Journal – Page 2 – Stay With Me, Go Places

Under the Saskatoon Tree

Posted on 26 October, 2023 by Ridley

“It was a grey day under the Saskatoon tree.” Is it just me, or are things getting worse? I don’t know how to describe what’s happening in Palestine. It’s not a war. It reminds me of 9/11 in the worst possible way. A terrorist attack is going to be used as a pretext for the extermination of people who have nothing to do with it. The President of the U.S. ain’t helping. It was predictable that there would be a rush to show overwhelming support for Israel because, if there’s one thing that will get bipartisan support and votes a-plenty, it’s that. I was generally OK with our support of Ukraine on account of the fact that they were invaded by a more powerful neighbor and our allies in Western Europe were very much imperiled by this. I say this knowing damned well that altruism has/had nothing to do with it. There are profits to be made, after all. I get that all foreign policy is amoral¹. It always has been. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you a bill of goods. But, at least in Ukraine, we could say being on the right side coincided with whatever interests we’re pursuing. In Palestine, we’re on the side of the invaders so there’s no patina of righteousness to be had. And this guy Biden is somehow the lesser of two evils. No, really. The other guy is a gangster who has tried to overturn the previous election results, suggested we need to suspend the Constitution², and has promised to replace the career bureaucracy with people who are loyal to him alone. Oh, and he’s a rapist, a racist, a tax cheat, and a con man. At the risk of sounding alarmist, electing a President who tried to overthrow the government and has promised to ensure that the entire apparatus is loyal to him alone is probably it for this country as a democracy. Yeah, it’s always been a lot less of one than we were taught in school, but this would be crossing a line, or a “Rubicon” if you prefer. “Ridley,” you say, “that fellow is surely bound for prison! There are numerous ironclad cases proceeding against him and many of his inner circle have turned on him!” That would probably be true of anyone else, but underestimate DJT at your peril. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him push the trials against him past election day, and if he’s re-elected? That all goes away. He’s stated that he is bound by no laws. That will be significantly more true when he’s President. Of course, there’s a risk in underestimating Biden as well. My chronically online and deeply political friends may not see it in their circles, but Biden’s normalcy has enormous appeal to a lot of people. And make no mistake: He’s an extremely “normal” President when graded against others of his ilk. Hell, he even said during his campaign that nothing much would change. He sure kept that promise. Which, for a lot of us, is not a thing to be proud of. But, for folks who just want to get through the day without having the think about politics (a privileged position, sure), he has a lot of appeal. All of which is to say, I’m pretty mortified at the whole situation. Adding to my sense of hopelessness is the fact that the online leftists have remade themselves into “anti-Biden no matter what.” I get it. He’s awful. But, when that turns into apologia for Russia invading Ukraine, pretending like it’s a “civil war,” that the referendums should be taken seriously³, and falling in line behind a dingus like RFK, Jr.? Count me the fuck out. Y’all don’t give two shits about peace. You just want to oppose the U.S. and the Democratic Party, which, again, totally get it, but own it. So in a year, we’ll have a choice between two terrible candidates and the opposition will be pushing one who ain’t any better. Oh, and I live in Texas so that just adds another layer to the awfulness. It’s a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference. I feel drained. I’m struggling to do anything creative, consume anything beyond the basic distractions, care much about work, and my body feels…unwilling. It’ll pass, but man, this is a bad place. Nicole is doing everything humanly possible to prop my sorry ass up and I shudder to think what things would be like without her. So, I’m writing about how cruddy things are as if that’ll help. Real slick there, Ridley. I’m quite the chonk these days, so we’re working on that (my doctor kind of insisted). I have an ankle that is giving me real problems until I warm up, and I don’t know what to make of that so that’ll probably be an X-ray. Oh, and one of my really important specialists no longer takes our insurance, so the last visit was out-of-pocket and now I have to find a new doctor. Not looking forward to that. And, of course, there’s the fact that everything has just become crazy expensive. The inflation rate over the last three years has seriously eroded what was a pretty decent living I was making. We don’t eat out, we don’t go anywhere, but between the heat (which made for bonkers electric bills), the property tax escrow issue last year, and the fact that everything costs twice what it did three years ago? We’re losing ground. We’re not in any immediate danger, but it’s the sort of thing you can see looming on the horizon. That best answer, frankly, would be to leave. I’ve worked at companies that have failed and there’s a stink they get when they’re circling the drain. It’s the smell that comes from the investors milking out their last bit of value before they take the company behind the house and go Ol’ Yeller on ya. The owners are winding up the game. I’d bet on it. But, we have family here, we have cats, and frankly, with my poor hearing, anywhere but an English-speaking country would be a big problem. We’re probably here for the long haul, but if we had any sense…

The cover of the New Pornographers album Electric Version. It features a hand holding a microphone (maybe) up to a small moneky in what looks like the framework of a toy flying saucer. It's hard to desribe.

