Gaby, back in 2015 wrote,

Song covers

The interesting thing about song covers is that you either love them or hate them, and for many reasons. Maybe you grew up listening to the original or maybe the cover is just plain bad, whatever the reason is we’re always going to have an opinion about it. In some cases, though the cover can sound even better than the original, but that’s rare -or so I think- but they can be fun, they can be a new refreshed version of that original song that we at one point fell in love with. For example, most people don’t know this, but I have become a huge fan of The Rolling Stones. I’ve always been familiar with them and heard their stuff, but as my taste and appreciation in music has changed I’ve been listening to them more lately and one of my favorite songs for some reason is “Can’t you hear me knocking”. I don’t know what it is, but that song just rocks, and this week I found an album by Bernard Fowler — The Bura. And it has a cover of the Stone’s song and I have got to say that even though, I hold dear to the original song, this one was pretty solid and enjoyable. It felt like a modernized version of it. Then again, nothing like the original, but he made it his thing in a way, and I’m fine with it. It could be that I’m more open to this kind of things. I’m sure they’re people that will hate it, but I liked it, and it was a fun listen.

Found this in my Day One, it came up in the “on this day” thingy. I remember writing this and nowhere to post it, didn’t have a blog back then, but this was the beginning of the idea of having one.

Note-taking

Turns out, I don't like Obsidian. Yes, I like the fact that it has native apps on all the platforms I use but, I don't like it. I would like to use ROAM but, it is expensive, especially when I know that it would be used mainly for work. And they don't have an iOS or iPadOS app,  and yet, I am doing the trial.

Email

About a week ago, I had stopped forwarding my email to Hey. In a way, I had given up using it. I had been using Newton, which I kind of wrote a bit about it recently.  I stopped using it and I am back at using Airmail. However, I do find myself missing Hey a bit. I think is mainly because is the only way to have access to all my email at my work computer. For whatever reason, I am not allowed to sign in to iCloud 🤷‍♂️

Task managers

TickTick for work, free tier. Things 3 for personal. 

And I don't want to talk/blog about it 😎

I have recently shared all the things I like about Glass and I am still very much enjoying the service. Now, where other services, apps, platforms that I am currently using may or may not compare to Glass? 

Instagram

We all know that Instagram is no longer about photos. To me it is about content creators, yes you get to display your photos too but that's not the main target anymore, I feel like. And then there's the dumb (or numb) scrolling, scrolling, and scrolling, double-tap, scrolling some more, double-tap some more. There are all the ads, all the suggestions, kinda like, Twitter (the official app, that is). Ever since I had discovered and started using Glass, Instagram has already lost most of its value, if it ever had any, to me.  It's just a place a go now to look at funny Reels and may see my friends post, stuff.

Flickr

I have tried for years to get into Flickr. I may have had a few accounts around the years. The one I currently have was my final attempt to get into it once more. I am even paying for the Pro and still, I forget it's there, I forget it exists. I never ever open it to scroll and watch what the people I may follow are posting. Guess Flickr never really clicked for me.

Micro.blog

Micro.blog, before its social aspect, is first and foremost my personal blog's hosting service. Where I share my thoughts, the things I like and enjoy, and my photos. There's even a menu tab exclusively for my photos. I would say a good portion of my photos are exclusively on my blog, maybe a few on Instagram, and mostly about the girls so my family can see them.  Flickr, well, I will upload a few when I remember.

Twitter

eh!

Mastodon

Crossed posted from Micro.blog

Glass

What more can I say about it? I am really enjoying it. I like that unlike Flickr, it did click for me. I actively open it and look at the photos in my timeline, no numb scrolling, no double-tap, I comment, I interact, and likewise, other people interact with me. I am not sure if this is the effect of the platform/app/service being young still, but in the week or so I have had it, I have gotten so more good comments and feedback on some of my photos, that I never got on Instagram in all these years.  I like that the app, in some way, encourages interaction.

If you are in the Glasses there, you can find me at, Gabz

Last night, was my first day at the new gym.  I got to say, it was fun, in some ways.  And when I say new gym, I  mean to say in Name. This building, before it was what's known as Crunch, it used to be Idaho Athletic. Annie and I used to come to this gym way back then. At the time it was $40.00 for both of us and we used to love their kickboxing class, twice a week. In fact, we got to the point that we would just go to the classes and maybe use the rest f the gym on Saturdays. Until, due to health issues, the instructor went from 2 classes a week to one, and then we couldn't justify the forty dollars for one class a week and again, we weren't using the rest of the facility.

Anyways, fast-forward to 2021, now it is called Crunch, it is about 21 USDs and I can bring Annie anytime I want at no extra cost. After all these years, the place hasn't changed, at all. Same layout, pretty much the same machines with the addition of a few new ones. The main difference now is where they used to have the basketball court, now is like an open area with all sorts of toys, and there, is where I will be playing the most. They've got the rowers, sleds, kettlebells, TRX's, monkey bars, pull-up bars, free weights, etc, etc...

