Refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, washer, dryer, sink, cabinets, counter, walls… all gone. Ripped out by young men with power tools. We’re starting Week Two of a major renovation of our home that Barb has been planning for two years. They’re gutting our main living area. New hardwood floors, bathrooms, even the fireplace gets a make-over.

Barb has worked — as my friend Taisir is fond of saying — “like a Hebrew slave” on this and my contribution is staying the fuck out of the way.

It’s a bit like moving to a new home without going anywhere. There’s a “pod” sitting in front of our house which is basically a semi trailer. Large sweaty men will move all of our furniture there and back. This project is supposed to take two months but experience has taught me everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as planned. In the meantime, I’ve barricaded myself in my little bunker upstairs for the duration.

I’m enjoying the flood of articles bashing the new iPhones/Apple Watch/Apple Pay in the same way I enjoy the autumn leaves. In a week or two, they’re all gone (until the next product launch). Because it’s really hard to write these when most of the people sitting around you in Starbucks has an Apple device in their hands.

Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, predicts Apple will sell 92 million new iPhones by the end of the year.

Oh, sure, you can get a little mileage from the “Apple people are sheep” trope but that wears quickly. No, this is the sweet spot when the parody videos can go a little bit viral and the tech pundits can gather in basements to make fun of the guys who got dates to the prom.