The Sound of God is the Screech of Tires

Posted on 22 September, 2023 by Ridley

In which we celebrate 20 years of one of the most important records ever (to me) The New Pornographers’ Electric Version turns 20 today. If you recognize the title of my blog, you probably already know I am a massive fan of the band. Electric Version, their second album, introduced me to their music and captured my heart. It also opened the door for all of those marvelous early 2000s bands that made me recognize that maybe, just maybe, the music from my high school years wasn’t the pinnacle of the form. In 2003, I was recently divorced. I’d also recently moved to Austin, having been laid off from my gig in Dallas after 9/11. These were difficult, but ultimately great times for me. Austin was still mostly “Austin” in those days. It was the era of online dating (pre-Tinder), which was probably the best scenario for me. I made loads of new friends, had good dates, had bad dates, got into LiveJournal, worked for a professional sports team, and found that my horizons had very much expanded. My musical tastes at the time were not subtle. The four defining bands of my persona were Nine Inch Nails, Public Enemy, Bad Religion, and They Might Be Giants (no matter how much I try to be “hard,” I’ll always be a silly goose). But, for all the leather-wearing and dye-my-hair-blackitude I was doing, there was always a side of me that loved Beatle-esque pop, big choruses, memorable melodies, and…fun music. Those tastes didn’t fit my pose, but they were there. Which brings us to one night at Casino el Camino. They always had the best jukebox in town (and the best burgers, and best bartenders and…you get the idea). I saw a record on there that I’d been meaning to listen to ever since I’d read about the band in Spin. I popped in a few bucks, played some songs, and went back to drinking my Shiner. Even though I’d never heard their music before, I knew immediately when the title track came on. It was fast, it was fun, it wasn’t trying to rock harder than it needed to, and had immaculate harmonies. Love at first listen. I played the whole record on the jukebox and bought it at Waterloo the next day. It’s still in heavy rotation here. I won’t go track by track, but the first four songs would make what might be the finest EP in psych-pop history. “Electric Version,” “From Blown Speakers,” “The Laws Have Changed,” and “The End of Medicine” are each perfect in their own right and mind-blowing when combined. The album also has the finest ode to teen celibacy ever written (“Testament to Youth in Verse“) with an incredible a capella/jingle bell-filled-out chorus. If that sentence doesn’t make you want to listen, then this probably ain’t the record for you. The primary singers are A.C. Newman and Neko Case, both of whom are geniuses on their own. They take pride in their harmonies and polish their work to a mylar sheen. What keeps things from getting too sugary is the presence of Dan Bejar. You may know him from his solo band Destroyer (and if you don’t, you should because it’s great). Bejar brings a much looser, more jaded, and worldly tone to the band. It’s a damn near perfect record start-to-finish and here’s the thing: They just kept making damn near perfect records and still do. If you like it, you’ll probably like Mass Romantic, Twin Cinema, Challengers, and so on. Electric Version remains my favorite, but I’m biased. They haven’t made a bad record, or even a merely good one, yet. But wait, that’s not all! Not only did this record knock me on my buttocks in 2003, it also opened up my eyes to the fact that there was an incredible amount of great music being made at the time. Hell, just the Matador Records crew (Interpol, Cat Power, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and so many more). You had Metric, The Futureheads, Arcade Fire, Kaiser Chiefs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Postal Service, Dresden Dolls, Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai, Sigur Ros, Soundpool, Ladytron, Glasvegas, Longwave, Los Campesinos! (especially Los Camp!), MGMT, Rilo Kiley, The Hives, and my beloved Ambulance, LTD. I’m just scratching the surface here. I know I’m grouping unlike things, but the point is that I literally couldn’t keep up with how much great new music was being made. I can’t remember anything like that outburst. It was Electric Version that opened the floodgates for me. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years now. I have to remind myself that those bands aren’t “new music” anymore because they all still feel new to me. Thanks for hanging out with me for this. I’ve listened to the re-release (available digitally and on vinyl at Bandcamp) multiple times today and, in my semi-humble opinion, it holds up beautifully. I hope you like ’em as much as I do. I just can’t believe it’s been 20 years. -RK

A photo of a fake deco clock and an old Russian camera from my old apartment. It was taken with another old Russian camera with serious curtain issues.

