Month: January 2026

My Quiet Breakup with the AirPods Max

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I have always been a Bose guy. For years I used their wired gel earbuds, which were way better than the old Apple earbuds we all pretended were acceptable back then. I even had one of their sound bar’s when I downsized from a full five speaker setup. Bose has always been one of those brands people either love or love to argue about, but I have always been in the “I like their stuff” camp.

About ten years ago, maybe more, I bought the Bose QuietComfort 2 noise cancelling headphones. They were around two to three hundred dollars at the time, and they were fantastic. They still work. Every now and then I would pick them up and think, “Do I really need anything better than this”

Fast forward to 2024. Apple had the AirPods Max out and I kept circling them like some kind of expensive tech craving predator. They were wireless, premium, comfortable looking, and supposedly had incredible noise cancellation. A friend of mine had a very specific problem with them, the kind of issue that only bothers a certain type of person, but still, the Max looked like a great piece of gear.

Meanwhile, I was mostly using regular AirPods for day to day things. They were fine. Good enough for the train, calls, and everyday commuting. At some point I got the AirPods Pro, but the timeline is fuzzy. Either way, the big over ear headphones were for serious travel and the little buds were for everything else.

Then my wife mentioned she was curious about noise cancelling headphones. Her use case was tiny, maybe once a month. I could not see her spending a lot on a brand new pair, so I said, “Do you want mine” meaning the Bose. And in that moment my brain went, “Well, this is the excuse I needed.” I handed her the Bose, she accepted them, and I immediately gave myself permission to finally get the AirPods Max.

And that is exactly what I did. She still has the Bose, and I walked away happy with the Max.

To be fair, they are genuinely great headphones. I used them in the office all the time. I used them on planes and they were fantastic. I never wore them while walking around because they are too big and clunky for me, even though plenty of people seem very comfortable doing exactly that. Good for them, not for me.

Eventually I started noticing a familiar problem: the glasses issue.

I have worn glasses forever and over ear headphones always put pressure on the frames. Sometimes it is fine, and then other times it slowly becomes “Why does the side of my head hurt like someone has been squeezing it for an hour” With the Bose it was manageable. With the AirPods Max and their firmer ear cushions, it became noticeably worse. My most recent pair of glasses, which might be wider, made it borderline uncomfortable. On flights I would take the Max off every so often to give my head a break. I even watched a movie without my glasses just to avoid the pressure, which felt ridiculous.

Around the same time, my regular AirPods finally died, as they eventually do. So I upgraded to the AirPods Pro. And I was honestly surprised at how good the noise cancellation was. Surprisingly good. “Maybe I do not actually need the giant expensive headphones” good.

I took a couple of trips this past year where I brought both the Max and the Pros. Every time, the Pros won. Comfort alone did it. Eventually I told myself, “If I take the Max on this trip and do not use them at all, I will sell them.”

That is exactly what happened.

Then Apple released the newest AirPods Pro that September with even better noise cancellation, and I basically bought them immediately.

So in November I finally sold the AirPods Max on eBay and I do not miss them at all.

They are fantastic hardware. They look great and sound great. But they are not comfortable for me, and I am not someone who walks around the city wearing over ear headphones every day. I tried. It is just not who I am. The amount of space in my carry on that I saved by not using them is also noticable.

Now I am down to the AirPods Pro for travel, commuting, calls, and pretty much everything else. They are basically always in my pocket. They are small, comfortable, and they do not crush my glasses into the side of my head. I keep a spare pair of old wired earbuds in my bag and that is all I need.

So yes, technically the AirPods Max are better. But the headphones I actually use are the ones that win.

The Day My Dad Ended Up Under a Bus

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When I was really young, my dad used to volunteer at the local ambulance corps. That is not what this story is about, but it helps explain something about him. Before he became a physician assistant, he had been an EMT, and he always loved the excitement of being out in the field. He loved the show MASH. More on that another time, unless I already wrote about it. He loved that whole world of organised chaos. But as he got older and settled into his work in the emergency room, he did not really go out into the field anymore. He just got his daily adrenaline fix from being inside the trauma room.

Except for one time.

This was in the late nineteen eighties or very early nineties. There was an accident right outside the hospital where he worked. A man had been hit by a bus. Literally right in front of the building. When that happens, you do not wait for an ambulance to arrive. The emergency room staff goes outside. They are already there, so they just run out and start helping.

My dad was part of the group that went outside that day. They found the man pinned underneath the bus, stuck with his little shopping cart beside him. My dad ended up crawling under the bus with him and staying there until they could free him and get him into the emergency room.

There was a news clipping about it. I am pretty sure I still have it somewhere, or at least a photo of it. I want to find it before I actually post this publicly. But yes, that really happened: my dad was literally under a bus helping rescue someone.

The part he always remembered most was what happened afterward. The man was an older guy on his way back from the market. His groceries had spilled everywhere. Milk had burst open, but somehow the cookies survived. So after all the chaos, my dad said the man kept offering cookies to everyone. Just sitting there, grateful to be alive, handing out cookies.

