Weekender #50

• I’ve been doing this weekly entry for 50 weeks now! I suppose 50 is a milestone of sorts? At the tail end of 2021, I took some time to reflect on the reasons why I’ve kept it up: I enjoy writing for myself, so I’ll continue to do it. I have no idea if anyone else reads any of this, and I don’t care really. This is just my space to reflect on things that interest me.

• School (my work) is back in session, and COVID-19 case counts are rising all over the world, Hawaii is no exception. The 7 day average is 3,256 as of today. It’s going to be a challenging month.

• Birb watch: Thankfully, all of the usual birbs made it back to our driveway after the crazy fireworks and endless rain of the New Year. I wonder what they think of January 1st and how they survive?

• This week, I finally got back into writing mode and finished a short story idea as sort of a proof of concept for a project that Audra and I are considering. I wrote the majority of it on my phone in my favorite notes app, Drafts, using the Fountain syntax. When a cohesive idea was complete, I transferred it to my Mac and edited it into a usuable script with the Highland 2 app, which uses Fountain syntax to create a stylized script. It was very satisfying to see the end result. If you use Drafts and want to check out fountain, here’s a link to the Fountain syntax parser for Drafts.

• Audra and I have been watching season 4 of Cobra Kai and we’re getting a little bored. It was fun when it started, but now the story and situations are getting a bit repetitive. It feels like the show is rehashing season 2 and 3 all over again. Although the show is entertaining if you’ve watched all of the movies, it feels like an endless cameo show. All that’s left is for Hillary Swank and Jaden Smith to appear with Jackie Chan. Bonus points if they have a hologram of Pat Morita for the next season!

• Here are all of the media that are now in the Public Domain in 2022. I can’t wait to see the eventual Sherlock Pooh book.

• Cool iOS app: Audio Trimmer is a simple app that does what its title says: trim audio. Really great if you need to trim audio quickly such as samples. Currently free.

• MenubarX is a handy app allows you to access web browser tabs in your Mac menubar. It works great and has various user agents, sizes and even a refresh setting. It seems like the In App Purchase is currently free on this one.

• No music pick this for this week as I’m wrapping up my Favorite Albums of 2021 write up. I hope to have it done by midweek, if all goes well.