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Albums

Nirvana – Unplugged in New York

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While I have a lot of “favorite albums”, there is one that I have fairly consistently considered my absolute favorite, and it’s Nirvana’s Unplugged in New York. Originally recorded as part of MTV’s Unplugged show. It was the first Nirvana album released after Kurt Cobain’s death. There are quite a few of these types of albums from MTV’s Unplugged show by different bands. From back when MTV actually played Music all the time.

I just love everything about this album. I love the goofy chatter between the songs. I love the fact that there are plenty of electric effects and an electric guitar in Nirvana’s “Unplugged Set”, because Nirvana doesn’t care apparently. I particularly love that it’s not just an acoustic greatest hits album. I think at least half the songs are covers and most are not their “top hits”. Come As You Are and All Apologies are probably the only real big hits on the album, though there are a couple of others. They aren’t even necessarily covering the big hits of other groups either.

While I really like every track, the covers may actually be my more favored tracks. The Man Who Sold the World, originally by David Bowie is excellent. Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam is great as well. There are three covers of Meat Puppets tracks, Plateau, Oh Me, and my favorite of these three, Lake of Fire. Members of the Meat Puppets also participated in this set.

The set ends with another non-Nirvana track Where Did You Sleep Last Night which is a folk song done by a variety of artists over a period and also goes by several other names. The whole, “angsty 90s Cobain” really shines through on this track and I really like it as well.

The set opens with About a Girl, which as Cobain comments, “this was off our first record, most people don’t own it,” which is certainly accurate as Nirvana wasn’t really popular until Nevermind and then later In Utero. It’s a nice and interesting throwback to the band’s origins. The last track I wanted to throw out as one of my favorites from this album comes from In Utero, Pennyroyal Tea, despite its kind of random and rambly nature, really fits this format well.

I think one thing I really like about this album is just how much it’s Nirvana’s messy and gunge style, cleaned up in a slick format, which still keeps the messy and grunge feel. I don’t really know how else to describe it. That isn’t to say Nirvana isn’t a great band, but I really feel like this album lets them really show a great other side to the band and everyone seems to be generally having a good time making this music as well.

Opinion/Editorial/Life

Why Can’t I Hold All These RSS Feeds

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I’ve mentioned my woes with my RSS reader off and on in posts here, but I almost had another one. Thankfully, I learned my lesson last time. I ended up breaking my Fresh RSS install. I came across this post on Hacker News, where someone had asked for people to post their personal blogs. Someone had set up an OPML Feed for this list and stuck it on GitHub. I thought to myself, “Why not, I like these types of people, surely there are some good things in here”.

So I hooked the OPML up to my Fresh RSS. This tripled how many feeds I was subscribed to. It also broke my reader. I don’t know exactly what happened, but it stopped updating feeds, and would not even load the main page. I did some investigation and found that one of the SQL tables had become corrupted. THANKFULLY it was not the one with the feeds themselves. Literally everything else can be rebuilt if needed, easily, but recovering the feed list is paramount. I immediately created an export dump of the feed list. After some troubleshooting, I completely deleted the Fresh RSS database, then reloaded a months old backup, then reimported the recent feed list tables.

The only thing that was missing, I had added some categories since the last backup. I created some dummy categories, “Category 32, Category 33”, that sort of thing. Due to the relational way databases work, feeds automatically fell into these categories, which allowed me to figure out what the actual category name was. For example, one has some comic and book feeds in it, so clearly, this was originally my “Books and Comics” category.

Eventually, I’ll weed some of these feeds out. There are some in languages I don’t understand, nothing personal, but I have plenty to read without hassling with translations. Some feeds tend to post TOO MUCH and dominate the RSS reader. I’m pretty relentless about chopping these and Hacker News is pretty much the only one that floods, that I allow to remain. Techmeme and Slashdot are sometimes borderline but not usually, so they get to stay as well.

Everything is sorted into categories, and I usually read through in category chunks, and no, I don’t read everything, I skim for interesting headlines or updates from my favorites and read those. I can’t find a good number for how many feeds but I think it’s just over 1200 now, sorted out across categories. Currently, I use the following categories.

