Foodies we are. But some of our best dinners are those we make ourselves. I cooked a chuck roast for about 30 hours at 135 and finished it on the grill. Amazing. And Rhonda made the Franklinville Inn’s Belgian Chocolate Mousse Pie. Also amazing.
Here’s this week’s list of things to check out. If there’s a theme this weekend, I guess it would be creativity and generativity. These are tools for self expression:
Affinity Photo: Affinity Photo is a Photoshop competitor that comes in at a much more competitive price. The licenses are good across iOS, Mac, and Windows, and they’re having a sick six-month free trial right now. Worth it if you like to tinker with your photos, or like to have a fully featured graphic editor on your device when the defaults won’t cut it.
It’s long been a truism that if you feel like getting a new computer, but don’t really need to, you can alternatively swap out your keyboard and mouse and feel like you have a new device. In the cell phone space, the analog is clearly swapping out your case.
My current phone is an iPhone 14 Pro, going on two years of use. when I got this phone, I bought the usual Apple leather phone case I tend to choose, as they’ve always been reasonably protective, look good, and wear well. This particular phone has been wearing a black case since I got it. I’ve noticed a tendency for one bottom corner to slip out of these cases, and in one situation, I cracked the screen (I think it was an iPhone 12 but I can’t remember).
I wrote a while back about my preference for bumper cases. Apple hasn’t made one of these in ages, so third party bumper cases, if that’s your bag, are the only way to go. I did have a nice Rhino bumper case for my last phone, and which my younger son Aaron prefers for his phones; they are very well made and protective, but they add a lot of space around the device, and in order to protect the increasingly large camera bumps of modern devices, end up feeling like a giant ring of plastic around the borders of your device. So while I liked the Rhino, I wasn’t inclined to return to using one with my new phone immediately.
Anyway, back to my phone: the black Apple leather case I originally purchased for my phone has really gotten beat up (a testimony both the the wiseness of sheathing your phone, and the durability of the Apple leather cases). Add to the evident abuse and tendency of the case to let the front left corner slip out and I thought I’d do some research.
Apple doesn’t make the leather case anymore, and they don’t even offer it for older models; they’re just not available from Apple. I tried the clear plastic Magsafe variant, ordering directly from the Apple Store app on my phone while floating in the pool, and while I liked it, it had the unexpected effect of making it hard to tell whose phone is whose: Both Rhonda and Joe (my older son) both have the same case, and his iPhone 14 Pro is black, like mine. (Rhonda’s phone is the white/titanium version of the 15 Pro, which is easy to distinguish from the two black devices; Aaron has a purple 14 Pro, and it’s wrapped in the aforementioned bumper, so it’s easy to distinguish immediately). And another issue with the plastic case: it’s slippery. I tend to perch my phone on the sink counter when I’m brushing my teeth, and sometimes park it on other less flat surfaces, and it was prone to slipping. Like a lot. So after a week of not realizing the phone on the table was mine, and just liking to be a notch different from everyone else, I looked into an alternative.
So my phone is now comfortably sheathed in the appropriately named Caudabe Sheath. It is effectively the same design as the Apple case, covering the back of the iPhone and providing protective lips to keep the screen and camera lenses from being scratched. I like everything about the case: the color, called Ocean Blue, looks navy in some spaces, while it evinces an almost purplish color in direct sunlight. It has a great texture that not only looks good, but feels good and provides protection against slippage. The buttons have an officious click (unlike Apple’s plastic case, where I found the buttons mushy and sometimes not responsive).
This is a sick deal: A free trial of Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher. These are all worthy options in the graphic design pantheon of software.
I touched on Homelander in my last Sunday Serial in nominatng The Boys for a pick. I don’t think he’s terribly hard to figure out, even from a purely behavioral level; I don’t think the writers are trying to be subtle with his character or cagey about his development. But still…it was something I wanted to write about.
Homelander’s origins set the foundations for a truly broken character. He was raised from birth in a lab to be the world’s greatest superhero. He never had any parental bonds, and cold Vought scientists constantly tested his powers. Throughout The Boys there are two Homelander personas on display; one persona is the clean-cut superhero adored by the public, and the other is the homicidal monster who privately gets away with murder.
