From Metafilter I discovered this long retrospective on the Breeders and consequently went down a rabbit hole reading about the lineage from Throwing Muses to the Pixies to the Breeders and then Belly. I was a latecomer to these groups, getting first into the Breeders thanks to Last Splash and then moving on to Belly. I can remember driving home with my sister after high school tennis practice, belting out Belly’s King along to my car’s crappy cassette player…
Category: Reading (Random Links)
Links that I’m reading
The Breeders in Big Sur
A lovely little video of the Breeders performing some of my favorite songs – mostly acoustically – among the redwoods in Big Sur.
Still can’t believe I sold them craft supplies 14 years ago without realising who they were. 😂
Links that amused me today
- Sydney Sweeney Knows Her Boobs Drive People Crazy – LOL. Good for her! I want that sweatshirt.
- The Man Who Killed Google Search – Deliciously scathing post about the enshittification of Google Search. Guess what? AI-generated content is only gonna make it worse.
- 27 Takes On What It Means To Be a Serious Person – Both Rodd and I agreed that “purpose” is really critical and that neither of us have it, which is but one of many reasons why we are not serious people. Great piece.
- Any John Cage fans? “This is may be the most beautiful accidental explanation of the power of a work of art I’ve ever read in my life.” Agree. I also rather liked this reply.
Teacup power-ups
I spent a good twenty minutes today playing with the browser demo of Jane Austen’s 8-bit Adventure. It’s awesome! Can’t wait for the full version to drop.
We don’t talk about Backstreet… 🎵
Every New Year’s, there’s a happy moment when I remember that the latest Best of Bootie compilation is out! We’ve been listening to it for the last hour, and my favourites are definitely “We don’t talk about Backstreet” and “Take it as it was.”
And OMG we just got to the last track and I did not expect that. 😂
Random Links
Some random links I’ve had open in my web browser lately:
- The BBC have been broadcasting daily episodes of a dramaticization of Susan Cooper’s book The Dark is Rising. It’s also available as a podcast (on pretty much all the platforms), and we’ve been listening along and really enjoying it. If you’ve only seen the terrible 2007 film, you should listen to this and then go out and read the whole series. (Rodd and I have also been having fun casting an imaginary version of this for Netflix. He reckons Peter Capaldi for Merriman.)
- The Most Popular Series Eats Recipes of 2022. I’m amused how many of these are just simple potato recipes. And hey, it includes Tartiflette! I will definitely be making that pork and bean stew next winter.
- Mapping Sydney Billboards: Every QMS advertising panel in Sydney. I saw this linked on a Mastodon thread griping about the new electronic advertising panels. We’ve only been home for 2 weeks and already these things are annoying me. They’re huge and intrusive, and they take up disproportionate space on Sydney’s already narrow footpaths.
- How to Sew Like a Mathematician. Making continuous bias tape has already been a favourite sewing trick of mine – I have a whole blog post and video about it – but I hadn’t thought very deeply about the topology of it. That post goes deep into the details and then tries an interesting technique to start with a regular torus, resulting in “almost” bias tape. 🤯
Random Links
A couple tabs I’ve had open in my browser this week:
- Fine Points: Cleveland Yarn Shop Featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – Apparently this is a running segment that features small businesses in silly sketches to give them a “bump.” Very cute idea!
- Mike Flanagan is creating a TV series for The Dark Tower – Fingers crossed he can pull it off. The movie was such a disappointment, despite having nailed the casting of the main characters. I really need to see Susannah and Eddie!
- Bourdain’s World Map – An interactive map of everywhere he ate across all his shows. It’s probably a good thing we didn’t have this at the start of our European sojourn or we’d be even chubbier and poorer than we are now!
- 99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2022 – So much goodness here. I’m keeping this one open so I can read a few more whenever I get depressed.
RAMEN TRAIN 🍜🚆
The Amaterasu Railway Now Runs on Leftover Tonkotsu Ramen Broth | Spoon & Tamago – Um, I want to go to there. New life goal is to ride on the train powered by ramen broth biodiesel!
Christmas Bootie
How did I not know that there are annual Bootie Christmas mashup albums?? They also have a playlist of all the Mariah mashups they can find, updated every year. 🎵🎄