My friend Ned lent me this photo book for the week and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The photos are well-crafted, and the author details exactly how he crafted them. What’s better than that in a photo book? The foreword, written by his son (who helped teach a photography class with hi … | Continue reading
I publish posts on this site first - Publish On Site Syndicate Elsewhere (POSSE). I want this site to be the canonical source of my writing, the one true place for people (and myself) to read my notes and posts. Social networks come and go, but my site remains. But I want to get … | Continue reading
I bought tickets to this show back in June when Bill told me they were coming to Chicago. At the time, the band had only released two songs and I like them, so I bought in. The week of the show, Bill almost backed out. But we were able to make the timing work. We showed up and tu … | Continue reading
I’ve loved Justice’s music since we would listen to their debut album on the long drive between Chicago and University of Illinois and yell, “Justice!” as we passed the blazingly-lit Effingham cross on the night highway. One Lollapalooza, I didn’t buy a ticket but instead sat in … | Continue reading
I thought this was decently unsettling, but ultimately I felt like the [real] world it was trying to show me was broken by the unconvincing final actions of the main characters. It did kind of feel like those dinner parties with friends-of-friends that slowly veer further and fur … | Continue reading
We were lucky enough to see AIR play their Moon Safari album at a packed theater with a group of friends and it was fantastic floating through space with everyone. | Continue reading
It was like a teen fan-fiction writer wrote the plot and script and then a fan-fiction theater kid organized the direction on stage and then the best magician artist designed the practical effects. | Continue reading
I got to travel to Montreal this fall for a Shopify burst (meeting with the teams I lead). I left home early to land still in the morning so I could explore the city a bit. I took a ride share into the downtown area and it was pretty empty. I walked for a bit and found a boulange … | Continue reading
We weren’t going to go because I had a flight at 8am the next morning. But we love R.L. Grime. And then our friends broke and bought tickets. So of course we did as well. What fun. | Continue reading
Matt and Brandon and I had a lovely evening of horror short (and a couple feature-length!) films at the Logan Square Theater on the first night of their annual horror film fest. We got to watch: Party Panda: The Birth of A Serial Killer I laughed a lot at this but I’m unsure if w … | Continue reading
We went along with friends to Riot Fest on Saturday. It was previously farther outside the city but this year they moved it back to Douglas Park inside the city and we have to encourage that. Clutch I didn’t know them but Laura did and that was good enough for me. Beach Bunny I’v … | Continue reading
I want to give this movie six stars out of five. I’ve been imploring everyone who can handle it that they must go see it and bask in its glory. This movie stretches what is possible to convey in a film. The sounds. The sights. The horrors we do to ourselves in pursuit of youth. T … | Continue reading
Nick took me to go see this at a matinee 70mm showing by the Music Box Theater. It was pretty, and entrancing, and left me torn and questioning who was the actual master and who did I actually want to know and what was actually driving most of the characters. I think it, like oth … | Continue reading
I thought this movie was about people being afraid of heights. And it kind of is, but mostly it made me think about the subtle and not-so-subtle horrors that people can do to each other. The rhythmic and ethereal scenes and music really did move me into the movie screen, but the … | Continue reading
Who doesn’t love a magical demon playing in a world of ’80s music and practical effects? If you liked the original, you’ll laugh with this one, and I loved the original. | Continue reading
I just spent a few minutes envisioning myself buying and enjoying a Work Louder x Figma Creator Micro macro pad. I’m not going to buy it. I bought a Megalodon Triple Knob Macro Pad last year, customized it, really tried to love it, and then returned it. For anything that supports … | Continue reading
This was a great horror-movie plus playing-game-levels-adventure plus uncomfortably-sexual-alien-monster played out in space. I kinda wanted a better/scarier look for the final… thing, but the pacing kept me pulled in the whole time. I think I enjoyed the “android Flowers For Alg … | Continue reading
Paul recommended Brothertiger to us and was very excited to see him play. We didn’t know him but we’ll trust Paul’s excitement. I like shows at Scuba’s because they’re small and the crowd is usually enthusiastic. I’ve never been to a show with such a high ratio of lasers to peopl … | Continue reading
The constant chorus of her voice reverberating in every track makes the power chords fuzz and swell in my chest and makes me feel like I’m twenty again and I’m wanting to stretch farther and farther into my own independence and I still don’t know where I want to go but I don’t wa … | Continue reading
I’ve seen this movie so many times growing up, but I’m counting it as “new” this time because we went to see it in 4DX. To have your seat jerk as someone takes a punch is delightful. To have your body rumble when an actor slaps the hood of a car is hilarious. And to bo tossed aro … | Continue reading
Bill offered me a ticket because someone was sick and couldn’t go. It was only $25, a sale from LiveNation earlier in the year to fill seats. When we arrived I realized that the tickets were for actual seats, way in the back of the pavilion. But as we found them, an employee offe … | Continue reading
[!NOTE] I took a lot of video on this trip. I’m going to edit it into something fun. I’ll link that here when it’s ready. Mike, Joe, Bill Joe, and I survived our second annual wilderness week backpacking trip. Here is my report. Arrival We each fly and land in to Salt Lake City w … | Continue reading
This was our second time in Denver, but the first time actually spending time in the city. We flew in for a quick weekend to watch Big Wild play at Red Rocks. The city itself is so quiet. The sky was bright and hot and beautiful every day, and the streets are very walkable. We wa … | Continue reading
We took a shuttle bus from the train station in Denver out of the city and up the mountain to the best outdoor venue I’ve ever seen.1 Of course, Red Rocks had been built up for me as a bucket-list venue, and it held up. When Bill and Emily said they had booked the trip for the we … | Continue reading