Throughout Seasons 1-2 of The Boys, Homelander’s only weakness was his desire to be loved…What’s wrong with Homelander? It’s not his superpowers. It’s the fact that he’s a full-blown narcissist…[When] Ashley informs Homelander in The Boys Season 3, Episode 3, that his numbers in the popularity polls have skyrocketed…Homelander is genuinely thrilled.
Sounds like a narcissist. What are narcissistic traits?
What’s interesting about Homelander, of course, is that some of these are actually true. He is special and unique (he’s the most powerful supe on the planet). It would be hard not to feel that way. But he flips the switch into narc territory because he checks all of the other boxes, too.
So why are narcissists narcissists?
One popular explanation is parenting: too permissive or too critical a parenting style is thought to cultivated the personality disorder. Again, with Homelander, he likely was cultivated in the perfect conditions to become a narcissist. He was grown in a lab, for starters, to be an incredibly powerful superhero. He didn’t experience anything approaching normal attachment to a parent or caregiver. And the expression of his powers surely informed how his caretakers handled him.
From PsychCentral:
Grandiose narcissists, on the other hand, have tended to experience a more avoidant attachment pattern early in their lives which has led them to feel they have to take care of themselves, that they don’t need anyone else, and they should be pseudo-independent.
Again, with Homelander, in addition to being raised in lab conditions, he likely was feared by everyone around him as he realized his powers, He could, in some real (and terrifying) ways, solve his own problems, from the point of reference of being an under-developed but incredibly powerful child.
I’m not going to get into attachment styles here, but they are fascinating to learn about. There are three broad types: avoidance, anxious, and secure. There are some combinations that don’t mix well in relationships (without conscious effort), and some that do. John Bowlby is a psychologist who introduced the framework into the lexicon, but Mary Ainsworth is credited with applying his ideas to adult relationships. Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller is a great book if you’re interested in the topic. And psychologizing yourself, if you like.
As with most things, YouTube is an overwhelming source of advice, information, and exhortation about all things, including rowing. One of the themes I’ve seen repeated is shooting for a lower cadence, expressed in strokes per minute. By way of example, if you rowed for 20 minutes, your rowing computer would not only tell you your current stroke rate, but report your average. So you might start off slower, maybe 2:12. but finish higher, say at 2:08. On the Concept2’s PM5, ideally synced to their RowErg app, you can look at your stroke rate in real time, and later in terms of cadence per split and for the whole piece. It’s all interesting data, if you are so inclined.
In pursuing a 10k in 40 minutes flat, I noticed lately that while my time hadn’t measurably changed much, I was starting to see lower stroke rates. This corresponded with both how blown out I fell after a hard effort (lower stroke rate felt easier) as well as things I was seeing both on YouTube and Reddit.
Having to wake up earlier for my new job, and again for summer hours at work (7:30 start time instead of 8:00), I decided to lean into lower stroke rates, but still try for the same power I’d need to get to a 40-minute 10k (2:00). I guess the idea is to increase your power while rowing more slowly.
So I exported by last season (2024) and this season (2025), the latter or which only started in May and so includes fewer data points. I restricted the data to distance-defined sessions: 1k, 2k, 5k, and 10k pieces.
Regarding my average stroke rate, I learned this:
Interestingly, my cadence for all four pieces is lower this season compared to last. So if my goal is to row at a lower cadence, what does that mean for my power?
Regarding my average power over the two seasons?:
My power is lower for all of the pieces… except for the 10k. I’d of course like to see the lower cadence pieces increase in power, but this is interesting.
Next: times (aka “work times”).
Here’s this week’s list of things to check out:
Glasstown “The Manor” Saison: I read an article on The Manual celebrating this style, which described the style as “subset of the farmhouse ale is often pale in color, is very effervescent (almost sparkling wine-like), and has a dry, lightly spicy, fruity, often yeasty flavor profile.” I grabbed a four-pack while we were out shopping for the holiday weekend. I’ve always liked the style, but I wouldn’t describe Glasstown’s version as yeasty. I had it with some passable Chinese food, and enjoyed the whole pint. Gluggable at least.
We finally got an über-modern car wash around the corner. Ran all of our cars through it, and took this pic of the fast ones:
