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 POWER. It just requires a tiny bit of knowledge and effort to do your own thing. You should do it.
Ordered four Led Zeppelin CDs the other day. One is a replacement for an old CD that was just messed up from being in the car (most likely) during the era of Car CD Players. That was a dumb era. CDs are not really durable enough for the car. Also got this 3-CD set “CODA” which is really pretty great if you are a fan, and two others I’ll post when I listen to them.
I’m working from home today.
I had a pretty good workout at aikido last night. Enough to make me sleep really well, though I am a bit tired. So it’s nice to be at home, getting some work done, without the noise of the office all around me. Sitting here on the couch while my wife runs some errands, with the dog and cat in here asleep. No TV on. Nice weather outside so the door to the patio is open. Peaceful. Easy to relax and get some things done.
The war against people working from home is bullshit. If people can work from home once or twice a week I think it is good for their mental health. It’s great to be able to get a load of laundry done during your work day. It’s nice to take five minutes too write a blog post or play with your dog. It’s nice to not have fluorescent lights assaulting your eyes all day. It’s nice to not have to rush out of the house in the morning and face traffic. Most of all, it’s nice to not have to “perform”, turn on the extrovert disguise, or otherwise meet the social expectations of the office once or twice a week. Even if you like your coworkers and your job, which I do, everyone can sometimes use a break.
In Aikido, “Ukemi” goes beyond taking falls. It is the entire art of being Uke — the person who attacks and receives the aikido technique. However, in this little video I just do some rolls. I got to practice early and was curious how my various rolls and falls look. I’ve been practicing for over 18 years now, but I’ve only shot video a couple of times, and that was years ago.
Anyway, this is me warming up last night. I feel pretty good about my ability to move. I wasn’t really loose and warmed up. Next week I’ll shoot some more difficult rolls.
Collection of great B-sides I’d never heard before. When you have a spouse with great musical tastes great stuff just seems to materialize in the house.
Listening to music is almost always a better choice than watching TV.
I’ve been a Marc Maron fan for a long time. These days I don’t really listen to the podcast very much. When I worked in a one-person library for years I listened to podcasts all day. Things are different now. For some reason I can’t concentrate on work when I have headphones one, whereas I can if a podcast is just playing on the speakers.
We went to see him perform last night at the Majestic Theatre, in Dallas.
It was a great show. Marc performed for two hours. That’s a solid show. We were supposed to see him last year but the tour was rescheduled. The show would have been quite different back then. Last night Marc came out and talked about Trump and his band of lunatics and kooks for a bit, but unlike when I do it Marc was funny. He had some really nice creative insulting names for them. It was cathartic and much appreciated.
The rest of the show was pretty typical Maron, which is fine. We laughed hard. We needed that. Honestly, I could listen to Marc talk about his cats for a long time. I love cats. Marc loves cats. He’s my people.
I was trying to remember when I read his first couple of books. They were super good. Then I remember that I blogged about them when I read them! That is a benefit of being a longtime compulsive blogger.
Here’s the stage before the show started last night. I love the Majestic. Great place to see a show.
It’s Wednesday evening.
Work at the public library has been rewarding this week. Taught a Resume Design class last night at Workforce Solutions, which is really the Texas Workforce Commission. The people were nice, engaged, and appreciative, and we love doing that kind of work. For the people I work with creating a good resume is not a hard thing, but honestly for many people it isn’t easy and they can use the help. So we help. Being a public librarian makes me feel good every day.
My spouse has been sick with a stomach virus but is on the mend, but I’ve stayed home from Aikido this week to give her help at home after work and let her get the rest she needs.
I’ve been working on my Traveller RPG campaign in the evenings. That has been fun. Looking forward to playing in March, when we will revive our long-running campaign that has been dormant for the last year due to people moving and other examples of life getting in the way.
Saturday I’ll be interviewing someone for my Traveller podcast. Looking forward to that.
Found out today that a dear friend is looking at some serious health problems. Not happy about that.
That’s all.
Dear Jeff Bezos,
Go fuck yourself to death.
That is all.
Yes, it’s time for yet another weekend report.
Twas a busy but good weekend.
Saturday: Aikido practice (2 hours), nap, lunch, drove to Fort Worth to see our friend John’s band play. Great show. Having talented friends is really a good thing.
Sunday: Breakfast with friends William and Katie, then we played D&D all afternoon.
Tomorrow the War on Ignorance continues.
Having never had a dog before, my wife and I had no real idea the grip he would have on our hearts. We thought oh we really love him. But we had no idea the depth. It’s hard being away from him during the day at work. Whenever we both leave the house it’s hard to even do that, because we want him with us. The joy this little being radiates is absolutely unstoppable.
