04Sep / 2025

Latest news on my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0

So yeah it occurred to me that I haven’t issued an update recently about my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0.

I still really like it although I suppose a certain degree of frustration will enter the mix once I have to get serious about maintenance things. I like the design, overall, the HP (125, more than other cars i have had), the cargo space, the camera for backing up…

What I dislike about it is mainly things that are not specific to the vehicle, but rather common among vehicles in general; its vehicle-ness, such as it burns fossil fuel, parking is expensive in the city, it is loaded with computers that spy on me.

I am extremely sick of computers spying on me. Like you complain about p0litics within earshot of your telephone and before you know it you are getting advertisements for r1fl3ry lessons in your social media feeds or whatever.

I admit I had been doomscrolling.

Did you know that doomscrolling on the toilet causes hemorrhoids?

Boy, there is a spelling bee word for you, hemorrhoid. I had to look up the spelling.

Here is what happened: I went bouldering with Gamma yesterday. This involved a bit of planning and organization as she has been extremely busy and stressed with jobs, studies and now also writing a dissertation. I will not go into greater detail bc it would sound like bragging. But anyway we met each other at the climbing gym yesterday, her stressed as I mentioned, and me deeply stressed and anxious over the state of the world.

And we climbed and joked around and talked each other back in off the ledges upon which we had been perching and had a drink after and chatted and both felt 100x better.

Even my sore knee, if which I had not been sure it would prevent me from climbing, felt better (actually not much better yesterday, but better today, supporting my theory that exercising my legs helps with sore knees, at least the one I recently completely destroyed (or so it felt) stepping over a cat on the stairs in an unconventional and as it turns out very stupid manner).

I still feel better today.

Anyhow I quit doomscrolling. I am changing the way I use Reddit. I am reading more science-related and arts-related accounts on bluesky and fewer politics-related ones.

Did you know that doomscrolling on the toilet causes hemorrhoids? What you did?

Did you know that loss of sense of smell could mean Alzheimers? This makes me feel a lot better about my experience this morning cleaning the litterbox, especially in view of the fact that it took me 15 minutes to recall a word last night (the word in question was “Zwetschge” which is Austrian for Pflaume which is German for plum or prune).

The conclusion is, I guess, that sometimes you have to put down the doomscroller bad news paralysis machine and count your blessings. Access your internal Mary Oliver (I communed with the corvids on my way to work this morning, gave some news to the bees at the beehives in the park I pass on my walk to the office) and read a few of her poems even if they sometimes tangentially remind you of dopey old guys reading them aloud at a funeral and crying (which, guilty what can I say). Say nice things to people. Do nice things for people, including yourself, especially if they do not involve commerce.

And most importantly: fuck shit up.

I am not saying do crime, i am not saying be criminal, i am saying there is a way things are that is foreign to the way things can or could or should be, feel free to fuck that up.

Turn your imagination back on.

Be a little psychedelic. Dare to be genuine. Weird macht glücklich.

So that is what I have been up to lately with my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0

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05Feb / 2020

Happy, happy

The engine warning light is on, I say to the mechanic. Can you plug it in and see what’s wrong? Also the windshield is cracked and the back seat windows roll themselves down.
You’ll have to leave it here, he says. We’ll call you later than you expect and say something cryptic only car guys understand. Or better yet, we’ll wait so long to call you that you call us first.
Sounds good, I say. Can you have your cleaning lady drive me to the station?
Will do, he says.
I am happy because I catch the same train as always (the one I take on the days I use that station because I drop Gamma there, and not the usual station nearer our house).
Then I am happy because the bus doesn’t drive away without me.
Then I am happy because I figure out relatively quickly that the connecting bus isn’t operating because school vacations.
Then I am happy because I can just cross the street and take a subway to a different bus.
Then I am happy because, when I trip and fall on my face entering the station, I don’t break anything. Fuck you too, ground.
Then, because so many nice people stop and ask me if I’m okay, including a man in a black fedora and an attractive young woman.
Then, because, when I tell them I think I’m fine, they all look at me and ask, Are you sure? Which suggests it was really spectacular.
Then, because, thinking about it, I had managed to avoid falling on the guy in front of me, which would have caused a domino-like catastrophic group fall in the subway station.
Then because the next bus isn’t very full because school vacation.
Then because two crows greet me at the office, demanding dog food.
Then because I am sitting down at my desk before I realize I am dizzy.
Then because youtube suggests a bunch of dark ambient music.
Then because the crows are all, like, waddup? And I’m like, waddup? And they’re like, this is so fucked. And I’m like, what. And they’re like, whaddya mean what? Everything dude. And I’m like, now would be a good time for like aliens or god or someone to intervene. And they’re like, what are you talking about, you’re the god of the office. And I’m like, oh yeah I forgot.
But that’s a non-interventive position.
Unfortunately.

