I got on the bike for the first time in a while. Stella needed some help with a Health Class project, so we caught a few mile on the Virginia Capital Trail. It was an incredible 65-degrees and sunny. In January.

After bikes I had brunch and hangs at Fuzzy Cactus. This is their Mexican Hot Coffee cocktail (mezcal, horchata, black coffee). It was pretty good, but not as good as the breakfast burrito.

I get to sometimes tag along to the gym on Sunday mornings before it’s officially open.

It’s cold in the winter and hot in the summer and I’m so damn happy to be able to be there.

I’ve been doing a lot of driving this summer so I’ve been looking for lots of new podcasts. Cocaine and Rhinestones has turned out to be one of my favorites. The host, Tyler Coe, tells the story of country music made in the 20th century and I find it fascinating. I was a long-time sucker for those Behind the Music docs from the 90’s and this scratches the same itch. Country Music has been a huge gap in my musical knowledge and this podcast has opened me up to all kinds of good stuff. I’ll be bringing some up on the podcast in a couple of weeks.

The episodes run just over an hour long and the subjects range from music acts (The Louvin Brothers), to people (Buck Owens), to individual songs (a 3-parter on “Harper Valley P.T.A.“). As Coe says on the About page, “You don’t need to “be” country to perform country, so you certainly don’t have to be country to enjoy it.” The same goes for this podcast. If you like music history you will probably be into this podcast. I am 100% in.

It’s not even noon.

The Murderbot Diaries is a series of novellas by Martha Wells. They’ll all be published this year. The first two are out now, with #3 due in August and #4 in October.

As novellas, they’re an easy length and they don’t get bogged down in too much worldbuilding arcana. It was a nice change from The Luminaries.

The premise of the first book:

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

The fist two are good reads. It’s not genre-defining fiction or anything, but there are some really cool ideas and it’s written well. I’m looking forward to the rest.

Thumbs up.

Graveyard broke up for a minute, but they’re back again with Peace. I’ve gotten through it a few times this morning and it’s exactly what I’m looking for in a Graveyard album. The opener is hot shreds and there is plenty of the more bluesy sound they developed over the last couple of albums.

My enjoyment of ambient music has been a recurring topic over on the podcast, and I’m always looking for enjoyable but unobtrusive things to listen to at work. Max Richter’s Sleep (remixes) has been my go-to for the last couple of weeks.

Max Richter is a composer who has done a lot of film and television soundtracks and scores. I guess his most recent popular one would be from Arrival (which was a cool movie, btw). Sleep is an 8-hour concept album he created to be listened to while sleeping. Really.

The remix album features three of the songs from the larger work, each mixed 4-5 times. It’s a really good listen for the workday.

I don’t get down with conspiracy theories in real-life but I do enjoy them when applied to famous fiction. This retweeted John Rogers thread has some good ones:

Willy Wonka:

Seeing his beloved Grandpa Joe die in bed takes the last of Charlie's strength. In the factory dream, he and Grandpa see all the kids who bullied him punished for their cruelty. Then Charlie ascends to heaven in a great glass elevator. Again, I'm sorry for this.

— Sean Thomason (@TheThomason) April 12, 2018

True Detective:

I wrote this article about it once, but the short version: Rust is aware that he's a character in a work of fiction. https://t.co/QCISkPEif0

— Ed Grabianowski (@robotviking) April 12, 2018

Rambo and Die Hard:

John Rambo died in sheriff's custody after being beaten into a hallucinatory coma 20 minutes into First Blood.

— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) April 12, 2018

Oh also John McClane is pretty clearly drunk on an airplane, passing out to an elaborate fantasy about how he can win back his estranged wife.

— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) April 12, 2018