Our families are engaged in their local communities in ways that I am jealous of. Supporting local artisans. Involved in community groups. Buying from local distilleries and wineries and breweries and other manufacturers and coffee shops. I want to make this a priority for the future.
Fox had a few tears leaving Burlington today. That makes me happy and sad - sad we live so far away - happy that he values the time spent there with them.
Fox had a few tears leaving Burlington today. That makes me happy and sad - sad we live so far away - happy that he values the time spent there with them.
It's not that All Things Must Pass was a bad song in itself. It just wasn't a Beatles song. And it sounded too dour and funereal.
How is it that some people seem to live forever, no matter how they mistreat themselves, and some healthy people get a disease in their 50's and die off? I almost wrote "in their 40's," but since I'm going to be turning 40 next year, I had to promptly excise that line.
How is it that some people seem to live forever, no matter how they mistreat themselves, and some healthy people get a disease in their 50's and die off? I almost wrote "in their 40's," but since I'm going to be turning 40 next year, I had to promptly excise that line.
I like putting the GET BACK doc on while I'm puttering around in the evening just to feel like I'm hanging out with The Beatles.
I am falling HARD again for Breath of the Wild. Like I did during those first nights in 2017. Thrilling exploration and climbing and the challenge. I am seeing it through the eyes of FX all over again.
I heard a stat today: 72% of TX nursing home workers have received at least one vaccine dose. HOW IS THIS NUMBER SO LOW. They've only had nearly two years to do their part to protect the most vulnerable population in the country.
Some Bible verses about worship that don't get quoted very often: "I hate, I despise, your feasts! I can't stand the stench of your solemn assemblies ... Take away from me the noise of your song! I will not listen to the music of your harps." Amos 5:21,23
I am not a big fan of musicals in general, but the recent Fresh Air triple episode tribute to Steven Sondheim was moving and it turns out I actually like his music a lot. It's complex and dense and beautiful and abstract.
Why can't Siri, the musicologist, as Phil Schiller called it, do something as simple as Play all my Sting albums in order of release? Or Add all of Beethoven to my up next?
I usually shower on Thursday and Sunday. But I needed to shower yesterday - so I'm off my schedule. Which means I can't shower today, Sunday, because that would mean showering 2 days in a row.
Every person makes observations and draws conclusions from those observations. This is what we are, and that's alright.
in other news ... yes, I got my covid booster today ... and why does it feel like a risky thing to discuss? I feel all twisted up about this aspect of the current state of things. There are only a few people I know with whom I would dare to bring up vaccines.
Could the entire Internet go back to just Wikipedia and a few friendly forums I like?
During my COVID booster today, I heard "Wonderful Christmas Time" for the first time this year. Among my all time least favorite songs. The timing of it all just seemed odd.
Last night I watched an episode of Star Trek Voyager - the main plot was that the crew found a planet where an alien species had stashed some humans that they abducted from Earth in 1937, INCLUDING, Amelia Earhart. Some abductees had escaped and in the 400 intervening years formed a new human civilization. Incredible story. This is why I watch TV.
Just as sounds do indeed exist in empty woods, albums can still exist even though they're not available on the major retail streaming outlets.
I don't like being seen, and I don't understand why people like to do live videos so much. Attention grubbing and vain.
The "new" Radiohead song Follow Me Around is just weird. In the vein of Electioneering. Drop D. Almost bluesy, which is disorienting.
Started playing SUPER METROID. Unsure why it took me nearly 30 years to figure out that it's a great game, but I'm glad I did.
Watching THE VELVET UNDERGROUND. Awesome.
you want to write about your middle school rock band - and the jimmy jam - and teaching George the bass. But you also want to eat mozza sticks and watch SUCCESSION - because the internet is talking a lot about SUCCESSION - a marketing thing. Also, you want to listen to the REM album NEW ADVENTURES IN HI FI - which is their most underrated album to debut at no.2. Goodnight.
Among cultural artifacts I should revisit: Plastic Ono Band is higher up the list than The Queen's Gambit.
No offense to The Queen's Gambit.