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07Mar / 2018

One final question

Man: (refreshes his glass of Midleton) So, before you kill me, how did you find me?
Two strangers: (look at each other with puzzled expressions)
Man: I changed my identity ages ago. I went off the grid. Were you clicking through old bookmarks from blogspot.com days? Do you even remember that “last updated” feed they had? I’m still friends with people I found that way. That was the best.
Man: Or was it a random social media link?
Man: Or something more sinister?
First stranger: I did a search for facts about the grunion, actually.
Second stranger: Names for electric cars, here.
Man: (takes sip, says nothing).
Man: Ah.

They sit that way for a very long time. The strangers glance at the bottle of Midleton now and then, but the man ignores them. They will be drinking this soon enough, he thinks, when I am dead.

First stranger: Actually, we’re not actually here to kill you.
Second stranger: No.
Man: Ah.
Man: (Pours himself a fresh glass, and puts the bottle away)
Man: (takes sip) Then you will be going soon, I imagine.
Two strangers: (Shrug, look at each other)
Man: Before you go, I want you to know one thing.
Man: All I want is for you to be happy.
Man: That’s all I want. But I realize that just saying it is useless.
Man: I mean, there used to be people who wanted only for me to be happy, and it had no effect. I disappointed them and myself. Happiness is an elusive target, anyway. I suppose what they wanted was for me to achieve a situation, a mental state and social/economic situation conducive to self-actualization and a condition of agency in life, and here I am, the same lost bobbing cork as always.
Man: But I am content.
Two strangers: (Give each other puzzled looks. One glances at the glass in the man’s hand)
Man: I am sitting in a garden, petting a cat and waiting for death. I have not achieved all I dreamed, but it no longer matters.
Man: All that matters is that you are happy. That you attain a state of agency and personal power. That you can speak of yourself with honesty. (Drinks the last of the whiskey, sets glass on table.)
First stranger: (Licks lips involuntarily)
Man: (Looks at the sky outside) Now I wonder if, when someone told me “all I want is for you to be happy,” they really meant “all I want is for you to have a life of your own and get out of my hair”.
Man: If, when they said, “Do anything you want,” they meant, “do something.”
Man: Hrm.
Man: (Notices the strangers have left)
Man: (Pets cat) (Drinks the last drops of liquid in the glass)
Man: (To cat) I wonder if that is what I meant.
Man: (Sighs, begins typing fresh story)

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02Oct / 2014

The secret of happiness: WWASPD?

Part of being happy is doing things that make you happy.

Part of being happy is avoiding doing things that make you unhappy. This second class of things include stupid things.

By definition.

Both of these skills can be helped with the WWASPD method.

Like yesterday. There is this guy. He is driving home and there is a bottleneck where the road from Vienna goes into the Vienna Woods. The road is lined with old homes and goes from two-lane to one-lane for a block. Each end of the bottleneck has an electric sign that lights up red when there is oncoming traffic.

The sign is black so the guy goes. He meets two oncoming cars. Either the sign is not working or they ran the red light.

But since there are several oncoming cars now, he backs up and lets them pass.

The sign is black so he goes.

He meets a big, fat Audi driven by a guy about 60 with a chihuahua. They stop and look at each other. There are no cars behind the Audi, but a line of cars quickly forms behind our guy. Two things are possible: the Audi ran a red or the light is broken.

They wait like this for a couple minutes. Then the Audi begins to honk.

Cars behind our guy honk back.

What Would A Smart Person Do? thinks the guy.

The situation is out of his hands, he realizes. He can relax. The problem will solve itself, somehow.

So he relaxes while the honking goes on. It’s a nice evening and in the distance the Vienna Woods are just beginning to change color.

Eventually the Audi driver gets out of his car. Our guy rolls down his window. The Audi driver yells at him. Our guy doesn’t even try to explain his theory about the light; he just says, I’m kinda boxed in here as you can see. You’ll have to talk to the guys behind me.

The Audi driver goes and yells at the other guys. They all seem to be, as our guy noticed earlier, burly young construction workers, and they yell back. The Audi driver eventually backs up and lets everyone pass.

