Tag: blog

Optimized to Death: When Improvement Outruns Personal Growth

Optimization without integration produces a lopsided human being, and the AI age intensifies this distortion by overrewarding what can be optimized, automated, and displayed. Systems built on speed, output, and measurable performance train us to chase visible gains while starving the slower capacities that make those gains usable in real life. The result is a person who can execute flawlessly in one narrow lane yet falters the moment the situation becomes human—ambiguous, emotional, unscripted. The body may be sculpted while the self remains adolescent; the résumé gleams while judgment dulls; productivity accelerates while meaning evaporates. AI tools amplify this imbalance by making optimization cheap and frictionless, encouraging rapid improvement without requiring maturation, reflection, or integration. What emerges is not an unfinished person so much as an unevenly finished one—overdeveloped in what can be measured and underdeveloped in what must be lived. The tragedy is not incompetence but imbalance: strength without wisdom, speed without direction, polish without presence. In an age obsessed with optimization, what looks like progress is often a subtler form of arrested development.

To encourage you to interrogate your own tendencies to achieve optimization without integration, write a 500–word personal narrative analyzing a period in your life when you aggressively optimized one part of yourself—your body, productivity, grades, skills, image, or output—while neglecting the integration of that growth into a fuller, more functional self.

Begin by narrating the specific context in which optimization took hold. Describe the routines, metrics, sacrifices, and rewards that drove your improvement. Use concrete, sensory detail to show what was gained: strength, speed, recognition, efficiency, status, or validation. Make the optimization legible through action rather than abstraction.

Then pivot. Identify the moment—or series of moments—when the imbalance became visible. What failed to develop alongside your optimized trait? Social competence? Emotional maturity? Judgment? Confidence? Meaning? Show how this lack of integration surfaced in a lived encounter: a conversation you couldn’t sustain, an opportunity you mishandled, a relationship you sabotaged, or a realization that exposed the limits of your progress.

By the end of the essay, articulate what optimization without integration cost you. Do not reduce this to a moral lesson or self-help platitude. Instead, reflect on what this experience taught you about human development itself: why improving a single dimension of the self can create distortion rather than wholeness, and how true growth requires coordination between capacity, character, and context.

Your goal is not confession or nostalgia but clarity. Show how a life can look impressive on the surface while remaining structurally incomplete—and what it takes to move from optimization toward integration.

Avoid clichés about “balance” or “being well-rounded.” This essay should demonstrate insight through specificity, humor, and honest self-assessment. Let the reader see the mismatch before you explain it.

As a model for the assignment, consider the following self-interrogation—a case study in optimization gone feral and integration nowhere to be found.

At nineteen, I fell into a job at UPS, where they specialized in turning young men into over-caffeinated parcel gladiators. Picture a cardboard coliseum where bubble wrap was treated like a minor deity and the only sacrament was speed. My assignment was simple and brutal: load 1,200 boxes an hour into trailer walls so tight and elegant they could’ve qualified for Olympic Tetris. Five nights a week, from eleven p.m. to three a.m., I lived under fluorescent lights, sprinting on concrete, powered by caffeine, testosterone, and a belief that exhaustion was a personality trait. Without meaning to, I dropped ten pounds and watched my body harden into something out of a comic book—biceps with delusions of automotive lifting.

This mattered because my early bodybuilding career had been a public embarrassment. At sixteen, I competed in the Mr. Teenage Golden State in Sacramento, smooth as a marble countertop and just as defined. A year later, at the Mr. Teenage California in San Jose, I repeated the humiliation, proving that consistency was my only strength. I refused to let my legacy be “promising kid, zero cuts.” Now, thanks to UPS cardio masquerading as labor, I watched striations appear like divine handwriting. Redemption no longer seemed possible; it felt scheduled.

So I did what any responsible nineteen-year-old bodybuilder would do: I declared war on carbohydrates. I starved myself with religious fervor and trained like a man auditioning for sainthood. By the time the 1981 Mr. Teenage San Francisco rolled around at Mission High School, I had achieved what I believed was human perfection—180 pounds of bronzed, veined, magazine-ready beefcake. The downside was logistical. My clothes no longer fit. They hung off me like a visual apology. This triggered an emergency trip to a Pleasanton mall, where I entered a fitting room that felt like a shrine to Joey Scarbury’s “Theme from The Greatest American Hero,” the soundtrack of peak Reagan-era delusion.

