The instrumentation on this first single is pretty silly, but I think it works once his voice comes in. His last album, Pretend Like, is one I listen to again every month or two. And his entire catalogue as part of Slow Runner comes highly recommended... by me! Okay, thanks!

Rogue Amoeba released a new version of SoundSource last week, and very nicely sent me a free upgrade license, since I had just purchased the previous version a month ago. Wow! I emailed them a thank you, and the owner of the company wrote back to thank me for the kind words. Then he said if I liked it, they'd appreciate me recommending it to others. So here! And then I thought of a few other things I've used in recent months that I only just learned about, and might be useful to you. So, without deriving any personal benefit from these unsponsored links, here they are:

SoundSource

I use this because it makes my laptop speakers louder in a good, clean way! If you watch stuff on your computer and are like, "dang why can't this just be a LITTLE louder," then you should try SoundSource! I used to use Boom3D, but looked for other options because it seemed to be messing up my inputs and outputs sometimes. SoundSource has been great so far!

It also includes options to redirect audio from one source to another; but if you want better tools for that, their app Loopback is great, too. Heck, I've used half of Rogue Amoeba's apps off and on for a decade. Thanks!

Fork.app

The best git UI, for me, hands down. Just discovered it late last year, and have been super happy with it. Its built-in conflict diff tool (which syncs the scroll position of the two conflicting files, lets you choose which side to keep in each conflict, AND lets you make further changes in the bottom window just by typing) is worth the price of entry. But I've been managing a git repo with multiple contributors since January, and Fork has given me the best experience of any of the many others I've tried. Fuck SourceTree, GitHub's app is too simple, GitKraken is fine but weird to me, and Tower.app seems good but I never gelled enough to purchase it.

Fork's got a generous trial period to really make sure it works for you. And, heck, if you need help understanding Git stuff, apparently I'm pretty decent at managing a Git repo. hmu sometime. Thanks!

Nieves Cloud of Protection

If you, like me, are a human being who has to take a shit, Cloud of Protection is the best product I've found for neutralizing your shame before others. Its scent-smashing ability is also good against other unpleasant smells, like when you take out the trash, or have a Republican in your house for some reason(?). Thanks!

“I was writing what I needed to hear,” Liza explains. “I was writing what I needed to feel. I was quite literally writing a stronger, more empowered version of myself into existence.”

It's good!

I really love the gently acidic way Brent Simmons has been phrasing problems of power lately. Here’s the entirety of this great post:

You run into those fellas in life and online who will always explain, for any situation, why the big company is right.

If asked, they will discuss their political and economic ideology. That ideology, they’ll explain, is about reality and logic — it isn’t some blanket defense of big companies. No way. It could just as easily defend small businesses and working people.

Except… every single time, without fail, they side with the big company. And then you realize that they’re the overdog lovers. They cling to the big wealthy power and hate the underdogs. It would be nice if they’d just say so.

“It would be nice if they’d just say so” is SUCH a polite way to destroy the kind of “I’m just being realistic here” bullshit underlord who paves the way for oppression everywhere, whether corporate, national, or personal.

People who support power because they identify with the powerful, even when they have little of their own. Household patriarchs the world over who spit on the downtrodden and vote for idiot fascists because they like the appearance of power. Fascist fanboys whose vision of “realism” is that consolidated power isn’t an unjust accident of history, but simply the way things ought to be. Ignorant cowards who bluster loudest about how tough they are, usually to a limited audience of their own disgusted families. The lapdogs of history, tiny men who must be handled with care while seeing themselves as wolves, who think their yipping is a powerful roar.

Anyway, that’s the sort of thing that comes out when I try to address these people. I wish I were more readily capable of Brent’s calm; I think it’s more effective for reaching the people whose minds might be changed.

god damn

Catfish and the Bottlemen — Coincide

I heard a BUNCH of coyotes howling and yipping last night as I walked between the warehouses and the tracks. I couldn't tell if they were happy or not, but they had to yell regardless.

I just listened to an hour and twenty minutes of the Abnormal Mapping episode about Super Mario RPG — with 20 minutes remaining — and grew very frustrated!! It’s not sufficient that you simply recap a play experience and say the sorts of things that anyone would say about it. I was carried through on shared reminiscence, and then I was frustrated by the lack of even an attempt at a perspective or new reading of any ingredient of the game. I do not want to listen to a laundry list of things that happen in a media object, without adding anything substantial. Lord! And if you are gonna do that, at least edit it down at all, to remove the parts where you literally had nothing to say!

On the other hand, I recognize that I’ve grown moody about podcasts as I have about music; having done it, and learned to do it pretty well, and then having lost the context in which it worked, I resent the people who keep doing something even though they are mediocre at it, and even attract a paid following. That’s my
problem, and between me and my depression. But every time I’ve tried listening to Abnormal Mapping, because someone else brings it up, I get so bored.

Say! Something! Please! And thank you.