Fingiendo Como Cubano

Posted on 21 September, 2023 by Ridley

One of our favorite places to visit had a ridiculous sale this weekend and we couldn’t say no. For those of you who know us, you’ve probably already guessed, but we’re having a nice, relaxing time at the Hotel Havana. We needed this. The weather, the political climate (when did “hate” become a legitimate position? Don’t bother answering because it’s always been that way), and some deeply weird shit at work has left us on edge. And, loathe though I am to admit it, a night away from our four cats feels like a relief. A big, clean bed without any cat litter crumbs is a luxury we’ve not experienced for some time. I’m falling back into my COVID routine even though we don’t have it, which is a good thing I guess. Finding ways to stay amused away from the crowds, wearing masks, baking bread, and stuff like that. I guess that’s appropriate given that the virus is coming back with a vengeance (get your shots, folks). It’s not just me. The masks are coming back at the grocery store and other shops, the curbside slots are filling up again. I’m hoping we take it a little more seriously this time. The virus killed more Americans than any war (or all wars combined if you’re not feeling generous towards the confederacy) and the survivors are going to tax an already dysfunctional healthcare system. I’m not feeling optimistic. The bread, on the other hand, has been great. We love the little town where we’ve landed, but it seems to be slightly cursed. We haven’t had any rain to speak of since May. It’s bad enough that some of our trees have started losing branches. What’s coming down feels lighter than balsa wood. It’s that dry. Oh sure, we’re saving on lawn mowing, but this weather is getting old. We’re still topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day. We have the heat and dryness of the desert but none of the rugged charm. I like deserts, but that’s probably because I’ve never lived in one. The grass is always greener. Compared to what we have, any grass would be. Work’s in a weird place right now. I don’t want to go into detail, but a lot is going on. One note, though, and it’s not just the company I work for. Getting pay adjustments to consider inflation is like pulling teeth. I know that’s hardly news, but having to fight for a 4% raise for an employee is frustrating. “Are they 4% better than last year?” The answer is “yes,” but that’s not the important thing. The money we’re paying that employee is worth 4% less than it was last year. A 4% raise is just a cost of living adjustment and should be given across the board. Otherwise, you’re giving your employees an effective pay cut. Unionize everything. Finally, something that’s weighing on me a little personally: I think my fantasy baseball league is going to die. That’s a small thing in most ways, but this is a league my father and I were involved with starting…oh lord, has it been 25 years now? I think so. I disagreed with my father about a lot of things, serious things, but we could at least always talk about baseball. Now? He’s gone, I don’t think I’ve seen a major league game in over a decade (Nicole likes minor league parks even though she doesn’t care about the sport), and we’re getting old. I’ve been the youngest person in the league for most of its run and my beard is fully white now. The other guys (and yes, it’s all guys) are really getting up there. Most of us have moved away from the Dallas areas where we started the league. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’d tell you I haven’t enjoyed the league for some time. That’s not the point, though. It’s a “thing that had been around long enough to feel permanent suddenly not being there” feeling. Time plays the long game. -RK

