On this day: Preliator turns one

So. This here blog’s first anniversary since I returneth-ed. It’s now old enough to … um … wait, what do kids do at one year of age? Don’t they drool and sleep all day? I can get behind (half of) that.

I don’t have much to add here – I’ve been busy with personal projects (mostly music-related, as well as binging The West Wing – that season 2 finale, amirite?), and frankly, once I’ve spent all my remaining energy keeping up with the political mess south of the border^*, I have none left for actual blogging. Don’t worry, this blog isn’t going anywhere; I’m sure the bug will bite again at some point and I’ll get back to it. I’m just not in any hurry.

Meanwhile, I’m active enough on Twitter, (re)tweeting like a madman, and to a lesser extent on Facebook. Beyond that, there’s not much happening on the home front, which is just how I like it.

And now, back to trying to get my music apps to stop glitching. Watch out for each other out there.

* My country just legalized pot, whilst our neighbor is busy cracking down on nonviolent drug users and trying to excuse its baby-jails. I’m sure you can guess how I feel about being Canadian right now.

I’m on SoundCloud (and a mini status update)

As you can tell, my focus has been drifting somewhat from this blog in recent weeks – honestly, it’s difficult to motivate myself to keep shouting into the void when that void just keeps getting darker by the day – and instead I’ve been putting in more time to work on my music (along with a not-insignificant amount of Tale of Two Wastelands).

Lately I’ve been thinking about ways to get my musical works out there – the only venues I’m familiar with are my dusty art blog, YouTube, and a couple writing sites that don’t particularly cater to music. But apparently there’s this place called SoundCloud that’s for more than just hosting podcasts, and so I created an account and have uploaded my most recent(ly polished up) songs there. SoundCloud also gives me the ability to embed them with a nifty player, like this:

My only issue right now is my free account can only hold a limited number of tracks before I need to upgrade to a paid version, which I’m less chuffed about. But then, maybe I’ve been spoiled by all these websites that offer unlimited this and that for free.

Feel free to check my stuff out, if that’s your thing. I’d certainly appreciate it. And if you ever hear about anyone looking for custom-made music for a personal project, I’d doubly appreciate it if you pointed them my way. It’s time I broadened my experience beyond revising my own songs for the dozenth time.

Daily Links #125: Oklahoma bans same-sex adoption

• Oklahoma officially allows religious adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex parents. It’s the Christian way.

• The fallout from SESTA/FOSTA continues: Cops realize it’s making their jobs harder, whilst sex traffickers are having a field day. It’s not like anyone predicted this would happen or anything …

• PZ Myers says all I have to say on the “Intellectual Dark Web” of regressives who whinge about how they can’t spout bigotry and play footsie with fascists without suffering social consequences.

• Andrew Shirvell, who rose to fame as the homophobic former Michigan Assistant Attorney General who obsessively harassed a gay college student, has been permanently disbarred.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Finally: in Creativitas news, I’ve recently revised and updated three of my orchestral songs, “Inhuman Suite”, “Setting Out” and “Softer Dreams”. I plan to revisit some of my older songs – some of which I haven’t touched in the better part of a decade, back when I was just starting to write music – and give them the overhaul they deserve, so stay tuned.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

A dragon to watch over me

I have a new friend, and he’ll be bunking in my room. Everyone, meet Watcher.

Click each photo for full size (1920×1080)

I need to dust more …

Sadly, he got a wee bit dinged up on the way over, so I had to stick a few bits back on – and bandage his fractured tail – using black electrical tape. You can barely tell where, though.

All credit goes to the lovely Sarah Loos, who did a magnificent job on this commission. Highly recommended if you’re looking for good work at a reasonable price.

Housekeeping: A slight and probably unnoticeable change of pace

So one day into my writing hiatus and I realized the issues with my novel were more fundamental than could be fixed with simple rewrites. Long story short, I’m scrapping the whole thing – all 160,000 words, nearly a combined decade’s work – and starting from scratch. The ideas are already coming together faster than they’ve been in a long time, so I think it’s the right call.

Concerning the ol’ blag, as much as I’ve enjoyed the little break, I think I’m gonna get back into things, but at a slower pace than before. I was spending so many hours of my day reading, sorting, researching and writing for this blog it had become an outright chore. So from now on, I’ll forego blogging about things I feel should be covered here and focus instead on things I want to write about. That means less output overall, but also less feeling like I’m on a deadline to get stories out before the next news cycle.

