Another Friday is here. I hope everyone has a good week as we move toward the end of summer. I’m not ready for it to end. I’m ready for it to be less hot though. The temperature finally dropped here the past week. That coordinated nicely with the smoke coming in from all the fires. Been pretty gross air-quality-wise lately. I’ll take a few days in the 70s for a while. I’m looking forward to fall. Fall’s my favorite season. I love the weather, the crisp feeling in the air, and I like wearing fall clothes. I feel too hot all the time in summer. I like being able to put on long sleeves, and jeans, and wear shoes. Bring on the sweaters I say.
I’m going to try something a little different today and attempt to organize this round-up a little more.
Five Things
- I wrote a little bit about “hype” and if I think it matters in this day and age in regard to rock albums. I’m not convinced. I am however happy with feeling motivated and inspired to write a longer piece and publish it. I haven’t done that in a while for a variety of reasons, but the response got me thinking that I should try and do this more often.
- Drew reviewed that new Foxing album. It’s really good.
- Mary is going to start doing more reviews for us. Her first is about the Mitski album.
- Overcooked 2 has been a complete blast to play. If you want a fun game to play with a significant other, or a friend, I can’t recommend it enough.
- I bought a dad hat from ’47 and am really happy with it. I have been wearing the same plain black Flexfit hat for years, and I felt like it was finally time to switch it up. Great fitting, great looking, hat. Would recommend.
Music Thoughts
- I really like that new Fall Out Boy EP. I think all three songs are great. I don’t actually think “Lake Effect Kid” is as “different” as I’ve seen some people say compared to their more recent albums. All those elements are right there in all their songs. Fun little release from the band.
- The new Olafur Arnalds release is really soothing. Good late night music.
- I don’t know how I feel about this new The Frights album. I’ve spun it a couple times at the gym, and there’s something there, but I don’t really know if I love it or hate it. It’s an odd one that I can’t pin down.
- The new Faim EP is going to be six songs. They cut four from the early recordings I have, including one of my favorites, but the EP is really solid front-to-back if you like pop-punk in the vein of Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco. It’s right in that wheelhouse. The lead singer has “star” potential written all over him.
- Both new LANY songs are jams. I can’t wait for that album.
- The new Jump, Little Children album is way better than I was expecting. It’s a pop-rock sort of in the Jimmy Eat World vein, and from a band I first discovered on some episode of Scrubs, I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed my first listen of it.
- I don’t know what to say about the new Coheed. It’s … it’s good. But man, that band is just a lot to take in and I have to be in the exact mood to listen to them. By the end I always end up thinking that I want to like this band more than I actually do like the band. But, then I realize I’ve been air-guitaring along the entire time. Weird and strange band for me. Long, intense, album. I think fans will be happy with it. I haven’t listened to their older work in a long time.
- Finally spun that acoustic Rise Against album. Sounds good to me. I’m still mad at how much I didn’t connect at all with their last album, however.
- Nerdlinger released an album called Happy Place that’s a fast, irreverent, pop-punk sort of sound.
- The plan is to listen to the new Scott Sellers album on my run today at the gym, so I’ll have more thoughts on that soon.
- Interpol didn’t do much for me on first listen.
- I love the new Hippo Campus album. It’s different, it’s breezy, it’s catchy, it’s really, really good. Keep an eye out for that.
- New Swingin’ Utters is fun.
- Haven’t come back to the new Justin Pierre much, but I’ve been meaning to. My first listen was too preoccupied with me thinking “Uh, this is just MCS still” and I need to get out of that headspace and try and attack it with more objectivity.
- Young the Giant, The Night Game, and Pale Waves are all supposedly coming shortly. I’ll have thoughts on all of them when they do.
Entertainment Thoughts
- Upgrade was awesome. It was a very cool, just the right length, action/sci-fi movie. I wish more movies like this got made, because they’re right in my wheelhouse. It’s not as good, but it reminded me a little of the first time I saw Looper and was like “oh shit that’s really cool.”
- Won’t You Be My Neighbor made me emotional. The stuff at the end with clips of Fox News saying that Mister Rogers was responsible for people thinking they’re special and that it’s a bad thing … just … it makes me so angry to think about this shit poisoning the minds of so many people across the country.
- Ocean’s 8 was pretty good. Simple, fun, but I spent the entire time waiting for a different, or better, twist. It wasn’t a bad way to spend the evening though.
- Adrift was kinda just meh. Good performance, but the movie never grabbed me.
- To All The Boys I Loved Before gets my seal of approval. It’s on Netflix. The Package was fucking horrible. One of the few rare movies we’ve just completely bailed on. Garbage movie.
- I loved Mission: Impossible – Fallout. I’ve told this story before, but the first one was one of the first movies I truly loved. I had it on VHS and would watch parts of it before school, after school, and would reenact all of the Ethan Hunt moves as much as possible. I wanted to be him. I’ve loved this franchise and am so glad it’s been as good as it has. I think I’d rank: 4 > 6 > 3 > 5 > 1 > 2 at this point. But, it’s hard, because I really do like all of them and there’s parts in each that I really love. I think Fallout’s going to be way up there though, it really hit all the right spots. So, for now, it’s in the second spot.
Random and Personal Stuff
- As I wrote about earlier in the week. Uh, I’m engaged! No real plans on the wedding planning or anything like that yet. We’re going to take some time to ourselves, work on a budget, and then go from there. The idea is next year, but we haven’t thought about dates or places yet. It’ll be exciting when I get to make the big project of to dos for the wedding. I’m excited and happy.
- Mom started chemo today. It was the first session of four. She’ll probably lose her hair. She handled it like she always did. With good spirits and grace. She’s my goddamn hero.
- To go with the wedding planning and all that Hannah and I sat down to try and tackle our budget in the same way we have our weight/eating habits. I think we have a good plan. I finally have a budget that I think I can stick to, plus a family budget we think we can stick to, and hopefully that alleviates some stress and gets us on the right path. Too many extra nights out or extra purchases I think were weighing on us. It also will mean I need to make less money, which, is nice, since I really am not in the mood to go try and find an actual 9-5 job and give up this website dream yet. I still feel like I’m so close to getting right where I need to be, but so far away at the same time. Sounds like life.
- I’m down 18.4 lb since we started the calorie/workout/portion diet thing. That means I’m 1.6 lb away from my goal weight and where I’ll be able to move into a maintenance mode. For the first time in like a year I really like how I look and the workouts to tone certain muscles are starting to pay off as well. It’s so close now I can taste it. Going to have to celebrate once I hit the goal weight and, thankfully, I think this system works so well with my brain and how I like to do things that I think this is something I can continue to do for a long time. If I keep feeling this good, and liking how I look and feel, I think that’ll be a big motivator as well.
Time to tackle some email and to-do list stuff. I hope everyone has a great weekend. I’m seeing my college roommate tomorrow for a BBQ and I get to meet his baby for the first time. I can’t believe he has a baby. Life is funny.