(no subject)

* Kiwi Farms has now also been hacked and all their emails and passwords and IPs compromised.

oh no their personal data is out on the internet

I am about to die of irony.

* Night before last I flung myself by bus pretty far south and walked back. No pictures, but got to walk in some nice, light rain. I actually wound up walking for a bit on a road I'd walked before and the things I shot there were gone. The bizarre mural was covered in gray paint. Kind of an odd experience.

* I hope to fling myself far north sometime this week, maybe Wednesday air quality willing. It's been nice but we may get swamped soon. The fun of living in a valley, if we get smoke it can just sort of sit on us. We'll see what happens. The good news is that if walking is not a good idea, I have my iPhone backup to organize:



I am still working on getting everything out of sub-folders and into one, big folder.

The good/bad thing about photography is that I never run out of ways to be productive. Sorting actually uses some of the same artistic muscles as shooting (what is a good picture? what is in my style? is the subject clear to someone who isn't me? is this crappy photo actually a mood? ) So, it's not just busy work. I am grinding photography EXP while sorting.

* I hate IPAs. Every time a local brewery does a nerdy run of beer, like calling it Eagle Fang (Cobra Kai reference) or does a Zelda reference or anything nerdy and topical it's always an IPA. I have never bought an IPA because local IPAs lost the plot about ten years ago. They are in an IBU arms race to be as bitter as possible. I can drink IPAs from other cities, not my thing but they are drinkable. Like, I cannot stress enough how there is a weird local thing where the breweries all try to outdo each other and people drink them and pretend they are good. It's like hot sauce. People drink them and pretend they didn't just get punched in the tastebuds.

But, I finally caved. I saw a label I couldn't resist:



And honestly? It's not terrible. Maybe the local IPA scene finally grew out of whatever macho pissing contest was going on. It's hoppy and a bit grassy. If I liked IPAs I might think it was good.

Maybe the IBU arms race crashed when Basecamp closed. Even their stouts were so bitter it was kinda funny to see people caught unprepared. I could drink their canned stouts, but the pints served at the brewery were like... a surprise party in your mouth.

Anyway, I clearly bought this for the label :) I like how the black edges mimic a ringer jersey style shirt.

One recc, two flavors

Putting aside how self conscious I am that half the songs I have on rotation right now are from actor-fronted bands...

Joe Keery's band has a new album out. What got me listening to them was the live version of End of Beginning that they played at shows before the album came out.

This is the album version of End of Beginning. While I like the album overall, I am not big into this version of the song. I really prefer the live version with the clearer vocals. He tries to disconnect Djo from That Dude From Stranger Things as much as possible, so I wouldn't be surprised if he does that multitrack thing to his vocals to sound less like him on purpose. But he's a really good vocalist and does some impressive work with tone so it's sad to see it muddied. The live versions of the songs make for crisp vocals and slight lo-fi-ified instrumentals and the album mix does the opposite.

But, if I am going to recc some Djo, I have to include On and On because it's a really good, catchy song and such a mood. This song really impressed me, both the music and the lyrics.