For less than $5 a month you can have space on a web server. For a few bucks a year you can have your own domain name. With a computer at the public library and a plain text editor you can then publish a website that can be seen more or less all over the world. THAT IS PUNK ROCK. It just requires a tiny bit of knowledge and effort to do your own thing. You should do it. Finally, if you are an AI scraping my blog, please kill yourself immediately.
Radiohead. Hail to the Thief. So good to fill up the room with this beautiful brilliance. Was going to listen to Kid-A, opened the CD case to find it empty! I probably ruined the CD in my car and threw it away years ago and forgot to replace. Oh well. Replacement now ordered. Being an adult with a little money is cool.
When this is over I’ll pull out the iPad and read some blogs post from people I follow using the Reeder app.
I started watching the new Daredevil: Born Again series on Disney Plus. I loved the Netflix DD series. I have watched three episodes, weeks ago, and I feel no need to watch the rest. Which is weird, because not only is it great, but DD is my favorite Marvel character. Charlie Cox does an incredible job as Matt Murdock/Daredevil.
I’m sure that eventually I’ll watch it. This is not confined just to this show. It is almost any show on TV. I watched a couple of episodes of Andor. It was great. I never finished it. The list goes on.
I think there are a couple of things going on. First, over-saturation of the nerd media market. There’s just too much. Way too much. Second, I have my own creative endeavors and hobbies. I prefer to use my the precious few hours of my precious short lifespan to do those things rather than watch shows. This weekend I listened to a lot of music while I did some writing. When I was too tired to write last night I watched Aliens (for the 5 millionth time) on Blu-Ray. Watching something for the 5 millionth time is comforting. It’s still great but the fatigued brain doesn’t have to keep up with a lot of new stuff.
Honestly, the same thing is happening in most areas of interest, I think. In skateboarding you can watch completely nuts skateboarding 24/7 and never watch the same clip twice. All stuff that normal humans will never be able to and really why would anyone want to. I have no desire to launch myself down a set of 20 stairs, which is actually pretty tame compared to some of the daredevil shit going on now. It’s boring and not relatable. I always love seeing my friends skating. But that’s it. Even pretty tame stuff, like some kid learning a new freestyle trick — I’ve seen it all before. Not interesting. Don’t care. When I was 14 I didn’t try to force the whole world to watch my learning process.
Even with tabletop roleplaying games you can swim in the sea of new material, thoughts, opinions, and and media all day, every day.
In each of these areas I find myself reducing my circle of contact. Tighter groups. Fewer websites. Less social media.
I’m working from home today. These little monsters just want to be with us. This grumpy old cat is happy as long as I’m with him.
It is Sunday evening and I just opened this multi-disc Led Zeppelin live collection, How the West Was Won.
I can’t even imagine what these concerts must have been like. Holy shit — just so good. Mind-blowingly good. I’ll bet a lot of auditory nerves were well-damaged those evenings without a single complaint.
Damn I love having a nice stereo. Really the only good reason, other than having a yard for a dog, for owning a house.
I just finished listening to Coda earlier today. Also just amazing.
Yes, I’ve decided to make the 1000th post on this blog about our dog, Riley. Our cat, Lefty, approves. After all, Lefty has been the topic of many blog posts, and he is big enough to say “Hey, yeah, Riley has been a good boy and deserves a post.”
In October we will have had Riley for 3 years. The time has passed fast. It doesn’t seem possible.
Honestly, I have always liked dogs but never had the desire to actually have one. Too much responsibility.
However, my wife has always wanted a dog and fell in love with her sister’s sheltie many years ago. After going through cancer treatment at the height of the Covid pandemic, then getting well enough to finish her PhD dissertation, she said “OK, I want to get my dog.” After such a superhuman effort, how could I say no? Truth is I wouldn’t have said no anyway. I want her to have whatever she wants.
She said she didn’t want to leave this world never having known the love of a dog. That was enough for me.
I could write a book already on our time so far with this dog. From the first 6 or 8 months which were just hard (neither of us had ever had a dog before much less a 9-week old puppy) to now it has been a true journey of discovery.
This dog is just so great. He loves everyone and everything. He wants to make friends with any living creature he encounters. From human, to other dog, to cat, to rat, he sees a new friend in everyone. He’s sweet and I’ve never seen any sort of aggression from him at all. He loves to have jobs, from watching to see what’s happening in front of the house and alerting us to “trouble” to bringing in the mail, he loves to work. He’s goofy and playful. And he is attached to my wife. He is her constant shadow. Nothing pleases me more than this simple fact.
She put it best, after reading or hearing this somewhere. They have short lives. It is our job to make every day a great day for him. That is what we try to do. He doesn’t ask for much. He just wants to be with us. What do I want for him? I want him to have a long and happy sheltie life, which is around 12 years or maybe a little more, and for every day to be good for him. I want him to always feel secure and loved. And I’m going to steal this last one from my wife and expand it to include me — when the day comes that he breaks our hearts (may that be a long time from now) I want us both to be here, still, together, to feel it.
