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Liner Notes (June 11th, 2022)

Posted by Jason Tate
Time

This week’s newsletter has some thoughts on the announcements at this year’s WWDC, some thoughts on music and entertainment I enjoyed this week, and the usual ten-song playlist of tracks I think are worth your time. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

If you’d like this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week (it’s free and available to everyone), you can sign up here.

A Few Things

  • I still haven’t made it through all the WWDC content yet; I have a few more podcasts to go. I liked a whole lot of what I saw this year. All the operating systems look like they’ll be getting substantial updates. iOS 16’s lock screen updates look interesting and will be fun to play around with. I’m not sure how I feel about Stage Manager on the iPad yet, but I will give it a look. I love my iPad, but it still feels like I’m hamstrung when I want to do anything multitask-wise. When I’m sitting on the couch, watching baseball, or just reading through the website, RSS, or Twitter, it’s perfect. And I’m writing this very newsletter on it right now with the Magic Keyboard. But the moment I want to use multiple windows and quickly move through them to do anything even a little advanced, it falls down, and I end up frustrated at what I can’t do. One simple example, I remap the caps lock key on my keyboard to be a “hyperkey” that I then set up keyboard shortcuts to do everything from launching frequent apps to doing basic window management. (Hyperkey + S launches Safari, Hyperkey + 1 arranges windows in my “work” layout, Hyperkey + 2 arranges windows to my “browsing” layout, Hyperkey + 3 lines up Readkit next to Safari for a simple news posting layout.) Something like that is impossible on the iPad before even getting to the power of apps like Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, and having universal TextExpander support. And I notice it. And that’s why the new MacBook Air is again catching my eye. It’s not really something I need, because almost my entire day is spent on the desktop, and I vastly prefer to work in front of a giant screen with a very powerful computer behind it (speaking of: Studio Display arrived today, and the Mac Studio finally comes next month). But, the idea of a laptop and having the powerful flexibility of that M2 is enticing for the times when I do want portable power. With the world opening up again, the idea of working from a different location is once again in play, and the one thing holding me back is it seems super silly to have two computers, a phone, and an iPad. But maybe I need to evaluate if the iPad should be a device I use without a keyboard and for couch browsing/reading, or perhaps I’m just trying to talk myself into giving permission to spend money I probably shouldn’t. Probably that.

In Case You Missed It

Music Thoughts

  • This was a weird music week for me. I ended up listening to fewer artists this week, getting in a rotation of Bleachers, Anberlin, The Living End, and playing those discographies on repeat. My most played album ended up being the new deluxe edition of While She Sleeps’ latest album, Sleeps Society, and I think the additions are a nice little bonus on top of an album I already really enjoyed. It’s an album that sounds modern but gives me this nostalgic feeling of listening to bands like Story of the Year, Letter Kills, and Lorene Drive back in the day. A nice energy.
  • The new Valleyheart album is another that reminds me of when we would get albums like this regularly, and now they feel few and far between. It’s a super solid, I guess I’d call it emo rock, album that we don’t see all that often these days. Between this, Caracara, and Anxious, I feel like we’ve had a nice little mini-renaissance in this genre lately.
  • The new Joyce Manor album flies by. It’s under 20 minutes and reminds me of Motion City Soundtrack in places. I only had time to listen once so far, but I was having fun with it and look forward to spending some more time with it next week.
  • Any week we get new Jimmy Eat World music is a good week. The new single “Something Loud” is classic Jimmy but with some new wrinkles. Great bridge. Super fun chorus. The band sounds energized, and I am eagerly anticipating, duh, whatever album comes next. It’s funny how, throughout my life, from about the middle of high-school onward, just about every three years, I’ve been blessed with a new album from my favorite band. And each time, they find a way to capture where I am and the things I’m thinking about at that moment. And here, with “Something Loud,” we have a song that looks back at your youth, looks at growing up, and reflects on what that all means. I’ve spilled so much ink about these guys over the years that I’m almost left without a new turn of phrase to say the simplest of things: goddamn, do I love this band.
  • A few other releases from this week I think are worth checking out, first: The Wrecks’ new one Sonder is a fun pop-rock album, and Rise Against released a new EP that is Rise Against-solid.

The Stats: Over the past week, I listened to 15 different artists, 23 different albums, and 252 different tracks (327 scrobbles). My most played artist of the week was Bleachers, while my most played album was While She Sleeps new deluxe version of their Sleeps Society album. Here is my Top 9 from last week, and you can follow me on Apple Music and/or Last.fm.

Entertainment Thoughts

  • Hannah picked Turning Red as the movie to watch for her birthday last week, and I enjoyed it. I’m not sure I’d put it in the top-tier of Pixar, but it was a fun watch.
  • I loved season four of Stranger Things. I could find little places to quibble. I could argue about minor plot issues or where time was spent, but honestly, I had such a fun time watching the season and spending time in this world that I find any complaints minimal at best. The story remains compelling, the characters are a blast to hang out with, and the only other show I can remember finishing a season of and immediately wanting to go re-watch was Dark.
  • Next up on our list to watch is Under the Banner of Heaven. We’re three episodes in, and it’s a heavy watch. Andrew Garfield is giving an excellent performance so far.
  • So, Obi Wan Kenobi is … sort of just ok so far. I’m enjoying it on par with the last few Marvel shows, but less than Mando, and probably more than most of Boba. The issue I have comes down to execution. You have a story that, on paper, is a pretty decent little plot. But every single beat takes the most obvious path to getting there. And you take that and layer on this thick veneer of slapstick, and it harms the show. The overall charm of Ewan as Obi Wan can carry it only so far, and I find myself putting together a version with the same basic plot, just executed differently, in my head. And I like that version better. We’ll see how the last two episodes play out, and I’m happy we got some more time with these characters, but I find myself wishing they gave Ewan and Hayden something more to work with and treated the audience with more respect.
  • I’ve seen a lot of praise for For All Man Kind around recently, and I really should give that one another shot. I wasn’t in the mood for the first season when I started it last time. I have a few shows I’m keeping up with weekly right now, but I feel like the next time I need a new show to watch (Hannah has some work trips coming up), this will be the one I reach for.

Random and Personal Stuff

  • Not a whole lot to share here this week. Hannah’s slowly working into the new job, I’m slowly remembering what it’s like to work from home alone again, and in the next month or two, I’ll be coming up on my ten-year anniversary of moving downtown. That hasn’t really dawned on me yet, but I’m sure as it gets closer, I’ll have more thoughts on that milestone.
  • Cross your fingers that the weather stays decent tomorrow. We have tickets to see a minor league baseball game, but the damn rain clouds keep coming in. I’d like some beer and hot dogs!
  • The weather did hold just long enough for us to give my mom her birthday and Christmas gift from last year. We got her a professional photography session to do some fun family photos. And after one reschedule, we lucked out for one rain-free hour. I’m excited to see how they turned out, especially since all my social media accounts could use some updated pictures.

Ten Songs

Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days.

  1. Jimmy Eat World – Something Loud
  2. Rise Against – The Answer
  3. Valleyheart – Heal My Head
  4. The Wrecks – Sonder
  5. Joyce Manor – Gotta Let it Go
  6. The Aces – Girls Make Me Wanna Die
  7. While She Sleeps – Eye to Eye
  8. Bleachers – Hate That You Know Me
  9. Pale Waves – Reasons to Live
  10. American Football – Life Support

This playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

Community Watch

The trending and popular threads in our community this week include:

The most liked post in our forums last week was this one by imthesheriff in the “General Politics Discussion IX” thread.

Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.

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