Now

What’s going on, Internet? I’m writing this from Martinborough in the pockets of time I have between activities with the family.

I’ve found myself reading more eBooks rather than audiobooks this year. Turns out my brain still works without someone narrating to it.

I need to take note of where I hear about interesting podcasts from, because by the time I get done listening to them, like MF DOOM: Long Island to Leeds, I totally forget! Maybe this would be a great use of the notebook I carry around but never write in?

Over at the Cafe, yequari got an instance of Linkding setup and made available to all community members via our SSO service. I know a bunch of people in this corner of the web use it, so I got myself some focus time and moved my Bookmarks to Linkding. It’s improved my bookmarking workflow and hoping that makes me more inclined to actually saving them as I read them and I get more regular sharing them again, which lead me to trying out a Link Dump in their own post rather than hiding them away at the bottom of these posts each month.

And finally, the musical highlight this month was seeing Bic Runga At Te Paepae Theatre, Dinner and a concert. Going into new music blind, a fantastic evening out with my wife. We don’t get too many times together like this these days between everything else going on in life.

I haven’t picked up an audiobook again yet, but I’ve finished the Vega Jane stories with the last two books, Vega Jane and the Rebels’ Revolt and Vega Jane and the End of Time by David Baldacci. I really enjoyed this series, and like I mentioned previously I don’t even know how the first one wound up on my Kobo!

Picked up English Teacher after a trailer came up on YouTube and after the first episode I was right into it. A group of 30-something teachers at an American high school navigating their own friendship dramas while dealing with hilariously difficult students. Two seasons were available so I blasted through all of them.

Crackhead is a new local dramady and I got to attend a special screening of the first two episodes with the cast and crew. Created by Holly Shervey and based on her own early experiences, the show takes place within a rehab facility somewhere in New Zealand. Watching it episode by episode on Three Now as they come out.

Continued watching Shrinking S3 as well, it feels like it’s wrapping up, does this have another season in it?

I’m a sucker for dumb teen movies and Summer of 69 fit the description. A young twitch streamer gets to the point in life where they want to get it on with their childhood crush. They recruit a stripper and then it all goes down. Regretting You was an interesting one, turns out to be about a mother and daughter dealing with the fallout of a fatal accident that reveals a betrayal in the family. Such a wild plot, my wife only said wtf when I described it to her. I had Roofman playing in the background while playing Warcraft. It was okay, didn’t really care for it, I don’t think I really enjoy Channing Tatum.

Four new records added to the collection. Frou Frou and Lisa Loeb from the Interscope Vinyl Collective (IVC). I wasn’t familiar with either record, they’re fine and have made me aware to exercise the cancel subscription button for releases that I’m not totally keen on. They’re gorgeous releases, I love them and have listened to them but yeah, could be spending that money on records I actually want. The other two were both Bic Runga records. Her latest release (first in 15 years), Red Sunset (signed) and then her original from 1997, Drive which I picked up at her show and got it signed in person 😃

What else have I been listening to? Been on a hard house kick recently so I dug up an old favourite from the early 2000s Wellington clubbing scene - Dynotuned by DJ Shakka, and went back through the Hard House Euphoria albums. After listening to the MF DOOM podcast I dived into the albums of his I have in my collection. Operation: Doomsday and Madvillainy.

On the local music front I got really into The Panthers from Diggy Dupé, choicevaughan, and P. Smith (aka Troy Kingi). “The Villain” was on repeat, such a tune. Another new find was RNZŌ SZN from RNZŌ. Released January 2025, this one’s going to be in regular rotation for a while.