I don't know why but I can't shake the feeling that I am secretly despised by many - almost everyone actually secretly despises me.
American Idiot is a great album. Not embarrassed to say so. It's no Invisible Man - but it's good.
A hot take for today: Rough and Rowdy Ways is not only a solid album for an 80 year old icon - it is the best album of Dylan's entire career.
“I lost the ball for about three seconds,” Johnson said postgame. “Luckily it popped back into my vision. That’s part of it. You know, you can’t make excuses. That’s part of the elements. You see different elements throughout the year. I’m grateful I came down with it. It felt good.”
Sports in general would be better if we, as the public, would let players do their talking on the field of play.
Unless, of course, what they have to say dovetails with a pertinent political issue the country is grappling with. Then, by all means, let's hear their fire hot takes.
I want to trim my dog's nails, and I got the nail clippers, but I'm doggone nervous about the entire thing. Nothing to do but take the furry plunge and remember how much I used to hate trimming my own nails.
when there's a knife already in the butter dish that had been used, and I go to make another kind of sandwich, i just take that butter knife, wipe if off on the bread, then dip it into whatever fresh spread I'm about to use.
Haven't had enough time to do the crossword lately. That must be remedied, somehow, someway.
Got this up and running again.
In other news, trying to get the Homepod to play "Jesus Lord by Kanye West" instead of "Jesus is Lord by Kanye West" is a high degree of difficulty.
When I was just now pouring the water into the water well of the coffee maker, some drops accidentally spilled into the grounds in the basket - I was mortified by those drips, because the ground aren't supposed to get wet prior to the brew - but I was also too lazy to change them out for fresh. #life
It only took me 4 days, but I got the car seat put back together.
Rich Mullins. If you haven't listened to him, he's far more than whatever you thought. Listen.
The 2nd half of Modern Vampires of the City is up there with Abbey Road as my favorite records ever. Such great flow of tunes and moods. I love it and it makes me happy and sad all at the same time every time I listen.
Busy rearranging deck chairs today, and most days.
Yesterday was Friday the 13th.
COVID-19 updated #9: when the pandemic started, I was preparing multiple bottles of baby milk each morning to save time. Now I'm potty training.
One of the oddest, and yet coolest, experiences I've had was getting to, in a very impromptu manner, play guitar in a band tossed together by a friend that would open for Bon Iver at the student union in Iowa City. 2008 or so? In the Black Box theater.
What does it mean that I haven't watched the Olympics at all this year? Or that I don't care about them. Or that I don't feel any emotional affinity for any sports team anymore. Or care about sports at all.
I had previously thought that Guided By Voices were a conventional classic rock band that I wouldn’t be into. Like The Shins. But I found out yesterday that that isn’t at all true. They’re weird, and from Ohio.
Karl Ove on cutting off another driver when changing lanes and almost causing an accident: “The angry blast of his horn cut straight into my soul.“
I get this. The feeling of having troubled someone and provoked an outburst. Shameful.
It is a rule in our house, inscribed upon tablets of stone, and the tablets of human hearts, that the morning pot of coffee be a darker roast, and the afternoon pot of coffee be a lighter roast.
I can’t believe it’s Monday. I almost forgot to take the trash out. Considering the idea that I could listen closely to music more often. Instead of all the talk. The inanity of it all. Read and write more, do the crosswords, complete the crosswords, figure out how to make music again.
AC repair person finally here. We are on day 4 of no AC upstairs. It’s been close to 90 up there in the late afternoon, and no lower than 84 at night.
Would it have been nice for them to come earlier? Yes. But they’ve been swamped. And we are an understanding family. That is part of our DNA.
For an unknown reason, Fox requested that we play “bird sounds” on the car stereo. So Marielle dialed in an hour of bird sounds on YouTube and he was happy. Why?? How??
Think about all those times you heated something in the microwave for 10 seconds. Now think about all the time you could've saved if you'd punched in 9 instead.
I can feel Fox beginning to quit his nap time. And it’s fine. I will handle it and move on.
I might be watching only Star Trek series for the rest of my life.
