When I jump start my tablet each morning, after I check the buoys closest to places I might want to surf, the ones that actually give data on wave height and/or direction (and often it is a choice), and check to see how many people checked out realsurfers, and from where, and before I risk another disappointment by checking my bank balance, I go to MSN (Microsoft News) to get a quick peek at what’s going on (Trump gagging or being gagged, floods and famine and war, MTG and AOC), adding a click on ‘money’ to check crude oil prices so I can be hopeful (on not) on what gas is going to cost tomorrow (if the price per barrel is going up), or next week if it, you know, going down.

MAYBE, one time I clicked on something from Fux News. Mistake. “Stay in the bubble!” The bubble. SO, now I get some craaazy stuff from other OUTLETS (suddenly mind-wandered to Outlet Malls, stuff that wouldn’t sell at full price or to discerning shoppers), pushing theories like, I don’t know, I check the headline and hit the ‘right’ arrow. YES, sometimes I get an ad for adult diapers or ‘guaranteed cutthroat, budget defense attorneys, BUT, what is most annoying is I keep getting stuff from “The INERTIA.”

I BELIEVE, and maybe I’m becoming a conspiracy theory person (not a robot, quit asking), but it might just be ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is focusing in on me. PRETTY SCARY!

SURE, I’m cool with YouTube offering the latest from NATHAN FLORENCE, or JOHN FLORENCE, or MASON HO, any ongoing contest on the WSL, tonight’s monologue by STEPHEN COLBERT, last night’s highlights from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and I’ll totally waste time on the quickies that, for me, custom, includes quick clips of CLINT EASTWOOD and RACHEL MADDOW, and I’ve pretty much burned through timelapse videos of this or that amazing artists, and sixty years or so worth of BOB DYLAN outtakes and bootlegs and stories about Bob from people who brushed against him at Disneyland once.

AND, YouTube wise, AI may be giving up on offering me quick vids of amazing female athletes warming up, adjusting their outfits… HEY, one time taking the bait and… It seems like it takes a couple of weeks of hitting on titles like “Life affirming Bible quotes,” and “The joy of fully clothed yoga” to get AI recalibrated.

BACK TO “The Inertia.” Yes, I often do check out the articles. “The link between surfing and music.” Sure.
Ego and surfing.” Okay. It’s kind of like, sometimes, if you don’t hit on it while it’s offered on MSN, you can’t find it again. And it might have been, you know, good. So far, what I have read was most likely meant for a general, non-surfing audience or, at best someone other than you, me… real surfers. Fine. When the thing comes up that says, ‘continue,’ I might not.

IN SEARCHING for the Inertia, my computer warned me it was an unsafe connection.. WHEW! I tried again. Same thing. Third time, I got… this:

It’s from an article published several years back on dangerous women surfers (I accidentally typed ‘wurfers’ in the headline, decided to leave it. The article was written by CHAS SMITH.

IT SEEMS LIKE, if I want to keep up with surfing and surf journalisma and surf criticism, I cannot get away from Chas. Yes, I have tried to get through the hour-plus podcasts, and failed. MAYBE if I listened to them while I was working… maybe; but I have watched the shorter, edited versions. “Pros in the wild” will get me watching, extended chats on how to be a better person… no.

So, brevity. Now that most of us know how to self-checkout, and all of us have ADHD… I’ll try it.

Goodbye.

Hope you score.