I suspect that every time one of these newsletters lands in your inbox, someone out there scans all the subheads about sports and movies and whatnot and thinks, "Didn't this guy used to write about tech?" Well, today you get your wish, newsletter subscriber that I just made up. That'll teach you to want things.

Google I/O takes place this week and it will be the first Google I/O in a dozen years I'm not covering onsite. 

At the risk of revealing too much of the inner workings of my mind, I have to confess that Google I/O was one of the least favorite recurring calendar items on my calendar each year. That's not necessarily a knock on Google or the topics discussed at its annual developers conference. On paper, Google I/O is no different from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference or Microsoft Build, both of which I've also covered. 

(One year, in fact, I attended all three in rapid succession — where's my triple crown? Where is my crowd of fans in great hats sipping signature cocktails?)

These events are fairly demanding in that there are keynotes to write about, briefings to attend, demos to film, and stories to file. And with a lot of these developer conferences held close to home — it's roughly 36 miles from my front door to the Google I/O venue — you don't really have the luxury of shifting your regular routine to the back burner. For a Bay Area resident, covering tech events brings all the thrills of breaking news coverage, and then — dishes at home.

Google I/O adds an extra complication to the mix. Since 2016, Google has held its developer conference outdoors at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. So, in addition to the reporting and writing a hardworking tech reporter has to do at this thing, you can also add the vagaries of high UV, higher temperatures, and the potential for my seasonal allergies to kick into highest gear. The forecast for this week's Google I/O calls for a high of 86 degrees Fahrenheit on the first day of the event — I'm not exactly broken-hearted about missing out on a chance to sweat onto my keyboard, I can tell you that.

It will probably not help the mood of the overheated press corps in attendance that this year's I/O keynote is all but certain to be heavy on AI since that's been the driving force at the last few Google get-togethers. The developers in attendance will likely cheer each and every announcement — that's what happens at these things — but the civilians in attendance or watching at home have decidedly more mixed feelings about AI. I know I do.

(And hey, at least Google's Sundar Pichai can count on a pleasant reception from his audience this week. Former Google honcho Eric Schmidt can't say the same thing about his reception at the University of Arizona when the topic of AI came up.)

Google already gave us a foretaste of the AI feast to come with its big Android news last week, and yes, it's true that you can't spell Android without "AI." To be even more blunt about it, Google's official announcement notes that Android is transitioning "from an operating system into an intelligence system," so all the planned big changes very much center around Gemini gaining more powers.

To be fair, some of those powers could turn out to be helpful, depending on how they're implemented. Google is promising workflow automation — examples cited include going through a class syllabus to find the books you need and purchasing them in one swoop, or using a travel brochure to research and book a trip. If that works as advertised, great. But in the history of personal tech, when has a feature ever worked seamlessly all of the time? 

Rambler, another promised addition, is aimed at removing all the "ums," "ers" and other vocal tics out of recordings. Again, that sounds like a real time-saver, though as a guy who's personally tested AI-powered transcription features built into phones, I would be happy if those tools could simply handle regional dialects, accents, and different speakers with greater aplomb. (For the record, Google does have the best transcription features built into mobile phones, though that's sort of like recognizing the most coherent drunkard at last call.)

Google isn't the only company telling us that we're getting AI tools whether we like it or not, even after a lot of people have made it clear that they don't like it. Part of the antipathy toward AI reflects poor implementation, partly, but it's also because the people pushing AI have yet to make a convincing case that it's benefiting anything other than their many offshore bank accounts. 

At least the features Google talked about last week at least promise some sort of end-user benefit by automating work without requiring a lot of extra user effort. Those are the kind of AI announcements that are less likely to be greeted by groans — provided that they actually work.

I may not be at Google I/O this week, but I am keeping my fingers in some other pies I used to tend to as part of my beats. The nice folks at Wirecutter decided to put my decade of writing about wireless providers to good use by tapping me for a profile of US Mobile, which offers unlimited data plans at a fraction of what you'd pay at AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. I talked to the CEO at how US Mobile can do that and what kind of trade-offs you can expect should you opt for their cell phone service. Go over to Wirecutter and read me there now.

