AernaLingus

Somehow I kept meaning to reply to this and then having it slip my mind, but better late than never!

Confession time, I was going off the memory of playing early in the morning while half drunk, haha. And I was particularly fixated on the exact phrase you called out as being in Bb major... that F works too well and was really calling out to me there. I do remember thinking "maybe G minor?" but I was so wrapped up in that hook!

No worries! I myself only just got started on really focusing on music theory these past couple of years. I was always more of an ear/memory player—I'd either figure out the song by ear through trial and error, or I'd read the sheet music, but only for long enough to be able to memorize it and then never look at it again. In either case, if you were to stop me at any moment in a song and ask me what notes I just played, I honestly wouldn't know. And even if I had known, it wouldn't have meant much. I knew the basics: how to build major and minor scales, as well as how to build basic triads and seventh chords, but beyond V resolving to I (e.g. G7 to C), I didn't really understand what made songs flow. It's been really gratifying to do transcriptions and analysis of my favorite songs and figure out what makes them tick—and then recognizing those same patterns in other tunes.

while I still get things wrong I still enjoy learning through the mistakes!

This is so important! At first when I was doing analyses I would leave stuff blank when I wasn't sure about how to name a chord or what function a chord had, but I realized I was robbing myself of a learning experience. By committing to an answer and then having someone more experienced look over your work, you can figure out what error in thinking led you to a particular mistake and refine your mental model bit by bit.

One YouTube channel I heartily recommend is 8-Bit Music theory. He does some really great breakdowns of music and covers all kinds of theory topics. You're not going to come out of a video having mastered any particular topic (which is true of any YouTube video, I suppose), but by watching his videos and getting that first exposure to topics I was able to recognize things and go, "Oh yeah, I remember 8-Bit Music Theory talking about this!" and then being able rewatch the relevant video or search for more information since I had a label for the phenomenon. I think that's especially true of his series on the major modes which I keep coming back to and gleaning a bit more each time, although they might be less relevant for you depending on the kind of music you're playing. A great video to start with that covers a smattering of different topics is his breakdown of "Baka Mitai". Another top-notch one is his analysis of the Dolphin Shoals sax solo, which really changed how I listened to (and played) solos. And of course, you can just scroll through and see if there are any topics or games that catch your eyes.

The Doo Wop progression is one of my favorites to play around with

That's another great one! One unexpected place that it shows up is the classic Stage 1 song from Sonic Adventure 2: "Escape from the City". A YouTube creator I follow played off of that and did a doo-wop arrangement of it, which is how I found out about it.

Okay, I've really got to stop myself, but one more shared chord progression: the choruses of "This Love" by Maroon 5 and "Cruel Angel's Thesis" (the OP from Neon Genesis Evangelion) are both in the same key and have the same minor circle of fifths progression: i-iv-VII-III (so in C minor that'd be Cm-Fm-Bb-Eb).

(sorry for rambling—I don't really expect a reply, but I just wanted to acknowledge your comment and nerd out a bit more!)

original aspect ratio

Hell yeah. I remember that the HD remasters were only available in that shitty crop at first, so it's good to see they finally made the original available. God forbid someone sees black bars on their screen...

And for what it's worth, the WHO still officially considers COVID to be a pandemic.

Archive link

The thing is, it's more efficient at doing a job that really shouldn't be done except in rare cases. Like, in practice, the vast major of "leaf" blowing is getting grass clippings off of sidewalks/driveways/roads, but those lawns shouldn't exist in the first place! In a better world, all those stupid-ass lawns would be replaced by native gardens/xeriscaping.

Goddamn, though, I really hate gas-powered leaf blowers especially. It's unfathomable that they're even legal, considering the noise and pollution they spew from their horribly inefficient engines. I've read about municipalities and counties banning them here and there (and they're banned for sale in California along with gas-powered trimmers), but it would be nice to just rid ourselves of them in one fell swoop.