This isn’t a good movie. It’s a fever dream formed from stacking all the previous Fast & Furious stunts together and forcing a thread of a story through them all. It had me yelling and laughing constantly. | Continue reading
Working outside in the yard in these summer afternoons is heavenly. | Continue reading
The movie is not good. We know it’s not going to be good. But we know it will be fun. The moralizing is heavy-handed, but not wrong, and yet it is forgotten halfway through. And there are great shots cutting to terrible angles. And the science is laughable - if you can even call … | Continue reading
This spring I replaced my Customized Keychron K1 with a customized Shopify Keychron K3 Pro. Mine won’t look like the one you can order from the public Shopify store because I got an early employees-only version. I like this keyboard so much more than the K1. It’s got a smaller fo … | Continue reading
I’ve been going back and forth in my head for the last couple years, bouncing between the dream of a bright coworking space and the lure of my perfected home studio. Every time I go on a work trip for Shopify and share an office floor with a bunch of coworkers, I have serendipito … | Continue reading
I love a murder mystery where everyone is despicable and the characters feel real and the one-liners fly by and they’re on a boat and they make me wish I were there. | Continue reading
It’s always packed and young and hot and fun. Riding the L home we overheard a group of girls talk about how upset they were that tomorrow they have to clean their room. Saturday Kenny Beats Good stuff. Nia Archives Good stuff. More up-tempo than her albums. Four Tet Heavy bass a … | Continue reading
When I watched the previews for this film a couple years ago, I thought it was going to be too cheesy and filled with cheap scares. After I was recommended it at a party, I watched: I was wrong. It reminded me of The Babadook and Godzilla Minus One and Hereditary as a movie that … | Continue reading
Seeing this was a blast! Unhinged editing made it aggressive and the characters were really fleshed out so there was a lot going on in the best way. Super funny, and like 1/8 of the audience at The Music Box was Connor O’Malley’s family. | Continue reading
It’s funny. It’s bloody. It made me say “ew”. It made me laugh out loud. I think the characters’ motivations are dubious. I think it is what I expected. | Continue reading
The next thing you know you’re looking back instead of forward. And now, at the climax of all those years of worry, sleepless nights, and denials, Bill finally finds himself staring his death in the face, surrounded by people he no longer recognizes and feels no closer attachment … | Continue reading
I have loved Still Woozy since he released Cooks in 2017. I remember blasting Lucy in the car ride home from Electric Forest in 2019 over and over and over. Back then he only had like 4 or 5 singles released, but I made a significant mental note to follow him. He’s released a few … | Continue reading
I watched this interview with Steven Johnson about Google’s NotebookLM tonight and got inspired. This is something that I could build on top of my own website. Something where you could - in a browsing session - collect notes to build up context and then interrogate an LLM based … | Continue reading
We went to see this up north of the city so that we could site back in front of a real IMAX screen and soak in the weather FX. Beforehand, we at at Buffalo Wild Wings (my first time in over a decade), so it was really a BWWisters night. The movie hit all the tropes. It had so man … | Continue reading
Matt and Brandon and I were pretty excited to see this movie - the trailer was a perfect blend of unease and flickering reference to plot/scare without actually revealing anything at all. Unfortunately, the full movie was just like the trailer: mostly just unease with flickers of … | Continue reading
This year’s Pitchfork festival had high highs and low lows. I’ve gone to a few of the previous years, but not usually for all three full days. I think I went to all three last year? Anyway, this year they had set up these giant sound booths with a 4 (four!) story riser for the VI … | Continue reading
I’ve been annoyed with the search results - on this site search - from lunr.js recently. For example: I search “eden” or “garden of eden” and the results don’t contain this note describing a “Garden-of-Eden configuration”. I’m using the exact same sequence of characters and it wo … | Continue reading
I walked over to the last evening of West Fest in sickly humid heat. I grabbed food from one of the vendors and ate as the crowd filled in. A crowd with old jazz heads and twenty-something body modders and a dude selling beer from his cooler bag and puppies and kids with headphon … | Continue reading
We went with a large group and met still more friends out at West Fest to eat and drink and bob along with Deeper. They were good but the crowd was loud - I preferred last year’s fest a bit more. Afterward we walked up to Queen Mary and enjoyed some fancy cocktails while it raine … | Continue reading
This show was part of the Nothing/Assumed series of sober events for sober artists. I got a great draft N/A cocktail from the bar: cucumber and raspberry shrub, I think. I got there slightly before the set time and it was already packed. Luckily, I could still get a spot on the p … | Continue reading
I watched this under its English name: The Wolf House. I’ll have trouble describing this movie, but I’ll tell you this: it’s mesmerizing. And unsettling. And disjointed. And wild. And touching. And made me marvel at what humans can create. If you don’t understand both Spanish and … | Continue reading
I’ve been using large language models - LLMs - and retrieval-augmented generation - RAG - at work for over a year now. I use it to write code, to refine my ideas and writing, and we have been building products on top of it. It’s long overdue for me to be using it for my personal … | Continue reading
I love this trio of movies, but I place this third in line: Pearl was the best, and X was great as a breakout. This one still has fantastic performances - Mia Goth, as always, never letting your attention go - and Kevin Bacon fried me - but I think the ending left me wanting a bi … | Continue reading
I spent the week in Toronto’s Enercare Center, talking to hundreds of the thousands of people there with me. A day of company strategy, a night of concerts. A day talking to developers/customers, a night walking home through the streets of Toronto. A day of hacking on prototypes, … | Continue reading