Chris Newell

Wide view of a sky filled with kites of various designs, with strings broken into segments due to the panorama photo method

The fun thing about shooting a panorama at a kite festival is that it looks like the legion of descending aliens are overwhelming our air defenses

christians looking for jesus in every war we start, every missile we fire, every conquering despot we crown, and never in the one place jesus promised he could be found: among the poor, the starving, the oppressed.

Highly recommend, it’s wonderful

Love mastic since we tried the liqueur in Greece. Even more in.

Yesss

Idk man gen 1 just hot different Gen 1: Rock Mime Bird Clay Eggs

Franz logo on white background with Some of the Things Bagels speckled with a small smattering of sesame and poppy seeds

Franz Debuts Budget-friendly ‘Some of the Things’ Bagels: tinyurl.com/36b4vtmv

Among all the other emotions, the heaviest of sighs

It’s like how Peter Parker can get all those creative pictures of Spider-Man because he is Spider-Man.

How did I put together this interesting data analysis? Man, I AM Data Analysis.

Getting a job where I can actually use a lot of my default wiring has legitimately saved my sanity

People at work: It’s great how you challenge the status quo and always push to find new & better ways to do things.

Me: Oh thanks, that’s the neurodivergence. It causes me significant issues in my personal life, but nice to know it’s useful somewhere.

The entire millennial identity is being prepared and groomed for a version of the world that stopped existing by the time we reached it

we slammed into a horizon painted on a brick wall like fucking looney tunes

A fucking elementary school in the middle of a school day.

A screencap of a streaming service interface with the poster for the movie SHAME below a the headline of a section called Raunchy Fun

When you’ve only heard of the movie via Fassbender jokes

Shows that 3 of the best accounts on Bluesky follow the same Brutalism bot that I do.

When you know you followed the right architecture bot account

I’ve never been a bigger hypocrite than just now, when I told my toddler that snacks are for between meals, not instead of meals.

Roses are red
Dandelions are free

@bencollins.bsky.social is this anything

I always cry at the State of the Onion

Prometheus says “hot take” and Greek gods respond “no give that back.”

These things being the same price they were 20 years ago is honestly crazy. Inflation has made them cheaper than ever.

Which means now is the time to stock up!

And the real birthday gift is allowing myself to spend time fixating on something I love and sharing it out. So thanks for that.

Anyway, a great album that holds a special place for me. Silversun Pickups has been one of my favorite bands for 20 years. Neck of the Woods is their best album, and I haven’t loved most of their most recent stuff, though Widow’s Weeds had a few bangers. Their best slow songs are on Pikul.

I also don’t usually love their upbeat/“happier”-sounding tracks, but Common Reactor is great, even though the dissembling to noise at the end should be about a minute shorter. Like I said earlier, a progressively-structured song, aka starts quiet and builds to loud, has like a 99% hit rate with me.

I don’t always connect with their slower songs, but Rusted Wheel is one of the exceptions.

Waste It On is often my favorite track. The verses have a slower pace that feels frustrated, almost sinister. Doesn’t move as quickly as some other tracks, then pays off in a borderline cacophonous bridge that’s made me wax poetic more than once. Great for being in your feelings with eyes closed.

Future Foe Scenarios is more of the style that most carries forward into their next few albums, especially Swoon. Great marriage of driving drumbeats, hazy guitars, and loud scraping vocals.

Lazy Eye was incredibly overplayed on the radio and I didn’t care. Great song with the type of progressive structure that always works on me. Not really representative of their style going forward, so it feels really of that time (2006-7).

Well Thought Out Twinkles was my first exposure to Silversun Pickups, which was included on a free sampler album from Seattle radio station 107.7 The End. Still one of my favorite tracks of theirs, and the first taste of my preferred mode for the band (loud).