Not sure if it is me or them, but I sure am failing a lot of captcha checks these days. What is a motorcycle, anyway? Is a bridge really so obtuse?

My favorite thing to see at SDCC was amazing cosplay people looking at their phones. It feels like they’re off shift having a personal moment, like you’re backstage at Chaos Theme Park witnessing something the normies shouldn’t see.

First of all I don’t know how to “quality” something. Second of all, eww.

I gather current-year songs I love into playlists of about an hour long. Trying to shake off the past and keep my mind in the current as much as possible. Here's my 2026 playlists so far:

Mundane bureaucracy [2026, 01] by Martin McClellan on Apple Music

Playlist · 17 Songs

music.apple.com

A good day to rewatch one the strangest videos to emerge from the mad MTV early days and see what details you missed last time. youtu.be/lcOxhH8N3Bo?...

Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart (Turn Around) (Official Video)

YouTube video by bonnietylerVEVO

youtu.be

Michael@donohoe.dev · 4w ago

Out of all the songs regarding eclipses of major organs, hers was my favorite www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/a...

I'm going to be at SDCC for the first time this year. Any real-world friends here going? DM me if you want to cross paths! Any great tabletop, or TTRPG, or artists you love that I should check out?

Consistently the most meaningful and grounding read on the internet, to me. Mandy's work reminds me of the best parts of the early promise of the internet made into a beating, living, and modern textual body. Here's to eighteen more years.

mandy brown@aworkinglibrary.com · last mo.

This month marks *18 years* of A Working Library. I will have more to say about what it means to blog for this long, and what I'm building towards, but for now I just want to thank everyone for reading. aworkinglibrary.com/writing/umyazu

This is amazing. The kids are alright + also have access to 90s video segment technology

Lemon (she/they)@genetic-lemon.bsky.social · last mo.

I need every Seattleite to watch this fucking YouTube channel called Wake Up Seattle. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmxQ...

This has been the overwhelming opinion of everybody I've talked to, sports fans and haters alike. I think we all just wanted our city to feel fun, again. Seattle is a really fun city that feels like it's been struggling to wake up since lockdown.

Paul Constant@paulconstant.com · last mo.

I do not give one single solitary damn about any kind of sports, but I have to say the World Cup has been nothing but great for Seattle. A joyous civic celebration. We should commit to keeping the city’s investments in public transit and shared public spaces going once the event is over.

I wrote about how I discovered that a new site for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig's long-running Tumblr project-turned-book, was a bootleg made by a marketing agency. They published the complete book verbatim, then added AI-generated art and new AI words, entirely without permission.

Waxy.org@waxy.org · 2mo ago

Without permission, a marketing agency republished the entirety of John Koenig's Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows book, replacing its art with AI slop and adding new AI words. Their unauthorized site now ranks higher than the real one everywhere.

Hell yeah, why experience a meaningful daily ritual for a few fleeting years, when you can instead outsource it to something sterile that has never thought or felt or lived? Sometimes I get sad for people who don't realize that time is all any of us has. www.theverge.com/tech/947871/...

Amazon’s Echo speakers can now help kids wind down and fall asleep

Amazon wants to make bedtime less of a struggle.

theverge.com

Introducing Melted: A Messy Ice Cream Game! No kickstarters this year! Preorder on my website now! Coming in July! Art by @wildkatstudio.bsky.social !

Breakout French-Canadian math rock duo Angine de Poitrine, British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks, and garage rocker Ty Segall headline the lineup for the KEXP BBQ on Aug. 22 at Seattle Center. Tickets are on sale now. www.kexp.org/bbq/

Now that’s a welcome collab I don’t see coming.

Massive Attack, Tom Waits - Boots on the Ground

YouTube video by Massive Attack

youtu.be

What's the over/under on an AI model being named "Baudrillard" sometime within the next few years?

Nobody waxes nostalgic for leather fringe jackets, but they were super popular in the 80s. Because they're not in vogue now, you can use them as markers of cultural authenticity. What other things, from any era, are left alone by resurgent nostalgia and so remain authentic to their time?

