Nonsequitur Life

April.

Apparently.

We woke up to snow this morning and everything covered in white. By lunchtime it was over and melted and the sun was trying to shine. This has been the weirdest winter season we’ve had that I can remember.

Technology is making me crabby.

No, no. More than usual.

…) Feedly doesn’t show ALT text for images that don’t load in an RSS feed. So there is no indication that there should be an image in the post, aside from possible commentary on said image that doesn’t make much sense if you don’t know it’s supposed to be there. The Internet is zero help in finding a possible solution to this problem. I have written and deleted approximately six lengthy tirades about this issue in recent months.

…) I ran a spelling and grammar check in a very long Word document and almost punched a hole through my computer because the sheer wrongness of Microsoft Word’s grammar check is utterly infuriating. Among a whole host of other stupidity, it was two-hundred-some pages of trying to change EVERY. SINGLE. USE. of it’s to its when I DO, in fact, mean IT. IS. Not once did it suggest the reverse. Not once was its suggestion correct. (It was also like, 4AM and I was in a particularly surly mood about not sleeping, but still, FIX YOUR SHIT, WORD.)

…) I’ve been testing out LibreOffice, an opensource free alternative to the Microsoft empire. It’s similar, but different and weird. It does not check grammar with spelling (thus no DON’T YOU MEAN ITS NOT IT’S?), but its dictionary is missing so many common words and it does not recognize possessive and all-caps versions of words that are in the custom dictionary so it has its own infuriating traits. I also dislike that I can’t just leave Writer open all the time without a document open. Instead I get the LibreOffice…dashboard? which creates a separate icon in my taskbar and it fucks up my work flow. (Because I totally have a work flow.)

…) Also, testing out a new word processing software in the midst of a severe writing drought is a great idea, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

…) I am still incapable of spelling grammar correctly on the first try. Grammer. Every single time. THANKS, ANDY.

…) My computer has taken to moaning loudly every time the fans kick up speed. I am trying really hard to leave the hammer in the toolbox, but it is not easy.

…) After my yapping about iTunes DRM bullshit, I suddenly had the memory of when they implemented iTunes Plus wherein you could pay a higher price for given songs and get a DRM free version. Then they did away with DRM completely and kept the higher price tag for everything. Woof. So stupid.

…) I finished another book. (Yes, it has been a good six months or more since the last book I finished. I’ve started many. Finished none one.) I read None of this Rocks by Joe Trohman from Fall Out Boy. He is a hot mess, let me tell you. It’s not a book about Fall Out Boy but he talks a lot about the band and how it weaves with everything else in his life—severe depression and anxiety, the trauma of an abusive mother, the gratitude of a supportive father, his intense love of his wife and kids, addiction, self-loathing, growing up through aggressive antisemitism, his varied non-FOB creative endeavors, more self-loathing, rampant insecurity, gratitude for his success despite debilitating impostor syndrome. He’s crass, vulgar, disjointed, easily distracted, sarcastic, and funny. It’s definitely not everybody’s cup of tea as far as writing goes, but I found it interesting, heartbreaking, and entertaining. I just want to hug the shit out of him.

…) We finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Upon re-watch, Bob found more complaints about the new live action series. I definitely liked the original cartoon better, and now see a lot of issues with the new series. There’s just so much missing and lacking by comparison, which doesn’t make sense because runtime-wise, the live action had more screentime to work with. Though if they do, do more seasons of the live action, we’ll probably give it a shot when it comes out. In the meantime, we might move on to the sequel, The Legend of Korra. We watched about half of it after Bob first watched the original series, but quit because the title character was insufferable. It’s supposed to “get good” in season three, so we might give it another go.

…) Matt Nathanson put out a new song. I love him.

(map at the mall by Matt Nathanson)

I’m kind of surprised there weren’t higher numbers from Matt in the Last.fm stats, but if this song has a full album attached to it in the near future, I’m sure that will change real quick.

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Top 10 Most Played Artists for March 2024…

1.) Panic! At the Disco … 408 plays

2.) The Killers … 325 plays

3.) Nine Days … 122 plays

4.) O.A.R. … 120 plays

5.) Brandon Flowers … 114 plays

6.) Matt Nathanson … 70 plays

7.) Semisonic … 64 plays

8.) The Young Veins … 64 plays

9.) Billy Joel … 62 plays

10.) Splender … 60 plays

Honorable mention: Better Than Ezra, Ingram Hill, Aijia, Stage, Marc Roberge, Stroke 9, Avicii, Fall Out Boy, Darren Criss, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Tonic, Sting

Total of 1,719 plays of 474 tracks from 93 albums by 22 artists.

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map at the mall Matt Nathanson