Nico Estévez has been named Head Coach of Austin FC. ⚽️
This is an underwhelming hire. I wish him well, and hope for the best. But I don’t think Borrell set expectations for this when he boasted there were “names you wouldn’t believe” vying for the job.
I made a post to Facebook for the first time in years, and now I’m enjoying hearing from people I haven’t talked to in a long time, and I just don’t know what to make of it.
⚽️ Match day for Austin FC. Some fans are growing nervous at the 2-2 record to start the season, even though the team is only one point behind second place. Who will play center back? Will Gyasi or Emi finally score?
I love a site that keeps their archives online and searchable. I searched for PowerTalk and found this Tidbits article from 1993.
Blogging and the Blank Page
I’ve been blogging with Drummer lately, and I found it pretty great in some ways. I like the outline structure of the writing and of the published content. I’ve always been an outline aficionado.
Even more, I like that it feels like I’m working on an ongoing project. With Drummer, my last days and weeks of posts are right there in front of me. I sit down to an existing, full document and add a couple of paragraphs. This is a very different feeling from every other blog I’ve tried to keep. In other systems, everything starts with a blank window. They all feel like starting a new project, several times a day, which is a much greater mental load.
Having my previous thoughts right in front of me makes it so much easier to come up with something to say, even if it’s just a response to something I said earlier. It makes me read my recent posts, confront my recent thoughts, and consider whether I still agree. One of the reasons I like writing to to shape my mushy thoughts into crisp ideas, and this way of writing encourages that process of refinement.
I like the outline, but it’s incidental. I could make an app that keeps a single-document feel. The edit field is at the top, and the last 30 posts are below that. It feels like I’m just adding a new paragraph to an ongoing document.
I guess it should be no surprise that so much ActivityPub work seems to be happening right now.. I’ve been trying to grok mastodon lately, discovered new services and blogs, and ended up back here, learning that micro.blog improved ActivityPub integration.
New plan: Export all my existing wordpress stuff to a static site and serve it on a new subdomain. Start fresh with Micro.blog. Moving content between systems always breaks something and this just feels cleaner.
Stopped reading: Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics by Jonathan Wilson 📚
I knew this would be a heavy lift, and it was too much. The facts seemed to overwhelm the narrative, and I had a hard time following any continuity or tactical evolution.
The Bergstrom Spur Trail will be approximately 6.5 miles bike and pedestrian trail from Vinson Drive to East Riverside Drive and US-183 in southeast Austin. They’re looking for feedback on the 60% design plans until October 30.
Currently reading: Inverting The Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson 📚
I don’t know if I’ll finish this one, but it was at the library, so I’m giving it a shot.
Finished reading: Devil in a Blue Dress: An Easy Rawlins Novel by Walter Mosley 📚
Currently reading: Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley 📚
Finished reading: The Final Empire: Mistborn Book One by Brandon Sanderson 📚
A very easy read; almost a young adult book. And so many of the characters are just so nice. My favorite character was Shan, who we all hate, but who created some needed conflict.
I love that Nolan Bushnell says his favorite Atari game is Tempest. I loved that game. I couldn’t get into Stargate–so many buttons!–but Tempest was a great game with simple controls.
So many online reviewers think I’m buying clicky keyboard switches for the sound. I couldn’t care less about the sound. They just feel better than non-clicky tactile switches.
I saw Peter Bogdanovich’s 1972 film, At Long Last Love last night. It was a huge flop in its time, on the order of Ishtar or Heaven’s Gate. It’s currently undergoing a reevaluation, hampered mainly by the fact it’s so hard to see (apparently the rights to the Cole Porter songs are a little suspect). See Richard Brody’s 2018 New Yorker review.
I was lucky to attend a full-house screening at the Austin Film Society. In a year of Hair and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it must have felt like it cowardly avoided the current culture. But also avoided some of the problematic issues of 30s musicals and gave the women some agency.
Tonight we saw What’s Up Doc? in a theater full of people. It’s the best way to watch a comedy, and some 50 years after it was made, this one still delivers.
The eclipse from an iPhone camera pointed at a telescope eyepiece.
It’s looking more and more likely that I’ll have to give up on Twitter completely.