Ars Nihil

Yeah, the Journal entries are dead again. Sorry to get your hopes up, folks.

AQI and heat here in D.C. have me going "Meh."

I had a roller-coaster of a weekend and a quiet Monday, hence the delay. The weekend is more of a private matter that I don't want to detail on a public-facing blog, so I won't be going into details here for you all. Ultimately, it ended on a good note, though, so I'll just say that... My partner is away on business, so it's just me with the house, and I'm mostly finding ways to motivate myself to act like an adult. Catching up on albums and anime on my to-do lists may not ha

Really old funnymen, really bad cartoons, really questionable uses of AI, and Willem Dafoe gardening memes.

Quiet day - RIP Bonnie Taylor, Satanic doo-wop, and some cute animal videos.

I seem to be in "dweeby Anglophile" mode today.

No more heatwave = Dolly Parton, freakish Norwegian soccer players, and "Weird" Al playing the bananas.

Giving this another shot (for some reason).

I'll be honest: I haven't been feeling it with either the journal entries or the blog overall lately, so I'm going to call a rough hiatus for the rest of 2025 for daily journal posts. On the plus side, doing those has helped remind me to tend to this blog regularly and not just let three months go by without a thing. Recently I tried to mix them up by adding "offerings" but that was only turning into more of a chore without adding much else of substance about what's actually

Started teaching myself Spanish, which seems to feel easier than expected (took German and Latin when I was younger, so that might be why). Otherwise relieved about this past Tuesday, which makes things feel less hopeless but still exercising caution about the future. - AB 11/7/25 Today's Offerings Album ...And Out Come the Wolves by Rancid (1995) Image/Video Zane Golia has some weird super-cut videos I've been binge-watching lately. They're funny if you can find the dark h

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 11/6/25 Today's Offerings Album Sun Goddess by Ramsey Lewis (1974) Image/Video Image by Mariola Grobelska ( Unsplash ) Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interest Special Day of the Year

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 11/5/25 Today's Offerings Album Siren by Heather Nova (1998) Image/Video Image by Karsten Winegeart ( Unsplash ) Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interest Special Day of the Year

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 11/4/25 Today's Offerings Album Heartbeat City by The Cars (1984) Image/Video Yes, this is an ad for a synthesizer (the Orchid ORC-1 from Telepathic Instruments) but getting both Matt Berry and Jermaine Clement to be part of an 11-minute piece of wry weirdness is quite a hat trick. Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interes

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 11/3/25 Today's Offerings Album Quicksilver Messenger Service by Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968) Image Photo by Liana S. ( Unsplash ) Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interest Special Day of the Year

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 11/1/25 Today's Offerings Albums The Story-Teller… A Session with Charles Laughton by Charles Laughton (1962) Video This weekend's video is the full performance of the Max Roach Double Quintet at Jazzgipfel Stuttgart 1990. Found it a couple weeks when, out of curiosity, I was looking for good examples of when string quartets met jazz quartets. It did not disappoint. Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interest

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 10/30/25 Today's Offerings Album The Rocky Horror Picture Show Original Soundtrack (1975) Video I'm sure I've posted some version of this before (the "3-D House of Beef" part?) but in honor of both Halloween and being the late John Candy 's birthday, here's some compilations of the Monster Chiller Horror Theatre skits from SCTV . Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipe

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 10/30/25 Today's Offerings Album Captain Fantastic and the Dirt-Brown Cowboy by Elton John (1975) Image Photo by Bobby ( Unsplash ) Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interest

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 10/29/25 Today's Offerings Album Willow in the Wind by Kathy Mattea (1989) Image Photo by Sandie Clarke ( Unsplash ) Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interest Special Day of the Year

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 10/28/25 Today's Offerings Album O by Damien Rice (2003) Video Wired hired musician and educator Larnell Lewis to provide a crash-course on how to drum. Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipedia Entry Article of Interest Special Day of the Year

Today's pretty non-descript - enjoy the offerings. - AB 10/27/25 Today's Offerings Album Soon Over Babaluma by Can (1974) Video Extra Credits covers the mechanics that make escape rooms work. Currently Reading Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture , edited by Roxane Gay Wikipedia Entry Social Media Share Article of Interest