“Matchmaker, Matchmaker” in Eorzean

Posted on 19 September, 2023 by Ridley

In which we try to find a suitable NPC partner for my FFXIV Warrior of Light. This is some niche stuff here. My WoL, a white mage who has defeated the Garlean invasion of the Eorzean alliance, accomplished some extremely political stuff in Ishgard that I won’t describe in detail as it gets very spoiler-y, fought for both Ala Mhigan and Doman independence, fought back against the flood of the light in The First, and saved the universe from The Final Days at the very edge of said universe, has a problem: All of the aforementioned accomplishments have left little time for socializing. I’ve played the game largely as a solo adventure, having never joined a free company or even made friends with any of the other players. This is very much my kind of MMO. Having read many accounts of people shipping their OC with any number of NPCs (I told you this was niche), I started wondering: “Which NPC would be attractive to my WoL, and which would he consider a relationship with?” Let’s start with the position that his tastes are not wildly different than my own. He’s a little more adventurous than I am, but not so much so that he would be interested in any but the most incredibly attractive males (and, assuming you’ve played through Endwalker, you can probably guess a name or two who might be an exception to the rule). With that out of the way, let’s get started. We’ll break it out by expansion to keep this from being a wall of text. Update: My wife has started playing! Obviously, her Lallafel summoner has my heart, but I don’t want to discard all this work. Besides, now that she’s playing Heavensward, she has discovered that there are numerous tasty Elezen boys. She has a very specific glamour for her meetings with the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights and is constantly trying to shoo Alphinaud away from their encounters. Not that I can blame her. Anyway, the point is that in-game, this poor cat boy may not be as taken as he thought he was. Update 2: She’s about to do The Vault for the first time. This is gonna be rough. Obviously, Quta’wo is a good deal more attractive than I am. And he has a capybara. Not gonna lie: I’m pretty jealous of him. A Realm Reborn: Y’Shtola Rhul: The walking thirst trap is the obvious place to start. She’s beautiful, she’s brilliant, she has the most cutting wit of anyone in the game, and she’s another Miqo’te. What’s not to like? Well, the biggest problem is that, as of Shadowbringers, her heart resides in The First. And, to be honest, while she’s undeniably attractive, she’s not the woman for Quta’wo. That’s not just sour grapes. Honest. Minfilia Warde: Probably the most OS* character design of any of the main NPCs, her characterization is weirdly thin. She’s also a little too much an avatar of Hydaelyn to be her own person and she’s kind of…unavailable…by the end of the expansion. Plus, and this is key: Thancred would kill me. *that’s “overtly sexual” for any of you who aren’t Arrested Development fans Thancred Waters: The himbo of the scions, Thancred is the only guy in ARR who’d be tempting. However, after his demise (he gets better), he comes back with a soul patch. Hard pass. Yda Hext: Aside from the fact that (if you know the spoiler here, you know, but I ain’t saying it), Yda’s a keeper. Headstrong, funny, independent, but also very caring towards those she holds dear. Pity about that spoiler, though. Tataru Taru: Good lord. That would be a match, wouldn’t it? Honestly? After I get over the shock of even thinking of what it would be like to be in a relationship with this whirlwind of organization (she would have spreadsheets for everything), Tatatu is pretty great. Another maybe. Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn: The Chief Admiral of Limsa Lominsa, the former pirate is mostly business-first (she’s the leader of a city-state after all). She’s married to her job. I don’t see her as being down for any kind of committed, long-term thing. Kan-E-Senna: Unlike Merlwyb, Kan-E-Senna is married to her role more than her job. She recognizes that she’s a symbol of hope for Gridania and she has subsumed her own wishes to the role she plays. That said, as a native Gridanian and a fellow White Mage, she and Quta’wo have a lot in common. If they ever could find some time to spend together away from their day jobs? Also, is it just me or does she get a little flirty at the end of the tank role quest from Endwalker? Strong maybe. Nanamo Ul Namo: The Sultana of Ul’Dah, on the other hand, would like nothing more than to escape her job and/or role from time to time. She is easily the closest and most familiar of the heads of the Eorzean city-states. Her sense of humor and her understanding of how the world is going to change whether we will it or not make her another “maybe,” with the caveat that Raubahn would literally kill anyone who did wrong by the Sultana. Mother Miounne: She doesn’t play much of a role in the story once Quta’wo’s career is launched, but she has a lot going for her. She knows more than she lets on, she’s a great judge of character, and as an innkeeper/bartender…well, you have to have a certain personality to do those jobs and that’s a good thing. 100% she rolled a tank class when she was an adventurer. Underrated. Also “maybe.” Lunia sas Junius: Included for completeness rather than as a serious possibility. She’s a horrible person who knows what she did and if spurning her adds to it? So much the better. Heavensward: Alisaie Leveilleur: Someday in the future, Alisaie is going to make the best partner of anyone in the game, bar none. While her twin has a passion for trying to save the world, Alisaie’s passion is for saving every person which isn’t the same thing at all. She communicates better than anyone else Quta’wo has met, her heart is in exactly the right place, and she has the willpower to act on those feelings. But she’s 16 and only a cad…

