An FDA committee is meeting and considering removing some COVID vaccine recommendations for certain groups. Public comment is open until May 23, 2025 11:59PM Eastern.
I was reminded of this satirical gem from 2006. Funny/sad/infuriating how much it still applies almost 20 years later.
Gosh, I’m tired. Exhausted.
A lot of stuff has happened to me in the past few days. Some very good stuff, but also some very—uh—not good stuff. The kind of stuff which would really affect my mental health in a negative way if I hadn’t built up a whole ton of #mindfulness mojo (that’s the medical term for it, dontchaknow!) from my many recent travels & hikes through nature wilderness areas.
I have never had to be so “grounded” in my inner life as right now. The world seems to have gone utterly, utterly mad. I get very little peace from any externalities right now. If I am to be at peace, I must summon it from within—and from the rocks and the trees and the streams and the grass and the sky. You’d better believe I’m even doing hippie-dippie shit like holding crystals. Yeah, crystals! 💎
It’s come to this. 😂
What are your mindfulness / meditation / spiritual practices you like to do to remain grounded and find inner peace? I’d love it if you would comment via Mastodon (link below) and let me know!
Scam text message from (509) 387-9884
Watch out for a text message that is attempting to get you to enter your Amazon login like this. Amazon will not send you a text message like this:
“Amazon Order Review - Your Refund Has Been Approved
Dear Customer,
Following a recent review of our marketplace activity, we identified that a seller associated with your previous purchase failed to meet Amazon's operational standards. The seller has since been removed from our platform.As a result, you are entitled to a full refund, with no need to return the product. This action will not affect your account or purhcase history in any way.
Please click the secure link below to confirm your refund:
[bit.ly link redacted]Thank you for shopping with Amazon.
-Amazon Customer Support
{3N:E8:91:61:QV:L6:YD:KC:NP}”
I’m reporting the link to bit.ly using their report abuse page.
Nerd stuff:
This was a group message, including nine other numbers. It was also an RCS message, not SMS, and was end-to-end encrypted.
Various Unicode letters were used, making the text appear bold every few words. For example, it used the Unicode “mathematical sans-serif bold” characters to spell out “Amazon.” Most likely this was an attempt to avoid triggering spam filters, though my Android automatically prompted “report this as suspected spam?”
Bit.ly’s link checker indicates the destination was guoqushangmao dot com. Obviously, I do not recommend visiting that domain.
At its best, long-term travel functions as a sort of sieve.
It filters out the parts of yourself which are just not as important as you fancied them to be, which then allows the essence of who you really are shine forth all the more clearly.
I have been surprised now that I’m several months into the #NomadLifestyle just how much I “don’t care” about certain things which were really gnawing at me, and at the same time how much I still do care about other things. Seeing how my priorities have shifted has been incredibly illuminating, and while sometimes you can get a taste of that effect with short-term travel (a weekend getaway for example), I really do think “directionless travel” over an appreciable length of time (so not a “vacation” in the strict sense of the word) is unparalleled in its ability to reshape your mind, body, and soul.
I highly recommend it. 😊
Today’s forgotten album: Pacific Standard Time by Stairwell.
“Hearts and Chevys” youtu.be/beBTpV-N7xk