Scary Halloween pic.

Silvertone is my favorite filter.

The first James Bond movie I remember seeing, on TV, in the late 1970s, was You Only Live Twice. It starred Sean Connery. Therefore, for me, he is the true Bond.

I enjoyed his part in The Untouchables. His line “Enough of this running shit!” will live forever in my brain.

Poor Choice: Not powering down or rebooting a Windows laptop before connecting it to a new docking station.

Because: Now rebooting

Poor Choice: High-speed electronic dance music during stop-and-go traffic

I listen to Deftones because they are my unvocalized primal screams.

All of them.

I am impressed with the engine that runs our community.

Yesterday I rebuilt a page on my micro.blog site that includes a long list. Originally I used HTML elements, but re-wrote it using Markdown. I was pleasantly surprised, as I saved many intermediate states, that the page rendering kept pace with my incremental revisions without breaking completely.

@manton

I have updated my ætherial page with links to all of the artists. I hope this is a much more useful format.

Wait… How long has Apple’s Text Edit been able to open OpenOffice SXW files?

The feeling when the sense of disappointment that you left your coffee in the car is deepened with the discovery that you left your coffee at home

The longer I live, the more I like this guy:

In a world whose absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree of understanding among men, a greater sincerity. We must achieve this or perish. To do so, certain conditions must be fulfilled: men must be frank (falsehood confuses things), free (communication is impossible with slaves). Finally, they must feel a certain justice around them.

—Albert Camus

When your daughter makes you a treat. Clever girl!

Listened to Dead Leaf Echo tonight for the first time, via Apple Music. Their recent full-length album Beyond.Desire is there as well as several EPs and a much earlier LP. Possibly their full catalog is on Bandcamp.

The sound was in a sweet spot for me. I heard sounds that reminded me of Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, Love and Rockets, Kitchens of Distinction, Bailter Space, and others. When I read of all the bands they have toured with, I was disappointed I hadn’t listened to them sooner. God bless streaming music!

I will likely be collecting their sounds.

See also: ætherial

I remember loving Pointcast and installing it on home and work computers. At the time I also loved HotBot and Internet Explorer and WIRED Magazine and A Declaration of the Independance of Cyberspace.

And Techno.

Initial diagnosis 72 hours ago. Remdesivir Treatment began 48 hours ago.

The deceit and the disrespect is astonishing.

So… possible frost this weekend. Just realized we need to get out the weatherstripping. Seems like a we just took it down a few weeks ago.

I was reading some “Dad Jokes” to my daughter.

She said, “Poppa, can you look up some jokes?”

I love the novel The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury.

It was one of the early young adult novels I read in my life, and possibly my first exposure to Ray Bradbury as a youth. As a boy it was the first time I had deeply considered death.

What I appreciated most was the historical scope and sweep of history, but I won’t lie that I don’t appreciate being so deeply mislead about Samhain. It’s fiction, of course. An author can write what he wishes. Powerful imagery, but… wrong.

Yet I own paper and electronic versions.

It means that much to me.

My love affair with Danse Macabre began in elementary school. Mrs. Otten played Halloween songs on the piano and we sang from mimeographed lyric sheets.

I was introduced to parts of the melody via a song called the Halloween Song, which has stuck in my head ever since, because the refrain includes singing the letters that spell the holiday.

It sounded a lot like this YouTube. I’m certain my teacher played a copy of this very recording.

In music classes in later years we listened to the symphonic version while watching filmstrips of artistic conceptions of what the various parts of the music could represent.

Here’s a great article from CBC which includes some great background on the piece and some really enjoyable renditions including one for two pianos.

For me the piece is tied to Autumn and to All Hallow’s Evening, even though it wasn’t the intent of the composer.

Schools don’t track holidays the same way as they did, a long time ago. So for my daughter, I have work to do If I want this to stick.

Sending an old device to the Great Cloud in the Sky

Here is a link to a Google page of various information resources showing the total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the United states of America has exceeded 200,000.

For comparison, here is a document from the Congressional Research Service showing American War and Military Operations Casualties.

Primary Concern theory versus Worst Damage theory at Daniel Messler.

I’m a long-time fan of Randall Carlson which I owe to the Joe Rogan podcast. Anyway, outside of liking and subscribing to YouTube channels and videos, here is another way I can start to support his work.

So, yay! The iridescent Gnosis sticker is cooler than I hoped it would be!

Via aclu_nationwide

I am excited by restaurant delivery services and use them frequently.

I am deeply disappointed by quality control as our orders leave the house, however. Errors are so frequent that I’m actually happy when one order arrives complete. This is not a criticism of one restaurant or delivery service. It is a criticism of them all.

Quality has not improved since I worked the Burger King drive-through in the 1980’s.

I know the pressure is intense. I have worked at fast food and pizza joints. I get it.

But no one has got it right.

Back to School 2020