In other news, last night I was reading on my Kindle in bed and my spouse had fallen asleep fairly close by. Then I lost my grip on the Kindle and it fell part on my face part on her. Not a great moment there.
Many would count Blink 182’s song “The Rock Show” among their lame later career flare ups that fall flat - but for whatever reason, it’s their song that sticks the most in my head.
The other day my spouse looked at our apple cider vinegar and said "I'm worried about the mother." She had to explain this to me, but when I understood, I realized that I was also worried about the mother.
My latest way of getting through each day unscathed: doing the NYT crossword.
Got my second vaccine dose for my birthday. Then got In and Out burger.
Sometimes you feel a bit better about everything when you take the case off of your phone for awhile.
4/21/22
4/20/21
Nobody is posting about Lord Yupa tonight. So here's a tweet about LORD YUPA and his outstanding swordsmanship.
Fox is playing Animal Crossing a bit - and he was in the flower field doing the crying action - he said he was watering the flowers w/ his tears.
In other news, went to a coffee shop for the 2nd time in a year.
At a middle school track meet. This is tweeting the way tweets were originally meant to be tweeted by the tweet framers.
4/16/21
I wrote an email to a random Japanese ambient guitarist that I happened upon. This morning received a reply from him thanking me for the compliment on his songs. He also asked that I let him hear some of my music sometime - but I don't have anything real to show him.
Gotta fix this. Enough is enough.
4/14/21
4/11/21
There's something about wearing a short sleeved shirt after 9 PM that feels wrong, and even immoral.
In other news, watched MANK. Four stars.
The return line at this IKEA is OUTRAGEOUS
April 9, 2021
April 8, 2021
I was heating up some coffee earlier and set the microwave to 23 seconds. Then decided to cancel it and reset it for 26 seconds.
April 7, 2021
Collected an entire 13 gallon trash bag of randomness to throw away. I do this on occasion when nobody else is home - but don't tell anyone. To my kids reading this some day, "I'm not sorry."
April 6, 2021 DAILY
I love when my automatic lighting routines that I have set up run at their appointed times and there is nobody old enough that is home to disrupt their perfection and guidance.
TIL the dad from That 70's Show was the Klingon Chancellor in Star Trek VI. Which is weird.
McDonald's breakfast for GOOD FRIDAY. It is a Good FRIDAY indeed.
I get a small moment of joy by going through the day's Netflix TOP 10 and giving everything a THUMBS DOWN rating.
First vaccine dose this morning. The beginning of the end.
FORTNITE sponsoring many of the Apple nerd-o-sphere podcasts I listen to has been a weird thing this week. 1) It's such a well known thing worldwide, compared to many sponsors of smaller podcasts. 2) It's almost like they're trying to troll Apple as a follow up to their App Store conflict.
What does it mean when you're doing the crossword puzzle on a Friday evening?
Playing Animal Crossing - dug up all of Gulliver's missing communicator parts on the beach - and then kept them all so we can let them rust to build a robot.
Feel ever so slightly guilty about that.
I explained to my 3 year old son why it's better to watch Cocomelon on Netflix instead of Youtube because we don't have to watch ads - and that Youtube is free because people pay them to run ads.
This might be peak dad.
I am so sick and tired of the republican claim that conservatives are being censored online. It is so so so so SO bogus. And they know it.
Trying to experiment with just using the iPad for all my kitchen counter computing. Would be so much better w/ the newer model of Magic Keyboard, although using a mouse with iPadOS is pretty righteous. Is that still a thing people say?
You know its the truth. You know it deep in your bones.
Why does mommy shark have to be smaller than daddy shark?
It's funny how when you're watching an older show in standard def, and your data cap runs out, you don't even notice the drop in picture quality due to the slower connection.
My daughter visited someone's Star Trek DS-9 themed Animal Crossing island today. Which is AWESOME. They had a bunch of custom designed portraits of all the major characters. And Federation uniforms in Abel Sisters.
OUR POWER HAS RETURNED. After 35 hours of outage, you never know how much you love and rely on something until it's gone.