And they all go on their way, happily, except for maybe the Audi driver.

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30Sep / 2014

The secret of happiness

There is this guy. His wife made roast beef.

The guy carved it, with the carving knife, slicing it as thinly as he could, and the family ate it.

The roast beef was really good. The guy’s wife was really good at cooking beef. Her steaks were also fantastic.

The next day, the guy looked at leftover roast beef in the fridge. It was beautiful. It had that brown-grey layer around the edge, and the healthy pink center.

It was really beautiful. He ate a slice, even though he had just eaten cereal for breakfat, and the roast beef was delicious.

It made him happy.

This is the secret of happiness, thought the guy: roast beef.

Roast beef is the secret of happiness.

His wife made him roast beef, and the roast beef made him happy. You cannot make someone happy directly. But you can make them roast beef, and the roast beef will make them happy.

Even now, a couple days later, he’s still happy.

That’s the secret.

If you’re a vegetarian, I’m sorry.

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15Jan / 2014

Don’t get off the boat, now with a 30% chance of cutesy alliteration

It was a weird, warm, wasted winter day, quiet in an eye-of-the-storm way and Odin sat on the bench, unfocused and confused — he had just called his wife and she had complained about confusion and lack of focus, too — sort of a postapocalyptic, full-moon feeling – and unpacked the curry chicken sandwich.

The crows were already waiting. Odin could see Huginn and when he tossed him a piece of the sandwich, Muninn swooped down, landing behind the bench and Odin gave him a piece. The third crow must have been waiting too, out of sight, because it showed up seconds after that.

In just a jiffy, everyone was eating.

Odin also had some cashew nuts and cranberries in a mylar bag.

I don’t know. Quiet isn’t the right word. More like, timeless. Some days life hurries you along, but on days like this, it’s like the temporal axis has just fallen off the graph completely.

Bare branches are black against bright grey sky.

This particular universe has been behaving oddly.

Like: Odin writes in his journal about the fact that there is actually only one day in all of time, and we just keep on repeating it, just with changed hopes and regrets; and then that same evening he visits a friend and they watch Groundhog Day.

Or, Odin writes in his journal about how everything is okay, and his friend sends him a link to a button online labeled “Make Everything OK” that you press, then there’s a loading bar, then it announces that everything has been made okay.

Or, Odin is waiting for a bus and a woman asks him something about the bus, and instead of waning, their conversation grows and is interesting and when the bus comes, after half an hour, it is too soon and the woman, who is a painter visiting town from Frankfurt to look at the Lucien Freud exhibition, gives Odin a catalog of her last exhibition saying, I brought this along in case I met anyone I wanted to give it to, and I’d like you to have it.

Sometimes things just go really right, sometimes, if you let them, Odin thinks.

So, Odin is trying to figure out why, when his wife asked him if he loved his life, he almost burst into tears.

Odin loves life, and he loves many of these universes, but don’t ask him if he loves his life unless you have the time.

In fact, don’t ask him.

In fact, it reminds Odin of Apocalypse Now, when they get off the boat and a tiger attacks them in the jungle and the guy hollers, Don’t get off the boat.

What say the slain?

Same as always.

What say the hanged?

He owed me money.

He threatened me.

I didn’t even see him.

I thought he was a wild animal.

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14Nov / 2013

Luwak epiphany

Photo by Bruce

I was at the doctor yesterday and she asked me how I was mood-wise cause a medication she prescribed can cause suicidal depression. I had totally forgotten. I thought it was the fog and general greyishness. Overall not so bad, though, I said. Actually, really great, I think now. My kids ate dinner with me and it was fun talking to them. The cats were freaky when I got home because my wife is away on a business trip and they were alone all day. This morning I was carrying one around and she stuck her tail into my coffee and I had to decide whether to make a new cup or just drink it. Making a fresh cup would have taken 30 seconds and I didn’t want to wait that long so I just pretended it was Luwak coffee. Then that, in combination with everything else, triggered an epiphany, which I sort of described in a post at medium.com.

Writing blog posts is a lot of fun. Sometimes I am really happy with what I end up with, despite or because of the randomness and accidentiality of them. I am trying to write a novel right now, yet again, and am trying to figure out how to translate blog-type writing into a novel.

A whole bunch of short chapters, I guess.

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Tag Archives: happiness

Latest news on my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0

Happy, happy

One final question

The secret of happiness: WWASPD?

The secret of happiness

Don’t get off the boat, now with a 30% chance of cutesy alliteration

Luwak epiphany