So, mini-hiatus over, and new posts will come when they come. Though to be frank, considering I went for days without posting at times, there shouldn’t be too much of a difference.

Taking a (sort of) brief writing break

I’ve been working on and (mostly) off on my novel project since I completed the first oh-so-primitive draft around 2011. For years I’ve tinkered with it, revising endlessly and gradually getting it closer to something presentable, but I’ve regularly run out of drive and the thing would then languish on my drive for the next several months before the urge to write found me again.

Well, we’ve come ’round again, and this time I’m fortunate that I’ve just scored some outside help – nothing like the promise of a second pair of critical eyes to give me the kick in the bum I need to get cracking. But I’ll have a hard time getting anything done if I spend hours a day trying keep up with all the news flying around and blogging it. So something’s gotta give.

As of now, I’m taking an indefinite semi-break. “Semi” in that I’ll still be around and I’ll still make the occasional post when a story just has to be opined on (not to mention the weekly puppycide posts will continue without interruption), and “indefinite” in the sense that I have no idea how long it’ll last – could be a few days, could be a few weeks. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ll be no less active on Twitter (which is my main hub anyway) and, to a lesser degree, on Facebook (which I mostly use to cross-post links from Twitter), so find me there at any time. You can also reach me by email.

Sporadic and infrequent blog posts, hanging out on Twitter and working on personal projects … wait, maybe this isn’t any different from business as usual after all.

Daily Links #114: Mississippi passes 15-week anti-abortion bill

My stomach has launched a coup, the house is freezing and I had to spend almost an hour troubleshooting my laptop. Have some quick ’n’ dirty links whilst I numb my mind with some movies and a big steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup.

• Following a Senate vote two days ago, the Mississippi Legislature has now passed a 15-week abortion ban that leaves no exceptions for rape or incest and which Gov. Phil Bryant (R) plans to sign, marking the first steps towards an eventual Supreme Court challenge of Roe v. Wade.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• In other Christian-fascist news: Days after a Kentucky Christian-conservative group stalled an anti-child-marriage bill (which has since advanced), a similar bill in Tennessee is dead after another Family Research Council affiliate told Republican lawmakers it would interfere with their planned lawsuit against the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling legalizing gay marriage.

• Saint Louis, MO prosecutor wants an independent body to investigate police shootings. For some reason, the police union isn’t happy with this.
  (via The Watch | The Washington Post)

• Kansas legislature is considering a bill that would stop drug convicts from being lumped in with sex offenders in the state’s public registry. Because that’s apparently a thing.
  (via The Watch | The Washington Post)

• Iran sentences a woman to two years in jail for publicly removing her hijab. Also, happy International Women’s Day.

• Finally, just so you know, Australia has found a new way to kill you: Birds that spread wildfires on purpose.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links #112: Mississippi Senate passes 15-week abortion ban

Apologies for the lack of posts these last couple days. Been busy learning the ropes in Cities: Skylines, much of which involves dealing with my whiny industrial zones. (WTF does “Not enough services” even mean?)

• Mississippi’s Republican-controlled Senate passes 15-week abortion ban, the worst in the country, that’s explicitly intended to launch a Roe v. Wade challenge. A challenge that could run perilously close to success.

• Andrew Wakefield’s lethal legacy lives on as a measles outbreak spreads across Europe, thanks to antivaccinationists.
  (via @EsotericCD; retweet by @Popehat)

• “Internal NYPD files show that hundreds of officers who committed the most serious offenses — from lying to grand juries to physically attacking innocent people — got to keep their jobs, their pensions, and their tremendous power over New Yorkers' lives.”
  (via @michaelhayes; retweet by @radleybalko)

• Roy Moore claims he’s broke. I hope he finds more money; the more he has, the longer he can keep getting sued by the women he preyed on when they were teens.

• Finally, a follow-up: The FCC’s ethics lawyers must’ve rang, because Ajit Pai has now turned down the NRA’s gun award for killing net neutrality rules.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Watch review: Citizen BL5470-57L Eco-Drive perpetual chrono

[full size: 967×1500]

Hey ho, it’s time for another watch review. You can move right along if that ain’t your cuppa. I won’t hold it against you.

