November Music

After cleaning the kitchen, dining room, living room, and the hallway that links them all together today I did what anyone would do. I finally started putting some thought into this month’s music project.

It’s going to be two suites of about 15 minutes. Each suite will be a handful of songs. Each song will end on some sort of coda that is unrelated to the rest of the song. The next song in the suite will start with a variation of the previous song’s coda.

Dig it?

I have the bass and drums down for the first suite. It’s looking like it’s going to be about 16-17 minutes long. National Solo Album Month’s rules require a grand total of 29 minutes and change (the length of The Ramones first record). I’ve got a long way to go, but at least I made some progress. I want to use the guitar that is currently in the shop for most if not all of the guitar tracks, so hopefully I get it back soon. Otherwise I’ll just use a different guitar.

I’m probably going to fail this month’s challenge miserably, but at least I am putting in a little effort to make me feel good about myself, or some shit. Whatever, right?

Music!

Podcasts

What podcasts are you listening to?

Daily writing prompt

Woah boy, you’re getting a list for this one. I listen to literally all of them, figuratively. Guitar podcasts, sports podcasts, tech podcasts, and so very many television and movie podcasts. So many. So very, very many TV podcasts. You’re getting a list, folks!

Just looking at the Podcasts app on my MacBook Pro to see what is currently queued up. Here are a few (in no particular order, though it quickly becomes kind of alphabetical when I stopped reading off of my latest episodes queue and started looking at my list of subscribed shows. Also the ones that are in bold text are the ones I never miss an episode)…

  • Grumpy Old Geeks
  • The ‘Cast of Us (formerly known as The Walking Dead ‘Cast)
  • The Talking Dead
  • 60 Cycle Hum
  • The 40 Watt Podcast
  • A Little Bit Culty
  • Bald Move Pulp
  • Bastards of Boston Baseball
  • Caveat
  • Chasing Tone
  • Chewin’ It with Kevin and Steve (if they ever get around to making another one, what the hell?)
  • Children of the Watch: A Star Wars After Show
  • Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
  • Crime of the Truest Kind
  • Defenders TV Podcast on TV Podcast Industries
  • Fatman Beyond
  • Film Photography Project
  • Friends from Work: An Unofficial Marvel Podcast
  • Gig Gab
  • Guitar Nerds Podcast
  • Hacking Humans
  • The Ex Files
  • Interdimensional RSS: The Unofficial Rick and Morty Podcast
  • House Podcastica (along with about a dozen other shows on the Podcastica network)
  • Locked on Bruins Podcast
  • Locked on NHL Podcast
  • Locked on Red Sox Podcast
  • Locked on MLB Podcast
  • Mac Geek Gab
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe Podcast
  • Morning Bru with Billy Jaffe & Andrew Raycroft
  • Mugglecast
  • NecronomiPod
  • Puck Soup
  • Star Wars Explained
  • Star Wars Stuff Podcast
  • Strange Indeed
  • Sunny Sixteen
  • Thank God I’m Atheist
  • The Guitar Knobs
  • The Resistance Broadcast: Star Wars Podcast
  • The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe
  • The Truth About Vintage Amps
  • The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week
  • This Week in Science
  • What We Say in the Shadows
  • Who Back When
  • WTF with Marc Maron

That is maybe 10% of the podcasts I am subscribed to via the Apple Podcast app. There are a few others that I get to via the web too, but those aren’t in the regular rotation. I generally spend my work day with a queue of podcasts playing as background sound. It is not uncommon for me to play through about 7-8 hours of podcasts a day. Granted I am working at the time so my focus is not 100% and I miss a lot of content, but they are almost always playing.

Hipsta-Kitty: Shake to Shuffle

I couldn’t resist. They look so cute wedging themselves into that little space that is way too small for both of them. Five seconds after I took the last of these pictures they started fighting and looked like they were trying to decapitate each other. Yeah, welcome to our cats’ lives.

Personal Time

My company gives us all 16 hours of personal time each year. They also give us weeks upon weeks of vacation time. The difference is that the personal time is meant to be used in small chunks at short notice, while the vacation time, which they don’t actually call vacation time, can only be used in four or eight hour chunks per day and is supposed to be booked in advance. The other difference is that vacation time can be carried over from this year to next year if needed while the personal time disappears on January 1st.

What does all of this mean? I had five hours of personal time left in the bank and I used it all up today. Robbie will not be having any time vanish on January 1st this year. I started my weekend five hours early, babie!

How did I celebrate this happy surprise of a half day? I ate my lunch too fast and made myself gastric bypass sick, that’s how! Yes! Well played, Robert the putz! I had a hamburger again to have another test of the sugar free ketchup. Yes, it does taste like ketchup and no, it is not disgusting! What a treat! It was such a treat that I ate way too much per bite and plowed through it all way too fast and got something stuck in my stomach tract and had a full on case of the foamies.

I am better now that a couple of hours have gone past. I’m okay!

Happy weekend plus five hours of personal time, everyone! WOOHOO!

The New Les Paul

I’ve been spending so much time stressing over my old Les Paul that I thought that today’s photo a day picture should be my new Les Paul. This is the one Jen gave me for my 50th birthday and I love it that much more because of her.

71/365
71/365

Favorite Subject

What was your favorite subject in school?

Daily writing prompt

Which school? High school? College the first time? College the second time? Junior high? Elementary school? Kindergarten? My favorite subject in kindergarten was learning letters. We had cartoon characters called The Letter People. I can’t remember if they were cardboard cutouts or inflatables. I think they might have been inflatables. They are also the only thing I can remember from kindergarten so I guess they are my favorite subject by default.

Let’s go with my favorite subject in High School. It was probably whatever social studies class I had at any particular time. History, civics, that sort of thing. I didn’t really like science, though the labs were interesting. I didn’t like math at all. It was my worst subject by far and I really wanted nothing to do with it. English was good. Literature, at least. Writing was something that sort of came naturally to me. If I needed to write an essay I could crank out something decent quickly. The only complaint my teachers generally had was that I didn’t write enough. Somewhere along the line I learned that the structure of the papers I needed to write was more important to the teachers than the content so I just cranked things out.

There was a period early on where High School Band was my favorite subject, but early in my sophomore year I started a band of my own and suddenly playing music that I didn’t choose for myself was tedious and boring while playing my own music was absolutely exhilarating. So much for High School Band. Jazz band was different, but that was an extra-curricular, not an actual class. In jazz band we could improvise and that lit a fire under me, musically speaking. One that still burns pretty intensely today.

History, government, social studies in general. Those courses were interesting, enjoyable, and fascinating to me. They still are. When I feel the need to do some non-fiction reading it’s usually either a biography of a historical figure or a study of some historical event. It’s been 34 years since I finished High School, but nothing’s changed in that regard. I’d still rather read some good sci-fi or horror though. Those didn’t really come up in English Lit though, so there wasn’t a lot of Stephen King and Clive Barker in school.

Loki Finale

I just finished watching the second season finale of Loki on Disney+. No spoilers, just go and watch it. The whole season is very good.

The reason for this post though has to do with the guy who plays Loki, Tom Hiddleston. Simply put, is it time to cast him as the next James Bond, or what? I think he would be a great choice. He wouldn’t be the blunt instrument Daniel Craig was. He’d be something else, but he’d be great.

Just call me Spartacus and join my crusade. Hiddleston for Bond: 2024.