I’m moving my media-related topics to the projects section because the life updates are more for random events that happen to me, and my media consumption is really more like a project.
Last week was rather full.
Project updates
- Math relearning – I got through a couple more modules and added a new feature to my notes: lists of propositional concepts from the module. I’ll post my comments this week.
- Diet – Still waiting for the results from my blood test. I bought some ingredients for a jicama and sausage casserole, where the jicama replaces potatoes, but I haven’t made it yet.
- Daily routine – For the most part the beginnings of my evenings were okay, but I’ve been neglecting my walks and devotions, and my sleep schedule has been all over the place. I’ve been wondering if I should try to rework my schedule to match my sleeping habits, but I think the better option is to rework my mindset to match a more normal schedule.
- Comics – Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, and I spent a lot of the week deciding what I wanted to pick up, since there’s a limit at each place and I also wanted to buy things to support the stores. I ended up with these.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lady Mechanika go with my intermittent steampunk theme. The research somewhat renewed my interest in getting a handle on the world of comics, and I discovered some reading guides online, which I’ll post about sometime on the wiki. - Books
- Software – Wednesday morning I took an advantage of an O’Reilly sale to buy a few books on some software: Sage for math, Inkscape for vector graphics, GIMP for image drawing and editing, and LMMS for music production. I’m hoping to explore some of those programs in the next couple of months.
- Socrates – Wednesday at lunch I had a discussion with my boss and coworker about one of Plato’s dialogues we’d agreed to read, Meno. In my humble opinion, our conversation was many times better than Socrates’. His was a disappointment, and I’d never noticed till reading this how condescending he was.
- Guns, Germs, and Steel – I finished this one on Sunday, and it’s joined the ranks of my favorite books–so well reasoned and written. I’m sure I’ll want to refer to it in the future, so I’m going to buy the ebook. I’ve been thinking of gradually replacing my print books with ebooks, so I figured I might as well get a head start with this one. Now I’m taking a break from audiobooks to catch up some on the last few years of Escape Pod and Podcastle, which are clogging up the storage on my phone.
- Photography – I’ve had dusk on my mind lately, with some nostalgia for my childhood attached, and Thursday evening I made my way to a nearby forest preserve just after sunset, where I took pictures like this one with my phone.
The sky was actually much redder, which makes me think I should get a real camera, but I’d need to be more into photography to justify it. I was only there 20 minutes, but it was a somewhat intense experience and felt like much longer. It reminded me that there really is something profound in being surrounded by nature. - Music
- Dusk – While searching for music to go with my dusk theme, I found an interesting music discovery website called Musicbed. Two moods go with dusk for me, carefree, for scenes of friends at the end of a day out, and contemplative, for communing with the landscape and the sky. While I was at the forest preserve, I listened to the music I’d already collected, and it fit the experience as well as I’d hoped.
- Dance – On Saturday I was reconstructing an old playlist of cheerful electronic music to listen to while driving around to comic book stores, and I found a vocal version of one of the songs, “Faded” by Alan Walker, which stuck in my head and affected me so much that I felt inspired to make my own, though not enough to actually do it. But I do have that book on music production now, so … you never know what could happen.
- Video games – After more assurances that people wouldn’t expect anything from me, I finally joined the Minecraft server I keep mentioning, Bityard, though I haven’t actually been on it yet. Here are some videos of it from other members, if you’re curious.
- TV – I finished Mr. Robot, and the whole season, but especially the last episode, put me onto the issue of technology criticism. I’ll probably write about it on the wiki at some point, but if the topic interests you, you could check out my friend Adam’s blog, The Second Eclectic. So now I’m back to Doctor Who, with Arrow to fill in the gaps between DVDs.
- Movies – My spoiler-free review of Captain America: Civil War: I liked it. I don’t really trust my opinions of movies, but my film critic friend Kevin also liked it, though only as a better-than-others superhero movie rather than for its merit relative to movies in general. He does think certain superhero movies stand up well on their own though, as you can see from that conversation.
Life updates
- Chapel – Thursday morning my old employers spoke in my current employers’ chapel about how they developed their first product thirty years ago, which we publish, a long-time best-selling study Bible. It felt pleasantly familiar to see my old bosses talking.