There were not that many people, I don't think I was ever any closer than 6 feet from anyone else, the place is pretty big and again, after 8 at night, it's pretty empty. I did spend a lot of time roaming around trying to remember where everything was or what I wanted to do. I really didn't have a plan for yesterday. Clearly, I need to make plans, workout routines, and such.

But I felt good going and about the place...

One thing though, people, if you are swinging a kettlebell in front of me and you don't know what you're doing, I will judge you. Sorry, not sorry, but there were people that clearly looked like they wanted to get hurt I guess.

I remember back in 2018 or so, I was unemployed, and sitting at a local coffee shop with my late 2017 13"  MacBook Pro, job hunting. I also remember I was eating a delicious pastry from a local "French" Bakery called Gaston's, a Raspberry Danish, the coffee shop used to sell their stuff. 

Anyway, that is probably one of the few good memories of those times. I also remember getting an email with a 50% off of the year subscription for a little email application and service called,  Newton. So of course I signed up for it. I mean, I'm unemployed but sure let's use the severance package monies, whoooo, YOLO!!

I think, at the time, it was one of the best options out there, in my book. Good features, clean UI, sync between devices was, is, pretty solid. I know this app/service has been dead and resurrected, I can't remember how many times or what is the current state of their business, I do not know. 

This past weekend, I signed up for Setapp and I was pleased to see that Newton is part of the applications bundle the service offers. I installed the app, set it up, and... It was very anticlimactic. To me at least, it looks, outdated. Not sure if is the Hey-effect or even apps like Airmail look much better, it's like Newton didn't age well.

Sorry, vevé, is not you, is me...

I did a thing yesterday. I joined a gym, again.

I had dropped the gym thing right after the pandemic started. I have been trying and failed to do the home workout routine ever since. I am still a little skeptical, I mean, we aren’t done with this pandemic and there is a new variant out there. That being said, I need to get back into being active and a place to go to. I need it not only for my physical health, but also for my mental health. The place seems to be following all the necessary protocols and I will be visiting the place when it’s almost empty.

Let’s see how this goes, if for some reason I don’t feel safe, well, I’ll stop and see what we can do. There’s no contract whatsoever, so I can drop my membership at any time.

Wish me luck!

This morning on my morning commute, like in everyone, I was listening to a podcast radio show, Supernatural with Ashley Flowers.

Today’s episode, ALIEN: Ancient Aliens

Fragments of a map from the 1500s sparked a theory that’s been going strong for decades. It holds that extraterrestrials have been visiting Earth for thousands of years, gifting humans with advanced tech far beyond our means. Today, we investigate the mysteries that make aliens seem almost plausible.

I don’t talk about this often, or rather, I don’t blog or have conversations online about this particular topic, perhaps because it has been beaten to death. But I am a sucker for all things aliens or theories on ancient technology and such. So, this episode was very fascinating to me. Then, something was addressed that blew my mind. Something I had never considered before or was brought up to my attention until now.

In the last five minutes

And speaking of Europe there’s something we need to address with the exception of Stonehenge all of these ancient alien theories revolve around non-European cultures as tons of actual experts have pointed out this reinforces the old imperialist idea that nonwhite cultures are inherently less capable like no one ever questions are the ancient Greeks built the Parthenon or how the Romans perfected aqueducts even hardcore ancient alien theorist Hindu accepted yes the evidence is clear they did that themselves cultures in Africa or the Americas accomplish something similar the reaction is somehow there’s no way they could’ve figured that out on their own

Wow!

(And yes, I used Drafts’s new transcribe feature for this) 😎🎙

Superman Returns (2016)

I remember watching this movie at the movie theater back in 2016, when it was released. I still remember seeing the first picture of Brandon Routh wearing the Superman suit, and oh boy, I was an eager little beaver and could not wait to watch this motion picture show.

I am trying to recollect my thoughts of the movie at the time, I think I enjoyed it. I mean, it had been, what, twenty plus years since our last honest-to-goodness Superman movie? Superman was my favorite superhero growing up, and still to this day. I had probably watched it a couple of times afterwards and then never watched it again.

I am not sure how I got this idea in my head that, this was a bad movie and that I dislike it. I blame the internet for that. Or perhaps a few comments of friends and coworkers every time this movie was brought up in a conversation. Who knows at the point?

Today I revisited this motion picture show, and it was not as bad as I was turned/made to believe it was. I really enjoyed it, I had my cool comic-book Superman moments. Yes, it is very much a love story, but is still Superman. Perhaps I am watching it now with a different set of eyes than I did back then? If I had one complaint, It’d be Lex Luthor and would have preferred a different villain, but again, this is a “direct sequel” to the Richard Donner’s Superman movies as I understand it.

In conclusion, this is a great movie, for the Superman fan and the little kid in me. I’ll give it three out of three chocolates!

🍫🍫🍫

I’m always around. Goodnight, Lois.

— Superman