Mega mega THREAD THREAD

Wonderful to hear from you!! Wishing you the best with your new treatment

I've continued to maintain my 400+ day streak of going on a half hour walk every day, which has really served as the foundation from which I've built my other improvements on. My personal care and hygiene is undeniably the best that it's ever been, and unlike before it's driven by my desire to take care of myself and to keep my momentum going rather than the fear of being judged by others. I won't go into excruciating detail, since it's ultimately pretty mundane stuff that I think most (neurotypical) people are able to do without a second thought, but the main revelation for me was simply cutting out any opportunities for me to get distracted in the transitions between tasks. This involved rearranging my routine to make things flow more naturally into each other, doing prep work to reduce friction (e.g. laying out clothes the night before and making sure all devices are charged), and avoiding opportunities for me to get on my phone.

While I am now totally locked in on my morning routine and there's not much I'd change about it, I'm still struggling to follow through with my longer term goals^[Japanese is a notable exception—I've been really putting in the time and consistent effort with my flashcards and I've already started seeing the benefits in my comprehension] and I end up frittering away most of my free time. I think I'm going to try keeping a daily time diary to keep track of how I'm actually spending my time, since that has helped me stay more focused when I tried it before (it's really humbling to see in black-and-white that you spent three hours straight on random YouTube videos or whatever). Should probably ratchet my app timers back down as well.

On the social front, there's been some very minor progress, but in relative terms it's still something to celebrate. I reached out to a friend who I had been dodging for nearly two months—it was basically just a quick functional reply to something, but it lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders. Trying to keep my goals very modest...honestly, just sending a meme or a song or something once a week would be immense progress. I tend to get wrapped up in sending the perfect message, then not sending anything, then anxiety builds up because, well, if I'm breaking months of silence I'd better have something amazing to say!

Also trying to get better about replying to people on Hexbear...sorry if you're reading this and I've ghosted you before. Believe it or not, I used to be much, much worse, but that's still not an excuse to be rude. Talking to people is scary, and I've gone so long without regular social contact that I think I've fooled myself into thinking I don't need it and can just run at the first sign of trouble. But deep down I know I want to connect with people even if it means I will inevitably hurt people and be hurt. The hardest part is not self-sabotaging by letting my inaction do the hurting and immediately torpedoing any progress.

One thing that isn't yet a major concern but is worth keeping an eye on is my calorie intake. I am a tiny person and (daily walks aside) quite sedentary, so I've become accustomed to just eating two meals—a light breakfast and a heavier dinner + dessert. For the longest time I completely cut out snacks, but lately they've been creeping back in and I've even been having (gasp) lunch, and I think my waistline may be starting to show it (to be clear, it might be a couple of pounds). I've never struggled with weight in either direction, and I'd like to keep it that way. My roommate and I usually share most of our food, but I may talk with them about artificially having them claim the snacks and possibly even storing them in a separate location so as not to tempt me. Honestly, though, I think a big part of it is simply eating out of boredom to get a quick hit of dopamine. If I work more on my long-term projects and social goals, I suspect that the mindless grazing will abate.

So, concrete actions I'd like to take over the coming week:

• ~~send a dumb meme to my friend~~ ✔
• reply to Hexbear messages within 24 hours of receipt ✔✔
• start daily time diary
• cut back on snacks with the cooperation of my roommate

Shockingly, I'm actually playing some games this week!

I finished Case of the Golden Idol and started on the DLC. Highly recommend to anyone who likes detective/logic puzzle games—just check out the demo now, and wait till it goes on sale again in a month or two (GOG has a better deal for the bundle with all the DLC). The pixel art is really charming, and it's so satisfying when you crack some of the tougher levels. Bit of advice: taking notes outside of the game will help you a lot when things get more complicated, and it can often be useful to refer to notes you took in earlier levels. Will definitely check out Return of the Obra Dinn when I'm done with the two DLCs.

Continuing with the detective theme, I also resumed my playthrough the first Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) game on DS in Japanese. I played through the intro case a while back, but since I've gotten back into studying Japanese again recently I wanted to take another crack at it. I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I'm understanding—sure, there's plenty of words I don't know, but I can usually figure things out from context. To be fair, I played through the first two or three cases in English even further back, so I'm operating with extra context. We'll see how I do when I get into uncharted territory.

So much gooner stolen valor these days smh