Canned Dragons

Matter continues to add features that make a subscription to the service even more valuable. The latest is an enhancement to their recent podcast support. Matter will not intelligently (some might say artificially) break podcasts down into chapters. This is something that used to be done organically with podcasts, but seems to have fallen by the wayside as podcasters potentially worried about people skipping the now ubiquitous ads. It's nice to have this capability back.

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This article about the lifecycle of tricks in skateboarding really brought back memories for me. It heavily references the early nineties, the period I was most active in skateboarding. As noted in the piece, it was a time of big pants and small wheels. Lucas Wiesenthal, who wrote the piece, focuses on a few particular tricks, one of which is the pressure flip. Wiesenthal relates how quickly tricks came into vogue and how, just as quickly, they went out.

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Last week, I spent some time serving at a soup kitchen. This soup kitchen no longer serves soup, but I guess no one can decide on something more appropriate to describe the establishment. I ended up serving donuts, which were the dessert du jour, the last thing on the line before drinks. Previously, I had served drinks, and people could pick sweet tea or lemonade, but now, the only drink offered is water.

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The moment when I became a catechumen in the Orthodox Church is captured on Instagram. There are a few comments about our group of catechumens. One reads, "may they persevere to the end." I believe I've heard this before in the same, or similar contexts, so I think it is a pretty common saying under these circumstances. When I first read it, I wondered why there was such a strong statement of hope in our ability to run the race.

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If the soundtrack to the movie Kids isn't my favorite film score, it's certainly close to it. I listened to the cassette I had over and over on long drives to and from college my sophomore year after my recovery from lymphoma. I had incredibly mixed feelings about the movie itself, owing to the overwhelming nihilism it depicted, which was only enhanced by both Larry Clark and Harmony Korine's congenital knack for taking things to the extreme.

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Jason Morehead laments the way content is disappearing from the internet. He brings up the way technology news site CNet deleted a whole swath of older pieces. In the grand scheme of things, deleting old tech articles may not seem like a big deal. But what frustrates me is that there’s no real good reason for it, just as there’s no good reason for Disney deleting titles to save money. Not when they’re shelling out stupid amounts of money to executives, anyway.

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Recently, a musician with the adopted name of Oliver Anthony became famous overnight for a song he performed entitled "Rich Men North of Richmond." The song, which reveals the frustrations that many feel at those with money and political influence, resonated with a lot of people, catapulting Anthony into the spotlight. It probably doesn't hurt that Anthony has the kind of Appalachian folk hero looks that match the subject matter of the song.

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At the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple previewed their new OS for the Mac, macOS Sonoma. I have to admit, at first, I didn't pay too much attention to the announcements. I used to believe OS updates could be life-changing, but that was before these operating systems reached the level of maturity that they have currently. Now, I have more of a casual level of interest in the evolutionary offerings that a new OS brings.

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If all goes as planned, I will be going to see the bands TOPS and Men I Trust at the Ritz in the fall. While I mentally prepare to see those bands live, there is a new track from TOPS spinoff Marci, the "solo" effort of Marta Cikojevic (with plenty of help from David Carriere). The video has a tight focus on Cikojevic as she wanders around an urban landscape lip synching into a microphone.

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It has been an eventful week in the news, with the former president and his cadre of criminals coming under indictment. NYT columnist Ross Douthat has taken the opportunity to answer some questions about the expected Republican presidential nominee. What matters most about him as a presidential candidate?Douthat: That his second term was foretold in the Necronomicon, written in eldritch script on the Mountains of Madness and carved deep, deep into the white stones of the Plateau of Leng.

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