busybee fluffy rambles

Music

Since last time I’d gotten my computer and monitor speakers hooked up, I was able to listen to music while I worked, and some pretty great stuff came up!

• The Real Tuesday Weld — The Last Werewolf. Really fun concept album of a multi-genre thing about a werewolf having romance and society issues. Apparently it’s a soundtrack/companion to a book that I haven’t read.
• The Bird and the Bee — Recreational Love. This is an album I didn’t care so much for when it first came out but it’s definitely grown on me. I still like their first two albums better, but this one’s pretty solid too.
• Lorde — Solar Power. I bought this when it first came out and finally it came up in my album shuffle. And hey it’s pretty good! I’m not all that familiar with Lorde in general (mostly knowing her for Royals) but these songs were a lot more heartfelt and organic-feeling.
• Also I checked out some music by Cheerful Ghost from having some curiosity after an interaction of happenstance with them on Tumblr. I only listened to a handful of tracks, including Axolotl, which led me to put their entire discography on my Bandcamp Friday list.

Basement progress

So! The big milestone I reached is that all of the major furniture is in its intended permanent location. I also set up my drum kit and its mics, and got a little distracted with doing some sound checks on such, and did enough of that to determine that I have a long way to go with getting a good acoustic setup for it. But I have some ideas on how to improve it.

I also finally got around to installing the cable-management thingy on my studio desk (which I’ve only had rattling around for over a decade…) and that’ll be useful when I’m finally tidying everything up.

Right now the big pressing thing left to do in the basement is just decluttering. There is so much clutter. Basically, throwing/selling/giving/putting stuff away, and doing a lot of cleaning.

I also have a credenza I need to get rid of. If anyone wants it and can pick it up from my place in White Center, let me know!

Anyway I’m really happy with how the space is taking shape, and I’ll definitely have plenty of space to stash my instrument cases and a bunch of other stuff, without having to constantly climb or trip over everything.

Spider (she is our hero!)

I had a slight scare when I saw a bug friend (CW: spider) and was worried it was a black widow due to how the light was playing off of it, but I got a closer look via my phone camera. I’d have been really surprised it there were a black widow in Seattle, but I might still be traumatized from being surrounded by them back in New Mexico. Las Cruces in particular was lousy with two things: cockroaches, and black widows. They were inescapable.

Anyway the iOS photo identifier thing says this was a cupboard spider, which is also known as a “false widow” because it’s commonly confused for one. Good to know! Apparently they are still not something you want to be bitten by though, but still, I appreciate having little insectivore friends in my basement, so I’m just leaving her be.