Nothing like starting the day off with some identity theft. Got some emails about my new bank account this morning. Still waking up, I'm thinking "did someone put their email in wrong?" But then I saw that they seemed to have my correct name and info, HERE WE GO. About an hour later I think I've done all the stuff I should... reported it to the bank, fraud alert, opened a FTC case etc. etc.

But anyways I don't recall if I mentioned it here before, but one of the additional hobbies I've picked up this year is film photography. Here's one from the latest roll that's kinda cool, near Palmdale.

Released some music.

Ran a bunch. I did ~11 miles the other morning and definitely hurt my foot. Tendons or something like that, but it hurt to stand up this morning. I should probably be a bit more mindful about running now that I'm doing some decent mileage. By the end of my two most recent runs you could tell my legs were done with it.

I had also gotten some shoes from Roadrunner which, after waiting in line forever and being passed through three different sales people and some foot scanning machine just to try on some shoes, walked away with a pair that just don't work for my feet, so there's that.

Well that’s like 110% the best kinda reaction to get. I feel… a lot more comfortable with the last couple things I’ve released. Before those I would have been totally happy to make vaporwave spillover, but these latest ones are more what comes naturally I guess?

I'm cautiously hoping it won't actually be so bad, mainly because I've gone through two of the UC schools. NPR has an article up that discusses the changes in the UCs when AA was eliminated by proposition, but that article is significantly more grim than the UC's press release on the topic (that has actual numbers). UCs today are non-white majority spaces. While some demographics are definitely underrepresented, it doesn't really sit right to call them non-diverse. Will Harvard, etc. follow suit? Maybe not I guess.

UC undergraduates by race and ethnicity

Fall 2022:

32.2% Asian

22.5% Hispanic/Latino

22.2% White

4.5% African American

0.5% American Indian

0.3% Pacific Islander

2.8% Domestic unknown

15% international

2002 (post Prop. 209)

38% Asian

14% Hispanic/Latino

36% White

3% African American

1% American Indian

1% Pacific Islander

8% Domestic unknown

1% International

1994 (pre-Prop. 209):

37% Asian

15% Hispanic/Latino

36% White

4% African American

1% American Indian

0% Pacific Islander

5% Domestic unknown

1% International

Another news article that had me lol today:

Van life is far from glamorous on LA's streets

That’s pretty awesome. I frequently considered de-fretting or refinishing the neck on a fretless, but I never took the plunge. I did however put together a fretless j from parts, which looks and sounds great, but I’ve always have a hard time really connect with it. Weird right? Recently I’ve kinda realized it sits in a mix better than pretty much all my others when recording, so it’s getting some more love recently.

I’m close to a month into the new job and I still like it a lot. Things are going well. Also having no regrets about the move. Last time we moved, we had major remorse about where we ended up. Yet we still stayed there for like 5 years? Honestly this times things seems like an all-around improvement.

Also enjoying city life quite a bit. I wasn’t sure I would actually like living in LA, but it’s pretty cool so far. My drive home takes me past Griffith park, so I can stop and job to Griffith Observatory on my way home when I feel like it. Pretty neat.

Are people still doing Hubski music stuff? I have a track I’ve been thinking about getting people to add to.

I am detecting a theme of moving house/moving work in this Hubski. I also am at week 2 of my new job/week 4 of the new apartment. So far things are so much better than before, but it’s still a new place and the wife and I need to make some local connections.

I’m just loving that everyone here has tacitly accepted the potato sack as a work fixture like a fax machine or coffee maker.

Wednesday again? I think the last one flew by without me even noticing. We've been moving the past week, which has taken all our time and energy, but I am already so glad we are in the new place.

I finished physical therapy for a repetitive stress hand injury a couple weeks ago. At the end of the stretch of therapy, the issue was basically gone, but now that I've been out of it for some time the issue has regressed somewhat :/

Also, I'm hooked on Sylvia Massy's youtube vids

We could use a 45, just sayin'.

That could be misinterpreted as some kind of pro-Trump reinstatement kinda thing, but I'm pretty sure you're talking about #scificlub.

Well that sounds terrible and I'm sorry it's been that way. I heartily applaud your decision to take no more shit anymore.

