While biking to a platelet donation this morning, I spotted a large mass in a tree.

Right near the Harvard Bridge a.k.a. the MIT Bridge a.k.a. the Mass Ave Bridge a.k.a. the Smoot bridge, on Boston’s Charles River Esplanade

As followers of my Instagram account know, I am an extremely amateur birdwatcher. Despite my fairly shallow knowledge, I had a suspicion I was seeing that symbol of America, the bald eagle. I’ve previously spotted bald eagles soaring high above New England while visiting Maine and northern Vermont. However, I’ve never chanced upon one in Massachusetts, let alone within Boston city limits. And yet, there it was.

Taken from just outside the “drop zone” directly under the bird.

If the white head and piercing eyes weren’t enough of a tip-off, the hooked yellow beak and feet really sealed it. The quality of the picture above probably tells you that I was armed only with an iPhone. While I would have loved to have a zoom lens or some binoculars with me, the sighting itself was a true treat. At only 8:15 AM, my morning was already made.

I paused to snap some more pictures and another cyclist noticed me looking up. He stopped as well, and pretty soon, there was a small crowd of impromptu birders. Rewarding us for the attention, the eagle took flight and swooped briefly over the river. It alit upon a lower branch a few trees down, allowing for slightly better photographs.

After a few more shots, I used the tremendous Audubon bird guide app to play some eagle calls. The bird seemed to notice, cocking its head and looking about, but it didn’t react beyond that. That’s probably for the best, as there’s a limit to how close one really wants to get to a wild bird of prey.

I needed to get to my appointment, but in the hope that other locals might have a chance to enjoy the rare sight, I quickly posted a picture to Instagram.

I think it’s a solid shot, and the subject matter certainly elevates things. Still, there’s noise caused by digitally zooming in, and the overcast day didn’t do me any favors. As such, I was surprised when I saw these requests pop up a bit later:

I have long had a rule that you want to be on national news or no news, but never local news. Local news stories are almost uniformly terrible, along the lines of “Neighbors squawk and squabble over noise from backyard chickens”. I was momentarily hesitant, but I eventually acquiesced. Ultimately, I think something like this doesn’t count as actually being on local news, though it’s a bit close for comfort.

While perusing an assortment of out-of-town baseball games on the MLB app earlier this month, I found myself quite confused. In multiple markets, games were being broadcast by regional sports channels I’d never heard of before, all with “Bally Sports” in their name. A bit of research led me to the Bally Sports wikipedia page, which included this information.

The Bally Sports Regional Networks are a group of regional sports networks in the United States owned by Diamond Sports Group, a joint-venture company of the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios.…The networks were formerly known as Fox Sports Networks and operated by News Corporation for most of their existence. They were acquired by Diamond Sports from The Walt Disney Company in 2019, as Disney was required to divest them by the U.S. Department of Justice as a condition of their own acquisition of 21st Century Fox.

My confusion was a result of the fact that Bally Sports is a brand-new entity, one which came into existence less than a month ago, on March 31, 2021. In years past, these games had all been broadcast on Fox Sports channels, but that much more established name was now gone. In its place were channels like “Bally Spots West” and “Bally Sports Sun”.

More recently, I noticed an even more confusing change on iOS. Specifically, a new app was appearing in my updates:

I’ve never downloaded a Bally Sports app, and yet I was being offered an update to one. If I had auto-updates turned on, things would’ve been even worse, as my phone would have suddenly sported a new app I’d never consciously downloaded.

That icon is what really caught my eye though. It’s attempting to do a whole lot of work, and none of it successfully. Here’s a closer look:

Eagle-eyed viewers might recognize the Fox logo underneath there. Still, even knowing that Fox Sports is now Bally Sports, it’s not really clear what’s happening here. It almost seems like Bally Sports is becoming Fox Sports, rather than the reverse. This was a clever idea for some designer to try, but the execution fails utterly. It’s either unrecognizable, or it’s conveying the wrong message.

Meanwhile, there’s no text explanation of the change whatsoever. The app’s update text could easily include a simple line like “Fox Sports Go is now Bally Sports”, but as you can see above, it doesn’t. The app’s description also fails to mention Fox Sports Go. Finally, the first run of the application makes no reference to the change either. Explanations in any of these places (or all of them) would be far easier to understand than a too clever by half modified icon, and yet the app’s developers somehow failed to include them.