Today I’m reviewing the Citizen BL5470-57L Eco-Drive perpetual chronograph, which was my everyday watch for a couple years before I bought and mostly switched to my Citizen Brycen (which shares a functionally identical movement, so I’ll be drawing comparisons throughout this review). I chose and purchased this baby with the intention of making it my (sub-$500) grail, my forever-watch, at least until hedonic adaptation caught up with me. To be fair, I’ve been quite happy with it, even if it doesn’t get much wrist time anymore, for reasons I’ll get into later.

And so, let’s dive into everything that’s good, beautiful, nitpicky, bad and shameful about this little beaut.

Watch review: Citizen BL5250-02L “Brycen”

[full size: 939×1500]

I’ve decided to start reviewing my watch collection, just because I can (and also because I’ve been binging Nick Shabazz review videos and I wanted to give it a go, and this is my blog you can’t stop me). Feel free to ignore this and other reviews if it isn’t your thing.

Below is a review of my newest watch, Citizen’s BL5250-02L “Brycen”, using my time-untested system of The Good (for things that please me), The Beautiful (for places where the watchmaker went beyond the call of duty), The Nitpicks (for details that bug me but probably not anyone else), The Bad (for kinks that should’ve been ironed out) and The Shameful (for flaws that really have no reason to be there).

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— Specs —

List price: US $425
Display: Analog (hour, minute & second hands), 12-hour Arabic & index markers, 3 subdials (10-o’clock 24-hour dial, 2-o’clock function dial/chronograph 1/20 seconds, 6-o’clock mode dial), 4-o’clock date, tachymeter chapter ring
Crystal: Mineral
Dial color: Bluish black
Luminescence: Hour hand, minute hand, second hand (tail), mode subdial hand, hour markers, 12-o’clock bezel pearl
Case material: Titanium, silver, polished/brushed
Case size: 43 mm wide, 13 mm thick
Bezel material: Titanium, silver, polished
Bezel function: Unidirectional
Water resistance: 200 m
Calendar: Date (perpetual calendar)
Other features: Chronograph (1/20 sec., up to 60 mins.), daily alarm, dual time zone, low power warning
Movement: Quartz (light-powered)
Power reserve: 9 months
Accuracy: ~ +0.08 secs./day (specs: +/- 15 secs./month)
Band: Brown genuine crocodile leather, white stitching
Clasp: Pin buckle
Band/lug width: 22 mm
Year: 2006
Weight: 2.56 oz.

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In which I talk about my watches

And now for something completely different. Feel free to ignore this if time-keeping wrist ornaments aren’t your thing.

For most my life I never saw much interest in collecting things. That said, I always liked wristwatches; I’d ask for them as a kid, and two of my favorite birthday presents were watches, both of which I still have (seen below). The funny thing is I’m the diametric opposite of a jewelry guy; I have no desire to adorn my neck, fingers, earlobes and other body parts with shiny baubles – it makes fighting assassins much harder when they can choke you with your own pendant, you know. But lately my interest in watches has turned into something of a mild fascination; something about a nice timepiece on the wrist just clicks for me, not to mention how they’re fairly marvels of engineering.

So I’ve decided I’d start myself a little watch collection, beginning with the four I presently have (not counting a $10 hunk of plastic I keep shoved in my drawer somewhere), arranged by length of ownership (older to the left, newer to the right):

Stand in awe before my mad photography skills.
Also, you would not believe the amount of lamp-wrangling jujutsu I had to pull off for this mediocre lighting.
[full size (2048×1353)]

From left to right:

Daily Links: 11/29/17 – This NSA don’t stop (leaking)

• NSA: You can trust us with national security secrets and all our (il)legally collected surveillance data. Also NSA: We just suffered the n^th leak of classified data this year.

• Hawaii requires that medicinal marijuana users be registered. It’s also the only state that requires registration for gun owners. Oh, and it bans marijuana users from owning guns. Guess what happens next.
  (via RT by @Popehat)

• The American Family Association wants Republican leaders to “quit protecting perverts in Congress”, focus instead on protecting perverts running for Congress.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• Radley Balko has another roundup of criminal-justice- and civil-liberties-related stories in the age of Trump, including a couple already mentioned here.

• Finally, I had a little exasperated meltdown on Twitter on Facebook over all these celebrity creeps.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.