While changing behind a curtain so thin it offered plausible deniability rather than privacy, I overheard two young women working the store arguing—audibly—about which one should ask me out. Their voices escalated. Stakes rose. I imagined them staging a full WWE brawl among the racks: flying elbows, folding chairs, all for the right to split a breadstick with me at Sbarro. This, I thought, was the payoff. This was what discipline looked like.

And then—nothing. I froze. I adopted an aloof, icy expression so effective it could’ve extinguished a bonfire. The women scattered, muttering about my arrogance, while I stood there in my Calvin Kleins, immobilized by the very attention I had trained for. I had optimized everything except the part of me required to be human.

For a brief, shimmering window, I possessed the body of a Greek god and the social competence of a malfunctioning Atari joystick. I looked like James Bond and interacted like a background extra waiting for direction. Beneath the Herculean exterior was a hollow shell—a construction site abandoned mid-project, rusted scaffolding still up, a plywood sign nailed crookedly to the entrance: SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED.

January 5, 2026
The Expiration Date of the Fitness Influencer

Parasocial Fatigue

noun

Parasocial Fatigue describes the emotional and cognitive exhaustion that sets in when an audience becomes overexposed to an influencer’s performative intimacy and relentless self-presentation. What begins as a one-sided relationship built on usefulness, inspiration, or trust curdles as the influencer’s need for attention, validation, and monetization becomes increasingly visible. The constant uploads, recycled insights, manufactured urgency, and naked thirst for engagement erode the illusion of authenticity that sustained the bond in the first place. Viewers no longer feel informed or inspired; they feel harvested. At that point, familiarity turns to irritation, admiration hardens into disdain, and the influencer’s presence in the feed triggers avoidance rather than curiosity—a quiet severing of a relationship that was never mutual to begin with.

In the beginning, your favorite influencer feels like a gift. They offer sensible advice on nutrition, a workout routine that doesn’t insult your intelligence, a body that seems to testify to discipline rather than sorcery. You follow them in good faith. For a while, the content delivers. Then the expiration date quietly approaches. The useful insights thin out, replaced by a slurry of hype, urgency, and alarmist drivel—“You’re poisoning yourself unless you stop eating this one food today.” Clickbait metastasizes. The signal is buried under noise. What once felt like guidance now feels like a carnival barker shouting through a megaphone.

Eventually you see the machinery. This isn’t a lone truth-teller sharing wisdom from a garage gym; it’s a small content factory with payroll to meet. Ideas are skimmed from journals, stripped of nuance, and polished with influencer saliva until they’re shiny enough to go viral. The real giveaway, though, isn’t the dubious science—it’s the thirst. You can see it in their eyes: the desperation to stay relevant, the exhaustion of feeding the algorithm daily, the hollow confidence of someone trapped in their own posting schedule. The charm collapses. When they appear in your feed now, it’s not curiosity you feel, but a reflexive flinch. Parasocial fatigue sets in, and disdain follows close behind.

December 29, 2025
Robinson Crusoe Mode

Noun

A voluntary retreat from digital saturation in which a knowledge worker withdraws from networked tools to restore cognitive health and creative stamina. Robinson Crusoe Mode is triggered by overload—epistemic collapse, fractured attention, and the hollow churn of productivity impostor syndrome—and manifests as a deliberate simplification of one’s environment: paper instead of screens, silence or analog sound instead of feeds, solitude instead of constant contact. The retreat may be brief or extended, but its purpose is the same—to rebuild focus through isolation, friction, and uninterrupted thought. Far from escapism, Robinson Crusoe Mode functions as a self-corrective response to the Age of Big Machines, allowing the mind to recover depth, coherence, and authorship before reentering the connected world.

