Civilization VII: Yes, You’ll Be Stuck in the Main Menu Because of the Music Again
So remember several weeks/months/whatever ago I mentioned that Christopher Tin, composer of “Baba Yetu” and the absolutely incredible “Sogno di Volare,” was returning to do the main theme music for the Civilization VII game?
Well, that theme has been released! Behold:
It’s not as good as “Sogno di Volare” (the main theme for Civ VI), but I like it. I think I like it more than “Baba Yetu.”
Edit from a week later: okay, nevermind, it’s really grown on me. I dig this big time.
POP IT
The DJ Earworm end-of-year mashup is here!
Eh. This really emphasizes how popular the “pop country” genre has been this year. Some songs of this genre have been good (Shaboozey’s cover/redo of Tipsy) and some have been insufferable. I hate that “I’d rather take my whiskey neeeeEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEeeeeeat!” song. I don’t even know which song that is, but I hate it.
(Edit: oh, It’s Hozier. That explains it then.)
2023’s was better. A little.
I AM HYPER
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
(Quality blog post.)
DaleRiver
So Nate has decided to subject himself to the utter madness that is post-season-1 Riverdale. I guess we watched through most of season 2 together before he bailed the first time (I, as you know, am a true Riverdale fan through and through and made it through the WHOLE GODDAMN SEVEN SEASONS OF MADNESS), but I guess my not-at-all-exaggerated descriptions of some of the later shenanigans won him over and we’re giving it a second shot.
(Nate, you have no idea what you’re doing. Turn back now.)
Anyway, since we’re diving back in, have some “Riverdale as vines” videos. I know I’ve posted the first one on here before, but there are more.
That Black Hood one at 0:26 is so accurate, hahaha. 3:04, too.
1:40, hahaha.
I want to buy…
…a telescope!
We of course have a decent amount of light pollution in the city, but we can still see a good number of stars on a clear night. Makes me want to try out a nice telescope.
My mom used to have a telescope when I was a kid (was that on Borah? I can’t remember, haha), but I don’t think I ever got the hang of using it.
My biggest problem is that I’m actually exercising self-control over a purchase for once and I don’t feel like I know enough of the technical stuff to get the right telescope for what I want. It’s a big purchase and I’d want to make sure I’m getting what I need, so I’ll have to do more research on it.
Edit: Ooooh, nice site!
Never
I think I posted someone’s walkthrough of this game a long time ago, but this is pretty great.
I love how everyone in the comments has clear, concrete memories of playing this game. I do, too. I wish it was on Steam – I’d play it again in a second!
LAST DAY OF CLASSES
This semester has been…ugh.
Not bad, just…ugh.
This whole year has been ugh.
That is all.
Duo Summo
This will be my…second full year using Duo? I think that’s right. I started in May 2022 I believe.
Anyway, end-of-year stats because I have nothing else today.
Want to see how flat Pepper can get?
Observe!
That cup is about six inches tall.
Pretty sure she doesn’t have hips, haha.
It’s GUTTER CARNAGE
(Get it? Instead of utter carnage it’s gutter okay I’ll stop.)
So one of the gutters on our condo building is a problem child and consistently looks like this once it gets cold and then warms up so that things start to melt:
What a monstrosity.
Anyway, I got home tonight and found this:
Mega Icicle had crashed to the ground, taking the whole gutter with it.
There were actually huge chunks of ice like halfway across the parking lot. Someone had already taken the broken piece of gutter and put it in the snow next to the dumpster, haha.
Calgary: if the cold doesn’t kill you, the ice sure will!
Book Review Twelve Angry Men (Rose)
Have I read this before: Yes! We read this out loud in…I want to say it was eighth grade English class. Both my eighth grade and eleventh grade English classes involved reading a lot of plays out loud; I wish my other English classes did that as well. Doing so always made the plays feel more alive and memorable. I remember I read the part of the “Foreman.”
Review: This was as good as I remember it being; maybe even better. I like how the slow chipping away at the evidence that seemed to initially point overwhelmingly towards a “guilty” verdict changes more and more of the jurors’ minds, but that not every mind is truly changed at the end.
Favorite Part: The “now you don’t really mean you were going to kill me, did you?” Line from Juror 8 to Juror 3.