I tonight started watching a South Korean movie, "Burning." It is good; it does also feature some adult situations, so parental discretion is advised.
I felt the fleeting desire to pick up my guitar and play and sing today.
If you can just play the right music ... who knows what might happen.
TX is just a very large collection of small villages and clans and tribes and main street no name towns. Formed into weird conglomerates and metros.
TX is an abbreviation for the US state of TEXAS.
Getting around to watching the final season of The Good Place.
There's a thing here in TX called "Mother's Day Out" that is sort of a hybrid daycare/preschool/drop-in childcare. It's often abbreviated "MDO." I find these things funny, for whatever reason.
Update: my contract was expiring, so I elected to switch electricity providers. The new provider is giving me 2 smart thermostats, which is cool and good. Also, Fox started at a new pre-k today.
On occasion you decide take the luxury of an afternoon rest - but then you race against the very fabric of space and time to get done everything that the day requires.
Wait - that isn't a description of a special occasion - it's just how every one regular old day proceeds.
There's something so serious about encouraging kids to eat vegetables for dinner, and so ridiculous about then yourself eating sugary cereal late at night.
When you start an mp3 playing, you have a sacred obligation to finish that thing a playin.
I sifted through my contacts address book today for the first time in years. Deleted about 300 contacts.
Put away the Christmas tree today. Into a giant new bag that is Christmas colored. A relief. Made new wolfsweat juice to get through the afternoons without having to eat all the cookie dough every day.
Up with the baby. That is all.
In the past 58 days I've misplaced two different Swiss Army knives in my house. This is very disconcerting.
If you promise not to tell anyone else, I'll tell you a secret: ... There are finely ground up mushrooms in the recently made meatballs.
COVID 19 update #8 - You do the dishes. You watch the TV episode and eat the nachos. You adjust the lighting. And it is enough.
What does it mean that all the state capitols were ready for armed protests - and, at most, a dozen people showed up? 3 showed up in Iowa.
This morning I bought turnips for 95 bells. Hoping for one of those 445 bell price spikes this week.
The other day I told my wife two things: 1) Netflix was shutting down service to the Wii U; 2) The actor in that show is also a well known rapper. It was like I had remarked upon the cloudy weather outside. She could not possibly have cared less. Which is reasonable.
Thought about folding laundry but decided to play Animal Crossing. Great ending to a sad story. 
Your won't believe what happened in the episode of Star Trek I just watched. A teleporter accident caused the main crew members to be beamed into a holosuite program as enemies of the doctor, who was a spy. He had to avoid killing the crew so that their essences could be recovered from the program.
It was amazing.
Important update: in recent days, I've discovered that if I get the coffee for the next day ready in the afternoon instead of the evening, I can save time for a critical juncture in the day when I'm often pressed for time and seeking peace and not more random stuff to do.
President Trump was booted permanently from Twitter this evening. The world feels different to me somehow after this. I feel a sense of relief, but also an odd uncertainty and displacement.
Did Grimes also move to TX? That is a much bigger deal than that other guy moving to TX.
Trying to get down some thoughts on the day the Capitol was stormed. Our country has been embarrassed and shamed in front of the entire world today. If you voted for HIM, you had 4 years to know the character of who you were supporting. You had 20 years to know his character. You knew the
My 3 y/o has this concept of the "small bite." It's not a "small bite" in the traditional sense. His definition is like biting just a few molecules off of something.
The experience of a 5 y/o and a 3 y/o playing Animal Crossing together is incredibly grating and frustrating. Sandpaper across my soul. Why must it be so difficult??
Getting the baby out for a walk around the neighborhood this morning.
Arrived via warp 7 at S4 of Deep Space Nine while doing dishes tonight. Why did they change the theme song? Adding that small underlying pulse ruins the rubato feel of the original theme. For shame.
This is just to say: I was awake when the calendar turned over to 2021. As evidenced by the time stamp on this note. Many fireworks went off in our area and I thought the kids would wake. Also, we couldn't see the Animal Crossing NYE countdown because our Resident Center hadn't been upgraded.