I’m trying to invent blogging from scratch for myself here. This format is pretty directly inspired by the “weeknotes” a lot of people in tech do, but one, that’s a lot more “job,” and a lot more “journal,” than I’m really doing right now, and two, frankly, the relationship between my life and people in tech is the problem I’m trying to solve here, I’d rather they not be… any kind of guiding light for me in blogging.
So right now these are called “Sunday” recaps, the idea being, here’s some stuff that doesn’t entirely stand on its own but that I still feel should go here, posted some, probably not all, Sundays. When there’s Enough to post. A lot of the time it’ll likely be mostly spare bits of writing, though I’m sure as I come to think blog-first it’ll generate additional, original writing, too. Heck, I wrote this before I added a bunch of notes on updating my website. Here I am, tech-blogging anyway.
Now I just need to start thinking blog-first.
Below the fold, notes on updating my website, some bits and bobs from my Letterboxd, some media diet notes, and a podcast recommendation. Oh, that’s already quite a lot, isn’t it.
Ownership, Control, and Freedom
On Wednesday I updated alexdaily.nl ahead of this blog’s launch1Is it really a launch? Maybe I’ve just corrected your incorrect assumption that I don’t have a blog.. This mostly entailed moving the little bio and social links to the side2Unless you’re on a phone because it’s responsive, innit. and updating them, like I’ve been meaning to do for ages, but I also stripped away all the stuff — fonts and javascript and what not — it was loading that was doing either next to nothing or just literally straight up nothing. Why was that stuff even there? The page is half the size it used to be.
The only social links still on there are to here, to Mastodon, to Letterboxd, and to my email. I wondered if I should add Bluesky or acknowledge the Twitter situation at all, but no, I think this is good. Do not follow me on those other websites. Only follow me on the approved websites, citizen.
I think the next big step re: website are about bringing everything in line with each other — the sites for my comics all reflect almost a decade of me just sort of farting around on design, and I think they’d all benefit from me porting the basic idea of the design of the front page to Cal’s simple PHP comic script. Doing the same for the blog would be good, too3I personally like the old-school default WordPress theme — I remember when it was called “Kubrick” — but it’s old-fashioned in the way a beloved but shitty old car is, the only reason you’d call it a classic is detached irony., but that’s writing a whole WordPress ClassicPress theme, which I can definitely do, but is kind of its own project.
Currently also tinkering on a web directory project. The biggest part of it is just about populating it, which will take some time.
Once I have more than one or two projects along those lines running, I’ll add a “personal site” front page — I like the current “business card” front page the way it is, and don’t necessarily want to clutter it up with stuff that deserves its own set of deliberately coordinated prime positions.
Bits from Letterboxd
Less a depiction of the 90s and more of what we all felt the 90s could be, should be, might have been, full of people who just about plausibly exist if you suspend your disbelief long enough to get past the clothes, like a reverse of Back to the Future’s 1950s. And Matthew Lillard is honestly just such a babe in this.
2023’s Sisu, if you’re unaware, is about a Finnish man who gets hassled by and, as such, naturally, violently murders, an entire squad of dickhead Nazis.
the feel good movie of the summer
you can tell this is Canadian, because America would never let a forgotten perpetual public works project get this far without somebody figuring out a way to brag about it
Edward Scissorhands (1990):
the thing about the American mode of suburb is I’ve never seen so vivid a metaphor for hell so enthusiastically lived in by so many real people
Television: Shows I Should’ve Been Watching All Along Edition
Atlanta (FX): Put this one off for a long time just because “a show about the music industry in Atlanta” sounded boring, but it’s one of the most creative shows I’ve ever seen, capturing something about the way the world works in this, the Year of Luigi, in a relatable and human way like nothing else. Not every show should be Atlanta, but more shows should take Atlanta‘s lead.
Derry Girls (Channel 4): A much stronger take on the Troubles than Branagh’s “let’s not offend anyone” movie Belfast, just by being “a show about teenagers’ lives and times that happens to be set during the Troubles” instead of “about the Troubles.” I like all of them, but Orla is the one I relate to.
Schitt’s Creek (season 1 through 5) (CBC): A classic-feeling premise that somehow does not appear to have been done before. These characters change at a pace that makes a glacier look like the Hare in the race, and yet by the end of season 4 they’re looking forward on their new trajectory in a way you never thought they’d ever be capable of. Can’t wait to see how they wrap this up.
New Podcasts
Strike Force Five: Five hosts of American late-night talk shows, Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel, Meyers, and Oliver4The late-night form somewhat shamefully remains so dominated by the cishet white man in a suit that the average American late-night host is called “Jimmy”., have joined forces, in light of the ongoing Writers’ Strike, in a way it doesn’t feel like they would ever have thought to do during the last big strike, to raise funds to support their staff, for a podcast of just the five of them talking to each other.
It’s kind of a blast to listen to these guys just shoot the shit and share stories for an hour with the promise of more for as long as the strike carries on, really highlighting, one, the extent to which they’re still pretty interesting people to listen to on their own, and two, like the pandemic did before it, that late-night as a format isn’t worth jack shit without its many writers, other staff, and general flavour and trappings.
Other current listening:
- The audiobook of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which I’m enjoying, though an absence in early looks forward means I know exactly where it’s going.
- I enjoyed the final Diary of River Song boxset, though the first half is stronger than the back half, with a solid little swashbuckler and the surprisingly strong emotional core of Harvest of the Krotons — yet another River/Jackie Tyler teamup feels like a stretch, until you remember River is a companion’s daughter and Jackie is a companion’s mum, and that might be something they might bond over.
- The novelisation of Kerblam!, which has all the issues of the televised episode and– Well, no, I think that sentence ends there. It adds some flashbacks, presumably to pad what is already the shortest of the latest set of novelisations out a little, but truly does nothing to change it up in any meaningful way.
- I’ve also started Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Doomsday Manuscript and the new Colin Baker/Mel/Hebe boxset Purity Unbound. It’s funny to contrast something so old-school, full of fun 90s sci-fi nonsense and digs on the museum culture Benny and Brax exist in, with a Doctor Who set that happily and eagerly goes places Doctor Who has never gone before with Hebe, and to love both equally.
Things I’ve passive-aggressively declared “content” this week:
- Netflix’s live-action One Piece.