Sunday, July 27, 2025

Bark At The Moon

R.I.P. Ozzy Osbourne.

I guess it makes sense that as a 90s kid I was too busy listening to Pavement and Nirvana to really give Heavy Metal the respect it deserves until I was older.  His antics and drug use covered over some incredible talent.

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

"historic events in themselves"

"It hurt him to talk about it, she felt, but she guessed he didn't know how much, or how. She could tell he didn't unpack this, much, or maybe ever. He said that people like Ash made their whole lives about it. Dressed in black and marked themselves, but for them it was more about other species, the other great dying, than the 80 percent.

No comets crashing, nothing you could really call a nuclear war. Just everything else, tangled in the changing climate: droughts, shortages, crop failures, honeybees gone like they almost were now, collapse of other keystone species, every last alpha predator gone, anti-biotics doing even less than they already did, diseases that were never big pandemic but big enough to be historic events in themselves. And all of it around people: how people were, how many of them there were, how they'd changed things just by being there.

The shadows on the lawn were black holes, bottomless, or like velvet had been spread, perfectly flat."

-- William Gibson, The Peripheral

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Play Ball

 

Nymeo Field, home of the Frederick Keys.

I got a free ticket to attend a Summer League ball game here in Frederick.  It's college level ball basically, but the beer and food prices are all very much major league.  Not a bad little stadium but the bathrooms were also a nightmare.

If you're sensing a negative trend on this here blog that's because there is one, between a job that started strong and has turned into a typically toxic management situation and, well, everything else going on in the world.

I turn 51 this month.  I'm considering early retirement.

I kind of wish I was joking?

Back From The Beach

Corolla Beach was fantastic.  I walked and swam every day.

Meanwhile, work has been a bit disappointing.  It turns out I was not being paid my full share since I started at the new place back in January.  That, and a toxic supervisor mean I'm looking for something else but planning on staying on in the meantime.

I guess there's no perfect job but finding something where I'm treated with a modicum of dignity would be nice.  Although I did get a small pay raise.

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Summertime

I'm off to the beach for a few days.  Blogging will not be happening but I'll hopefully come back with some good pictures.

Poor Kitties

If you like fireworks, why not go see the big shows? Why turn my neighborhood into a warzone?

Yes, I am old.

Monday, June 30, 2025

"stand and perform the thousands of little gestures which constitute life on Earth"

"What did that word mean to me? Earth? I thought of the great bustling cities where I would wander and lose myself, and I thought of them as I had thought of the ocean on the second or third night, when I had wanted to throw myself upon the dark waves. I shall immerse myself among men. I shall be silent and attentive, an appreciative companion. There will be many acquaintances, friends, women -- and perhaps even a wife. For a while, I shall have to make a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand and perform the thousands of little gestures which constitute life on Earth, and then those gestures will become reflexes again. I shall find new interests and occupations; and I shall not give myself completely to them, as I shall never again give myself completely to anything or anybody. Perhaps at night I shall stare up at the dark nebula that cuts off the light of the twin suns, and remember everything, even what I am thinking now. With a condescending, slightly rueful smile I shall remember my follies and my hopes. And this future Kelvin will be no less worthy a man than the Kelvin of the past, who was prepared for anything in the name of an ambitious enterprise called Contact. Nor will any man have the right to judge me."

-- Stanislaw Lem, Solaris

Sunday, June 22, 2025

"The rose petals / Presenting a truth of a different order"

Stereolab, "Flashes From Everywhere"

What does a band owe us after making incredible music for over 30 years?  The new Stereolab album is really pleasant, and tighter than the last few albums in terms of songcraft.  Are any big chances taken?  Not really!  But it's pretty lovely in its own right.

Saturday, June 14, 2025

So It Begins

Two Democratic state legislators were shot in Minnesota, one fatally and one critically.

Cue the New York Times telling us both sides are responsible.

Double Loss

We lost Sly Stone and Brian Wilson in the same week, two musical geniuses who brought a lot to American pop music.