It is another FISH Monday! 3.8 oz salmon followed by 1.7 oz of the ever-delightful, air-fryer-touched prosciutto. Then, I am following it up with 4.5 oz of burger patties. I went heavy on the Fat Focus yesterday as I had 3 sticks of butter for the day—I dunno, just felt the need for it.

I do not enter this week with a general game plan—I know, a failing! No reading plan, no training regimen...ahh, but, I am content.

I am off Google, of course, but it left behind a rather large content hole regarding YouTube channels. I could relegate links to browser bookmarks, but that is not the sort of thing I track. I generally stash a treasure trove of bookmarks away among the dust bunnies.

Bookmarks are something more useful for an arcane bit of code than a landing page. I had some 92 channels I had subscribed to, some of which I would watch anything and everything they would put out each week.

Since I had a need and sincerely hope I would give you something of value, I would link to them all...well, initially. I had all 90-something linked to Top 25. But, it was not optimized. It is easy to get bewildered as most do not know to name themselves with effective descriptors, something that Phil over at City Planner Plays does so succinctly: is he a city planner playing? Or does he like playing city planners? (answer: both)

Also, there is no way to practically consume it all. So, I whittled it down. By the sweat of my brow, I knocked it down to my top 50...not good enough. Got it all the way down to 25—that is more like it! Lemme tell ya, it was hard!

They sorted themselves into five categories: Builds, Chuckles, Fit, Gaming, and Hero's Journey. I then ranked them within that category, though it kinda came off like Matt Mitchell's Bless Your Rank. I mean, how would you rank them? On production value? Content? Charisma? Application?

I think I pegged ranking most of the categories spot on, but with my Builds section, beyond Mark Rober, it is a toss-up. I am going with 731 Woodworks in the #2 position on Builds because I just like Arkansas-state-trooper-turned-YouTuber Matt Outlaw's ethos.

OK, so we have got all the channels down. So we gotta click every link daily? Nah. I knew early on in the process that was not gonna work. Static stuff is great for archive purposes, but not for change. I began thinking about generating feeds for content when I remembered a service I once shelled out a few bucks for, the RSS/Atom client, Feedly. Works like a champ—even better than YouTube itself! Google throws up a smoke screen of recommendations, obscuring the user of updates of their subscriptions.

Naturally, we can extend Feedly's usage further with other content beyond YouTube! Make it a one-stop shop for feasting!

It is another STEAK Saturday! I had 8.3 oz of thinly sliced ribeye from ALDI. As an additional treat, I had 1.5 oz of Buc-ees' original pork rinds from across the state. The thing I like best about 'em is that there was none of that hard stuff that cracks molars, unlike the fresh stuff over at ol' Casa Perez Market.

Steak is so incredibly invigorating. It makes these days something very special And it's a cinch to throw the thin cuts into an air fryer, too!

I am shifting my approach to this website, crafting it toward my own proclivities, namely, weightloss, but in a digital context.

• Removed:
  • All single-use images
  • All iframe embeds, some 300 files worth!
  • Google Charts
• Returned GZIP backups to the size equivalent of a 3.5" floppy diskette

Yes, this website is screaming fast, ESPECIALLY compared to those old WordPress installs I used to run. Just look at this site's source and compare it with stuff out there! But, even then, the code isn't indented the way I'd prefer. Slappin' the areas of the page together can get messy.

It just didn't make sense to use Google Charts. My data change what, once every 42 days? As good as I am, I don't lose weight in a live context! Static images are fine to tell the story. However, an image for a single post? Well, used today then bird cage liner the next—it don't make a bit of sense, does it? Remember that AI narrating a post? That took a ton of space, 2.6 MB! "You're outta here, toaster!"

As to all the iframes: in a way, iframes are a throwback to a simpler time. It is reminiscent of frames, back when people wanted a wieldable nav, both readily viewable and easy to update. That sort of thing would never survive today's ridiculously small screens of phones.

More importantly, I don't approve of things like Google's tracking on YouTube embeds. I should NOT have to block elements on my own website! I'm the only guy out who simply does not care about SEO. I'd rather drive website traffic off a cliff!

Yes, I am breaking from my reliance on Google. As I removed all the embeds over the years, I could not help but notice how wadding up the doodles has been a goal of mine. So, I left.

Unlike in the past, my leaving did not take much. While my cloud subscription expires in June, I have been hesitant to pull the trigger because of the $140 annual fee I spent in February for YouTube Premium, largely just so that I am not pestered by ads when I cast to the TV, something completely avoidable with an HDMI output. To complete the transition, I have added a new New Year's Resolution! I'm still rolling with those, folks!

Most importantly, I have decommissioned my Spotify account AND I do not have the YouTube Music fallback option, either. You'll see the shift in this space.

Upon other matters, I'm looking forward to a delivery tomorrow, my very own It's a Saturday Night shirt (Amazon link)! I know, it's a simple thing. Honestly, it just reminds me of how my wardrobe in 2023 was not much beyond a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

And I'm gonna do more pursuits that require these Daddy Can't See glasses of mine. And you KNOW that's gonna be geek to the max—doin' it since 1987 at age 9, just a couple of years away from the monthly computer club meetings at State Tech.

By the way, isn't this Weird Al bit marvelous?

My Delorean

But for today I'm gonna drive
Content I'm still alive
And let it go in the wind

-Timecop1983 & Primo the Alien

As of April 16th, my year-long membership at the Bartlett Rec Center is now over. I never did go back after that day captured by May 26, 2023's post Dust in the Bin.

Was it worth plopping a few hundred bucks on the counter?

It never was what I expected. There was no community, just an ever-present solitude. Banners hung that spoke of a time in photo albums, but are a stranger of the present. Bartlett looks nothing like the Bartlett I knew. This frog's leaps to Midtown, Arizona, east Memphis, Jackson, Alaska missed the slow-to-boil pot.

In all my walks across the city, I realized the extent of how it is but a shell of its former self. Roving police patrols, wandering homeless—even the parade route has shifted away from Stage Rd, as urban decay exudes from its sewers. Shadows remain of the place I once loved.

I was among those who signed up in BRC's first year upon opening...

...and I was among those who signed up in its last as it is now Memphis (YMCA).

Perhaps I was the only one.

Incidentally, I have the same construct with the tenure of a former president of the University of Memphis, as I was in the graduation class at the start and again at its end.

As it has been sung, "I changed by not changing at all."

Change

But, all of that is not me. While it exists in its own harrowing, alternate dimension of the Upside Down, some mutant thing that stands in for a reality that was, I don't come from there.

I am alive.

And unlike the weight of that post from May 26, THIS year, I'm going to weighin on that day and beat out all of 2023. I'll look down at my driver's license. That headshot was taken in November 2014, nearly 10 years ago. It would get better, bud...eventually.