REALLY LIKED SEVERANCE

I started watching Severance (Apple TV+) last Sunday. Watched all the shows in a few days, then had to wait until Friday (yesterday) for the season finale.

Oh my god.

I’ve tended to not really be a “TV guy” most of my life. My last real “broadcast TV” favorites was ‘The Mole’ was 2002. Shit, that was TWENTY YEARS AGO.

I remember rushing home to see new episodes, absolultey hooked. Then season two started and it turned to shit in a hurry, and I fell off.

Sure, I watched movies here and there (like the Matrix of course), and TV shows (Parks and Rec, etc.), but just nothing hooked me.

In 2019 we got The Mandalorian – WHEW. Wasn’t even fair. A TV series based around my favorite movie of all time? HOOKED.

LOKI in June of 2021, which pulled me in because of the “who’s really behind all this” story? I love that sort of stuff, which goes back to the Matrix, of course.

That things aren’t what they seem.

Which then lands us here at Severance on Apple TV+.

Aside from the amazing sets and design, and the brilliant acting, is a premise that gnaws at me a bit.

The “everyday you’re back here, you chose to come back” part.

Wow.

FUCK YOUR EDIT BUTTONS

There was a time in our lives when we didn’t see what friends had for dinner, scored on their biology tests, ran their half-marathon, posted a song, a funny meme, a photo of their cat, someone parked in the bike lane, a misspelled sign on the window of the local bodega, the cat from said bodega, their review of the new episode of that cool TV show that’s not on TV but a streaming service, their disdain for streaming services, their rant about cancelling their streaming service, their love for sports, their hatred of people that love sports, and the video highlight of some great athletic feat by someone in a high school, college, or pro event that everyone will watch for 3.4 seconds.

We didn’t read 18 articles about 18 different subjects before getting out of bed, like consuming three newspapers, 4 morning shows, and an hours worth of talk-radio (the comments and replies) before we even put on pants.

The soundtrack to our commute or shower or morning walk was limited to the music we owned, or the MP3s we downloaded to our portable device. Now we have the option of every piece of music ever recorded, and 60K new songs are uploaded to Spotify alone every single day. Hurry, it’s Bandcamp Friday – here’s 900 gentle suggestions from everyone about what you should check out and it will only take you 3.2 years to listen to 30 seconds of the first 329 links.

People could call us on the phone. Or send us a letter.

I have five email inboxes, three Asana inboxes, a Basecamp, and two Slacks to watch throughout the day. I’m probably forgetting one or three others.

Our meetings used to be limited to conference rooms. Now my face appears anywhere there’s a smart device and wifi. We’re experts with webcams and microphones and lighting and sound dampening, but fuck if anyone can provide a god damn agenda in 2022.

Am I the old man yelling at the cloud? Fuck yes I am. I’m tired.

KEEP CALM, FUCK OFF

Is there a better example of “the show must go on” than this?

Via NPR

There was a missile attack SEVEN MILES from the track, but the teams and organizers met for hours and decided to race anyways.

A MISSILE ATTACK.

I could hardly work on January 6th, 2021 during the fucking insurrection, yet the work world couldn’t stop. “Please ignore the attack on the Capitol building, answer emails, get on that Zoom call.”

Another example of everyone going “this is fine” and carrying while the entire world is in flames, sometimes literally.

I AM SAD NOW

One of the things I told a friend was that I knew Taylor Hawkins more for his smile than his drumming. Now, of course, he was a fantastic drummer. But I ever video I saw of him, or photo, he was beaming. That smile was always there. It looks so whole and pure, grateful and affirming.

God dammit, it’s horrible to see him gone from this earth so soon. Just 50 years old.

SOMETIMES, ALL THE TIME, NEVER

I love this from Joe Holder:

Absolutely something I’ve wrestled with.

Don’t think of RUNNING HARD as an “all the time” activity – just don’t let sometimes become never. I’ve been taking it REAL easy with running. Staying WAY too comfortable. So once a week usually I plan out a hard run. Force myself into the paces I know I’m capable of, just to feel it again.

And that junk food thing – oooph. I’d have a bag of cookies in the house, to help make working on the computer all day better. But it never helps, of course. Sure, for a few seconds it’s nice, but in the long run I eat a bag of cookies in two days and feel like shit.

GOT INTO THE WOODS

The start of the run was a slog, it was cold, windy, and raining just a bit, too. But then I found a trail I never checked out before, and the next mile was between giant trees on fluffy pine needles, and then a bit of raised walkway over a bog.

Many runs lately have felt hard, so I walk a bit, get the heart rate down, and get back to it. A slow run just means more time outdoors.

Afterwards I stopped at Target, and I thought my car looked tiny compared to the truck parked in the nearby space. I don’t want to know how much it cost to fill up the gas tank on that thing.

THAT’S NOT OUTSHINED

If I know anything, it’s the intro to ‘Outshined’ by Soundgarden.

I was out running errands recently, and was in the mood for some 90s grunge, and of course went back to ‘Badmotorfinger.’ I asked Siri to play ‘Outshined’ via my Apple Music subscription, and for some reason it played the studio outtake version from the Super Deluxe Edition that came out whenever.

Fuck that.

That got me to dig into an external hard drive and look up the album of my ripped music, and there it was – an MP3 rip of the album I owned in the 90s, and that was the version I needed to hear.

That got me thinking – maybe I should get back to getting my old, ripped MP3s out and listening to music that way. I downloaded Swinsian and kicked the tires a bit.

That was fun for about 20 minutes, but then tracks were missing. Albums were split up because of different words being capitalized. Art work was gone.

Then I remembered what I love doing around 4 or 5pm – not being on my computer.

I’m on my computer most of the day everyday for work, and I don’t want to spend more time in the evening fixing fucking album spellings or artwork mismatches.

That got me looking at CD players again, and I found this amazing beauty; the Yamaha MCR-040, though I’ve seen it named the CRX-040, too.

It’s from 2010 or so, and I love it, and I need to get one, I think.

Via Gadget Guy

I’ve been feeling like I need to own more physical media, and I don’t really want to do vinyl, so I think re-building my CD collection is what I need to do.