From what I remember, the man survived and did fine. And for my dad, it was one of those rare moments where he got to go back into the field.

Not everyone can say their dad once crawled under a bus and then celebrated with cookies, but apparently that was just a normal Tuesday in his world.

The Cat, the Blanket, and the Blame

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For Christmas, M bought me a very comfortable throw blanket.

Well. Presumably for me. Possibly for the cat. Or is it for the cat and I wanted it. I forget.

The idea was simple. Leave it on top of the comforter so there is something extra cozy. This matters because sometimes the cat comes onto the bed, and when it was warmer out, I could just peel part of the comforter off myself, drop it on top of him, and he would happily snuggle into it and fall asleep.

He is a Devon Rex. He likes warmth. A lot.

If I do not do that, he might crawl fully under the covers and turn himself into a little croissant right next to me. Or, more often than not, directly on top of me. That is a whole separate story involving him sitting on my chest while I sleep. Which, if I am being honest, is actually pretty comfortable once he settles down.

The only downside is the settling down part. There is some light clawing involved. Not aggressive. More exploratory. It sounds worse than it is.

Anyway.

In the winter, sharing the comforter like that does not really work. Giving him his own blanket on top is much easier. He can be moved. I can adjust. Everyone wins.

This is where things get complicated.

For a while now, A has had a fuzzy blanket that she wraps him up in. He sleeps in her bed, and she basically curls herself around him. She does not care that she is practically on top of him. He does not care either. This has been their arrangement for some time.

So when the new blanket appeared on our bed, A immediately declared that I was stealing him from her.

Now, she was mostly kidding. Mostly. But what she very conveniently glossed over was the fact that he originally slept with us, and only relocated because she provided a better blanket based incentive program.

I honestly did not think this would change anything. She goes to bed earlier. She snuggles him aggressively. I assumed he would continue choosing her.

Instead, what has been happening this week is that he hangs out downstairs with us in the evening, usually on someone’s lap, because he is essentially a heat vampire. Then he moves upstairs and parks himself on the radiator until about midnight, enjoying what I can only describe as a personal sauna.

After that, he chooses a bed.

And apparently, he has been choosing the one with the new blanket.

Here is the part that makes this truly unfair.

I am getting blamed for all of this.

Despite the fact that he is actually cuddling next to M, not me. Despite the fact that I did not invite him. Despite the fact that I did not even buy the blanket, although I did ask for it often.

A is not having any of it. It is still my fault.

Not that it really matters to me.

I am just saying.

Please Take My Money: Wagamama Edition

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I spend a lot of time talking about bad experiences because, honestly, there are plenty to go around. But every so often, someone actually gets it right. And today, or at least initially, that someone was Wagamama, until they then later didn’t but no spoilers yet.

I like Wagamama. One of my daughters likes Wagamama. The other one… not so much. Which means we do not go as often as I would like. Recently, though, the less enthusiastic one has been a bit more open to it, which has resulted in a few bonus noodle nights for me.

The food is always good. The service is consistently fine. And it is one of those places where everyone seems slightly happier after they eat. But what caught my attention this time was not the food. It was the payment process.

After the meal, instead of trying to make awkward eye contact with a server while doing the universal “please bring the bill” hand wave, there is a small QR code on the table. You scan it and it immediately knows what you ordered. No typing. No logging in. No nonsense. Just “Here is your total.”

You can pay right there with Apple Pay, or Google Pay if that is your thing and you enjoy giving Google more information about your life. No account creation. No mysterious third party checkout flow. You can even have the itemised receipt emailed to you, which, as someone who really dislikes handing out an email address, says a lot.

It was fast. It was clean. It worked.

They also let you order food through their app or website. I am not entirely sure which one it is because I have not actually tried it yet, but it looks slick. Given how smooth the in-restaurant payment felt, I assumed they had nailed that part too.

So at that point, credit where it was due. Seamless checkout, transparent receipts, and very little friction. This is how digital payments should work.

Then we went back.

Side note first: A was totally fine with going this time, which feels like real progress and deserves its own quiet celebration.

The reason I am updating this entry, though, is that paying was not quite as effortless as I remembered. This time the QR code was still there, but we also had to enter a table number and the location name. I swear we did not have to do that before. Maybe they changed it. Maybe I forgot. Either way, it added a bit more friction.

What really stood out, though, was that even after choosing Apple Pay, I still had to enter personal details. Not the worst possible outcome since I did not have to register an account, but still more personally identifiable information than I would have liked. Enough that I noticed it. Enough that it annoyed me.

For what it is worth, I just used slightly inaccurate details since it did not affect the Apple Pay transaction at all. The payment went through fine. But that kind of thing chips away at the “this is perfect” feeling pretty quickly.

So yes, they still get a lot right. It is still better than most places. But it is not quite as frictionless as I first thought.

Which, honestly, is how most good systems fail. Not catastrophically. Just by adding one extra step that did not really need to be there.

Still, the katsu chicken was excellent. And I will absolutely go back.