At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I find knowing I’ll revisit my posts to be a positive and mellowing influence on my social media activity. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also trying out a few others. And I generally take weekends off social media.

Right now, though, I’m on a more extended break, through the start of January 2026. Which raises the question: If I’m on a social media (and adjacent) hiatus, what constitutes this site’s Scratch Pad, since it is by definition a collation of stuff I posted to social media throughout the given previous week. Apparently it’s random notes I made to myself that I would have posted online. Just because I’ve stopped posting doesn’t mean my brain has stopped making posts

▰ I just got to the point in Mick Herron’s latest Slow Horses novel, Clown Town, where Roddy Ho appears to be singing the theme song to the TV show (“losers and boozers”), and Lech, overhearing him, says, “Working on your theme song?” Fan service at its finest. I also understand from an interview I saw with the actor who plays Ho, Christopher Chung, that he is quite the vocalist. Nice touch setting him up to sing when this eventually becomes an episode.

▰ I’ve realized I’ve gotten into this habit of listening to the second track of an album first, because so many albums have the first track as a sort of intro thing, and I want to drop right into the thick of it. I eventually do hear the first track, because I tend to listen on loop, so eventually it comes back around to the first track — but often, oddly, it’s the last track I’ll hear.

▰ My lizard brain recognized that parts of the melodies of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” (1966) and the theme song to the TV show H.R. Pufnstuf (1969) are quite similar, and my current earworm is a mashup thereof.

▰ I’ve watched several review videos of these screen protectors for iPads that give it a paper-like quality. And the reviewers frequently mention how the material “sounds like paper,” as per this screenshot.

▰ There is a newsletter (Substack) from Liz Harris (aka Grouper). (Thanks, Pablo Flouret!)

▰ Something I typed yielded both “breaking“ and “healing” as options. That is verging on literary quantum superposition. Schrödinger’s dictionary.

▰ Tired: Last Night a DJ Saved My Life

Wired: This Morning Backblaze Saved My MP3 Hard Drive

▰ And speaking of social media, there is an odd void in streaming music. One of the best parts of the long defunct rdio, which lasted from my birthday in 2020 until the end of 2015, was how you could track what friends were listening to. Soundcloud, likewise, early on had a “groups” function, which the service dispensed with. There’s a new service, called record.club, which describes itself as “a social music network.” The founders seem pretty self-aware, per the FAQ: “The obvious comparison is Goodreads and Letterboxd (or for that matter, Rate Your Music).” (There’s also a This Is My Jam vibe, etc., etc.) And: “Sure, that sounds a bit vague—but that’s the point.” I’m on at record.club/disquiet. I may post some additional thoughts as I explore it. I’m somewhat list-averse, so this may not be for me, but we’ll see.

▰ According to the November 20 New York Times Mini Crossword, “skip” is a colloquial noun for a “Song on an album that you always avoid.” I didn’t know this was in common usage.