In the current year of our Lord 2025 we have to content with social media algorithms driven purely profit, misinformation, conspiracy theories in the mainstream and so called “AI” making it all worse.
I don’t blame anyone for wanting to cut themselves off from all that for their own mental wellbeing but there still remains a paradoxical truth……blessed are the ignorant.
WIllie Nelson, aged 92; and Steve Perry, aged 76 singing the Journey classic (I am a massive Journey fan FYI) Faithfully, a song all about how tough it is being a musician on the road to maintain the relationships in your life
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Such an underrated band from that 90s alternative rock period. Throwing Copper is one of the top albums of that whole decade and Lightning Crashes (a song about a young mother giving birth and an older mother passing away, the circle of life essentially) in particular is such a great song that doesn’t get its due. Lyrically, vocally and musically one of the greats.
Scrubs - My Screw Up
I still think about this episode and its portrayal of grief to this day. For those not familiar, it is the episode where the characters are dealing with the loss of Dr Cox’s best friend Ben portrayed by Brendan Fraser. From the start of the episode you feel the weight of the friendship between the two men. The episode plays out in homage to The Sixth Sense where Dr Cox believes his friend is still alive and they are acting as friends do, then towards the end when Dr Cox thinks he is going to his son’s birthday but it turns out to be Ben’s funeral, the truth of what happened hits like a gut punch, laid out by JD’s line “where do you think we are?
I’ve been on a 90s kick lately with my music and this is a hill I am willing to die on, Live were a great band.
Throwing Copper is one of the all time great albums and Secret Samadhi is criminally underrated!
I was 15 when the song released in 1998, I am now 42 and the song hits very different now. I never cease to be amazed at how differently a song can hit you at different points of one’s life. This is just one example but I could list so many more if I had a mind to do so. I think this is ultimately why music means so much to me.
I’ve been rewatching The X Files this year and hoo boy it does hit differently in 2025 when conspiracy theories and misinformation has gone mainstream.
Some episodes are uncomfortable to watch now.
Watching some ACDC live videos and I am always struck by what a human mentronome Cliff Williams is. He isn’t flashy or fancy but he is consistent and combined with Phil Rudd and Malcolm Young you have one of the finest rhythm sections ever to grace rock and roll
This morning I woke before 6am (2 cats will do that) and before I looked at my phone or checked the news I spent an hour reading my book. It was a nice way to start the day, I recommend.
I know streaming has basically killed off the art of the music album but there is nothing quite like it for the music listening experience. The song selection, the song order; as a listening experience it is still unparalleled.
Also, death to the words “single edit” :)
It’s the decade in which we turned 16.
I turned 16 in the 90s so for me that was the best decade for music.
Disclaimer: I’ve been on a bit of a 90s kick recently
Once more I heard the hot take that “young adult should only be for young adults”, and every time I hear this I roll my eyes to the heavens. Such a horrible take and should just go away. I am someone who believes people should just read what they are interested in and that discouraging reading in all its forms does more harm than good.
“I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.
If someone asked me could I give up video games for £1 million, I honestly think I could do it. I would still have books after all
If someone asked if I could give up books or music for £1 million, I don’t think I could do that.
Stands to reason I guess since books and music are the only two things I care about having offline DRM free copies of.
“from arrogance came apathy, from apathy came ignorance, from ignorance came hatred, and from hatred, well…nothing good ever came from hatred”
Excerpt From: Michael J. Sullivan. “Age of War.”
I’ve been reading the Rebus books over the past 10 months or so (highly recommended if you are into crime/detective novels), I feel vindicated in my hobbies/life choices when I read about John Rebus sitting in his chair sipping a dram and listening to his records. There is something to be said about the simplicity of spending an evening in that way.
So I like video games, I have always liked video games; they bring so much joy to my life.
A part of liking video games is keeping up with video games news to see what is coming up but in recent years doing so involves exposing yourself to a never ending stream of negativity and toxicity that is very very hard to avoid if you want to keep up to date.
I have been using MacOS for about 5 years now and I have just discovered three finger drag for moving windows around. So much more convenient than clicking on the trackpad, holding and dragging.
Turn it on in the settings under Accessibility - Pointer Control (under Motor) - Trackpad Options
Toggle on Use Trackpad for Dragging and change Dragging Style to Three Finger Drag.
Enjoy 😀
Listening to The Sundays today and can’t help but feel that they are somewhat underrated, or at least under appreciated by music fans.
I love their story too. The two founders were boyfriend and girlfriend in college and decided to write some songs despite having no real music background, got picked up by the Rough Trade record label and had a big hit with their debut album Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.
It is nice to know that new video game releases can still excite me. Today it was announced that the next installment in the Trais franchise (Trails Beyond the Horizon) would be coming out in the west in autumn 2025 and I felt a genuine sense of excitement at the news.
Granted Trails is my favourite video game franchise but it is exceedingly rare that I feel such genuine excitement about a new game’s release these days; and when I do feel it, it is almost always a game in the AA or indie space.
Recently, I have cut back in a rather big way on the content I watch on Youtube. I used to have well into double figures channels that I watched regularly (probably 50 odd) but I have become rather disillusioned with the platform in general, and have reduced that massively.
There are still a handful of channels I will tune into on a regular basis though because they are both entertaining and informative in a way I don’t get elsewhere.
One of my favourite things to do is pick an artist at random in Apple Music, click on the three dots, then Create Station and just let it play. Done that now with The Mighy Might Bosstones and it is good.
I love Journey! From their early prog/jazz fusion days, to their pinnacle days when Steve Perry and Gregg Rolie shared vocals, to their AOR commercial success years, to their post Steve Perry years and the current Arnel Pineda led line up. They may just be my favourite band of all time.
I have decided to resurrect my silly little personal site as a micro.blog page under a new domain name and will make this my only social/online presence. I have grown weary of the modern web and social media in particular but I like to have a place to post about my nerdy hobbies and this seems like a good way to do it. Expect a mix of short and long form musings about whatever takes my fancy; mostly books I’ve been reading, music I’ve been listening to, video games I’ve been playing, food I’ve been cooking, tea/rum/brandy I’ve been drinking.