Digital overload is not a personal failure; it is the predictable injury of a thinking person living inside a hyperconnected world. Sooner or later, the mind buckles. Information stops clarifying and starts blurring, sliding into epistemic collapse, while work devolves into productivity impostor syndrome—furious activity with nothing solid to show for it. Thought frays. Focus thins. The screen keeps offering more, and the brain keeps absorbing less. At that point, the fantasy of escape becomes irresistible. Much like the annual post-holiday revolt against butter, sugar, and self-disgust—when people vow to subsist forever on lentils and moral clarity—knowledge workers develop an urge to vanish. They enter Robinson Crusoe Mode: retreating to a bunker, scrawling thoughts on a yellow legal pad, and tuning in classical music through a battle-scarred 1970s Panasonic RF-200 radio, as if civilization itself were the toxin.

This disappearance can last a weekend or a season, depending on how saturated the nervous system has become. But the impulse itself is neither eccentric nor escapist; it is diagnostic. Wanting to wash up on an intellectual island and write poetry while parrots heckle from the trees is not a rejection of modern life—it is a reflexive immune response to the Age of Big Machines. When the world grows too loud, too optimized, too omnipresent, the mind reaches for solitude the way a body reaches for sleep. The urge to unplug, disappear, and think in long, quiet sentences is not nostalgia. It is survival.

December 25, 2025
The Cult of the Desktop Shrine

There is a particular species of human for whom a new computer is not a tool — it’s a religious conversion. The desktop isn’t a workspace; it’s a cockpit for a future self, the glamorous avatar of the writer, artist, or content sorcerer they imagine they will become. People like this do not simply buy machines. They curate private shrines. A desk becomes an escape pod: LED lights humming like temple candles, two monitors glowing like stained-glass windows, and the mechanical keyboard serving as a holy relic. Once seated, the outside world ceases to exist — or so the fantasy goes — until an eBay tab opens and suddenly a $2,500 dive watch begs for attention, or a pair of ergonomic walking shoes on sale becomes a spiritual priority. Sacredness is delicate; it collapses at the first whiff of retail dopamine.

I speak as one of these zealots. I live in a small home with a wife and two teenage daughters, so I protect the illusion of solitude with the devotion of a medieval monk. My desktop setup has become my monastery. For seven years, I have sat beside the same computer: a 15.6-inch Acer Predator Triton 500 with an RTX 2080, perched like a retired fighter pilot on a wooden pedestal. Beside it stands a 27-inch Asus Designo 4K monitor. My keyboard is an Asus Rog Strix Scope II fitted with “quiet snow” switches — though I still regret not choosing switches that click like a typewriter possessed by Bukowski.

Here’s the problem: the machine refuses to die. It doesn’t slow down, wheeze, or show symptoms of electronic mortality. It handles everything I throw at it. This stubborn longevity has become an accusation. If I truly mattered — if I were a world-crushing content creator — surely I would need M4 silicon or a Windows Ultra 9. But here I am, a humble i7 and RTX 2080 carrying my entire life on its back like a mule. The message is humiliating: you produce so little that even an elderly predator laptop barely notices your existence. I am not a digital gladiator. I am an NPC.

One half of me wants to honor the Acer’s absurd durability. I want to see how long it lasts: eight years? Ten? Will it run until I am eighty and my daughters sell it on Facebook Marketplace to a grad student writing her dissertation? The other half of me yearns for a new identity — a fresh cockpit. I fantasize about a Lenovo ThinkPad P16, a machine with the aesthetic of a NATO command center. In my imagination I would sit before it, efficient and unstoppable, a productivity samurai. Then I read about thermals, swollen batteries, and the corporate decay of ThinkPad build quality, and the fantasy curdles.

Mini PCs tempt me, too — elegant little cubes promising freedom from laptop fan noise. But then I scroll deeper and learn about overheating, BIOS drama, firmware rituals, and mysterious Windows gremlins that exist only for people who try to “optimize.” This is when I confront the truth: Windows PCs are for people fluent in Linux, the jiu-jitsu masters of tech. These individuals have tattoos of penguins on their forearms and spend weekends customizing drivers the way normal people mow their lawns. They don’t “use computers.” They tame them.

I am not that creature. I am a man who gets nervous updating his router. This leaves me with one path: the Mac Mini. Not because I am enlightened, but because the walls of Apple’s walled garden keep me from accidentally burning the place down. Windows is a vast golf course stretching to the horizon. MacOS is miniature golf: enclosed, guarded, brightly colored obstacles that keep your ball out of the swamp. I must accept who I am — a timid, high-functioning idiot — and pick the putter.

