Hi. It’s been a while. We both have changed, haven’t we? Let’s start afresh. :)
- First week in … a year perhaps? … that felt somewhat normal. I’m accepting that when life gets rough this site is the first sacrifice. I’m no longer upset by this. Personal growth? Weakness? You decide. My plan going forward is to reduce quality/fidelity instead of giving up. Consistency over completeness or quality.
- Despite managing two or three runs a week, between 5 and 12km each, I’m at my lowest fitness level. I haven’t been watching what I eat/drink. I completely abandoned strength training early last year and haven’t been able to motivate my self to get back into it, despite knowing about all the benefits. I’m surprisingly excited to start rebuilding healthy habits in this area, though!
- I was only medium on Dmitri’s Work Annoyance Scale (DWAS?) this week. This is an improvement from same time last year when those levels approached critical. My goal is to cap out at low no matter what happens. There’s only so much I can control after all.
- The IndieWeb Carnival is a neat idea. Timed prompts like these are powerful in that they 1) give you permission to write about a topic you may not touch otherwise and 2) create a sense of community and shared temporal space akin to a conference event. I spent some time reading this month’s submissions. I liked this one and this one.
- Made some tweaks to the site.
Watched
- The Hot Ones series on YouTube. The Algorithm kept suggesting it to me for months, and I finally gave in. I’m glad I did. The interviewer and the premise are great, so despite the static format each episode feels unique. I feel like the high quality of the questions is somewhat wasted, since by the time the hotter sauces roll around guests often have difficulty stringing together sentences, needing to sip water or milk between every word. Some of my faves so far: Gordon Ramsey, Jennifer Lawrence, Aubrey Plaza, Pedro Pascal, Paul Rudd).
- Gordon Ramsey Uncharted S1E1. My favourite episodes from Chef’s Table were the ones with the least screen time given to restaurant kitchens or talking heads, so I thought I’d give this a try. I haven’t watched any of Ramsey’s other shows, specifically because I heard that his shtick is being verbally abusive, but at least in episode 1 here he’s humble and likeable.
- Loki S2E1. C and I enjoy watching Tom Hiddleston play a lovable loser anti-hero with a (reluctant) big heart who just won’t quit despite the world beating on him.
- The Last of Us Part 2 creators’ commentary. Not as much BTS info shared here as I’d hoped, but still worth a watch if you’re a fan like me.
- Finished watching the Baldur’s Gate 3 cast (learn to) play DnD. I love that they did their best to stay in character.
Listened
First heard of Venjent via an Orba marketing email (R U Guna Move), but promptly forgot. Glad to rediscover. Incredible creativity and skill at creating audio-visual DnB bangers out of everyday sights and sounds (chairs, doors, zippers).
- Charles Bradley – Changes (S)
- Worakls – Furia Electronica (S)
- Sol Rising – Whispers of the Sakura (S)
I miss MiniDisk players. Was trying to remember which one I had back in high school. After a bit of searching around on eBay I found it!
This thing was so futuristic at the time. Everyone else had CD players, but this had the features of MP3 players before those were popular. I loved how tactile it was. You could feel the disk moving inside, but unlike a CD, which was spun up and kept spinning at more or less constant speed, MDs would start and stop frequently, so every track change had a physical response. The disks themselves are more like cartridges, so feel like a mix of cassette tapes and the later Sony UMDs. The remote, with its HUD showing the currently playing song, blew my mind.
That’s all for now.
Excited to hear how you find the rest of Loki 👀