I would really like to watch “Andor” again. (This is an example of what Sue used to call a problem with a solution.)

One can never download too many tiny, weird, fascinating video games for one’s Playdate:

Today: six nails & sixteen ounces of coffee.

Spent my work day looking out the office window at the back garden. Now that I am done with that, I am going to ambulate to the other side of this pane of glass and be in the back garden.

Morning after the earthquake, huh? Hell of a thing that was. Yep, it’s time to learn geology.

Nice that Safari 17.5 (available with today’s various gadget updates) finally supports text-wrap: balance, one of the web’s greatest one-liners for making headlines, summaries, and other short stretches of text look less bad.

Took the seven-year-old to The Dark Side of the Moon planetarium show at the planetarium down the road. He reports his favorite part was “where we went through a 3D triangle over and over and rainbows kept going through the triangles.”

Found the perfect spot to sit on campus that is (a) close enough to a building for my iPad to connect to the wifi, (b) at a picnic table in the shade so I can stay cool, and (c) gives me a command view of this hedge around the same building that 3 bunnies happen to be hiding in, such that (d) every time someone walks by with a dog I can enjoy seeing the dog go into “I want to eat a rabbit” mode.

Created one of those /now pages, which I will endeavor to update at least weekly for at least a month as an experiment:

Really enjoying everybody’s aurora photos and stories from last night.

I had no idea this was a thing:

“Use Custom Email Domain with iCloud Mail”

Contemplating this option versus Fastmail. My overall goal is to not have to mess around with any of it.

“Of course I miss you, darling. This is the loneliest place on Earth. Most exciting thing ever happens here is a day it don’t rain. Excuse me darling, I got some work to do. What the heck is that? Get on in here, Pete. We got us a big old asteroid on a three-week collision course with Earth!”

Enjoying a few minutes sitting out in the garden breeze after a pretty gnarly day of client work.

Song of the day

“Faking the Books” by Lali Puna (2004)

Genre: a container ship made of electropop

Here in Tacoma there was a literal honest to god or whatever airborne toxic event this morning.

Jeez, what kind of being or creature does a person have to speak with to get one’s vow properly judged around here?

I am also not going to space today.

Anthem Pt. 3 from Philip Glass’ soundtrack to Powaqqatsi in 1988

Genre: secret, poorly-concealed jealousy that it was the other guy who did the “Chariots of Fire” song

They say that one measures a whatever, beginning wherever.

This is a web site:

Today’s Puzzmo crossword is really, really good.

Tonight’s sunset is obscured by gray clouds all across the dome, dark and pale at once, bringing a little wind and light rain. Perfect for a walk to empty my head after a happening week.

“…on a go-forward basis…”

Making pixel art instead of lunch.

Song of the day:

Lingua Ignota’s cover of “Jolene”

Genre: musical accompaniment for a church potluck in one circle of hell or another

Messing around with proven dot lol for little to no actual reason:

More about this service:

Song of the day:

The Room of Ancillary Dreams, from Harold Budd’s “The Room”

Genre: ambient synth/piano that recalls the year 2000 in a way no other music does. When I interacted with Nathan’s 200-disc CD changer/player at the apartment, it was to dial in this album.

I have a day to myself on Saturday. What should I do with it? Imagining the possibilities is almost as nice as going and doing whatever the things turn out to be.

Q: what is my Ideal Client Profile?

A: posse of clowns (insane)

Song of the day:

Ceremony, from Galaxie 500’s “On Fire”

Genre: Friday afternoon simulator; somewhat alarming to be at this state on a Tuesday afternoon, yet here we find ourselves. Union Avenue all lined with trees.

Waiting room; waiting for a whole lot of shit to rotate and dial in this year, tbh.

Time to take my child to the pool for 90 minutes of low earth orbit. The first dipshit to approach me tonight with some asinine remedy that will cure a child from having to use a walker will be not my favorite person of the day.

Song of the day:

Good to Me, title track of Shannon Curtis’ most recent album

Genre: timely synthpop reminder of what to do when one gets tired of waiting for the miracle

There’s a beautiful purple pink sunset brightness over one half of the sky and a uniformity of raincloud heavy as hell over the other half. That’s sunset here in the Gray Maybe.

Liana digs up a remarkable quote from 2010. I won’t spoil the surprise:

(If you don’t care to do the parts-per-million math on the age I list on various profiles, 340 ppm ~= 1981.)

It seems as if this self-driving F1 race in the UAE went about as well as one would expect, with similar result to dumping a handful of housecats loose on the track and asking them to run a circuit race.

They say that Bert the turtle was very alert.

Those clouds are booking it tonight. Gray on gray on gray in some unknowable fucking rush to get up to points north.

Song of the day:

Top Soil, by the always amazing Green-House. On the “Music for Living Spaces” album.

Genre: top soil having a pretty chill day here in Tacoma, Washington, with light, warm rain all day and a steady breeze to push things around a bit

Unbalanced load of laundry, a potent metaphor for something or another

The beautiful linen grandfather shirts I bought have arrived. They are… just like all the other ones I wear. I am very happy about this.

I see and now . That’s nearly a crowd. One thousand years ago we would’ve called it an f crowd.

Update: is here.

Dragon Quest V

It’s a 15-years-old remake of a 30-year-old video game. I’m playing it on a well-worn Nintendo 3DS. I love everything about this game, especially in this version, which is breezier than the original, but still tough enough to keep one’s attention. I’ve been playing video games my entire waking life, and this is one of maybe three that has a truly good story that is woven coherently through the entire game.

It does the standard Dragon Quest move of giving you a person A in town 1 who talks about their relationship with some other person B in town 2, and then you eventually make it over to town B and that other person has something to say that maybe is in agreement with person 1, maybe not, and either way it’s as interesting as the most interesting conversation you’ll overhear in public on a given day. And then you push the button to talk to your friends in the party and they’ll have something to say about what the person just said. Do that over and over for 40 hours and fight 10,000 cute monsters between towns and you have a Dragon Quest.

There are a couple parts of the game that feel pretty lonely, when the hero is wandering around without his friends and trying to sort out what’s next. I’m in one of those spots now. It’s a great video game.

Impeccably timed walk after the sunset and before the rain started piling up.

Made a thingy →

Song of the day

Genre: sad Canadian simulator

Enticing → possibility of crossposting between and

Done with client work (“bad screen”) and figuring out if/how to use this thing (“good screen”).

I have discovered a new form of rounded rectangle to type into.