Rating: 7/10
Book Review: Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: This is hard to review because I read like 60% of this in like February and then didn’t pick it up again until a week or so ago*, haha. I remember not being too into the first half, but I enjoyed the more recent portion more, perhaps because things really picked up in terms of pace and cohesiveness by then. This is very much in Dickens’ style of “there are 60 characters and they’re all heavily interconnected somehow and their lives are just one big soap opera,” but maybe not quite as insane in that respect as, say, Great Expectations was. It was a’ight.
Favorite Part: The guy living next to the Nicklebys starts giving Mrs. Nickleby vegetables and she starts falling for him. We get the line:
“You know, there is no language of vegetables, which converts a cucumber into a formal declaration of attachment.”
Rating: 5/10
*I read on the treadmill, which means that my reading time is basically restricted to the days of the year where it’s too cold/smoky/rainy to be outside.
Oh, Twitter…
So this newly-minted doctor posted a picture of herself and her thesis on Twitter on November 27.
She was immediately inundated with a bunch of hateful, hurtful comments about her, her thesis topic, the title (and it’s “wordiness” or “obscureness”), her choice of field (English Lit), and a bunch of other shit.
I have thoughts.
Here they are:
To the “this is a worthless and unimportant topic and worthless and unimportant degree” crowd: the advancement of human knowledge – which includes exploring the products of creativity, such as literature – is never worthless. Just because you may not find it interesting or too specific or too “why would I ever need this?” doesn’t make it worthless. Dr. Louks has made a contribution to human understanding. What have you done today?
To the “PhDs should only be awarded in the sciences” crowd: Shifting focus completely away from the arts and humanities is what’s getting us people who don’t know the original work of The Odyssey and instead see info on the upcoming 2026 “The Odyssey” and say “how convenient that they named the main character after the name of the movie!!!!1!”
To the “this is way too specific and niche” crowd: y’all…y’all don’t know what a PhD is, do you? They’re supposed to be super niche. They’re supposed to be super specific. Hell, I did my master’s thesis on failings of specific fit indices used in structural equation modeling. That shit’s niche, yo, and is probably as obscure (or maybe even more so) to outsiders to the field as Dr. Louks’ topic is to people outside of her field. Here is a visual I showed my ASHA students when talking about what a PhD entails. You should check it out.
Edit: Dr. Louks is now affectionately known as the “smell doctor” on Twitter by her supporters and I see references to her almost every day on there. So yeah, no impact whatsoever.
Pictures of Pepper Just Because
It’s been a while since I’ve bombarded you with Pepper pics, so here we go!
Sitting proudly with her canvas mouse.
Sink time.
She likes to lay on her back.
Being dramatic in the hall.
So pretty!
Hahahaha.
Sitting on the broken down spaghetti box.
Sitting on the oven mitts.
Huit cents
I’ve been doing Duolingo for 800 days, yo! That’s a long time.
I’m glad it got me into taking actual French courses. It’s pretty good for building vocabulary, but a lot of the grammatical nuances aren’t mentioned or explained. That’s where the classes have been super helpful (and I’m glad I’d done some Duo before taking that first class; I feel like the extra vocab buildup really helped make that class much easier).
Anyway.
Snow Duck Army
So there’s a guy at the U of C who has a little rubber duck mold and goes around covering campus (mainly behind the Math building) with little snow ducks in the winter. Observe some of his work:
That is all.
Turkey Wrap Supremacy
Guys, look at this thing:
It’s a tortilla with turkey and cream cheese in it.
It’s super boring and plain.
And it’s the best tasting thing EVER.
I randomly decided to get one of these from FreshCo the other day because they were out of the regular turkey sandwiches, but this is SO MUCH BETTER. This is like the perfect post-running food.
Edit: okay, so apparently ONLY FreshCo has these; I haven’t been able to find them at Safeway. My guess is that they make these to use up any old turkey and tortillas from their other wraps and sandwiches, which is why they go to FreshCo and not Safeway itself.
Safeway, you should start selling these too, yo…so good!
52!
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: humans have a hard time with scale, either at the very large end or the very small end.
Example: 52!. How incomprehensibly large is that value? Here’s a video demonstrating what 52! seconds would be:
That’s insane. Insane.
Oh God, Here We Go
Edit from later in the day:
OH GOD, HERE WE GO
I guess it will be treadmill time for a while. It’s cold and they’re not going to get all this cleared super fast.
