When the first commercial came on the broadcast of the parade this morning, my kid said “Wait?! There’s commercials on live TV?!” and I just thought, Kid, you have been SPOILED.

Today I learned my smart thermostat has developed the capability to be used as an AirPlay speaker and it feels like an on-the-nose analogy to my career. Related: my thermostat lives in a room with a 3-speaker Sonos surround setup.

📚 Quite enjoying James Lapine’s new book “Putting It Together”, about how he and Stephen Sondheim created “Sunday in the Park with George”. He interviewed almost everyone involved and it’s fascinating to hear the story in all the different voices.

I guess the pandemic probably delayed it for a year or so, but looks like we’ve hit the “hire a babysitter to go out for the night” stage. Not sure the full weight of that realization had hit me yet.

Suzanne Vega was inspired to write the song Tom’s Diner 40 years ago today.

Guys and Dolls, adjusted for inflation (from 1933): the $1 “solid gold watch” would be $21.44 today. Harry the Horse collected the $5,000 reward on his father (also Sky Masterson’s raindrop bet), over $100k today. $1,000 for the crap game at Joey Biltmore’s garage: >$21,000.

I have a cold but woke up today being able to comfortably hit A below low C, so I’ve got that going for me.

Gary Paulsen, best known for writing the YA novel ‘Hatchet’ (though he wrote a lot more), died today. I remember reading that book in school. I’m glad he wrote it, and glad I read it.