A Fall of Rain? That Must Have Been Another of Your Dreams

Posted on 28 August, 202328 August, 2023 by Ridley

8/22/2023 It rained this afternoon. That was the first rain to reach the ground here since mid-May. It’s normally dry here, but not this dry. That made the day feel a bit surreal. Everyone seemed to be aware that there was a chance of rain, but almost afraid to speak of it for fear of jinxing it. And then, suddenly, the sky opened up, and we got a month’s worth of precipitation in an hour. Joy mixed with fear. The weather had been so hot and so dry that trees were dying. We had a branch, a full foot in diameter, fall between our car and our neighbor’s house on Monday. The wind was suddenly tropical, and the rain was ripping the leaves off of the trees. And then it stopped. The sky was still, the air was full, but there would be no more rain. Still, it was enough. If you’ve ever seen nature specials about the desert, then you’ve seen how the plants reacted. Dry stalks came back to life and turned green so fast you didn’t need time-lapse photography to see it. Today didn’t feel real. I love days like this. I’m trying an experiment. I’m trying to repurpose a decade-old Dell laptop. It’s worthless as a Windows computer even with a fresh install. I’ve got another old laptop I’m running MX on and, it’s fine, but I thought it’d be interesting to try something different. I put ChromeOS Flex on this machine to see how it would work. The answer is “shockingly well.” It’s essentially just a Chrome browser running on top of a Linux kernel, so it’s fast as all get out (I live in Texas; I’m allowed to use phrases like that). Now, this being my old work computer, it’s a pretty standard hardware setup and it’s on the “ChromeOS Flex-compatible” list, so my experience may not be universal. My experience, so far, has been excellent. It turns out that an old business-grade laptop runs rings around the hardware that’s used for most Chromebooks. The setup was nothing. Download the installer, copy it to a thumb drive, boot it to the thumb drive, and click “install.” So long as you don’t have any kind of boot protection on your machine, you can legitimately be fully up and running in 15-30 minutes. That’s kind of ridiculous. Now, this only makes sense if you’re a Google user and there are ample reasons to avoid having anything to do with them. I’m phasing them out as we speak. But, for an office stuck with a bunch of hardware that’s in good condition but out of support? It seems like a pretty attractive option. The ironic part here is that I’m using an old Windows laptop to replace my Chromebook because…my Chromebook is too old to receive updates. Funny old world, innit? 8/28/2023 Well, I lost momentum really quickly there, didn’t I? I’m struggling to do anything beyond “get through the day” at this point. The world feels broken. The weather has gone back to impossibly hot. In my youth, I reveled in weather like this, but that was many years and about a hundred pounds ago. Now it just drains me. Work is, well, it’s work. It feels worse than normal right now, but I can’t be sure this isn’t recency bias. We have never been, shall we say, a process-driven operation and there seems to be no enthusiasm for changing this. Same as it ever was. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you just how surreal the whole national scene is right now. The governor of my state has made cruelty the number one priority. Whether it’s tossing children into a river filled with sawblades, replacing school libraries with detention centers, taking the governing functions of cities that vote against his party, denying needed medical care for vulnerable populations, or just trying to ensure that there are as many mass shootings as possible, it’s depressing. It doesn’t help that the attorney general is openly corrupt and has been under indictment his entire term. Oh, and COVID is back with a vengeance and we seem to have learned less than nothing. Of course, the fact that a man who openly tried to overthrow the government is a leading contender to be the next President is just incredible. I don’t think anyone genuinely doubts that this man is absolutely steeped in criminal activity, not even his supporters. That’s the bit that’s depressing. It’s not that evil people exist, it’s that their evil acts increase their popularity with a frightening number of people. Yeah, it’s so “Homelander” that I’m not even going to link it. It literally hurts me to try to wrap my head around it. This fills me with a sense of “what’s the point.” Let’s ask grumpy mustache man: Thanks, Cameron. Y’all oughtta follow him if you like making music or just enjoy a silky baritone in the key of nihilism. I just found that a friend had posted on exactly this subject two weeks ago and I just saw it. I need to clean up my RSS so it’s just shit I care about. I’m also transitioning away from the Google-sphere and I’m missing stuff, so if need to call something to my attention, please don’t hesitate to blow me up on every channel. Side note: I need fewer channels. Second side note: The concept of “friend” is so fucking weird now, isn’t it? Anyway, yeah, I’m feeling a lot of “what’s the fucking point.” I love hanging out with my wife, cooking with her, playing games, and petting cats, but outside of that, I’m a bit paralyzed but the awfulness of…everything. My therapist would kick me for saying that, but that’s where I am. Unfortunately, I reckon I’m the only one who can restart this motor, so…let’s see what we can do. Sorry I don’t have a hugely optimistic wrap-up, but, as you may have guessed, I’m not feeling hugely optimistic right now. -RK