  • Anime/Japan
  • Books and Comics
  • Food
  • Friend’s Blogs
  • Games – Deal and Bundles
  • Games – Tabletop
  • Games – VG News
  • Games – VG Reviews
  • Language Learning
  • Lifestyle and Family
  • Movies/TV
  • Music
  • My Blogs
  • News – Conservative Bull Shit (Currently all Muted)
  • News – Illinois/Decatur/Local
  • News – Liberal Opinions
  • News – US News (Empty, they all end up in World)
  • News – World
  • PersBlogs – Tech Enthusiasts
  • PersBlogs – Toy Collectors
  • PersBlogs – Gaming
  • PersBlogs – Nerd Blogs
  • Photography
  • Science/Space
  • Second Life and Virtual Worlds
  • Tech – Coding and IT
  • Tech – Crypto Bullshit
  • Tech – General
  • Tech – Security
  • Tech – VR/XR
  • Toys – Transformers
  • Toys – LEGO
  • Toys – News
  • Uncategoriezed
  • Webcomics
  • Writing and Writers

This is essentially the gamut of my interests, and sometimes if a category becomes too unwieldy, I’ll break out some of the feeds into a refined category. Which is where the prefixes come from (News, Tech, PersBlogs, Toys).

I mentioned before, I mostly read in the category view. Anything I find interesting I’ll tag with either BI or Lameazoid tags, and then my news digest script goes to work, I think at 11 PM each night. I don’t always check it every day, which is fine, sometimes I check it 2-3 times a day. Often while eating breakfast, sometimes again in the evening.

Opinion/Editorial/Life

Totally Not Wildcard Wednesday!

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It’s time again for Wildcard Wednesdays! Ok no, I’m not actually calling this that. I have mentioned, I love alliteration and “theme days” but that’s kind of dumb. I have been using Wednesday as a sort of wildcard day to write about “whatever”. I created a vague “schedule” for Blaugust, as part of a way to keep myself motivated.

  • Sunday – Personal Series post
  • Monday – Youtube Videos
  • Tuesday – Blaugust related post
  • Wednesday – Wildcard Wednesday!!! (NO!)
  • Thursday – Code project, or some project, maybe, at least something “techy”
  • Friday – Music Album (I was already doing this)
  • Saturday – Journal/Weekly Wrap Up

The problem now is that I’ve started this little discussion about the blog itself, so now I’m kind of locked in, because if I start talking about something deeper well, it’s awkward. The original sort of idea was to use this space, on Wednesdays, to just write about more serious topics, thoughts on world issues and politics. I’m still kind of apprehensive about adding that sort of content here. I’m not really sure why, because I talk about it, about everywhere else.

I’m not even really talking about necessarily direct “left and right” political talk, more just general, “society is going to shit” and “climate crisis” sort of talk. Though a lot of this is hard to discuss without at least mentioning politics because somehow the concept of “for the betterment of everyone” has become a political issue. It’s also all become incredibly entwined with religious identity. I mean, the history of mankind is littered with people doing shitty things in the name of religion, so it really should not be a surprise.

Personally, I’m a bit out on the whole with religion. I like to think I am a bit more, “spiritual” than “religious,” if that makes sense. I have not regularly attended church in over 20 years, possibly 25 at this point. I do kind of find the idea of a sort of, community group like a church to be somewhat appealing, I just don’t care for all the bull shit surrounding it. There’s a meme out there from some Tweets, where someone says something like “How does an atheist know the difference between right and wrong”, and the response is something like, “If you need the fear of eternal damnation to do good, you’re not good.”

It’s also increasingly just, perverted, to serve this weird agenda of keeping the population docile and shameful of having literally any enjoyment in life. It’s weird. It’s used to put down so many people, and people doing things that in the end, don’t affect anyone else. Most often these days against LGBT folks, but often others.

What I like to say in response to this sometimes is, “Stop passing judgment over people in the name of God. If there is a God, that’s his job to decide, not yours.”

Basically, stop shitting on people in the name of religion. It’s a bad look. This is just one of many reasons that people are increasingly shunning religions, especially old-school shame-based religions.

Oops, looks like I did it, and did it anyway, I posted a society based rant after all.

Opinion/Editorial/Life

Blaugust 2023 – Staying Motivated

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This week’s “Blaugust theme” is “Staying Motivated”. These days especially, I have to say, I have, almost zero motivation. There are a lot of factors as to why, I’m not really motivated to discuss them at this time though, maybe later, sometime (X-Doubt.jpg). Instead, let’s look at what keeps me motivated.

I think one thing that keeps me going a lot of the time is gamifying things. I think the idea of “gamification” seems really stupid on paper, but it also works pretty well. Achievement badges are actually kind of a weakness. I once spent an afternoon playing around with the chat program we use at work after discovering it has achievement badges. It’s basically fucking AIM.