If a website as respected as Wirecutter is willing to turn to little ol' me for my writing and reporting skills, don't you owe it to yourself to do the same? Gaze at my work history in awed admiration and get in touch if you need a person matching my expert editorial skill set.

These people are also doing fine work that you should reward with your eyeballs.

If you follow me on Bluesky, you were subjected last week to me live-blogging my efforts to make a pasta sauce. Specifically, I was trying to make the sauce Peter Clemenza whips up in The Godfather for the occasion of celebrating May 11, a crucial date in the events depicted in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.

"Those are two different movies, Phil," you are doubtlessly pointing out right now. "Quiet you," I am politely replying.

(There is a sauce that appears in the May 11 montage of Goodfellas, and you can even find a recipe for it in numerous places including the book Made Men. I have made this sauce. It features an ungodly amount of meat, and I say this as a person who likes more than his fair share of meat. God bless you if you can withstand all that, but I found it to be a bit much. Hence, the more manageable Clemenza sauce.)

While my live-posting included all the ingredients and a general timeline of how to assemble the sauce, I didn't include the formal recipe or specific amounts I used. While Clemenza is cooking for 20 guys, I am merely responsible for three, so I adjusted the proportions accordingly. 

Food.com has a recipe for the Clemenza sauce that may or may not have been based on a version of the recipe that ran in Glamour Magazine back in the day. I used that, along with Clemenza's instructions from the movie, as the basis for the recipe I made, with a few tweaks along the way. Here's what you'll need to make enough sauce to feed a regular-sized family and not a crew about to go to war with the Five Families.

For the sausages, I use a mix of sweet and hot, as the hot sausages add a pleasant heat to the sauce that's not overpowering. For meatballs, I used frozen Trader Joe's meatballs — about 12 of them. If you like making your own meatballs, live your truth and make about a pound of them, but I'm just trying to get dinner on the table.

You'll want to make sure the meatballs and sausage are cooked ahead of time, or you can do like I do and fry up the sausages in the same pot where you're making the sauce, using the rendered fat as your cooking oil. Poke holes in the sausages with a fork should you go that route, to give the fat a way to escape.

Let's make some sauce:

You will now have a delicious sauce that will fortify you as you go to the mattresses.

My daughter wanted to watch Cabaret the other night, and since that's one of my wife's favorite movies, that's what we watched. I like the movie well enough, though I'm not wild about it. (There are other, better Kander and Ebb musicals, I'd argue.) Still, I've warmed to the movie over the years, and my wife's passion for it is infectious. If only a story about people blithely pursuing their own self-interests and shrugging indifferently as insidious forces slowly took control over society had any relevance for today's audiences!

If there's one area where my wife and I diverge sharply on regarding Cabaret, it's Liza Minelli's performance. I would argue that she's miscast in the role — a bold take, I realize, since she won an Oscar for it. But my interpretation of Sally Bowles is that she's completely deluded in regards to just about everything — not just about whether or not this Nazi thing will blow over in a few weeks, but most especially about her talent level. In my mind, Sally Bowles should not be a very good singer, while Liza Minelli very much is.

I think my problem with how Minnelli tackles the role is most evident when she sings the title song at the end of Cabaret. At this point in the movie, some serious shit has gone down, and Sally, true to form, has chosen to ignore it all. Life is decidedly not a cabaret, despite what she's singing, and to my mind, the tone of the number should be defiance in the face of all available evidence. Sally should be holding on to the microphone for dear life, and instead Liza Minelli is performing that number like... well… Liza Minelli.

Which is not to say that Cabaret is not worth an evening of your time, especially since you can find it streaming for free on Tubi as of this moment. Joel Grey is magnificent as the Emcee, even if Bob Fosse reportedly didn't want to cast him. I can take or leave Fosse as a director and choreographer — another place where the missus and I find ourselves at odds — but he's more or less on point here. 

If you have to see just one Kander and Ebb musical, make it Chicago. But Cabaret has its charms, too.

And that's the Phil for this week — thanks for reading.  Until next week, keep stirring that sauce.