There was a time — pre-parenthood, etc — that I loved making relational database systems. I can think of 3-4 really good ones I built with my fairly limited knowledge base.
Watching some Python demos earlier today made me curious if I could learn and apply that to web stuff. We shall see.
Listening to Lucero’s Nobody’s Darlings on the ride into work today and had forgotten how much I enjoy it. I think their latter work has taken some of the sheen off this stretch of theirs.
This is wholly unscientific but it strikes me that this album is part of a small group of stretches of 3-full-length-albums I’d call great or nearly flawless. Many bands have great records, and lots of make two in a row, but a three-peat of great records seems rare. The ones I could think of off the top of my head:
Lots of reasons I can think of for not more 3-album stretches: Great records or a pair are preceded or followed by just really good ones (e.g. Neutral Milk Hotel, Public Enemy); a band breaks up after one or two great ones (e.g. Slang, Bridge and Tunnel); I’m not as familiar with a whole catalog enough to identify a 3-peat but there probably is one (Sonic Youth, Unwound, Fugazi); puts out 3 great albums in 4 record stretch (Dikembe).
After quickly scrolling through my collection some obvious ones I missed (though still not comprehensive:
There’s also probably a stretch of Kiss, Phil Ochs, PJ Harvey, R.E.M (though the song “Stand” alone might knock them out) and the aforementioned Fugazi, Sonic Youth and Unwound, but the point still stands.
It’s insane — and in my opinion criminal — that Jack Dorsey (or any other billionaire) making a $15,000,000 donation is roughly equivalent to a college professor making a monthly $250 donation.
I simply cannot stand watching James Harden play basketball. I’m so glad the Celtics didn’t trade for him.
After listening to Tim Barry’s newest studio album the other day I lamented that felt like I no longer had as significant a connection to new, individual albums like I once did. I figured this had something to do with getting older and lamer.
Then while listening to Episode #128 of the Future of What podcast, the host, Portia Sabin, shared a couple of tidbits — which might be apocryphal — that would help to explain my earlier lamentation.
First she recalled a presentation by the head of Tommy Boy Records in which he pointed out that there were more albums released in 2007 than in the previous 20 years combined. One would imagine that this has only gotten “worse”.
Saban then quoted a study/article — too lazy to go back and listen for the citation — that found that most people stop listening to new music after age 28. Thankfully I fell well outside this statistic for 10 years (ages 28-38) but have probably started to slide into it over the last 10 years.
Today’s excitement was a hawk that flew twice into A’s window. S/he stuck around for about an hour squawking at the family of wrens in our porch plant. One of the parent wrens was giving it right back walking in and out of the bush apparently trying to scare the hawk off. At the behest of our own mama bird I finally went off and shooed the beautiful if a bit menacing Hawk off after yelling through the screen didn’t work.
Fascinating look from Austin Kleon at various indexing systems used by writers and the like. Having once applied to — and been accepted into — library school, worked at a library and flirted with reapplying, this is obviously relevant to my interests.
Amusingly ambitious ideas from a long abandoned 1st attempt at this (during what was likely my first foray into WordPress):
Seeking inspiration this was started to: grease the wheels, grist the mill, prep the grindstone. Two ideas which require some initial follow through, then large amounts of neglect: