Hiro.Report - 30JUL2023
Hi all! Pretty quiet week, culminating in a very NOT quiet concert— I got to see one of my favorite math rock / indie bands, Braid, perform on the final night of their tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of their breakout album, Frame & Canvas. The nostalgia overload and severe hearing damage were totally worth it.
Here are a few other things I found delightful this week—
🍵 Tea Caffeine Levels — Over on Mastodon, there’s a great group of tea nerds that I enjoy following exchanging tea notes and knowledge about all things tea, gong fu cha, etc. This week there was a great discussion on the amount of caffeine to be found in the different types of tea— This is something I’ve looked in to in the past and not been able to find much clear information. The above linked Tea Caffeine Levels chart found in Tea: History Terroirs Varieties [Archive.org link to the whole book] is fascinating, especially as I’ve been trying to substitute nice Chinese teas for my usual coffee overload to cut back on my caffeine intake.
🗺️ Worldle — Michael Burkhardt linked to this fun spin on the ever popular Wordle. Instead of trying to guess a word, you are given an outline of a country and try to guess the country, with lots of fun bonus points for naming the capital, its neighbors, etc. I’ve really enjoyed playing.
🦎 Shin Godzilla — I have had this movie on my “to watch” list for quite some time and finally got to sit down and enjoy it on Friday night. For those who are unfamiliar, it’s a 2016 Japanese-produced Godzilla movie wherein the true threat to humanity proves not to be Godzilla, but rather the slow response of a densely bureaucratic government, incapable of making decisions. It’s a dark satire, but very well done, and still has lots of classic kaiju monster smashing fun. I also loved that they used a lot of the classic Akira Ifukube-produced tracks from the original Godzilla movies’ soundtracks. Highlights for me are the orchestral Godzilla Theme and King Kong Vs Godzilla Theme . Definitely worth a watch and/or listen.
👾 Pixel Art - As mentioned in an earlier report, I’ve been playing more retro video games of late (when I get a spare 5-10 minutes) on my Miyoo Mini+, which has gotten me inspired to pick up the iPad Pencil and start doing some retro-style pixel art myself. I posted my first piece to Mastodon yesterday as well as to LoSpec, a sort of rough Flickr-equivalent for Pixel Art. Much more impressive than my rough early attempts, for anyone who is looking to see some really neat work or even interested in learning how to try it out themselves, I highly recommend [Brandon James Greer] on Youtube. Fun videos include, ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ as a Zelda game, ‘What if Blade Runner were an arcade game?’, and ‘“How do you start Pixel Art?”…Here’s what I did!’.
That’s it for me, I’ll just be over here doodling on my iPad if anyone’s looking for me. Have a great week all!
Self-portrait with VR goggles and samurai sword, because why not?