Hello, world!

You’re reading this weeknote, in part, because I want to write more consistently. Though I am excited about what I write here, it’s not the most important writing I do. I am in search of exercises that act as forcing functions for me to write more. I found a very exciting opportunity along those lines in my Mastodon feed this week: Announcing Fireweed Writing School.

🌟 My Favorite Stuff from the Internet This Week

Bruce Springsteen’s Streets Of Minneapolis dropped this week. What can I say? It’s very surreal to live through the moments that inspire that kind of song. Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello were among the folks playing a benefit in Minneapolis this weekend. It’s sad to see Tom without Zach but this Intro + Killing in the Name Of rendition does not suffer much for his absence.

A round-up of everything else:

🧰 Tools

I posted some of my current favorite tools for macOS that qualify as lesser-known and well-loved in response to this thread that has too few replies!

lukilabs/beautiful-mermaid

✍️ Media Notes

📖 Reading

I finished Lonesome Dove this week. It was an incredibly beautiful but heartbreaking epic. Quoting Barack Obama from the 2015 National Medals of the Arts and Humanities Awards Ceremony:

And in “Lonesome Dove,” the story of two ex-Texas Rangers in the 19th century, readers found out something essential about their own souls, even if they’d never been out West or been on a ranch.

The characters and their stories warrant the hype. I haven’t been that moved by a book in a very long time.

🎬 Movies

Send Help, 2026 - ★ (Watched: 2026-02-01)

I saw this in theatres and did not care for it. It was almost gross enough to walk out but I stuck it out.

🎙️ Podcast Stats (AntennaPod)

I read a lot this week so podcast listening was super light:

Podcast	Minutes Listened
Grumpy Old Geeks	22

🎮 Gaming

The storm left me snowbound so I didn’t get much Ingress in this week.

🕰️ Steam Playtime

Virtual Cottage: 15.0 hours
Bongo Cat: 0.7 hours
Democratic Socialism Simulator: 0.5 hours

I finally started playing Bongo Cat after getting Steam on a Linux machine. Despite what protondb says about the game, it’s not totally borked for me. It works well enough that I can in theory 100% this game in time.

🏆 Steam Achievements

🎧 Music

The “Phantom of the Opera” earworm has relented. I did a lot of album listening of new releases this week. The collage above from Listen Brainz shows a mix of old favorites (good kid, m.A.A.d city, Un verano sin ti, Harvest Moon) and cool new finds (Backward, For the First Time, Again).

I scrobble my music:

— Brie

004: Even a worm will turn.