Austin, TX
These sunny, 70-ish days seriously lack the sort of atmospherics that put one in a holiday mood, don’t they? Fortunately, the fact that I have a few days off more than makes up for that. The middle of March would feel like a holiday with enough time off, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’ll test that theory this year.
I’m in bed, watching a bunch of kids on those motorized scooters that have been irresponsibly dumped on our streets in the middle of the night before the city could get around to making a law that would prohibit that sort of thing. That’s the business model of the disruptive startup, isn’t it? Do something that could/should/would be against the law and try to make it ubiquitous before anyone can do anything about it. Not that it would make any difference if the city were to pass laws against the cursed things; the state is thoroughly in the pocket of Uber and their ilk and will not hesitate to overrule any local ordinances that might hurt their business.
Yay democracy.
My experiment with the social network Vero is being put on hold until they get a user base that’s more useful to me. It wouldn’t hurt if they were to get a little less text-phobic. I can’t say anything on their site without first uploading an image or linking a song or video or, almost-ironically enough, a book. I can do that, sure, and I guess it fits the site’s aesthetic better if people aren’t treating it like Twitter, but it just seems kind of obtuse to discourage what I consider a key feature of social networking. Oh, and they could maybe stop trying to get me to follow Zack Snyder every time I log in. That would be nice.
So, anyway, back to trying to find a place that fills void caused by what feels like an eventually-inevitable departure from Facebook. Does it even need a replacement? Mmmmmaybe? I don’t know, but I’m not quite sure what the shape of that thing would be. It’s not shaped like Vero, for what that’s worth. Maybe Twitter plus keeping a blog is enough. It feels a little light to me, but that’s not an entirely unappealing thought.
Much of the holiday rigmarole is in the rear view mirror. Gifts and cards were launched into the ether, I saw my mother and sister last weekend, so it’s mostly a countdown at this point. We’re hunkered down here in the apartment doing amazing things with crafts and music and…OK, we’re playing a lot of video games. Is that what you wanted to hear?
Job #2 is going well right now, thank you very much. I’m in a weekly rhythm with it that’s working well for me and I think I’m doing a better job at it each week. Sure, it would be nice if the pay amounted to anything, but it’s one of those (and I canNOT believe I’m saying this) resume-builders that’s also a lot of fun for me, so I intend to keep at it and see if it goes anywhere (which is probably will not).
My big goal for the holiday is to finish the song I’m working on, or at the very least get all of the tracks on the laptop so I finish it there. I’ve only recently discovered the concept of “parameter modulation” in the effects section, which puts things into a semi-modular kind of territory that is ….wait, are there words I’m using even real words? They are, and there’s a real chance I’m using them correctly, but let me just say that there are some new toys in Reaper that I’m super-eager to play with because I think they’ll give me something very close to what I was imagining when I started this project.
One thing that living on the fourth floor, as opposed to the ground floor, offers us is the opportunity to leave the windows open at night. It is getting properly chilling in the deep parts of the night, which makes blankets feel that much better. It’s not like camping, but it does give the nights something of a “vacation bungalow” feeling sometimes. We both sleep better with the windows open, at least in the winter when the allergen-producing plants have the decency to keep it to themselves. There’s a full moon out there somewhere. I can’t see it, but I can see the shadows it’s casting. It’s a good night for sleeping, so I think I’ll do some of that now.
-RK