Amusingly, the App Store screenshots do provide a tiny hint about the change, as they still show the “Fox Sports Go” logo. However, this is undoubtedly an oversight, rather than an effort to inform users.

Ultimately, I’m betting a whole lot of people will wind up wondering how the hell the “Bally Sports” app got on their phone. They’ll worry that their phone has been hacked, and they’re likely to delete the app entirely, all for want of a few simple words of explanation.

The capper on this is it’s probably going to happen again in the future. When I first read about the new “Bally Sports”, I assumed Bally’s owned a stake in the eponymous sports networks. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Instead, their involvement appears to be limited to the $85 million they forked over for naming rights. That deal with Sinclair runs for a decade, so perhaps we can look forward to similar confusion in 2031, when Sinclair sells the naming rights to some other entity entirely.

A few years back, in the town of Belmont, Massachusetts, I witnessed the two and a half century old Thomas Clark House get moved. A developer had purchased the property, with plans to tear down the building and replace it with two new modern homes. Locals worked to preserve the structure, and paid to have it placed on a temporary lot about a mile from its original location, while a permanent home could be found.

[Photo courtesy of P. Kafasis]

Though it was a cold February day, the occasion drew folks out of their own homes to see the spectacle. It’s not every day that a home from the 18th century (or any century) goes mobile. There, amongst a crowd of onlookers, I overheard a dad trying to get his kid excited about the unusual event.

“Look at that! Isn’t that interesting?” the father asked.

His son replied “NO! They’re moving a house.”

That jaded eight-year-old had apparently seen such a thing countless times, but it was new and novel to me. And yet, that move was a cakewalk compared to a recent move in San Francisco.

There, an 80 foot long Victorian originally located at 807 Franklin was moved six blocks. It went downhill, along a route where parking meters had been ripped up, traffic signs had been removed, and overhead power was turned off, before finally coming to rest at 635 Fulton. The moving company worked with at least 15 different government agencies, while the home’s owner paid $200,000 to the city and another $200,000 in moving costs.

Of course, those huge costs are a lot easier to understand when you learn that the house was valued at $5 million. Further, in its new location, the home will be combined with a former mortuary to create a new development of 17 housing units. As well, the lot upon which it formerly rested will be the site of a new 8-story apartment complex. Turning a single house and a single business into 65 units of prime housing in one of the most expensive cities in the country is certain to be well worth the expenses and headaches. Nevertheless, it’s still bizarre to see it in action.

Despite the cost and complexity, the San Francisco move went off without any major issues. Ultimately, things did not turn out so well back in Belmont. A suitable permanent location for the Thomas Clark House was never found, and just two and a half years after more than $80,000 was spent to save it, the house was demolished after all. All we are is dust in the wind.

Until very recently, “Aunt Jemima” was the still vaguely racist mascot for pancake mix, waffles, and non-maple “syrups”. If you’re an American, it is very likely that you know her. This was her most recent incarnation:

Older versions are decidedly less wholesome.

This one is bad, and there are others I don’t want to include that were worse. Last year, in the midst of a nationwide awakening about the extent of systemic racism in the United States, Quaker Foods announced they would be rebranding.

“We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype,” Kristin Kroepfl, vice president and chief marketing officer of Quaker Foods North America, said in a statement then. “As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers’ expectations.”

It’s obviously not the most pressing issue, but I’m all for it. Recently, they unveiled what they’ve settled on:

“Pearl Milling Company” is quite a mouthful. What the heck does it mean?

“Though new to store shelves, Pearl Milling Company was founded in 1888 in St. Joseph, Missouri, and was the originator of the iconic self-rising pancake mix that would later become known as Aunt Jemima,” the company said.

Well, alright. That’s a decent origin story. However, I find the packaging downright bizarre, like a product from an alternate universe. I fear we’re going to have countless people who are unaware of the change. They’ll reach for a bottle of syrup on the grocery store shelf, only to find themselves in the midst of an existential crisis, wondering if they’ve slipped through a wormhole into another dimension. Better for the customer, but worse for Quaker, the potential buyer might instead think that some knock-off product has replaced the “Aunt Jemima” they’re looking for. Either possibility would not be good for sales.

Despite this brand new name, the packaging is still claiming “Since 1889”, which now feels incongruous. I guess we’ll see if this makes it to 2089.