And yet, when people complain about laptops dying after three years, I can raise a hand and say: “Seven years. RTX 2080. Still alive.” It is not greatness, but it is a kind of glory.

November 25, 2025
State of the Misalignment Situation

I had hoped my blog, Cinemorphosis, would feed my video essays—serve as a compost heap of half-baked thoughts that could later bloom into something cinematic and worthy of making video essays. Instead, the blog has swallowed the energy that once went into my videos. What was meant to be a support system has become a rival ecosystem. The crossover I imagined—the blog fueling the videos and the videos enriching the blog—never happened. It turns out writing and filming come from different parts of the brain, and those parts refuse to share the same neural conference room.

Friends say, “Don’t sweat it, McMahon. Just lean into the blog and let the videos go.” Easy advice for people who aren’t haunted by the specter of irrelevance. I can’t shake the feeling that the video essays keep me sharper—more visible, more alive. The blog satisfies my mind; the camera keeps me from turning into dust.

Sam Harris once said he can spend five years writing a book, agonizing over edits and the publishing gauntlet, only to reach a few thousand readers—if he’s lucky. Meanwhile, a one-hour podcast can reach millions overnight, and snippets of it go viral before the author’s espresso cools. That line haunts me. The medium matters. The way we reach people has become part of the message.

I see the same logic in my own small way. A blog post I’m proud of might earn a few dozen engagements. A decent video essay? Thousands of views, maybe more. But numbers only tell part of the story. The real draw is the vitality the videos demand—something performative, almost athletic. When I’m on camera, I feel like I’m “getting my reps in,” keeping mentally limber. The blog is therapy; the videos are training.

Still, there’s a fine line between vitality and vanity. Part of me believes the videos keep me youthful, engaged, even relevant. Another part suspects it’s all just a resistance workout against mortality. Staying fit is one thing; refusing to age gracefully is another. Desperation doesn’t wear well on men over sixty, even under good lighting.

So maybe writing suits me better now. Maybe the written word is the right pace for a man learning to accept that his eyesight, patience, and tech literacy are all in slow retreat. Maybe I should only return to video when I have something worth saying—something that isn’t just a performance of endurance.

Which brings me to the real question: what do I still have to contribute?

For over a decade, my YouTube channel orbited around my watch obsession. That obsession gradually narrowed until it became monastic—just diver watches, all on straps. I convinced myself that a collection larger than seven would doom me to spiritual ruin. I also stopped flipping watches like a Wall Street day trader, deciding it was bad for my mental health. That slowdown siphoned the manic energy that used to fuel my videos. The creative rush didn’t vanish—it simply rerouted into blog posts about my newest fixation: alignment. Or more precisely, misalignment.

Because if I’m honest, I feel increasingly out of sync with the modern world. I adapt to new technology at the pace of continental drift. TikTok bewilders me. Smartphones offend my thumbs. Driving at night now feels like a scene from Apocalypse Now. My relevance, visibility, and patience are fading in a culture that worships youth and touchscreens.

My anxieties about self-worth and mortality are now on the front burner, while watch collecting—the “Watch Potency Principle,” the “wrist-rotation anxiety”—has been moved to the back burner where it is simmering to a lukewarm stew.

To illustrate my current state: two weeks ago, I bought a new LG OLED TV, which was fine—until I broke two Samsungs in one day trying to move them. I manhandled the first 55-inch like it was a kettlebell, frying half its pixels in a single jerk. Then I jammed my thumb straight through the second screen while relocating it from my daughter’s room. My wife, the household adult, had to carry the new Roku replacement into our bedroom as I stood there looking like a Neanderthal who’d just discovered electricity—and promptly electrocuted himself.

My war with technology didn’t end there. The new garage door opener came with instructions written in a dialect of cruel mockery. The installer vanished without explaining how to sync it with my phone, so my wife once again had to step in and figure it out. Now I open the garage door through an app, and every time I hear the alert that the door is moving, I step back in awe—half-terrified, half-mesmerized—like a caveman who’s just invented fire.

