Liner Notes (March 31st, 2025)

Just some quick hits this week. This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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A Few Things

Hannah and I took some time off over the last week and have been rotating between being super productive and getting some things done around the house that we’ve been putting off, and trying to relax a bit and do some fun things. The weather has half-cooperated. A few sunny days. Still some showers. But it’s been nice. The weekend was spent doing some home organization, so the newsletter is showing up on Monday morning.
Some recent blog posts: Fun with computer names and icons, more fun computer things, thoughts on the impressive and yet equally soulless new ChatGPT image generator feature, and a Python script for calculating words written on WordPress.
I’ve written before about mapping the Caps Lock key to a “hyperkey,” and recently saw that Raycast added this very feature to their app. I am still using Karabiner-Elements to do this on my computers, but mostly because I have a few other keyboard changes I make (like mapping the globe key to Raycast’s emoji picker and mapping the Spotlight key to launch Raycast itself). However, this is another in a long line of features that make Raycast one of the best power tools available for the Mac.

Music Thoughts

Underoath’s new album released on Friday. I am still a big fan. I read through some of the posts in the community, and it seems, actually, less polarizing than I expected. Feels pretty close to 80/20 positive to negative comments. I will say: it’s a damn great gym album.
Lucy Dacus’s new album also came out this week, and I’ve only had time to listen once so far; I liked it. Mellow. Some strong melodies.
Heathcliff are a skate-punk band from Germany and their new album is a big throwback to a genre that I still really enjoy.
I haven’t had time to listen to the new Deafheaven yet, but that’s on my list to check out this week.

The Stats: Over the past week, I listened to 30 different artists, 39 different albums, and 377 different tracks (435 scrobbles). Here is my Top 9 from last week, and you can follow me on Apple Music and/or Last.fm.

Entertainment Thoughts

For the mini-staycation we’ve been watching a few throwback movies that are just pure fun. We did the original Jurassic Park and then the last two nights have been Alien and Aliens. Three straight classics. This was the first time I had seen any of these in 4K and it felt a little like experiencing them again for the first time.

Random and Personal Stuff

One of my goals this year is to get into better cardio shape. When I turned 42 I started thinking about how I had done a much better job over the past five-ish years eating better and doing a daily strength training workout (a journey I sorta documented in the very first iteration of what would become this newsletter). But one thing I was feeling was that my cardio fitness felt flat. From the readout in the health app to just how I felt even after a quick climb of the stairs. I started very slow and began incorporating a small cardio set at the end of each workout. Jumping jacks. Running in place. Jumping rope. And then slowly moved to joining Hannah at the track on Sundays. It hurt. But, it’s working. I bought my first new pair of running shoes in at least fifteen years. And this Sunday I ran my first 5K in, uh, I have no idea when I last ran anywhere near that distance. But, I came in just under 30 minutes (29:22) and am relatively proud of the progress so far. My mother has been running her entire life. She still runs marathons. I don’t currently have any desire to do that kind of long-distance running, but it has felt great to do something. And seeing the progress has been motivating.

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.

Lucy Dacus – Big Deal
Underoath – Loss
Heathcliff – They Won’t Get Us Down
Catbite – Tired of Talk
Winona Fighter – Talk
The Night Game – One Phone Call
Pennywise – Straight Ahead
Lucky Boys Confusion – Ordinary
Motion City Soundtrack – Mary Without Sound
ERIE – May Your Heart Always Be Young

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 Aaron Mook in the “Accountability in Music” thread.

Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.

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