The Mad, Joyful Chaos of the Creative Process
After yesterday's unhinged, painfully cathartic threnody of a post, I really wanted to post something short, light and enjoyable. I was considering writing down my thoughts on my favorite TV show, The Good Place, but that would have taken altogether much too long, so that is going to remain a somewhat long-term plan, but I might get to it within a week or so.
So anyways, while watching an episode of said show last night, I noticed that I really liked the opening riffs of a song that plays during something akin to a nightmare sequence (or fantasy sequence) in that episode.
Using the FOSS music recognition program on my phone, I determined that the song was Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4." Given the enigmatic nature of the song's title, I knew that there would be some enjoyable sleuthing to be had in learning its background and meaning.
I first looked up the lyrics on genius.com to get some background on the song, but finding that interface a bit annoying to use, I just looked up the article directly on Wikipedia.
I learned that while there had been many accusations of a drug theme surrounding the song, it was actually written very early in the morning: "twenty five or [twenty] six [minutes] to four [am]."
Reading that while getting ready in the morning, I laughed out loud. The story behind the title is also self-evident in the first two lines of the lyrics:
Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
It reminded me of so many times in my undergrad university days when I was scrambling to prepare a paper just a couple hours before class, and somehow knocking out a homer with nearly no time to spare.
And it's so amazing to me that the entirety of this hit song is just the author basically saying, "I have no idea what to write, I'm bleary-eyed and trying to stay awake, here's this song where I'm basically saying nothing."
It's a good day when the Muse is that cooperative. :)
invidious link (nadeko)
invidious link (yewtu.be)
youtube link
Nietzsche's Heavy Declaration
Content Warning: this post is a downer. I will be dealing with issues of religious manipulation and existential guilt
Chidi grabs the drug dealer by the hoodie while reciting Nietzsche
In yesterday's post*, I discussed my favorite episode (s03e05 "Jeremy Bearimy") of my favorite series (The Good Place). I didn't …
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The Scenes that Made Me: The Good Place (2016)
Professor Chidi Anagonye stirring a pot of Marshmallow-Peeps-and-M&Ms chili in class as he rants
Note: Minor spoilers of Seasons 1-3 of The Good Place follow. Also, minor discussion of religion.
Anyone who follows me on the Fediverse will know that I have been more than slightly obsessed with the …
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Monocultures Considered Harmful or: Why Linux Nerds Should Give BSD and Other "Weird" OSes a Try
In yesterdays's article, I described the benefit of having a large supply of physical hardware to try different OSes on. Now I would like to talk about why it's important to run more than just various Linux distros (although just trying different distros is a great way to start broadening …
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Why You Need A Stack of Thinkpads
Modified image of a stack of thinkpads taken originally from https://old.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/17xf8kl/my_thinkpad_stack/
A lot of people experience vendor lock-in and outright "ecosystem captivity" because they've plunked down several grand towards pricey and shiny laptops from Apple, Microsoft (*snicker*), Samsung, or whomever. Such a …
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Random updates
Ironically, this isn't intended to be a "filler" post, but more of a fill-you-in post, as I've actually decided to stop trying to do "100 Days to Offload" this year.
I still technically have enough time left in the year to do it, but then I'd just be slamming the …
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Where to now?
I debated whether or not this should be a "toot" (status update), or a proper blog post.
Like one time before, I am going to allow it to be something in-between. An off-the-cuff blog post, not quite as structured and agonized over as a proper blog post/article, but more …
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Just a quick note...
...to let you all know why I haven't been blogging for the past couple weeks.
After many years of fighting with illness, and multiple organ failures, my mother passed away peacefully last Tuesday night.
I'm doing ok, overall, but haven't had much motivation to write. Everything is still very surreal …
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Desperately Seeking Preview.app
Preview.app shown in NeXTStep 1.0 courtesy of infinitemac.org
In yesterday's post, I talked about the things I do and don't miss about MacOS, mainly focusing on the global menubar search as the main positive from my experience with Mac OS X.
Looking over blog post ideas note …
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What I Do and Don't Miss About MacOS
Background and disclaimer
I was a Mac kid. I was lucky to have my own Mac at home (a relatively low-end one, but still) for most of my high school. And like most people, I do look at the past (particularly the retrocomputing past) with pretty strongly rose-tinted glasses.
But …
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