I feel both too old for this world and too infantile to function in it. A man-baby marveling at his gadgets, bewildered by his own house. Think about that. My house has become a museum for technology of the future while I wander through it like a mesmerized tourist. My mouth is agape and my daughters say to me, “Relax, Dad, this is our house.” I respond by saying, “No it’s not. It’s a museum of strange and wonderful things that I don’t know how to use.”

These are the moments that give me content for my blog Cinemorphosis. I post almost daily, while it takes me weeks to metabolize these experiences into something coherent enough for a video essay. Writing helps me think; filming helps me pretend I’m still current.

So that’s my current state of affairs. This channel used to be State of the Watch Collection. Now it’s more like State of the Man Who Can’t Sync His Garage Door Opener.

October 7, 2025
How Soon Is Theft?

In 1990, I was in my late twenties, a newly minted college writing instructor drifting through life with the ethereal soundtrack of The Smiths, the Cocteau Twins, The Trash Can Sinatras, and The Sundays rattling in my head. One afternoon on Hollywood Boulevard with my girlfriend, I did what any self-respecting young melancholic would do: I bought Smiths T-shirts and posters like sacred relics. The crown jewel was my “How Soon Is Now” poster, a portrait of an angst-drenched youth in a gray cable-knit sweater, gazing downward as if staring into the abyss. I taped it proudly to my office door, a shrine to my tribe. Within a week, it was gone—stolen.

The theft still smolders decades later. It wasn’t just the insult of having something ripped from my door; it was the betrayal of the faith I placed in The Smiths’ congregation. Their music was heartbreak bottled into beauty, sadness transmuted into community. To love The Smiths, I believed, was to be incapable of theft. Fans were supposed to be fellow pilgrims on the same road to melancholy salvation. You don’t rob your brother of his relics. You light a candle with him and hum “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.”

But there it was: my poster ripped away not by a barbarian from the outside, but by a fellow initiate. The irony was unbearable. If The Smiths could not protect us from base impulses, if their music could not ennoble even their most ardent listeners, then what was art worth? Wasn’t it supposed to make us better, kinder, less brutish? The theft of that poster wasn’t just petty larceny. It was the murder of a principle.

To this day, I remember the empty rectangle of tape marks left on my office door, staring back at me like a smirk from the abyss. The thief didn’t just pocket a poster; they handed me a lesson in nihilism, gift-wrapped in Morrissey’s sorrowful croon. And I’ve been suspicious of beauty ever since, knowing it can inspire devotion and betrayal in the same breath.

September 13, 2025
The Love of Radios and the Power of Gezelligheid

The Love of Radios and the Power of Gezelligheid

I’m fully aware that my love for radios borders on the irrational. When I see a certain type—say, the Tecsun PL-680 or PL-660—something in my brain short-circuits. I’m instantly enchanted, as if I’ve just glimpsed an old friend across a crowded room, and at the same time, I’m comforted, as if that friend just handed me a warm cup of coffee and told me everything was going to be alright.

A radio isn’t just a device; it’s a symbol, though I haven’t quite worked out of what exactly. Maybe it represents the art of slowing down—of sitting in a quiet room, wrapped in a cocoon of music or in the company of voices so familiar they feel like beloved houseguests. Or maybe it’s something more primal, a sanctuary against the chaos of the world, a frequency through which I can tune out the profane and tune into something sacred.

The word that comes to mind when I hold a radio is cozy—but not in the kitschy, scented-candle, novelty-mug kind of way. This is deeper than that, more akin to the Dutch word gezelligheid—a term that encompasses coziness, warmth, companionship, and the ineffable comfort of simply being. Radios don’t just play sound; they create atmosphere. They transport me back to Hollywood, Florida, sitting on the porch with my grandfather, the air thick with the scent of an impending tropical storm, the crackle of a ball game playing in the background like a heartbeat of another era.

Many have abandoned radio for the cold efficiency of streaming devices and smartphones. I tried to do the same for over a decade. I failed. Because gezelligheid—that feeling of simple, enduring pleasure—isn’t something you can replace with an algorithm. Some things, no matter how old-fashioned, still hum with life.

