According to this website, I’m now in week 1623 of my life. Time to try out some weekly notes for a while. I need a way to reflect on my life. This is one attempt.
Houses / Cats
I’ve been living in Utrecht these past few weeks, in various houses, cat sitting for colleagues. In the first house I stayed in for almost three weeks. Which was quite long, but also nice because my daily commute was reduced to 15 minutes instead of something like 90. And in the heatwave that dominated the Summer so far, that was a great convenience. The cat I fed in the first house was nice but edgy. In this second house the cat is absolutely lovely. On top of all this catness, I also visited a friend on Wednesday night. She had just got a fresh new kitten (called Bella) and she was adorable and enthusiastic and playful.
Mood
The week has been a bit stressful, I guess. Counting down to the holidays comes with its own kind of stress. Finishing up things at work and knowing you won’t be able to deal with them for some time changes something in my brain. Combined with not enough sleep in the past few weeks (heatwave), let’s just say I’m happy when Friday is over and the weekend and my time off begins. After which I won’t be back at work till the second half of September.
Read
I’ve been struggling for months to focus on Haruki Murakami’s /1Q84/. Not that I don’t like it, I’m just distracted to easily by other things. I’m at 25% though. That’s something.
Listen
* Tom Speight – /Want You/. Tom has been writing enthusiastic folk pop for years now, and with his album on the way, this celebratory tune is more than welcome. If not for you, then at least for Tom himself, who was hospitalised earlier this year due to Crohn’s disease (for the second time, in fact, life’s a b*tch). Fresh out of hospital he wrote this song. I can’t wait for his album to be released.
* Iron & Wine – /Waves of Galveston/. This has been a favourite song of mine ever since hearing it live at Iron & Wine concerts. I’m glad it finally gets a release on the forthcoming EP /Weed Garden/.
* /Reply All 125: All My Pets/. What starts off as a light-hearted episode about YouTube videos, turns dark pretty quickly without being sensationalising any aspect of it. In the end it will leave you both unsatisfied and slightly alarmed. It’s nice when a podcast doesn’t throw everything in your face. I’ve decided to like his episode.
* Also listening to the new Death Cab for Cutie album (/Thank You For Today/). So far I’d describe it as Pleasant Melancholy. Stream it here.
Watch
* Me and the GF finished /Final Space/, a snarky science fiction animated comedy set in space. The action is over the top, and so are the jokes, but after the first few episodes, you get sucked into the vortex on Netflix. Make sure to watch every recap before each episode though, a lot of the fun comes from hearing Gary recount his own adventures that you’ve just watched. Chookity.
* /Better Call Saul/ is back (as well as Better Call Saul Insider, the great behind the scenes podcast). I’ve missed this show so much this year. It’s a show that inevitably gets darker as it goes on, and while there are still light-hearted moments, it more and more becomes a show about the human condition, shot brilliantly I might add. Good to have it back. It’s on Netflix in most countries outside the USA.
Tech
* Twitter did away with its old API things, which were driving some excellent Twitter apps. I’m a big Tweetbot fan, but I can only see it’s mostly appealing to hardcore Twitter users. The algorithm that Twitter uses to provide highlights to casual users (like myself, I must admit), is actually pretty decent. At least, what it shows is interesting. Admittedly I don’t know what I miss due to the algorithmic highlights. I do think it’s a mistake though, for Twitter to effectively destroy functionality in various apps. We’ll see what the future holds though. Twitter is struggling with lots of things (Alex Jones, spam and trolls, etc) and I wonder whether it can find a way forward. Then again, it’s not as if Facebook is doing that great right now.
Things I learned
* Cats love cheese, but apparently it’s too fat and salty for them. It’s like a big burger for humans: fine for every now and then but don’t eat too many of them.