Presented with minimal comment since I don’t trust the law.
If you read the second article it says “she would never have taken part in the encounter if she had been sober”. That is rape.
I was stupidly too lazy to do a May Music and for April Audio I just listed songs instead of albums and already it’s difficult to remember everything I’ve listened to so far this year. In an effort to redress the balance I’ll do a June Jams with things I’ve mostly actually listened to in June:
And notable ones I should have mentioned in May (or earlier):
Next year I’m thinking about doing a weekly “This is my jam” - I never actually used it when it was around, but I think a weekly post for earworms might be a good idea - at least if I happen to have one for the week.
Look at that iMac. So close yet so far.
Had to do some recent further downsizing to accommodate squeezing another person into the house. My desk (which was off to the left of this photo) had to go in the garage to make way for a fridge freezer so I’m now micro-desking on the end of the cabinet storing the dogs’ stuff. I’m (obviously) still in the utility room/corridor with the dogs, washing machine (yay for noise cancelling in meetings) and shower room, but now I’m sat on top of the cat litter instead of half a metre away from it. It doesn’t sound great, but it is actually a nice little neuk.
Before the move was complete I did have an intermediate week when I ended up with the family computer on my desk where I could easily use it whilst “at work” and this meant I did finally get to explore using CSS for the show/hide on my archive page instead of JavaScript. Nothing came of it (I don’t think CSS can do that yet), but it was nice to get to tinker again - like with exercise, it’s nice to know it’s not lack of motivation on my part that is the problem.
I decided to put away my old iPhone and plug my headphones into the iMac instead. Since it is always logged in as me anyway (for AirMessage) I can also leave Spotify running and just control it through my phone. For 6music I ssh (hit exactly this issue) from my phone and use tmux and ffplay. This is cool and fun, but not really any more useful than having my old iPhone plugged in, although does save a tiny bit of space - and space… is short.
For the weekly finance updates I close my work laptop so I can stick the iMac keyboard on top of it, the trackpad in front of it and then swivel the iMac round. It works well enough for occasional use.
"For in winter the champagne brightness of the air and the sociability of the streets are grateful"
My daughter got me a very pretty Penguin Little Clothbound Classics copy of this for my birthday. I’m pretty sure I had read all these when I was going through previous (e-book) collections, but interestingly I discovered in reading this that “How Should One Read a Book?” has different variations. I.e. this quote is not in the version in this book. Huh.
"Agnes rooted around in her mother's curler bag. She took out the Embassy packet and put two cigarettes in her mouth. She took a long draw and held the smoke inside for a long while. "Jesus can't pay my catalogue"."
True.
"Without a word, each man collected a handful of thin children, who followed obediently, like reverential shadows."
"He locked the door that lay behind his eyes and walked away, leaving the body, the plaster dust, the flask of cold tea, and the angry gaffer behind."
Read this recently and am glad I am bucking the trend. For sure, hearing music from my teenage years (Throwing Muses, Belly, Sonic Youth, Dead Kennedy’s, and Senser are just a few) imparts a deep emotional response, but newer stuff is also doing similar: I remember exactly where I was when I first heard Self Esteem’s I Do This All The Time; I was running and listening to ChillDaBeats.
Someone in the comments talks about a truly wonderful thing they do with their friends where they have to put together a top ten of their favourite tracks from the current year. I have no friends, but collating my favourite tracks from the current year* and therefore actively listening to music from the current year, well, I’m up to three hours and six minutes of songs from this year already and I wish I’d started doing this before 2021.
* - Since I count songs on albums released in the current year some of the songs have often also been released as singles the previous year, but it’s still newer than the 90s.
"He poured her a phosphorescent glass of diluting juice, but she held her hand out in refusal."
I should probably try to find something else to post beyond quotes. I have got through all my books now though so will run out soon.
This was a really good read.
"Our nurses are now the truest practitioners of the healing art. If every Scottish, Welsh and English doctor and surgeon dropped suddenly dead, eighty percent of those admitted to our hospitals would recover if the nursing continued."
Probably some truth to that.
These are the ten most recent posts, for older posts see the Archive.