Normally we see movies at the local Alamo Drafthouse theater, here in Richardson (normally I would link to them, but as you’ll see I don’t think they are link-worthy anymore). Last year (or was it the year before?), the franchise owner for a bunch of Alamo locations shut our theater and some other locations down. They were reopened by Alamo corporate, which I suppose is now owned by Sony Pictures. The auditoriums were remodeled in such a way as to enshittify the movie-going experience. We used to enjoy going there for dinner and a movie, but the food it noticeably worse now. Some is actively horrible. And it is a lot more expensive. We went to a movie there a few weeks ago and noticed that the pre-movie experience is also worse. It all seems more corporate (because it is). It feels like what once had a living, shining soul is now a dead carcass that thinks it’s still alive, but still…
…still it is better than the experience of of going to a huge “normal” theater chain.
Last night we went to see Becoming Led Zeppelin at a nearby AMC megalo-maximo-giganto-plex. At the concession stand you pick your order on a touch screen and pay with a card. It spits out a receipt with an order number. Eventually a person working in the concession mine behind the “stand” puta your order up and you are summoned to get it. If they could make you prepare your own shit, they would. I’m sure that’s on the way.
Once in our seats we were immediately bombarded with advertising, “movie trivia”, and then more advertising, all designed to keep the attention of a society of people who can no longer stand the be alone with the horror of their own thoughts.
Then the lights dimmed slightly and we were shown previews of coming films (all of which look horrible. Sorry. I know I’m complaining. This is complaint-worthy.), as well as AMC (American Multi Cinema) propaganda, demonstrations of the sound system, etc.
This went on for at least 25 or 30 minutes. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to start freaking out. I’m not kidding. I really wanted to see this movie, but had I not been with my wife I think I would have left. The pre-movie torture session really was that bad. I honestly – no joke here – thought “maybe this will never end.”
The movie was, however, great and made up for the water-boarding we took beforehand. I mean c’mon – Led Zeppelin. The greatest rock band of all time. Totally worth it. It all sounded great. The interviews with the surviving band members were great.
OK, it was a pretty normal weekend. Walked the dog. We have been watching a lot of MST3K on Twitch since the Orange Shitbag took office. There’s only so much chaos we can take.
We had a fun D&D game on Sunday. We’ve been playing almost every Sunday afternoon, and it has been nice for everyone to escape into a world where you can actively seek out and kill evil.
Aikido for two hours on Saturday morning is really good but also very taxing. I’m in good shape now, but truth is I am 60 years old now and I just can’t run myself as hard as I did 10 or 15 years ago, but I still try, and it’s keeping me kind of depleted. Practicing on Monday and Wednesday nights until 8:30, then Saturday 10am-noon, plus full time work, plus maintaining the rest of life is a lot. And I haven’t been been skateboarding in weeks. And I’ve not been reading. So I need to find a new balance for some of these things. Reprioritizing things. I want to have more energy to do fun things with my wife, to help with some of the meal planning and cooking, etc.
I know that the winter is not helping. Gray, wet, cold days are a bummer, and they seep into the brain. It’s not good. I must also admit that as devoted as I am to the idea of not letting the activities of Orange Shitbag and his dirtbag henchmen ruin my/our life, the feeling of chaos in the country is hard to escape. It creates a background haze of anxiety even when you aren’t paying attention. When you do “tune in” for a few minutes a day to make sure everything hasn’t been destroyed yet (why? I don’t know, because there’s not a fucking thing I can do about what’s going on except carry on being a reasonably good person) the background anxiety leaps to the foreground. Also not good.
My wife asked me over the weekend how to use RSS feeds to follow blogs. She want to spend more time reading blogs and actual quality websites than using social media, which I think is a good idea. Thinking I might offer to do a quick n dirty webinar for friends who want to see how it works. Might help people escape the shit silos.
That’s all for now.
Every cute pet pic posted on the internet diminishes the powers of evil.
While the country continued to slide into a Chaotic Era (thank you, Three-Body Problem), I continued to do my best to ignore it. While maintaining some understanding of what is getting fucked up, and what I need to watch out for (though there’s not much I can do about anything), I am also safeguarding my mental health, which I’ve worked very hard for several years to regain. I have people depending on me – important people – and I’m not going to let the current situation give me a stroke. I am needed, and I’m going to be here — fully here — for them.
We are all in this together. Now as always we have to be there for each other.
So – yesterday I had a nice 2-hour aikido practice. Felt good. Then I came home, had some lunch, took a nap, then we took our sweet little sheltie dog for a long-line walk up at the local university. People love to see him and he loves to meet new people. Then a relaxing night at home. I started working on a simple CSS stylesheet and page design to which I’d eventually like to move this blog. That will be a long project, and I’m not in a hurry. Not trying to do anything fancy. Much the opposite. I want a a very simple blog, written by hand, on a static site that can be easily relocated.
Today – another nice walk with the dog and coffee, then we played D&D for a few hours.
For me that’s a good weekend. Enjoying my friends, my wife, our dog and cat. That is more than enough.
Not going to look at the news for the rest of today, and not going to look at it tomorrow (Monday). Gotta manage my intake of lunacy.
Oh, I found this blog post over the weekend that I found very insightful, about the nature of the “real” internet (my words) and versus the corporate “net”.