Art deco skulls smoking with the word reminiscences over their head

The Bird and the X

Posted on 27 July, 202327 July, 2023 by Ridley

Yeah, I think I’m done. I still have a ton of friends on Twitter and there are folks I’ll miss, but…this shit just isn’t good for me anymore. Under the old management, there were obvious problems: The algorithm leaned to the right (by their own admission), the moderation was inconsistent, they couldn’t settle on a feed (make it chronological), wouldn’t add an “edit” button, but it was free and you could usually curate your follow list into something that was useful to you. The current owner seems to have really leaned into the flaws as though they were strengths. While he’s done the world a great service by demonstrating that billionaires are bad people and not even necessarily clever, he doesn’t seem to have a handle on what made Twitter appealing. The algorithm is a trash-fire, the site is wildly unreliable, it seems like the answer to every problem is “pay for Twitter,” and then there’s the moderation. I reported a bunch of tweets for misgendering a woman because, you know, they were. That’s explicitly one of the things you can report a tweet for. Unusually, I received a response to my report and the response was “Yeah, no, this is totes OK now LOL!” (I may be paraphrasing). So, yeah…that sort of crap is now Twitter-Approved! As for the algorithm, it seems to have its “encourage a race to maximum radicalization” turned up to 11. You might think I’d be pointing my fingers at the right-wing, and yeah, there is oh-so-very-much of this. What’s interesting and infuriating is the far left race to the bottom. I listed a bunch of examples and decided against posting them. Let’s just say that it’s just as bad and leave it at that. I don’t need that garbage in my life. I’m getting riled up just thinking about it and I’m tired of it. I was willing to put up with some of it, but the balance between “useful content” and “rage bait” is getting worse. It was already a compromise, and an increasingly dicey one. Of course, it’s not as simple as deleting my account. It never is. I want to keep the account alive in case anyone tries to reach out to me and to ensure that the username doesn’t get picked up and spoofed (not that there’s a lot of value in spoofing me, but still…). But, I would like to remove my tweets. There is, of course, no mass delete function. There are 3rd party tools to do it, but they are expensive now that the API has been restricted. The default functionality isn’t especially reliable, but there’s a workaround: You just have to provide the ID of each tweet you want to delete. This is a pain in the behind. You have to request an archive of your tweets from Twitter, come back a day later. Then, when you download and unzip the archive, you find that everything is in pseudo-JSON files and it isn’t immediately obvious what is where. So you have to find where the tweets are, find the field with the ID, find a way to parse the JSON into a list of IDs, paste that into the 3rd party tool, and voila! It’s worth it though. I don’t leave stuff up on an abandoned account since there’s nothing but downside to doing that. I’ll just leave links to where I can really be found and leave it at that. As for “where I can be found,” I’m rethinking that as well. Bluesky would be the 1-for-1 Twitter alternative and that appeals to me less than you’d think. Mr. Dorsey sold us out once already and there’s no reason to think he won’t do it again. I’ve been doing the “everyone is here!” social networking for a long time now and it has never been as satisfying to me as the LiveJournal “a smaller group of mostly friendly-minded folks sharing their diaries” paradigm. I understand that there is value in having the opportunity for broad engagement. If I were to ever write a book or make a real album, that would be helpful. But, if I’m being honest here: I do not do “engagement” well on Twitter. When I look at the traffic this blog gets, most of it comes from search engines, Facebook, and then Mastodon. Even with several hundred followers on Twitter, I might get two clicks. I’m really not losing anything in that sense. Speaking of Mastodon, I’m enjoying it. Not nearly as much going on, but I’m pretty happy with that. There’s not the sense of missing anything if I take a few days off. I like that. I don’t think the twitchy refresh every few minutes cadence of Twitter is good for me. The people I interact with aren’t celebs, generally aren’t people I know in real life, but I’ve enjoyed the conversations I’ve had. So, I’m committed to making it work. Anything else? I’ll keep my eyes open to see if any other social network looks like it’s worth checking out. Maybe I’ll give Ello another look-I always liked the look of it and it certainly had a vibe. But…maybe it’s a hole that I don’t need to fill? Oh, and of course, the “X” thing is just dumb, but that’s Elon for ya. -RK

There and Back Again

Posted on 25 July, 202325 July, 2023 by Ridley

A short holiday during which Nothing Much was done and it was Glorious OK, let’s just cut to the chase here. We got to hand-feed Galapagos tortoises and capybaras! Even in the heat (and the heat was significant), this was a very good time. These are the same capybaras we’ve encountered before. They’re much more accustomed to being around people, much more insistent with the feeding, and much less likely to run away if you move in an unexpected fashion. This was our first time meeting the tortoises. They don’t move quickly, but they do move insistently and they will corner you if you let them. Not in a threatening way, mind you, just in a “we know you have lettuces and we would like very much to partake of them” sense. They were a bit of a revelation; they demonstrated far more personality than we expected and I would recommend them to anyone who likes spending time with giant, gentle creatures. I took all my social media off my phone during my time off and it’s making me re-think what I’m doing on Twitter, Facebook, et al. I have more to say on that subject, but it was a nice change of pace, not being fed things designed to make me angry. I’d like to say I’m too clever to fall for it, but I very much am not. The whole point of taking the time off was…well, it wasn’t the point when I scheduled it, but I needed to defrag. A very large project is winding down and, while it was successful, it could/should have been more successful and that’s down to me not recognizing where fires were burning behind signs that said “everything’s fine!” Frustrating. So, the goal was just to let some of that tension go and not think about work for a few days. Sadly, two-day weekends are nowhere near sufficient to recharge the batteries anymore. An entire day was spent, wasted really, just being horizontal and not doing much of anything because I just didn’t have it in me to do much of anything. You know that feeling when you think you’re squandering your precious time off by not doing the dozens of things you’ve been putting off? Yeah, very much that. It was necessary, but still… So we did a lot of exploring on the other days. We’ve been eating at home almost every night for months, so we found some decent places to eat. This is the sort of thing we used to do quite a bit in the before-times, but money doesn’t go as far as it used to. It feels very luxurious today, even if the places we’re going are “pizza by the slice” and “Vietnamese sandwiches.” And, to be fair, they were very good so they were luxurious. When I sat down to right this, I was imagining more of a travelogue but it wasn’t that kind of a vacation. This was a disconnect/retreat/recharge thing and we are so fortunate to live in a place that’s more than a little disconnected. That helped. So did shutting myself off from work and from my immediate distractions. Which is a long way of saying ‘We really didn’t do much, but that was what I needed.” We did go out and about Saturday and Sunday and it got a bit surreal. You might be aware that it has been warm in the American southwest of late. “Warm” in this case meaning “weeks on end with high temperatures over 100 F and no rain at all.” On our way home on Sunday, we came through San Marcos which is only 20 miles north of here. We drove through a flash flood, the kind that covers streets in a foot or more of water and turns traffic lights into blinking red beacons. Did we get any rain at home? No, no we did not. There were traces of heavy rain as close at 5 miles north of our house, but when we got home, there was nothing. I am certain that there’s a metaphor lurking in there somewhere, but I’m not sure what it is. So…that’s it? Yeah, that’s about it. Sometimes you have to dig through a box to realize there’s not as much in it as you thought, but at least you cleaned the box out. Or something. In the words of Sr. Cardgage: “I dunno.” -RK

