January 12, 2025
Week 2/2025
Another week flew by… but I’m back! I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of reading physical books before bed instead of scrolling through social media/the internet. My wife and I frequent all of the public libraries on the island and I often have a stack of books near my bed to choose from. This week, I enjoyed Dandadan Volume 7 and 8 by Yukinobu Tatsu. The story and artwork keep getting better. I had a chance to watch a couple of episodes of the anime at the end of 2024 but haven’t had a chance to continue it. The few episodes I watched gave me the feeling of Trigger’s Kill la Kill from 2013, which I felt was groundbreaking at the time. It almost feels like an homage to that show in some ways.
At the start of the year, I re-subscribed to Disney+ and Hulu as a combo package. I’ve never subscribed to Hulu before, but there are a few shows I wouldn’t mind checking out on the service. I’ve been working my way through Agatha All Along which has been hit and miss for me. Just one more episode to go before the end.
And in case you care, I’m hard at work on the follow up to last year’s Favorite Albums post. I hope to have it done before the end of the month if everything goes as planned.
I’m not sure how I missed this interview and musical retrospective featuring Toto guitarist Steve Lukather from August of last year, but I’m glad it popped into my feed this week. He’s one of my favorite guitarist and a heck of a funny guy.
I’m really looking forward to all of the new music that’s coming out in 2025! I was so happy to hear that Japanese Breakfast will release their 4th album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) on March 21st. The first single, “Orlando in Love” is available on all streaming platforms now.
The National Association of Music Merchants show (better known to the music community as NAMM) is coming up towards the end of the month, and I’m already fearful for my bank account. Guitar effects maker MXR dropped a teaser this week on their Instagram with something that looks like a classic Rockman in pedal form. Not even a few hours later, the interwebz sleuths on the guitar forum The Gear Page discovered the manual online, and now all the details are out.
I enjoyed watching Lukita Maxwell (Apple TV+ series Shrinking) in the short film Mānoa Valley. The film follows the day in the life of two friends spending a summer day in the beauty of Mānoa Valley on the island of O’ahu before one of them moves to New York City. Written and directed by Emily May Jampel, it’s the first recipient of the MCTV Special Selection laurel.
I’ve been interested in learning the basics of synthesizers (synths) and found Abelton’s Learning Synths website as a starting point. The website has many interactive examples of the various elements of synthesis. Check out their Playground for a great example of all of the elements of synthesizers combined.
The folks at micro.blog launched micro.one, a new version of the community blogging platform meant to be an introductory, lower-cost option of the service. For $1/month, you get a full featured (short or long posts, photos and podcasting) as well as publishing from the web and native apps. Apparently, only 3000 micro.one accounts will be available. This seems like a great way to get folks interested in micro.blog to give at try. Manton Reece (founder of Micro.blog) and Daniel Jalkut discuss it in depth on their podcast Core Intuition. I’ll be curious to see if this new product can reach a new audience.