Andy Futuro

I recently upgraded to the new version of Gmail. I like it. I like being able to see which emails have attachments. I like the automatic suggestions for responding to emails (even though I don't like it reading my emails). I like the new "confidential" mode.

Unfortunately it has one big problem.

The new Gmail doesn't work.

Now Gmail has always been a little feisty with me. I have an old MacBook, I use Firefox in private mode, with plug-ins like Adblock Plus, Disconnect, and uBlock.

But this is totally different.

Sometimes the new Gmail won't load. I'll wait and wait. One minute. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Nothing. I'll try again, and again. I'll restart Firefox and finally get in.

Once Gmail has managed to load, the real fight begins. I use hangouts, or try to, but sometimes they don't show up in the new Gmail. I'll click a conversation and nada. Nope. Good luck buddy.


Fine, I didn't even want to talk to my friends.

But I do …

What the hell, God? We endured a bloated, ghastly winter this year with the promise of spring, a promise you failed to keep. Only at the end of April did temperatures consistently rally past the forties and now it's 91 degrees? That's too hot! What happened to spring? We're full-out ball sack now. Just breathing gets you sweaty. The sun is relentless, there's no refuge, it crisps you with its rays and melts through the brick of your house to broil you within.

See, we need spring. Spring is all we got here in Philly. Sure, we do a nice fall, but fall leads into winter and the sun goes away and the days get shorter and the nightmare of Christmas is approaching and you just can't help but be reminded of the fact that you're going to die real soon. So spring is where it's at. You get the birds, and sun, and every day is longer than the last, and it rains but you don't care because it's big and sexy and dramatic with growls of thunder and splashes of l…

My friend owed me $15 for a ticket to an L.A. Salami concert. She didn't have any cash. She asked if she could Venmo me. I said no. I don't have Venmo. I don't believe in Venmo. She said that if I had a PayPal account it would still work. Reluctantly, I agreed to accept payment via the Venmo-PayPal spur.


I received a text with a link to claim my money. This is already more work than I want to be doing. In case you need a refresher, here's how cash works:




Fine, whatever, I'll sing for my supper. I click the link. It takes me to PayPal and I'm greeted with a message that my payment has been received.



Unfortunately, this is a lie. I check my account balance and there is no $15.


No big deal. I check account activity to see if the transaction is pending or processing, but nada. It's probably just loading.

A week later I check again. Still no $15. Still no record of the transaction. I look everywhere and can't find it. I don't even know how I g…

Re: South Korean president thinks Trump should win a Nobel Peace Prize

Of course that branzino galoot should get a peace prize. Give him two. Everyone should get a peace prize and then we can all stop caring about this stupid nothingburger.


Obama got a peace prize and he presided over years of sprawling, rudderless, American belligerence in the Middles East and everywhere else. He even okayed a new military adventure in Libya with foreseeably disastrous consequences, opening yet another front on the American war on everything and everywhere and everyone.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been in the news lately (though not nearly as much as catastrophe warrants) for her rather quiescent attitude towards ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya perpetrated by the Mynamar military. Now, granted, I am not fully up to speed on Myanmar politics, nor do I know how much power she may actually have. But I do know she's sitting in the putative top spot watching her troops commit a genocide, and sh…

Having suffered a bout of absentee self-discipline, I have joined the cult of CrossFit to mold my flesh into a more fetching vessel. It's interesting.

If you're lucky enough to have never heard of CrossFit, this is all you need to know—it's a jungle gym for adults. You run and jump and pick things up and put them down and throw them and jump rope and do hopscotch and work out all your heebie jeebies. There's some grade school math thrown in as well, since you'll be counting every time you do something, and you're always doing multiple somethings, and you're always doing a lot of multiple somethings. My gym is in an old converted garage with plenty of space, but at eight o'clock the rush hour hits and it is playground madness.

Likely there are serious types doing CrossFit who would quibble with this characterization, and there's no doubt that the serious types are serious. That ubiquitous American belligerence underpins the official CrossFit doctrine. …

Goddamn, another beautiful blue day in Philadelphia. Air so crisp you can bite it. A breeze that wipes the years off your ledger. If there's one thing the northeast coast of the US does right it's spring. I see a lot of west-coast jokers in the YouTube comments claiming this song fits their jive, but I reckon this guy's a Brit (reckon but no time to look it up) so we share a sea ya'll. Atlantic for life!


Buy Coastline by Geoffroy:
http://smarturl.it/Geoffroy_Coastline