I Got Everything I Ever Wanted and Now I’m Sad: The Claudia Mahler Story
WHY DO I SELF-SABOTAGE EVERY SINGLE TIME I HAVE EVEN THE MOST MINUTE CHANCE AT HAPPINESS
WHY WHY WHY
Help, I’ve fallen down the Wikipedia hole of brutalist architecture in Canada and I can’t get out
Brutalist architecture emerged as an architectural style in the UK in the 1950s and is characterized by structures that showcase raw building material (like unpainted concrete, steel, and timber), monochrome colors, and angular shapes. I stumbled upon this style when looking up Edmonton’s equivalent of Calgary’s Central Library.
Recall that the Central Library looks like this:
Beautiful, huh? But not brutalist (it’s modernist). Compare it to this thing, Edmonton’s Stanley Milner Library:
I’m pretty sure that’s a tank. Or a cruise ship? Whatever it is, it’s an example of brutalist architecture.
And now I’ve found the Wiki page all about buildings in Canada with this architecture style and I have feelings.
THE BUILDINGS HAVE EYES
(Allan I. Carswell Astronomical Observatory)
Why does a center for the arts look like a place where you’d go to get lobotomized?
(Confederation Centre of the Arts)
Why does an apartment complex look like a place you’d go to live after you get lobotomized at the center for the arts?
(The Crossways)
What in the MC Escher fever dream is this?
(Habitat 67)
Edit: OH JESUS CHRIST IT’S HUGE
LOBOTOMY SCHOOOOOOOOOOL
(Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute)
“Build a standard-looking hotel”
“Okay.”
“Now put an alien spaceship on top.”
“…What?”
“Alien spaceship. Just throw it up there. Fuck it.”
“Bu—”
“DO YOU WANT TO GET LOBOTOMIZED?? ‘CAUSE I KNOW A GUY!!!”
(Westin Harbour Castle Hotel)
I like this song, FIGHT ME
So it’s been cold enough now that I’ve been listening to my little portable radio on my runs (I use my super cheap $5 on-ear headphones to keep my ears warm). Today, the radio station I listen to played Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me,” which immediately transported me mentally back to junior high and whatever volume of “Now That’s What I Call Music” had that song on it.
(I want to say…Now That’s What I Call Music 6? *checks* Hell yeah, I’m right.)
Anyway.
Because the only things that my brain stores as concrete, irremovable memories are song lyrics and voice cadences, I noticed a difference in the chorus between the lyrics on the radio and the lyrics from the CD version I had way back when (and still have on my iPod). Because I was out running, though, and dealing with traffic noises, the best I could do is notice there was a difference; I couldn’t tell exactly what the difference was.
So once I got back to my office, I decided to look the lyrics up. Which, honestly, was something that I should have done a long time ago, because Shaggy’s verses were like 96% incomprehensible to me every time I heard this song and left me just saying “what?”
So I looked up the lyrics. Here is one said verse:
Mek she know say that she really no have right fi vex
A never you she see yah make the gigolo flex
A smaddy else weh favor you inna di complex
Seein’ is believin’, so you better change your specs
You know she a go bring a whole heap a things up from the past
All the likkle evidence, you betta know fi mask
Quick ‘pon yuh answer, know how fi talk
But if she pack a gun, you know you betta run fast
…What?
Anyway, the original chorus thingy I noticed was the following: in the CD version, it’s
Picture this: we were both caught making love on the bathroom floor
But on the radio version, it’s
Picture this: we were both butt-naked banging on the bathroom floor
So yeah. I know nobody cares, but I do.
I DO!
So, what drugs are y’all on?
You know, the ones that make you feel like this year has gone by quickly.
Because for me, this has been the LONGEST FREAKING YEAR EVER.
I don’t know if it’s my brain finally remembering how time works after these past three-ish COVID years or what, but OH MY GOD this year seems like it’s been dragging on for so long.
Like, remember the Paris Olympics? Don’t those seem like they were like three years ago?
Or those amazing auroras in May? That doesn’t seem like it happened in the same year we’re currently in.
I don’t know if every year is going to go back to feeling this slow or if it’ll start feeling more normal. Hell, maybe it seems so slow because 2021-2023 felt like one huge blur of…man, I don’t even know. Unhealthy coping mechanisms, maybe?
Peh.
PSA:
I suck.
Eigenblogger 