"What is this entire anti-terrorism memorandum if not an admission that terrorism works, and that terrorism has secured the White House?" wake up babe @lopatto.bsky.social and @sarahjeong.bsky.social banger alert www.theverge.com/policy/79051...

Just got home from a work thing to instantly realize, the second I opened my door and took a breath, that the middle school kids the 12yo has over have just hit their Bathing In Body Spray era of middle school.

12yo: I meant to tell you about [French teacher] today Me: Oh? 12yo: She was poking me with a baguette Me: ... 12yo: She was dressed up for picture day, really weird. Like she had this black and white striped shirt, and -- Me: *rapidly googles image* Like this? 12yo: YES! Exactly!! The image:

Yes, AI is definitely solving customer service. (The human understood that Sept 17 was more than three days ago and was able to help me in less than five minutes though haha, all credit to them.)

simply ordering myself to not be sick is proving ineffective. boo.

Really was not expecting my (expensive!) Chinese food delivery tonight to contain a ton of undisclosed sliced jalapenos in my otherwise normal meat-and-veg dish 😫

Continuing to discover how right my mom was to hate computers and technology, because all of the websites she had to use for billing etc apparently never heard of UX/UI as a thing and are just atrocious.

Pretty please?

We watched The Owl House late last year / early this year with our now-12yo on Rollin's recommendation and it was really, really worth it. As a parent I also very much appreciated how it neither sidelined the mom nor made her stupid, haha.

It took *months* for the scheduling to work out but I'm so glad we could make this happen and it's even funnier with @hankgreen.bsky.social in the host seat.

I am apparently enough of a mom that I do not shout swear words on roller coasters when one of the kids is sitting next to me, even if I really really want to lolol

I really wish "horrible hip, back, and knee pain, from contorting into too-small space" did not have to be part of every domestic flight. And I'm only 5'8"!

come work at the @theverge.com! we're hiring a senior video producer to help us make the best tech videos on the internet job-boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/job...

One of these days I will learn that when I make a plan, "I will simply be perfect and not have human needs for rest" should not be a pillar of it. Someday.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The sheer number of times I am having to re-send material and re-explain things to the same people, I might end up having to file for an extension on probate simply because I cannot get companies to acknowledge anything. Yeesh.

Somehow it feels fitting that while I am trying to cram in a time-sensitive errand between major work deadlines, the bank's computer system fully crashes. Amazing.

Every time anyone asks me about productivity tools I admit that although I have been doing some flavor of tech-adjacent coverage for well over a decade, I run my entire life out of a Five Star quad-ruled spiral bound notebook lol. At least I'm not alone!

Wow I kinda super hate the new design language my phone is using after an overnight system update. All the things I need to be big are small, and all the things I need to be small are big.

I picked a book at random out of my Kindle pile and so it has turned out to be a real jumpscare that part of this one is set on the UMass campus and all of it is in the environs lol.

Ending the summer the way we began it, on a beautiful Sunday.

Me, this morning: Oh, wow, I guess I'm not feeling last night's COVID and flu shots today at all, sweet Me, this afternoon: *falls asleep for 30 min while folding third load of laundry*

Un question pour les francophones: j'ai fini Clair Obscur, et je voudrais jouer plus de jeux françaises, en français. Recommendations?

We got AOL when I was 14 and I feel very targeted lol

Just to be blunt, if you want Wired and 404 and The Verge to employ reporters who understand the memes on bullet casings and can connect them to gaming culture while having the legal and support resources to deal with waves of harassment when we do it… you have to subscribe and pay for the work

Burnout is real and is a large part of why I accepted an offer to stop reporting and make the jump to editing in 2021. The dystopia and hot mess beat takes a *lot* out of you.

There are a small handful of essays / posts I end up linking out to like a dozen times a year, they always live in my head, and this sure is one of them. deadspin.com/the-future-o...

All right, that's it: News, you have gotten too crowded, every story queue up and wait your turn.

This just made me laugh so, so hard in "parent of 7th grader"

Long-time Kate followers may remember the That Fucking Squirrel incident of 2021-22, in which a squirrel lodged itself in our attic and then in a heating duct, and the removal of which was a whoooole saga. And so you may understand why I was so dispirited just now to hear an animal in the attic...

Probate so far is roughly a million calls like this: "You can upload these documents to the online portal." "Can I create an account?" "You can create an account once the loan is in your name." "Okay, right, but in order to take over the loan..." "...hang on ma'am, I'll get you our fax number"

Watching "Leonardo da Vinci" talking to Captain Janeway on the holodeck tonight and -- dang, I have really different feelings about this 30-year-old (ish) episode in a world with companies like Replika and Character AI

That moment when the weather starts to turn and you realize: your kid outgrew 100% of their pants and jackets since May

The thing about having just played all 100+ hours of Clair Obscur in French (what a game) is, now my friends are sharing spoilers and behind-the-scenes videos with me and holy cow every single one of them sounds super wrong lol.

Fascinating experiment in universality of game design language: 7yo looked over my shoulder while I was playing Clair Obscur, a game he does not know, in a language (French) he does not know, and he still gave me correct strategic advice for the boss fight.

Do I Actually Hate Every Single Thing I'm Reading Today Or Do I Just Need Lunch: The Kate Cox Story

*rubs temples* it is September 4, 2025, and I have already needed a 2026 calendar for at least a week and am ordering one today

Man, I am so, so tired of all the books and games and movies everyone is always talking about being horror of some kind. I *know* why, I understand where art comes from and how it works, but I absolutely cannot use it as my mechanism when the real world is tough. And I hate horror.

maybe a fourth coffee will help me focus today. surely nothing whatsoever can go wrong with this plan.

Me: That cloud looks like a badger 12yo: Badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom Me, delighted: Wait, is that still a thing kids these days watch? 12yo: Watch? What do you mean, 'watch'? I sighed such a sigh. And now I know what I'm look up when we get home.

Elder child had a friend sleep over last night and now three kids are sitting on the couch playing nintendo (no school today) and I'm kind of delighted how some things haven't changed in nearly 40 years.

*ties an onion to my belt* You know, when I was young, my mom could just go to banks and talk to people and get shit done, instead of being sent away and told to make an appt for a week from now doe basic account stuff

Was not expecting the courthouse to be a 90-minute drive lolsob, now I'm glad I took the whole day off to deal with probate stuff. (Always have a will, gang. Even if you don't have any appreciable assets. It will save your heirs a lot of logistical trouble.)

The internship I did in grad school (as a film MFA student, in Boston) was for a tiny local production team that was making a documentary for American Experience. What a bummer.

I have turned off the A/C and opened all the windows, in metro DC in August, and am -- slightly too cold? Are we sure this is reality?

You go into an MRI tube for 30 minutes in this town, you come out to find the feds have seized the train station. Amazing. wtop.com/government/2...

I actively encourage my middle schooler to bring her friends over and I absolutely want to be the house that's always welcoming and full of snacks, but I definitely did not think through the "trying to work from home on fiddly stuff while 7th graders are in LOUD hot goss mode" ramifications lol

Someone was talking about the Iliad yesterday, which made me think about Achilles, and the way this chain of thoughts goes, I've had this track looping in my head for 24 hours. youtu.be/xXgeGHiZnBE

I spent about 20 years as a daily journaler and while I'm down to "sporadic" instead of "obsessive" these days, I still could not agree with Victoria more.

After the longest messiest most stressful summer ever, my children are both back in school today. Hallelujah. I had forgotten what the quiet house felt like and how much easier it is to focus on stuff, haha