The Week In
Consumption
Music
I listened to a lot of Mandy, Indiana, on the advice of various reviews. It is very abrasive, like the fake future music they listen to in Children of Men. Then I got into it, then it felt kind of haunted and I stopped for a while. It’s pretty good. Also some Nick Cave in the car, I don’t think the children would like the above.
Books
Echopraxia continues. A normal dude gets caught up in a trip to space with a bunch of godlike monks, a vampire, some zombie soldiers, his wife is dead (?) but still reachable in some kind of computer Heaven (?). They are going to a space station that was the point of communication for a ship that may or may not have made contact with aliens who appeared very briefly in the Earth’s atmosphere and then never came back. At any given point I know about 80% of what’s going on.
Movies
Movies! I didn’t click through enough of Netflix’s cancel screens evidently so I have it for another month. As such I watched Train Dreams, which was overtly manipulating my emotions as a middle aged guy on the verge of being left behind by the world, but it manipulated them really well. Next was Smile 2, which, well if you liked Smile 1, which I did, there’s more. The lead performance is honestly top drawer. And lastly Bacarau, a Brazilian movie which is best if you watch not knowing anything about, but let’s say the filmmakers enjoyed Assault on Precinct 13.
TV
I was told to watch The Bridge so I’m doing that. Seems a little bit like Woke Se7en currently, which is intriguing.
Production
Running
62km week, helped by being alone on Friday (also hence movies), so I knocked off work slightly early to catch the light and do a half marathon. It’s not even that cold any more.
Writing
I have one thing ready, but this project has not really achieved its proper aim of getting me back to the longer stuff I actually want to be producing. I have a thing (tentatively called Inifinity Departure Lounge) that was actually going pretty well until I started firing out 3,000 word horror stories instead. Though who’s to say the alternative wasn’t just nothing at all.
Code
I actually did loads of stuff with my Claude subscription, small features on an old project, fixes upgrades. On the other hand, I learned nothing from it. My industry is in a strange place.