Homemade Polytimbral

Posted on 10 July, 202310 July, 2023 by Ridley

In which I do something fairly basic with electronic musical instruments and feel quite accomplished. This weekend, I decided to stop faffing about and Do The Thing. There’s a song I’ve been working on for a long time and the writing is probably 75% complete, but nothing has been recorded. So, my self-assigned remit: Get something on (virtual) tape so I can mess with it, figure out what works, what doesn’t, and move forward. One thing I’ve been struggling with is the sound design. I really want to do this on hardware instruments instead of virtual ones, at least for the initial pass, but haven’t found any patch that gets the “right” sound for the main section. I have a lot of good sounds, but not the one I’ve been looking for. But what if I stack multiple sounds on top of each other? Now, three of my four big polysynths can do that but it comes at a price. They go from being capable of eight notes at once to four note at once. For this particular section, that’s not an issue, but still…there’s a better answer. What if I connected the four over MIDI and just used a different patch on each synth? So, let’s control it all from the DW8000 and use it for a nice fuzzy pad. The SQ80‘s strength is chime-like transient attacks that fad into a dreamy sustain, so let’s do that. The VZ-1 gets to do the low note to make it sound huge. The CZ-1 finishes it with a slow-attack, evolving sweep. Seamus perched on the DW8000 at my old apartment. He was one of the many reasons I couldn’t have nice things, but he was nicer than them all, so it was worth it. After playing with the volume levels to get the mix it right it sounded…awesome! OK, inspiration is now flowing. I sat down and recorded it against a click and, after 10-15 takes, I got something down. As usual (for me at least), the timing accuracy was…not great. So, I re-recorded it as a MIDI track (think of that as recording a roll for a player piano that can then be played back on any piano over and over) and corrected the timing and…hey, we’re sounding pretty good. Too good, if I’m being honest. But, I kept the original audio track, so what if we play them side by side? Word to the wise: If your timing is anything like mine? Don’t do that. Ugh. It sounded like a poor performer trying to play along with a good one. However, all was not lost. I could move the “imperfect” performance…wait, no, let’s not put that in quotes. Let’s take the imperfect performance and drop the volume down to about half what it was and give it a ton of reverb to smoosh it around a bit. Now I’m super excited because that sounds fantastic. Now to record the playback of the MIDI track. To do that, I have to send the MIDI data (the piano roll) to the first synth in the chain and record the output. Unfortunately, that’s literally what happened. I was getting the DW8000 but none of the other synths were playing. That defeats the whole point of the damned thing. After half an hour of beating my head against the wall, the solution dawned on me and I felt really…not smart. To explain, we have to go back to the dawn of MIDI, the networking protocol that musical instruments still use to talk to each other and to computers. All three of my keyboards have three MIDI ports on the back. The first two are the ones I used the most often: “In” and “Out.” They’re pretty self explanatory. “In” is used to receive information from another source. “Out” is used to send data from the machine to other machines. What was happening was I was sending data from the computer (the piano roll) into the “In” port on the DW8000 and it was playing it. However, nothing was going out to the other machines because I wasn’t actually playing anything on the DW8000. I needed to use…the “Thru” port! “Thru” takes the information going to the “In” port and passes it on down the chain. Once I switch the where the cable from the DW8000 to the SQ80 was plugged in, it all worked brilliantly. So THAT’S what that one on the left is for! So…yay! Stuff that anyone who knew what they were doing would have sorted in a matter of minutes, but that’s how one learns. For funsies, I did a drum track with the MS-1 instead of a proper drum machine. The kick, tom, and snare all sound…passable, but totally inappropriate for what I’m trying to do with this track. All in all, there’s still a lot of work to do, but I’m well pleased with what I have and I’ve learned some new tricks along the way. I intended for this post to be about how much fun this weekend was. That’ll have to wait, but Coco found some awesome stuff that I can’t wait to share even though I just said it’ll have to wait. Bother. Thanks for sticking with me through this. I hope you found it a little interesting.

