Canned Dragons

Strategems, gambits and wiles.

Will You Dance?

The latest casualty of the streaming wars is The Bird and the Bee’s 2015 album Recreational Love, which unceremoniously disappeared from Qobuz sometime recently. The album still shows up, but lists all the tracks as “unavailable.” Usually this is a sign that the service has loaded a newer version of the album to select. Not so in this case.

Music by The Bird and the Bee can sometimes be hard to find. The band followed up their first volume of Interpreting the Masters, an album of Hall & Oates covers, with a volume of Van Halen covers. The first is readily available, the second, almost impossible to hear on any format other than used vinyl. All the album’s listed on the merch site that the band links to are sold out. When there are so many music services out there, it seems careless not to make your albums available somewhere digitally.

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→ 5:00 PM, Aug 22

Today’s listening.

→ 11:16 AM, Aug 22

Down With Podcasts

At this point, I tend to average 1-2 podcasts a week. I’m in hybrid work mode, which means I drive to an office on a local college campus two days out of the week and work remotely from my home office the other three days. That gives me time for about 90 minutes of podcasts on my commute. My number one selection currently is Not Dead Yet (Apple Podcasts) hosted by Ben Sasse and Chris Stirewalt. As Ben Sasse undergoes treatment for his pancreatic cancer (and faces his own mortality), he’s been interested in discussing what comprises the good life.

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→ 7:41 PM, Aug 21

The X Return

It seems more people and organizations that were principally opposed to the X (ex-Twitter) network a few short years ago are now returning. Sometimes, they are doing so with apologies, as if they know it’s a bad look. The latest is the Apple-centric publication Macstories. The move was accompanied by the requisite explanation that they do not support the politics of Elon Musk or the direction he has taken the platform.

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→ 3:00 PM, Aug 21

I’m not one to argue on social media very often, but even when I want to rebut someone, it’s difficult. How do you respond to someone who is reposting a commentary on something written by yet another person? You’re several degrees from the original malformed premise.

→ 11:23 AM, Aug 21

Lauren writes about the humble linklog at Flotisserie.

An outbound link points to someone else’s work, so a linklog is essentially a renewable engine for sending traffic to other people and places. That’s the precise opposite of what big platforms want from audiences; platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook quietly bury posts with outbound links to keep your attention (and dollars) on their site and with their advertising customers. A linklog further leans into that dynamic: it willingly hands your audience and attention away while crediting your forebears, comrades, mentors, and co-conspirators. It turns the rough digital filing system into a “folksonomy,” if you will.

Linklogging is still one of my favorite ways to blog.

→ 8:40 PM, Aug 18

I have to say, I’m really looking forward to The Blockbuster Chronicles from Brandon. He writes about working at a Blockbuster at the turn of the century.

That’s what The Blockbuster Chronicles is about. Not really the rise and fall of Blockbuster Video. Plenty of people have already told that story. This is the story of one Blockbuster store in Millington, Tennessee, during the last few years when video stores still felt like they were going to be around forever.

Having worked in retail for years, I think I’ll be able to relate.

→ 7:50 PM, Aug 18

The 8BitDo FlipPad looks like a lot of fun, but I have no idea what games I would play with it.

→ 7:33 AM, Aug 16

Watched: Project Hail Mary 🍿 last night. Though he shares my nickname, Rocky reminded me of my cat Jonah. Very enthusiastic, overfamiliar, and with a lack for respect for boundaries.

→ 7:19 AM, Aug 16

These Dreams

Heart was the band that broke the glass ceiling and brought women-fronted hard rock to the masses. By 1985, they had expanded beyond just pummeling riffage and Renaissance Fair folk that betrayed their love for Led Zeppelin. They didn’t completely eschew the hard stuff, but they had synths and they were going to use them. “These Dreams” was the hit from Heart’s self-titled LP, which proved to be a sort-of comeback for the band.
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→ 5:00 PM, Aug 15