping the clock with one second left.

As reported in the New York Times, “A couple of hours after the Wolverines’ 13-12 win, the Big Ten released a statement explaining the decision, along with the video that replay officials reviewed and audio of them talking through the decision. The video, from an angle that was not shown during the broadcast, appeared to back up the decision that a defender — after he stepped out of bounds — touched the ball when there was a second left on the stadium clock.” )A couple of hours after the Wolverines’ 13-12 win, the Big Ten released a statement explaining the decision, along with the video that replay officials reviewed and audio of them talking through the decision. The video, from an angle that was not shown during the broadcast, appeared to back up the decision that a defender — after he stepped out of bounds — touched the ball when there was a second left on the stadium clock. (Why Michigan got 1 second put back on clock before controversial win vs. Western Michigan By Ralph D. Russo and Justin Williams – Sept. 5, 2026 Updated Sept. 6, 2026 8:08 am EDT).

Full disclosure, I did not watch.

Pretty much at the end of the line with Sport anyway, that first half with the latest edition of the Next Great Michigan Coach and the resurgence of the Next Great Michigan Quarterback had me shaking my head and turning the game off.

The wife and I watched our regular Saturday night Detective drama, Death in Paradise.

I admit I kept my phone handy and glanced at the score from time to time and the scoreboard showed 0:00 WMU 12 M 7 and I swiped the screen off.

Our show ends before 11 p.m. as it airs on PBS without commercial breaks so it lasts less than 1 hour and before I could stop her, the wife switches back to the game.

The screen shows an empty Michigan Stadium and the field packed with screaming fans.

I figured the visiting Western fans had rushed the field … but there were too many of them.

The fans were all in maize and blue.

What goes on here, I wondered.

After what seemed like a long time, the announcers found their voices and started to try and explain, as the New York Times put it, “Where exactly did that one second come from for Michigan?”

This morning every major news outlet is reporting that Western was robbed.

Then the BIG 10 officially announced that “As shown in the provided video of what was viewed during the replay process, a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium, was used to determine the final ruling.”

So Michigan wins.

The video replay says so.

Boy Howdy!

It’s the sporting equivalent of when Senator Al Gore once stayed overnight at monastery back in the day and along the way accepted a large campaign donation and responded to questions saying, My lawyers say I did nothing wrong.

Not picking on Mr. Gore here, its the thought that counts.

But somehow this game and its outcome and how we arrive at this outcome, is just a microcosm of life in general on so many fronts.

Life is changing and for the worse all around it seems.

The new season is here.

Let the games be played.

And always remember that in this modern era, it’s not whether you win or lose, but how the video replay can be intrepreted.

It’s not over until the fat lady reviews the video.

Anyway, on that 2nd last play, Western should have been flagged for roughing the passer.

9.5.2026 – cloud to tumbling cloud

cloud to tumbling cloud
minute by minute they change
shadow on the stream

Adapted from the poem, Easter 1916 By William Butler Yeats as published in The Norton anthology of poetry by Alexander W. Allison (Norton: New York, 1983).

Easter, 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our wingèd horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse—
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.