Happy birthday, Aymeric (part 2)

Posted on 5 July, 20235 July, 2023 by Ridley

So, we had a party. Nicole is amazing at throwing parties. She’s doubleplus good at throwing parties for animals. She set up the room with the cats absent as they have a habit of eating (or at least gnawing on) decorations. The first thing we did was set up Aymeric’s tower, nicknamed Ishgard, in the living room (that’s Jermajesty in the background). Bonus points if you know the origin of the “no loafing” sign. And no, it’s not Homestar Runner. Next up, we brought out the presents! Again, this was largely Nicole’s doing because she is the best. Of course, it’s not a birthday without a cake. Cats don’t generally like actual cake (although Aymeric is obsessed with bread), so this cake consists of a Fancy Feast pate treat on a bed of Churru and a non-burning “candle” because he’s had enough fireworks for a lifetime. The cake was a hit! Ramza was thrilled for his brother! Just kidding, he was jealous AF. The first present we unwrapped was the new feather toy. Aymeric likes feather toys…a lot. He goes through them at an alarming and expensive rate. He looks sad because the video of him playing tug of war didn’t load properly. Once we finally got him away from the toy, we unwrapped the salmon treats and the “rainy day puzzle & play” toy. It’s one of those toys that lets you hide treats inside it and it challenges the cat to try to figure out how to get to the treats. I was skeptical at first. I should not have been. This thing worked like you wouldn’t believe. I’m so proud of my boy for working out most of the puzzles. Not all of ’em, so the room still sort of reeks of salmon, but it’s a good start. Meanwhile, Ramza being Ramza, he just had to find a way to get into the box the toy came in. The box being less than an inch and a half tall. So, my little baby boy is a year old today. Thanks for sticking around this long for a second round of “here are some orange cats that are totally different than the other orange cats on the internet for…reasons.” Here’s the full birthday photo-op setup that Nicole made because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, she’s the best. Please no comments about the…you know. It was an innocent and honest mistake. We all make them. Anyway, I love this kitty so much. I hope I give him the life he deserves which is the best life in the history of ever. -RK

My perfect orange kitten sleeping on my foot.

Happy Birthday, baby Aymeric (part 1)

Posted on 4 July, 20234 July, 2023 by Ridley

Baby Aymeric is a baby no more. Since he was a stray we picked up from a shelter, we don’t know the exact day of his nativity. We worked our way back from his approximate age, made an estimate, and arbitrarily chose 4 July as the date. “Easy to remember” was a major consideration in the decision. This means that today, we celebrate his first birthday and his passage into what is ostensibly maturity although you’d never know it if you spent any time with him. He will probably always be The Baby well into his dotage. It’s those eyes. Well, the eyes and the fact that he acts like an idiot half the time and a perfect angel the rest. Here is the photograph that broke my heart: It’s the photo the shelter put on its adoption website. That is one scared kitten. I wasn’t looking to adopt but I couldn’t forget the look on his face and I kept the adoption site up on my desktop for a couple of weeks. I was starting to get worried that he might be deemed unadoptable and I imagined the worse. Nicole wasn’t having it and drove me there to meet him. He was still there, the only cat in the building, in a stainless steel cage with just a tiny blanket. Dogs were constantly parking. They put us in the meeting room right next to all the dog cages. It got even louder in there and Panther (as they called him) curled up behind my back to shelter himself. My kitten, right from the start. I couldn’t take him home immediately; he still need shots and neutering. It was a long couple of days until we could bring him home. Because he was so small and had obviously been feral at some point, we delayed introducing him to Ramza and Red Velvet. He lived in my office, hiding behind or underneath whatever would make him comfortable. Day 1. You can see the little pet taxi carrier in the foreground there. That was the first time I ever got to pet him. Nicole, the paragon of patience that she is, couldn’t wait to introduce him to Ramza. In fairness, Ramza was showing tremendous interest and couldn’t be budged from outside my office door. The first meeting was a little tense, but they quickly grew close. Ramza took the mantle of “big brother” and ran with it. Red Velvet, being Red Velvet, wanted nothing to do with either of them. Fortunately, the boys were inseparable and didn’t really want to mess with Red Velvet either. All of those photos are from Aymeric’s first month with us. They warmed up to each other pretty quickly. And, it wasn’t long before he was sleeping on me as well. Nicole, in the most Nicole way possible, did everything she could to make the kitten feel welcome. Check out this gym she made for him. Oh, and we bought that blanket because we thought it would look good with his color. We were right. He celebrated his first Christmas with us in typical Aymeric style. He showed little interest in the presents and was utterly enthralled by the tree: As luck would have it, his mostest favoritest thing is climbing into my arms and rumbling really loud (as opposed to his brother, who likes to jump onto my back when I’m upright which is unpleasant from my point of view). My little kitten isn’t a kitten anymore. He’s still a baby, though. He’s an incredibly loving friend who brings me more comfort than I can express. I had no idea what I was getting into when I brought him home, but I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter kitty. I hope he feels safe, comfortable, and free from want. He deserves the best life and I’m committed to doing the best I can to give it to him. To be continued… -RK