Nicolas WardMedia — January 2026
A backdated post about January coming from mid-March. It was a busy month at work coming off of Winter Break and right into the annual review cycle and an upcoming release. I did fit in chaperoning an art museum field trip, which is definitely a kind of media.
Reading
At bedtime we decided to continue with the Jacques and went right from Mossflower into Redwall. (Technically out of publishing order, but I think Mossflower has a better hook and establishes the world a bit more as a prequel.)
While I haven’t lived in the Minneapolis area for over twenty years, I largely grew up there and have a ton of friends still in the area, some of them being personally impacted by federal occupation. I read a lot of articles in January about it, probably more than was necessary.
Fascinating profile of David Ellison and his largely successful endeavors to become a Hollywood executive from the outside, using daddy’s money.
The sociology behind toxic masculinity, authoritarian violence, and the tactics that can help in the moment.
So much of the violence is being done to and around children. From distant Seattle it feels like there is not much I can do other than make a few donations.
Playing
I tried this Apple Arcade version out for a bit since Andrle really enjoys Cooking Fever, which has a similar mechanic. You can definitely get into a similar rhythm and start unlocking more and more stuff, but I think this one isn’t for me. I think not enough variety to unlock at first, and the automatic customer matching frustrated me as it wouldn’t always complete the request I intended.
Watching
Most of this month’s movie nights were dedicated to bingeing some Disney animated classics (all repeats) in preparation for our upcoming trip. Even some bonus non-Friday slots.
Still had Netflix from our Christmas movie marathoning, so we caught the latest Knives Out. I think I still like the first one more but this was quite good and had some great performances. A lot of delightful scenery chewing, and Josh O’Connor was quite good (I haven’t seen him in anything before.) I figured out a lot of the clues but not the full reveal.
I laughed out loud at how heavy handed some shots were, especially with the church imagery, but at least Rian has style and it’s a new story! The vibes throughout felt more Pentecostal than Catholic but the trappings of the priesthood I guess appealed more for the story.
GWAR — Pink Pony Club
Nice style crossover cover. 🤘
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5XR48KLE8I
There I Ruined It — House of the Rising Sun + Won’t You Be My Neighbor
Very well done mashup for a childhood favorite PBS show and a classic rock song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeZESYwDeYE
Programmers Are Also People — Interview with Senior DevOps Engineer 2025
This series is usually quite funny, probably because it hits a little close to home sometimes. “Cloud can smell fear.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXPpkzdS-q4
Listening
Christmas music season is done (although it always goes up through Epiphany) so we’re back to our usual music rotation with the likes of Taylor, Gaga, and Darren Hayes.
Twenty Thousand Hertz — Butterfly in the Synth
There was a period when I was little where our TV viewing was largely limited to PBS. (See also the above Mr. Rogers mashup.) Hands down the most formative show for me was Reading Rainbow, hosted by LeVar Burton. In fact it’s a big reason why I became a Trekkie — there’s an episode where he does a behind the scenes tour of the TNG sets and explains the transporter special effect and I was immediately fascinated and wanted to check it out. (I think I caught this episode in reruns later, since I started watching live near the end of the fifth season.) Anyway this is a great 20k episode explaining how the extremely ’80s synth theme, a total earworm for me, was created.
Seattle Now — Small homes have Seattle spilling into storage units
Interesting KUOW episode on the boom in storage units as Seattle has grown in recent decades. Our townhouse is pretty small but we’ve managed to mostly minimize into its limited closet space (no garage or basement). The only time we’ve needed a storage unit was when our previous condo was staged for sale.
Bruce Springsteen — Streets of Minneapolis
A solid protest song from The Boss about the ICE occupation of my one-time home town. (Which isn’t really over.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w
Billy Bragg — City of Heroes
Another more punk protest song about Minneapolis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOW2ZikGW8
#minnesota #music #pbs #politics #seattle #softwareDevelopment #starTrek
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