KEXP is experiencing issues with its Seattle radio transmitter due to ice, on the final day of its spring pledge drive. Donate to the station (and receive various thank you gifts) at the link below:

This song is so damn good.

Ecca Vandal - MOLLY (Official Video)

YouTube video by Ecca Vandal

youtube.com

Nnedi Okorafor, PhD@nnedi.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Discovered this song just before my 14.5 hour flight and have been listening to it on repeat all through. It’s my soundtrack for this trip. After 20 hours of flight, I’ve got one more flight and it’s delayed. Cranking this song up for the millionth time.

My favorite part of December is writing a poem every day, inspired by @kelliagodon.bsky.social and the Two Sylvias Press Poetry Advent Calendar. They're a stellar way to consider your world, and yourself at the end of your year. Only $25 and supports an exceptional PNW poetry press.

My friend Allison has cancer. I've been helping by giving updates for her on Caringbridge. I post them on Facebook, and they get less engagement than any other post. How much $ do you think Facebook makes each year from people desperate enough to advertise the updates to their medical crises?

No notes.

@johnaugust.bsky.social could this be a movie? I really, really hope it becomes one soon www.bbc.com/news/article...

Defiant nuns flee Austrian care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps

Sisters Bernadette, Regina and Rita needed a locksmith to get back into their convent, defying Church leaders.

bbc.com

The Seattle Times has called the mayor's race for Katie Wilson.

Katie Wilson elected Seattle’s next mayor

Wilson took a 1,976-vote lead over Bruce Harrell. With a maximum of 1,320 ballots remaining, it is mathematically impossible for Harrell to catch up.

seattletimes.com

Joe Veyera@joeveyera.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Katie Wilson has widened her lead over Bruce Harrell to nearly 2,000 votes in Seattle's mayoral race — up more than 600 from Tuesday — following today's ballot drop that added approximately 1,650 ballots. Harrell - 136,513 (49.48%) Wilson - 138,489 (50.19%)

Very excited about this new digital comics shop @sweetshop.app. I love print comics, but I think there's also a need for a truly great digital comics app—and I'm not interested in tying myself to Amazon in order to build a digital comics library.

Join the Sweet Shop waitlist!

Claim your username and be among the first to enter Sweet Shop.

sweetshop.app

I missed that the South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo passed, at 85, last June. Listen to this song, which always soothes something unsettled deep inside me, recorded in exile in London in 1978. Unreal, non-egoist, beat-dragging, masterful drumming on this track. A musician's musician. RIP.

You ain't gonna know me 'cos you think you know me - Louis Moholo

YouTube video by Eric White

youtube.com

Design friends! @johnaugust.bsky.social is looking for a "UI-heavy product designer with exceptional visual taste" for a new product. Contract, for now, but his shop builds exceptionally well considered software. If I was looking I'd be all over this.

Quote-Unquote Designer | Notion

We’re looking for a UI-heavy product designer with exceptional visual taste and front-end fluency for a new product.

qapps.notion.site

Oh, I love this GoFundMe aimed at helping @nisishawl.bsky.social fund the writing of a different kind of book: an "artifact of [an] imaginary philosophical movement". This is a book Nisi dreamed and has used in their fiction, so the idea of it jumping the veil into the realized world is thrilling.

Donate to Help Nisi Shawl write the book of her dream!, organized by Eileen Gunn

Nisi Shawl, a wise and wonderful writer of science fiction and fantasy, had a… Eileen Gunn needs your support for Help Nisi Shawl write the book of her dream!

gofundme.com

Apple Music appears to be showing alt-image text for Pink Floyd albums instead of cover art.

My favorite part of this article is that there was a schism and original Castrator vocalist Mallika Sundaramurthy formed a new band called Emasculator. May this new sub-genera flourish as it splits and divides in infinitum, death metal cell division building a body of bloody brutal feminist metal.

Kim Kelly@kimkelly.bsky.social · 11mo ago

My favorite feminist brutal death metal band just released a killer new album, so I did a quick interview with founding member Carolina Pérez Arango! Meet Castrator 🔪 :https://salvo.ghost.io/castrator-sharpen-their-knives-interview-2025/?ref=salvo-newsletter

My favorite part of the bible is the Parable of the First Person Shooter