I’ve gotten on a bit of a kick lately trying to 100% achievements in games, for example. I don’t super-push myself when some of the achievements are annoyingly bad though. Like Blaugust here, I don’t really know how it’s graded, it’s mostly an honor system, but there is a list of made-up achievements for it. Basically, the only one I have not done is “Pickup Group”. I guess I should try doing that to get the achievement for “doing all the achievements”. I am also on track-ish to do 31/31 posts for the month, this post being number 22. Numbers 25 through 28 should be taken care of as well. One of the five remaining needed will be my “Lessons Learned” wrap-up, probably on the 31st.

  • Reading the Manual – Read the introductory blog post with the rules of the event.
  • Joining the Cause – Sign-Up for Blaugust.
  • Recruit a Friend – Convince another blogger to participate in Blaugust.
  • Spreading the Madness – Promote Blaugust on your blog or through your social media of choice.
  • Friend of Wumpus – Join the Blaugust Discord.
  • Sharing is Caring – Post your content in the “Share Your Content” Channel.
  • Forum of Friends – Take part in a discussion on the “Post Discussion” Channel.
  • The Pet Tax – Post a picture of an animal friend on the “Stuff and Things” Channel or create a blog post about them.
  • Friend Like Me – Answer a question posted on the Blagust Discord or help out a new blogger.
  • Shared Thoughts – Comment on a blog post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Federation of Bloggers – Sign up for a Fediverse account and follow the official Blaugust account.
  • Getting Inspired – Write a blog post inspired by a post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Pickup Group – Play a game or take part in an activity with one or more Blaugust participants.
  • Hot Topics – Write a blog post based on the Blaugust Prompt List.
  • Welcome Wagon – Write a blog post based on the first week’s theme of Welcoming Folks to Blaugust.
  • Introduce Yourself – Write a blog post based on the second week’s theme of Introducing Yourself.
  • Creative Appreciation – Write a blog post based on the third week’s theme Appreciating the works of some Creative or Company.
  • Staying Motivated – Write a blog post based on the fourth week’s theme of how you have managed to Stay Motivated.
  • Lessons Learned – Write a blog post based on the fifth week’s theme explaining some of the Lessons you have Learned through Blaugust.
  • Going Platinum – Complete All of the Blaugchievements for Blaugust 2023.

Completionism like this can be bad though, and sometimes I have to stop myself. Like, for while I was really bad about buying toys I didn’t really want because it would “complete teams”. Marvel teams, Transformers teams, whatever. It can certainly lead to some bad behaviors for sure.

Streaks are another good motivator. Possibly a better motivator. A few good examples of these in my life, that I may actually get into more detail on in full-fledged posts, I’m considering maybe doing a series of “Track all the Things” posts, maybe after my “Computing History” series. A lot of what keeps these going now is “streak motivation” of “I’ve been doing it, so I should keep doing it.”

  • I have tracked the gas and mileage on my car every fill-up since I got it. It’s all in an Excel book with graphs and such.
  • I track all my spending in categories and charts in an Excel workbook. I have done this for years.
  • I have almost a 1700 Day streak in Duolingo.
  • I use a daily mood and activity tracking app called Daylio that I have a 2056 day streak in.

The motivation is to not break these streaks of activity. Keep it going, keep it flowing. I would love to blog every day, and get that streak going but I find that much stress ends up killing the quality of posts (not that there is much there to start with on that).

Music Monday

Music Monday – Retro Edition

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Let’s roll things back this week for some “blast from the past” videos of yesteryear. Or more, yester-decade.

The Crystal Method – Born Too Slow

A song that I started listening to thanks to Need for Speed Underground, a racing game from EA. I liked that game a lot until I didn’t because it got super cheap on it’s AI at a certain point. At least I think it was NFW UG, i was also playing a lot of Midnight Club around that time, so they kind of blend together.

While the track itself, “Born to Slow” actually fits a racing game in name, it doesn’t really fit it in pacing. This really doesn’t feel like a very racing track. Kind of the opposite actually, The funky guitar sound almost feels just a little “too slow”, and kind of gives this slightly eerie feeling. Which does fit the video with it’s creepy glitchy gray man.

The Refreshments – Banditos

I remember seeing this video at like 2 AM on MTV in the 90s and loving that it referenced Captain Picard but I missed the credit tag. Like a year later I caught it again in the middle of the night and bought the CD like the very next day. Fun fact! The Refreshments did the theme song from King of the Hill, it’s called Yahoo and Triangles. Also this dude kind of looks like Joseph Gordon Levitt as a cowboy and i can’t not see it.

Flip – Possibilities (feat Elou Elan)

This video is weird, I have to say I have not watched it a lot. I used to really dig this track though. I am pretty sure it was on the Muzak system back when I worked at KB Toys, and it became ingrained into my brain after listening to it a thousand times. So maybe I don’t actually like it, I just have been tortured into thinking I like it.

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