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A Good Weekend

It’s been a good weekend.

It is now Sunday night 9:20pm.

Friday night we turned off the screens for about 3 hours and just listened to music on the big stereo. It was really nice. We turned down the lights, turned on the color-changing LED “candles” and relaxed. Perfect.

Our front room during music night.

Saturday I taught for two hours at our aikido dojo. A mix of experienced non-black belt students and very new people. Everyone did well. I enjoyed it. We just relaxed for the afternoon and listened to more music in the evening. Another good day.

Today we got up and took our beloved sheltie for a walk at Oak Point Nature Preserve in Plano. He loves it. The trails were dry enough enjoy, and he loves it. Came home and made coffee and chilled before going to Portillo’s for Italian beef sandwiches for lunch.

I’m now listening to this new XTC album while my wife does some stuff in another room. I have always liked XTC and I’m just now gettting around to buying their music. Weird. Anyway, this album was released in 1980. AMAZING!  Sadly my weekend is coming to a close. Oh well. It was good while it lasted.

XTC album

 

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New Turntable Cartridge

I can imaging myself going down the audiophile rabbit hole very easily. I have thus far refrained, but a few weeks ago I ordered a new Ortofon 2M Red cartridge for our turntable. To simply installation I got the one that is pre-mounted.

Installation re-balancing the tone arm were both easy.

Sitting here right now listening to XTC’s Skylarking. Honestly, this album sounds amazing anyway. It is one of the best produced albums we have, but the new cartridge really does it justice. It sounds fantastic.

I’m really glad I made this purchase. Records, CDs, and this stereo are my only real indulgence besides coffee.

Ortofon 2M Red turntable cartridge
clicky clicky for full sized image

 

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Anti-Productivity

I am firmly Anti-Productivity.

Obsession with productivity and optimization is the antithesis of a life well-lived.

You will never be productive enough the leaders of the Cult of Productivity. “Productivity” as it is measured is higher than ever in history, and yet we still all slave away. The idea of Productivity is bullshit as are the methods of measuring it.

The so-called Protestant Work Ethic is simply a means of getting people to slave away for their whole lives. It’s a lie.

No matter how optimized you are, you will still eventually die. No matter how rich you are you will die just like everyone else. Beyond not smoking, killing your liver with booze, you have no control over anything. Fit people get cancer and die every – single – day.

This is just a reminder. For myself.

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Social Media “Content”

As the months roll by it is actually kind of amazing to see the evolution of clearly bot/AI generated “content” on social media platforms. Fake “fan” groups and pages, etc etc. I hope some genius is out there writing a PhD dissertation on this particular disaster.