Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones.

There are many different, exciting parts of today’s newsletter, so I don’t want you to forget one very important thing up top: the warmth of sunshine on your face, on a 60 degree day, with ice melting at your feet. Just don’t make eye contact with your snow shovel.

The Hot Bones readers have spoken: The most romantic spot in Charlottesville is C&O, especially if you can snag one of the tucked-away tables downstairs. The first bite of their seasonal berry cobbler will not disappoint 👇

Honorable mentions from last week’s poll go to: Tavola in Belmont, Alley Light on the Mall, and Riversong Sauna on the Rivanna. Happy Valentine’s, Cville ♥️

Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, and pets to adopt.

🐶 Speaking of: Show Girl! This mama lab mix is a stunner in a bandana, with floppy ears and white toes. 1 year, 60 lbs, great with other dogs and even with cats.

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A few years ago, my wife came home from a long day of work and said, “I think we should start watching The Bachelor.”

“Huh,” I said without looking up from my laptop. “Really?”

“Yes. I’ve decided.”

She stood there. It seemed like perhaps she was not joking.

“Okay, but why?” I said, starting to close tabs.

“I want to be part of something bigger than myself.”

The Bachelor draws around 2.5 million viewers per episode, including G’s sister and cousin, who it turns out she was on the phone with before stepping in the door. There are Reddit threads and Instagram stories and group chats and news articles from somewhat reputable publishers, all sharing insights about what happened this episode. G wanted to become part of Bachelor Nation.

“Can’t argue with that, girlie.”

So we watched the Joey season from top to bottom. We watched Joey meet his 32 potential soul mates. We watched Joey teach everyone to play tennis in episode 3 (loved that), we watched everyone fight for swinging sausage (not kidding) (did not love that), and we watched a hometown episode where we learned Maria was crazy and, in G’s words, “had darkness in her heart.”

True love can bring people together, but so can unrepentant glee when Joey did not give Maria a rose.

So. One way to feel connected with a larger community is to watch The Bachelor. Or The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City in a pinch.

Another way is to join Resist and Unsubscribe, a new month-long national economic strike organized by professor and provocateur Scott Galloway. I joined this past week.

Many of us feel powerless to stop all the bad social, economic, democratic, environmental, fundamental rights things Trump is doing — but our secret weapon, Scott explains, is our spending power. Not to get all Econ 101, but when GDP moves, decisions get made. Trump cares about the markets.

So the goal of Resist and Unsubscribe is to get as many people as possible to cancel or pause their subscriptions to the tech and AI companies that have an outsize influence over the national economy and the president. It’s all connected at this point.

Think: Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Netflix, Facebook, Uber, OpenAI, all the things that make our lives easier and, as I’ve learned this month, kinda worse.

Here’s how Scott puts it:

The quickest, shortest path to changing the way things are going down (without hurting local businesses) is by knee-capping the huge tech companies that once had mottos like “Don’t be evil” but which now are enabling our president.

You can dive deeper into the movement here, and see the action plan here. I also found Scott’s video from the London Tube to be moving.

Hot Bones is a sustainability newsletter. The Resist and Unsubscribe movement is an economic strike. I’ve decided to devote today’s top story to this topic because there’s a huge overlap between these themes. For one thing, social justice is climate justice.

As for the tech companies in question here, once they went all in on AI to help us write beige-tone emails and make graphics where people happen to have six fingers if you look closely, well these companies are now putting out a lot more pollution and sucking up a lot more water because of the resource-hungry data centers that power AI operations.

For example, according to reporting by NPR:

Making these facts feel uncomfortably close is where most HB readers live. Our home state of Virginia is for lovers and data center shenanigans, with the most facilities in the whole country just a few hour’s drive from Cville.

By unsubscribing from things like ChatGPT and Microsoft Office, I’m no longer helping fuel the fire.

And that’s just in the first week. Scott mentioned that he collectively spends over thirty.thousand.dollars on Uber every year. Now that he’s cancelled his Uber One membership, he can buy me lunch one day soon.

What I’ve done so far:

I tried to cancel YouTube TV but was outvoted.

So we still watch Jeopardy. But it turns out that in January, G cancelled a bunch of our streaming subscriptions, so perhaps that balances things out. Two months of not paying for Netflix or Apple TV means $61.96 to spend on a Valentine’s brunch.

Next on my list: Telling my family I’m deactivating WhatsApp for the rest of the month, please send all cute baby pictures via iMessage.

I’m feeling a bit richer and a lot freer after starting to cancel things. Less apps yelling at me is nice. I’ve been thinking about my middle school flip phone a lot, too, and how little time I spent on it besides having to QWERTY every text.

Honestly, the hardest part about this strike has been just trying to remember my passwords. A lot of this week was me thinking to myself: “Which dog did I have when I signed up for this?” And then adding an exclamation point or question mark.

Don’t get discouraged if this happens to you!

Having to remember your password in order to cancel a subscription feels like the next Terms of Service lawsuit. Having to remember your password and the email it’s connected to feels like an enhanced interrogation technique.

For example, this week I learned that somehow I have multiple Microsoft 365 accounts, none of which I use, all connected to different emails, all just as useless as the first one.

What’s my password?

Try amnesia123.

No no.

Amnesia123?

Wait, I’ve got it.

Joey2024NoMaria!

Send Scott a screenshot of your unsubscribes to keep the momentum going. You’ll also find out why Instagram isn’t getting cut.

I’ll simply title this: Hound, finally recaptured.

🎙️ Bop of the week: Bad Luck Ramen is staying on brand and embracing the Friday the 13th vibes with a late-night dance party tonight, with DJing by Tova Roth.

🏠 Farmhouse of the week: This historic house still has original wavy glass windows but comes with fully remodeled bathrooms (4 bed, 3 bath for $475k in Harrisonburg). Street View may put a damper on this one.

🏡 Cool rental of the week: Fully furnished 440 sq ft cottage that still fits a washer/dryer and major closet space. Plus, it’s an easy walk to the Rivanna (1 bed, 1 bath for $2,300/month).

💫 Still in bed by 9pm: Skies free of light pollution make for amazing star-gazing (and help local wildlife too). Learn how we can protect the dark skies around Shenandoah National Park on Thursday, Feb 19 from 5-7pm. Hot cocoa is crucial and will be provided.

🚣 Help keep the Rivanna River clean: The Rivanna Conservation Alliance is hosting trainings for folks who want to become a Certified Bacteria Monitor (and not just so you can call out your roommate’s bathroom behavior). The next free session for evaluating water quality is on Friday, February 27.

🐦 Birdwatchers, this one’s for you: The Great Backyard Bird Count is this weekend and nothing says Valentine’s Day romance quite like your partner yelling “I see a Fluffy-Backed Tit-Babbler!” while you turn on the hot tub.

💼 Cville job of the week: Business Energy Services Fellow at C3 (part-time, $20-25/hour, 6-month position).

💾 Remote job: Finance Director for the Climate and Land Use Alliance (crazy wide range of $100k - $232k).

Have an event or rec you’d like to share? Hiring? Interested in advertising? Share any and all info here.