September 6, 2025
A Nostalgic Ode to the Tecsun PL-660

Against every shred of common sense I possess, I’ve joined several Tecsun radio forums—a decision akin to a sugar addict moving into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and sleeping under the chocolate river. It’s not just unwise; it’s a slow, delicious path to ruin. Within minutes, the forum zealots were chanting in unison: “You must own a PL-660 or PL-680! These are relics from the Pre-DSP Glory Era, back when Tecsun radios were free from the infernal chuffing, muting, and choppy tuning that plague DSP models. Think smooth analog cruising versus a hyper-caffeinated, turbocharged sports car.” Naturally, I bit the bait.

The timing was serendipitous—or dangerous, depending on your perspective. During the height of my radio obsession, circa 2008, I owned a black Tecsun PL-660, and it was the crown jewel of my collection. But, as is the curse of all obsessions, I sold it during a fleeting moment of sanity, a decision that haunted me. When the January 2025 Los Angeles Fires reignited my passion for radios—because what better time to tinker with antennas than during a climate apocalypse?—the one radio I truly mourned was the PL-660.

Enter eBay, the Pandora’s box of impulse purchases. I tracked down a silver PL-660 from a seller in Canada. At $68, it felt like a steal. Add $30 for shipping, tax, a Tecsun adapter from Anon-Co, and four AA rechargeable batteries, and suddenly my “steal” was a $140 splurge. But what’s money when you’re reuniting with a long-lost love?

When the silver PL-660 arrived, it was nearly pristine, as if frozen in time. The box, manual, and accessories were all there, minus the adapter. I tested its AM and FM performance and, unsurprisingly, found it nearly indistinguishable from my PL-880—a radio I’d been coddling like a newborn in my bedroom. Sure, the 880’s speaker has a richer timbre, but the 660 holds its own. AM reception? The 660 might edge out the 880, but given the ever-shifting electrical interference in my house, testing it felt like comparing snowflakes in a blizzard. FM? Practically identical.

And yet, here’s the kicker: I prefer the PL-660. Why? Nostalgia, for starters. It’s been 15 years since I last held one, and its reunion felt like meeting an old friend who hasn’t aged a day. But it’s more than sentimentality. The PL-660 exudes Pre-DSP mystique, wearing its analog pedigree like a hero’s badge of honor. Add to that the rumors swirling on the forums about the PL-680 taking its final lap before extinction, and I developed a textbook case of FOMO.

Aesthetically, the 660 is a triumph. The PL-880, while a solid performer, looks like it was designed by two committees: one in charge of the radio chassis, the other tasked with slapping on an oversized speaker as an afterthought. In contrast, the PL-660 feels like it was forged from a single, unified block of silver (or black, if you’re lucky enough to find one). It’s monolithic, almost talismanic, with a heft that whispers, “This is not a toy.” Holding it feels like gripping a miniature obelisk of radio perfection.

Naturally, I’m already scheming to buy a second PL-660 or perhaps its sibling, the PL-680, to keep as a “backup”—because if you love a radio enough, redundancy becomes an art form. And, because I can never leave well enough alone, I know I’ll spend the coming weeks obsessively swapping locations, putting the 660 in the bedroom, then the kitchen, then back again, until my brain short-circuits. Who needs stability when you can have perpetual indecision?

In fact, I barely made it to my office to write this without feeling pangs of longing for the 660, which I’d left momentarily in the kitchen. Thirty minutes apart, and I was already waxing poetic about its brilliance, muttering, “Dude, you really love radios.” And it’s true—I do. Probably too much. But that’s the magic of radios: they’re not just devices; they’re companions, time machines, and portals to a world that feels more tactile and real than anything on your smartphone.

Do I still love my PL-880? Of course. It’s a marvel of engineering, a steady presence in my life. But the PL-660? That’s my muse, my reminder of why I fell in love with radios in the first place. The 660 isn’t just a radio; it’s a reflection of who I am—an overthinking, signal-chasing, nostalgia-driven mess. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

September 6, 2025
Qodosen DX-286: Purchased Twice, an Update

(originally posted on my Herculodge blog (on the defunct Typepad platform. I’m including an update on this post.)

