Exciting stuff! Three packages showed up for me today:

We got a copy of Minecraft Volume Alpha, to complement my copy of Beta from Christmas, a 3DS flashcart (half for novelty and half because I need it to ntrboot Caby's 3DS next time I go over there), and the best part, another swag package from Patrick at Midwestern Dirt! I just figured he was sending me a shirt, but he actually sent a buncha really cool stuff over, Sayonara guitar picks, stickers, a tote bag—a lot of stuff that they don't sell online since they're just a little indie band, so I'm the only one in Pennsylvania with any of it. Neener neener.

They've got a new record coming out August 18th called Twilight at a Burning Hill, which I've already heard and I think it's their best one, full stop. His new band is incredible, and they've really got a sense of dynamics and push and pull that the old band didn't have. I have a review of this one already written up to go on mari@macintosh.garden, along with a buncha new reviews for the rest of their albums, and I'm really just waiting for the day (or closer to it) to drop it. (You can already go grab some singles from this one for free over on their Bandcamp if you're interested.) Funnily enough, Savannah got recommended "The Aaron Waters Show" on Spotify totally organically outside of this little ongoing friendship I've got with Patrick, so hopefully that means they'll start getting some actual attention and it won't just be me trying to get my friends and whoever listening to them :omegalul:

Some other updates that I can think of:

• I'm really thinking this new job is gonna be a winner. Everyone there's been really nice, they've introduced themselves, shown me how to do things, complemented me on how quick I caught on and how confident I've been, we've chatted about flying and airports and music and old jobs and games, just everything. It's a total 180 from the grocery store I was busting ass at. This place also dies out hardcore at night, so last night I was able to sit in an aisle and listen to Karl Jobst videos under the hospices of dusting shelves (which I also did, I'm not a freeloader :marf:).
• I have been scattered putting together some new pages for mari@macintosh.garden. Two album reviews I did and then never linked anyone (Autolux's Transit Transit and Earlimart's Treble and Tremble), some more catalog reviews I need to finish that aren't posted (the aforementioned Midwestern Dirt one and also one for Beck's back catalog), and then I'm porting over my old Rediscovering posts from the Scratchpad, dusting off the little essays I did, and rehoming them since it was a lot of work to cover those thirty records and a lot of reading that's kinda unfortunately buried at the moment. I've also been relistening casually to the albums to see if a year or three has made a difference in my opinions, and I'm pleasantly surprised to say I like a lot of it more than I did back then. (I've also been reworking my old Quake and modding pages (please don't tell me about broken links, I know)--good lord, I've started a lot of web projects that need to get done. Uh, something something trip diary.)
• Speaking of Treble and Tremble! When I was listening back through that album to write up a review, I was watching a supercut dcb put together of footage taken around his college campus with an old Canon PowerShot and thought the two worked strangely well together. I decided to make my own music video using "Tell the Truth, Parts 1 and 2" from that album and surprise dcb with it, and I think it came out weirdly wistfully melancholic. I kinda love it (and he did too!). I thought it'd be cool going in, but it turned out to remind me of that weird period of time back in 2019 when I was still living on campus, but I knew I was dropping out, so I just stopped going to classes, used my meal plan, wandered a lot, and wrote tons of stories. Hanging out in our own library, using Mini vMac in fullscreen, quietly hoping someone would ask why Microsoft Word got so big and pixelated on my screen before spilling out onto north campus at closing for a walk set to, funnily enough, Midwestern Dirt and Sebadoh. New girlfriend, new characters, trying to grow up a bit and it still taking a couple years. It's a video about being fond for a time in your life you shouldn't be fond of. (I've sent Aaron Espinoza of Earlimart the video, and I'll let you know if he replies and what he thinks. Hope he likes it! 2006 camera, 2004 song, it works out in my head.)
• We put together a new bookshelf! Funnily enough, it was on clearance outside my new job when I went in for the interview. My old music-storing setup was a fucking disaster—I was using these weird wooden garden crates before to store my CDs and records and I was always paranoid about the slats crushing the corners of the sleeves and whatnot. It was also hideous. When I saw this thing, I knew I had to have it. It fits so perfect and it looks great, take a look:

There's still some CD overflow—I'll be buying a little plastic storage crate for all the extras and eventually I'll figure out a way to store them all together and get rid of the CD holders I've been using for like a decade now.