Today I met someone who had a surgical intervention where they added a cadaver bone to his back and…I had no idea that was a thing?
🕊️ Interesting historical perspective on “community of goods”.
Of course, there is a variety of interpretations today, too, especially with Bruderhof entering the mix. #Anabaptism500
🎲📚 Following up from my last post:
My top shelf is coming along. It’s got the “really phenomenal physical artifact” books. Tag yourself! #TTRPG
Not shown:
- Trilemma Adventures 1 (it’s sideways)
- Vaults of Vaarn (currently being used for inspiration)
- solo or BWHQ books (have their own shelves)
🎲 What’s the best place to resell RPG books these days? #TTRPG
For perspective, these are everything from “still in the wrapper” to “classic and gently used”
No, you’re pouring a protein shake into protein cereal.
🗳️ The new Indiana governor is doing some Vice Signaling and ordering the flag to go back up on the 20th
“Oligarchically Correct” is useful terminology.
🐾 Everyone please welcome Holly.
Here she is being a little bit of a rascal and on the lookout for floofy borbs:
She’s a 10 month or so beagle-terrier-and-what-have-you. She plays hard but also naps & snuggles hard.
She’s doing great with us and we’re lucky to have found her!
🎶 I was really hoping the saxophonist on ESA’s “Saturnalia” was Christoph Clöser (from Bohren & Der Club of Gore and a guest appearance on Kardashev’s “Beyond the Passage of Embers”) but it’s Matt “chops” Thompson.
Either way, I missed my calling playing sax for jazz, metal, and industrial.
🎶 good beats about cryptids. What’s not to like?
🎥 it’s Nosferatu day!
I would have preferred Lasombra or Malkavian, but you take the win you can. 🧛🏻
📚 Several folks have recently asked why I use something other than Goodreads, and particularly “why Storygraph":
- It’s not hijacked by Amazon, yet
- The non-quantitative review elements (moods, questions, etc.) are much more useful to me than seeing that everything is 4.5 to 5 stars
🎲🃏♟️ Answering my own question about STLs for GameLib Pocket yes, they are here.
There are STLs for boxes and for board pieces (of various sizes).
🎶 Looks like Daveed Diggs and clipping. will continue to lean into the industrial rap angle. Looking forward to this release: Dead Channel Sky.
🎶 I was reminded of “Instafest” when looking at my archives. Please enjoy my music festival courtesy of my 2024 listening.
2024 Reviews Collection
- 🎶 Music
- 📚 Books (forthcoming)
- 🎲🃏🕹️♟️ Games (forthcoming)
- Meta-blogging (forthcoming)
- By the Numbers (a personal update) (forthcoming)
- TV/Film (forthcoming)
- Podcasts/Periodicals (forthcoming)
🎶 2024 Music Review
2024 was the year that I found out that iTunes Match and Apple Music were “eating” my music by dropping files, replacing with different editions/formats, or failing to sync some material. I already knew that Google did terrible things when going from Google Play Music to Youtube music, but Apple was a surprise to me. I resolved to not let such things happen any more.
I set out to rebuild my library by:
- re-downloading lossless versions of my Bandcamp purchases
- getting the best format download from other places I’d bought digital music
- re-ripping our CDs in lossless format
- backing it all up
- normalizing metadata with MusicBrainz Picard
- running Plex Media Server to share the music
- running Tailscale to make the server available without putting it directly on the web
- running PlexAmp clients for an awesome listening experience
- scrobbling my listening with last.fm
I’m not finished with the project, but I have over 200 artists, 600 albums, and 6000 tracks re-deployed, with much more to come. Because I’m not complete, the listening may not have as much variety as it could have.
Artists:
- Clubroot is my go-to for evening chillout music
- Juno Reactor is a constant fave
- 3-5 are prolific industrial-ish artists that use various project pseudonyms, and I listen to a lot of each
Albums:
- HolyName’s self-titled is sorta doomcore taize and is a great Sunday listen
- Excursions is a collection of early Front Line Assembly side-project work
- Imagine… is a re-release of Juno Reactor’s first 5 albums as a compilation
- Celldweller is another project from Circle of Dust (Klayton/Scott) which has probably eclipsed CoD
- A Homeland Denied was a hardcore compilation as benefit for Palestinians
- Trans-Siberian Orchestra broke in for me this year, mostly because of their Christmas music
Tracks:
- 1 and 3 are a couple of those excellent Clubroot grooves
- Hammer & Gavel is a prophetic anthem from a 2-person wall of sound I discovered this year (American Arson)
- HATEFUL is a single from HEALTH and my favorite thing from them so far
- Listen! was one of my “listen on repeat tracks” this year from Oak Pantheon’s excellent 2023 album “The Absence”
- Kindred Void (and some other Koan Sound) tracks get honorable mentions
As usual, Industrial, Electronic, Metalcore, Rock, and Metal dominate my listening (with many varied subgenres therein).
We are not surprised my listening is not “normal”. I also expect this chart is not my normal either due to the project I mentioned at the start of this post. I’m not sure how useful these are, especially with no definitions. I’m sharing them anyway.
Stay tuned to get a copy of my “faves” playlist, courtesy of Album Whale.
What was your favorite this year? Anything you discovered?
📝 I confess I have once again changed my writing tools:
- Sharing and public documents are in craft.do
- Working space is in obsidian.md
- Handwritten (paper, digital) notes get improrted daily
🗳️ Is there a reputable list of all the major donors to the inauguration fund?
(Also, let’s call them what they are: bribes)