The Qodosen DX-286 arrived last Sunday, Day 5 of the Los Angeles Fires, and I wasted no time putting it under the microscope. I scrutinized its build quality, tested its FM and AM performance, and after some thoughtful listening, I decided it was going back.

To be fair, music sounded pleasant enough on the small mono speaker—soft, inoffensive, like background noise in a coffee shop. But voices? Hollow, thin, and oddly distant. It quickly became clear that this radio would only be tolerable if tethered to a pair of headphones. As for the physical design, the kickstand and battery door felt flimsy, as if one wrong move would snap them clean off. They inspired about as much confidence as a paper umbrella in a hurricane.

AM reception? Surprisingly solid. FM? Good but not amazing. Despite all the hype about the Qodosen’s so-called super-powerful radio chip, it was no better than the Degen/Kaito 1103 I had over a decade ago. Sure, it effortlessly locked onto 89.3 from Pasadena, but it fumbled with the weaker college station 88.9, struggling like a kid lifting his first dumbbell.

That’s when it hit me: I was never going to fall in love with this pint-sized radio. It felt like driving a rattling Mazda Miata through a wind tunnel—fun in theory, but exhausting in practice. So, I packed up the Qodosen and sent it back. I don’t blame Qodosen. I blame my unrealistic expectations and my failure to realize I didn’t want a radio this small for my bedroom.

In its place? The Tecsun PL-990X. Seven and a half glorious inches of luxury radio, a true cruiser compared to the jittery compact Qodosen. Don’t get me wrong—the DX-286 is a decent radio. I just realized I wanted something bigger, smoother, and built for the long haul.

Update:

I rebought the Qodosen about a month after writing my original Herculodge review. I realized the speaker is excellent, its AM is superior to my Tecsun radios, and that it’s a keeper. One issue: The kickstand broke, so I play it flat on its back.

September 6, 2025
Typepad, R.I.P.: Obituary for a Dinosaur

In 2006, I wandered into the Wild West of self-publishing and signed up with Typepad. Back then, blogs felt like a revolution: you could pour your obsessions straight into the digital void without begging gatekeepers for approval. I created three: Herculodge, where I indulged my radio fixation; The Breakthrough Writer, course content for my freshman comp class; and The Critical Thinker, the companion for my critical thinking students. Typepad cost me about $150 a year—a fair price for a soapbox in the dawn of the Blog Era.

But by April 2025, my soapbox had turned into a rickety stool. Typepad was wheezing like a geriatric dinosaur stumbling into an unfamiliar world: constant downtime, glacial load times, the unmistakable stink of neglect. Research confirmed my suspicion—it had been sold, stripped for parts, and left to rot. I canceled my subscription. Out of nostalgia, I kept Herculodge in basic mode, mainly because its archive of radio reviews was still linked to Thomas Witherspoon’s venerable SWLing Post, a site that embodies everything good about radio: community, continuity, and voices across the airwaves.

But in truth, Herculodge had gone dormant long ago. After the 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles, I went on a spree, bought a dozen radios, reviewed them all, and then, slowly, stopped. The flame flickered, and I moved on.

Yesterday the official death notice arrived: “We have made the difficult decision to discontinue Typepad, effective September 30, 2025.” Translation: pull the plug, bury the dinosaur.

This little obituary for Typepad drags me back to the Blog Era, when voices as sharp as Andrew Sullivan’s rose to the level of public intellectuals, while hobbyists like me tinkered in the shadows of niche obsessions, broadcasting to niche audiences. Blogs felt cozy, almost literary: you in a robe, cat on your lap, coffee steaming, ruminating about Virginia Woolf before hitting “publish.” Compare that to today’s Hot Take Era: dopamine-charged combatants spewing rage, preening for likes, and mistaking tribal points for thought.

The end of Typepad is the end of that quieter world.

I’ve since migrated to WordPress, which works better, loads faster, and hasn’t collapsed into irrelevance. I have mixed feelings about AI image generators: sometimes they hit the mark, but mostly they’re garish clip art pretending to be art. Still, I pay two hundred bucks a year to carve out a little order from the chaos, and it’s worth every cent. Cheaper than therapy, and with fewer platitudes.

Typepad’s death isn’t tragic—it’s just the final shovel of dirt on an era already gone.

September 1, 2025