Millions of Credit-Card Customers Can’t Pay Their Bills. Lenders Are Bracing for Impact. - WSJ

Banks and other lenders that for years relied on heavy consumer spending to create big profits are preparing to struggle alongside their customers.

Whomp.

Gang Of Masked Bandits Steals Another $500 Billion From Your Grandchildren - The Babylon Bee

this supervillain gang’s plan is more subdued but no less evil: they will simply print money, borrow money, and raise taxes until your kids and grandkids have nothing left.

Pope Says Priests Should Deny Communion To People Who Drive SUVs - The Babylon Bee

“I am a gracious pope and desire that none should be excommunicated but that all would trade in their SUVs for hybrids or electric cars.”

Rose bushes in full bloom.

Coronavirus Overtakes Ninjas As Top Invisible Enemy - The Babylon Bee

What makes coronavirus even worse than ninjas, according to Trump, is that there is currently no known defense against it, while the defense against ninjas is well known (train with monks for a decade in the mountains to learn the secrets of martial arts).

A deeply troubling development. When will the bad news end?

Toy Story 4 🍿

It’s been six weeks since the beginning of our national shutdown. In that time, I’ve left our neighborhood fewer than a dozen times. Six weeks is enough time to start to notice and miss things.

This morning, I went to Walmart to pickup my online grocery order. Driving is one of those simple pleasures that I miss the most. Getting behind the wheel, the experience of mobility, and even rolling down the windows: it was all a treat.

I’m constantly thankful that this pandemic wave crashed upon us in Spring. At least the weather, animals, and flowers can pick up our spirits when we go outside and breathe in deeply the fresh spring air.

As things start to open back up and when we can go out and get the food and supplies that we need, there will be many routine things that will once again be pleasurable. I hope that I can continue to appreciate the little things again for the small doses of joy that they supply.

I returned a Benchmade knife that I bought via USPS Priority Mail. I checked on the tracking info this morning to see this:

Disposed by Post Office Your item could not be delivered to the intended recipient or returned to sender. It has been disposed of by USPS.

📦

April Officially Named ‘Bring Your Children To Work Month’ - The Babylon Bee

The new holiday lets you work remotely as your children crawl all over you and scream in the background as you try to get some work done.

Study Finds Chick-Fil-A Sauce Kills 100% Of Germs - The Babylon Bee

they have no idea why it kills harmful bacteria. They also said they needed to continue studying the sauce and asked for hundreds more Chick-fil-A sandwiches, waffle fries, lemonade, and sauce to be shipped to their research center for prolonged testing.

Amazon Scooped Up Data From Its Own Sellers to Launch Competing Products - WSJ

interviews with more than 20 former employees of Amazon’s private-label business and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal reveal that employees did just that.

Oops.

Not even a pandemic will stop these kids from playing.

🎞

Gorgeous morning for a walk around the neighborhood.

Just learned that my coffee doesn’t break my intermittent fast. This means two things:

• I don’t have to wait until 10am(!) to have my delicious drink
• I’ve been doing 18:6 fasts, not 16:8

☕️

Trump Threatens More Plagues Unless State Governors Let His People Go - The Babylon Bee

“Let my people go!” Trump cried as he threw down a MAGA hat and miraculously transformed it into a Big Mac, which he then ate.

Dear God 🍿

Facebook Puts Limits on Protest Organizers - WSJ

Facebook Inc.is banning posts and groups promoting anti-lockdown protests that don’t comply with government health directives

Great plan! What could possibly go wrong?

I first heard about Micro.blog back in early 2017. Many of the people that I followed on Twitter were talking about this new blogging service. I was interested, but I didn’t back the project.

When it went into beta later in the year, I sheepishly emailed Manton and was given an invite. Over the past three years, the service has grown and improved, dramatically. I have since left all major social media platforms and publish only on my blog, hosted by Micro.blog. All of my favorite links, thoughts, photos, books, and microcasts are hosted in a single place, in a single feed.

In the spring of 2018, Manton introduced audio support for Micro.blog hosted accounts. For an extra $5/month, users could create, upload, host, and distribute their own podcasts. The idea was that they’d be short form, relatively straightforward shows. It’s a concept that has come to be known in the community as a “microcast.”

Inspired by Manton’s Timetable, a microcast in which he gives brief updates about what he’s working on and thinking about, I launched ChetCast in April of 2018.

Parents naturally want to capture moments in the lives of their young children. The innocent, cuteness, and hilarity of a child cannot be understated. We know that it won’t last, but we want to hold on to it for as long as we can. For my dad, that meant home videos. In those little clips, most of which are on a medium that are hard to watch today all these decades later, I could see streaks of my future self.

When my first child, Benedict, was born, I kept a journal for him in Day One. It was unsustainable, but at least I have that for him.

Microcasting offers me something even more special than my recollections written down for each child. Audio recordings, in an open format, are about as future-proof as you can get. Even more than that, these recordings deliver the actual sound of my children’s voices, their laughter, and their unfiltered thoughts. They are the perfect time capsule of my children, recorded and preserved for the future.

Creating and publishing ChetCast is about as easy as it gets. Using the Wavelength app, I record the raw audio, drop in my pre-recorded opening sequence, and hit publish. The ease of recording and publishing enables me to publish more frequently, even when the stories seem insignificant.

I started ChetCast as a way to capture the stories, experiences, thoughts, and sounds of my children as we go through these very special years together. The fact that I can easily distribute the podcast so that friends and family can enjoy is even better.

Three decades from now, when my children are grown and gone, perhaps starting to form families of their own, I’ll have these recordings. I’ll have these memories and be able to share them with their children, too. And all it took to capture and preserve these moments was a few minutes of my day, a single iOS app, and $5 a month.