X - This is another times. Father chained me tight. This time I hit the stick out of his hands and made noise. He went away and his face was white. He ran out of my bed place and locked the door. I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. And I have a bad anger with mother and father. I will show them. I will do what I did that once. I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me. If they try to beat me again I’ll hurt them. I will.

This quote: was this from something we did in sci-fi club? I can swear I've read it, and can recall a general outline of the story.

Yeah man, the universe sucks. Second to last day here too. I did keep an eye out for any rapidly dropping gauges on the short remainder of the trip to work (I was almost there). I didn't see any fluids or anything, but we'll see if that's changed when I go back to the car today. Guess I need to get it checked out regardless.

Driving to work today, I see a partially annihilated metal ladder by the side of the freeway and think "somebody messed up bad. Glad I wasn't the one to hit that". A few minutes later, a car to the left and in front of me hits some piece of debris and sends it flying under my car and immediate grinding and scraping ensues. I pull over and manage to dislodge the giant hunk of metal just from reversing. The plastic undercarriage shield is torn up, but I think I got away with no real damage. That was a morning wake-me-up.

From one perspective, I’ve been a glorified customer service person for the last two years. And some customers are the WORST once you tell then you’re not gonna be around much longer. Like one guys has always been high maintenance, but it’s a disproportionate downer to have him suddenly be distastefully resentful about everything.

Also my supervisor has been doing some very unethical, very illegal shit to my coworker. That’s not the reason I decided to leave, but it sure validates all my misgivings.

Really, really looking forward to the move after next week. The new apt and new job are legitimately cool and exciting, so I’m not just looking forward to the escape aspect of the move. I’m very excited about the next few weeks.

Always cool to see the rundown people's gear, 'cause I'm into that. Also, when you say Thompson custom 6-string, is that a Carl Thompson?

I still can't get enough of The Robots

I've been powering through Patrick O'Brian for almost a year now, and am on book 14 of the Aubrey–Maturin series, so I'll probably be keeping up with that.

Long time no see. I've been lurking for some time, but I just haven't wanted to post much in a while. I think I may have been baited to come out by goobster's dope Dingwall and Strandberg.

Various new stuff going on. I got a new job that I'm excited about, and will be moving to Glendale in a couple weeks. Didn't really expect to be living/working deeper in LA, but there's not much demand for a chemist/mass spectrometrist in the inland empire.

I think it's actually been pretty eventful since I last checked in? I got married (COVID elopement, more or less. The actual reception is this year). We nearly pulled the trigger on a house (good thing we didn't actually). I've been recording more and more music, and making a lot of progress in mixing and stuff. Got a Moog.

Overall things have been pretty good actually, but things really need a shakeup, so I'm very excited to be moving to a new place with ample windows and natural light as a stark contrast to the dungeon we've been in for several years now.

I see we had the same thought

In case anyone was wondering what that looks like in graph form:

I like your island a lot. Definitely like what you did with the main square and surrounding houses with tons of flowers. Also seeing a lot of my own design choices being reflected there. Even came across a person that was pretty much my doppelgänger.

I will check this out later

I've been playing a lot of Noita again recently. It's basically Spelunky if Spelunky took place in a Falling Sands engine, and it's dope. But in typical roguelike fashion it is wholly unforgiving. The engine itself is really impressive with how well it handles all the particle simulation and such, and it makes the game feel so much more dynamic. What really makes it shine is the rather complex wand-editing mechanic.

Another thing that tickles my fancy about that game is the ridiculously large world with tons of barely-accessible secrets. It's kind of a nostalgia trip in a way. It reminds me of games like Battlezone '98 where maps might be 10x larger than the playable area needed to be for no goddamned reason. It's just so mysterious and I love it.

Also been playing M&B Bannerlord, but have been giving it a rest for a little bit. The shit thing about early access games is that the time it takes for a developer to go from EA to complete is typically longer than the time it takes you to get over a game.

Animal Crossing has been a daily jam for me.

Also, did not know that about Catan.

Reminds me of how the internet used to be. Really suiting for a VW radio site.

So I'm sitting at home. Started feeling ill yesterday, so I'll be stuck in the house until I can get tested and see if I'll be able to go to work next week.

For pretty much every company I've known, people near retirement age hold some form of the "it used to be a great company to work for" view. Probably has something to do with the way companies tend to get into "cut the fat" mode as they grow, or how things get automated and outsourced, or how pensions have shrunk and vanished, or some other variation of those themes.