Album of the Day

Howard Shore - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Builds With Wood: The Queue

My build queue is filling up fast! Perhaps a strategy to employ is how I did in 2003 with 3 credit cards: knock out in ascending order...well, I first GOTTA build a proper workbench—I cry a little on the inside that I gave my ol' tank to my neighbor. You could hit that thing with a truck and it's now time to buy a new grill.

For now, I'm researching ideas/techniques I like. It's been 5-6 years since I've pulled off my last woodworking build so some of it is clearing a path to that door in my head. Immediately, I'm reminded of how pretentious the genre is. Admittedly, there's a...a wistful part of me that likes the handsaws. No noise, no risk...almost a Zen quality to it all. But, a wood router, yo; that's gotta be my favorite. Still, there are others who think a table saw is required for any build. I've always just used a circular saw with jigs. Seems like a safer approach.

I'm ever-aware of tool creep. It works like scope creep, but it's FAR more insidious because...let's face it: tools are cool.

Woodworking is just this:

• Plan
• Acquire material
• Make cuts
• Join
• Sand
• Finish

Builds With Tech: This Website

The other day, I nearly abandoned this Jekyll approach to adopt WordPress. OK, so I DID for a few hours. I exported all 600-whatever posts into a single XML to pop into WordPress. It was live, I was doing it—"What are you doing, Bill?"

Incidentally, I wiped out the live version of my Jekyll site with I made the switch to a dynamic/database one. It's not particularly problematic as I now keep zipped-up manual backups. But, sometimes I miss little pieces of code. FORTUNATELY, I have a development version that I was tooling around with and hence this iteration. It's kinda up? I've got features I wanted to roll out, but they're not ready.

And I'm still thinking I need a retrowave theme. Oh, I'm not going to serve up that classic one I did for years. I like it—well, love it, but this is something new...sorta. OK, it'll be in the lineage of the prior theme!

Admittedly, I have a hard time pulling away from just a clean website with readable fonts. Still, I backed away from a simple CSS site, so I suppose it's time to move on. And frankly, no one cares about a simple CSS!

AI Art of the Day

I have another gift handed down by our Cylon overlords! I generated this on a whim today and...I TOTALLY could not control my laughter!

Think:

"a Pixar Cookie Monster eating bacon in a post-apocalyptic night"

Sure, bacon on a cookie—makes sense...the third eye—sure, radiation.

What made me ABSOLUTELY lose it was what is between the cookie sandwich! And thus, found nowhere else in the world...

(content yanked to optimize site)

Song of the Day

Gunship - Shadow Fury

The Saddest Music Video I Know

The other day, I wanted to share on Facebook the saddest music video, but I never got around to it—I dunno, I must hesitate at sharing emotion on a busy street corner as people pass by. At least lemme have a hat for that sweet cash! I might employ this clever technique I read off of Quora:

I used to give away a bunch of dollar bills in my crowd gather. This served a number of functions, it:

• Amused people. I was doing something quite unexpected.
• Separated me from the crack heads/ desperate folks.
• Kept people there longer. They don't feel comfortable leaving with your money.
• Often came back multiplied several times over, for those who stayed.
• Ensured there would be bills to collect first thing when starting the hat pass.
• If people did have to go early, they'd interrupt the show to give back the money. (message to others: This is worth something, don't leave without giving) I'm sure I lost a few dollars occasionally, but think it way more than paid for itself.

Incidentally, I once went to a Sunday night church service that passed out a plate full of $20 bills with the intent that we each pulled one out. From there, the idea was to do something good with it. This totally flips our scarcity mindset on its head.

So, what was the video? Sting's Fields of Gold. I've known it since it came out some 30 years ago, but I've never watched its video until recently. That video is what I experience when I walk around the UofM campus, drive by Piggly Wiggly or consider Wolfchase Galleria.

The Workshop

Yesterday, I took the first steps toward creating something very special, something that...well, something that will span across this year and all the years that remain: The Workshop of INTJBill—I am SO gonna have to make a sign with that! I dropped, I don't know, $2600 into tools to recapture the spirit of what was to ignite the fires of what will be. And it looks like I'll be picking up a Harbor Freight membership shortly—and I don't even have a lick of a tool cabinet unlike my prior iteration when I had that Craftman's rolling delight. I've got ideas for a WAY cheaper solution. Just lemme at that wood! Oh, don't let me get ahead of myself! That will be rolling out later this year.

Oh, The Workshop has been sorely missed in my life! From the emergence of my weightloss project to the subsequent banishment of sawdust, to this relegation to Walking in Memphis in the footsteps of yesteryear, it has been too far long—almost seems like a lifetime ago! Sure, I can tool around with this website and do a thing or two. I might even toss in a smattering of words to capture a thought. But, I feel most alive when I create with my hands.

In time, I'll be sharing my woodworking project of the month.

All-in With Google

While I said my final goodbye to Facebook (and I had to delete every single post and delete every single person to pull myself away), I am doubling down on Google. I've purchased a year's worth of YouTube Premium for YouTube Music. In time, I hope to recreate past Expeditions playlists and will link them here.

Spotify has an advantage product because of its push to user-generated playlists. That said, Spotify cannot give me Rock Sugar's Roll You in the Hurricane in a playlist!

And because of YouTube, I ran across Sandi Thorn's November Rain, which I think might be more emotionally hitting than the original. And while she's Scottish, I'd have never guessed it! She's reminiscent of Trisha Yearwood.

Lastly, I punched up my Google One storage to 200 GB and have something like 400-something days ahead with them.

This is a new era. A new era of artificial intelligence art. The Tech Noir is NOW.