…is the title of a Rick Beato video on YouTube. You can watch it below.
Rick attributes the current state of pop music (bad) to two things:
Music is really easy to make now, thanks to various software and hardware tools
Music is really easy to listen to now, thanks to streaming services
I think he’s right. In the video he lays out how much work went into recording a typical rock band, with drums alone requiring multiple mics (and a good drummer), where today it’s…a drum machine. Vocalists needed to sing on pitch, and the opportunity to fix mistakes originally meant having to re-record. Then came autotune, pitch correction software and the equivalent for instruments. Now anyone could sing, and the voice could be processed any way you like. When something hit, it was easy to reproduce…and was, by everyone looking to score a hit. The sheer volume of music increased as it became easier to make. And this is before you even consider the horror of AI-generated music.
As he notes, over 100,000 songs were added to streaming services over the last year, a rate of about one per second. This isn’t a stream, it’s a torrent1See what I did there?.
Then he explains how music in the olden times (my time) was something to be sought, acquired and savoured. Sure, it feels a bit “I had to walk both ways uphill in the snow” but again, he’s right. I remember saving for an album, having to go to the record store to buy it, take it home, then listen to it. If I liked it, I might loan it to a friend. Buying an album was a thing. Today, for $10.99 a month (about what one of those albums used to cost), you get a virtually endless supply of music on demand. You don’t have to seek it out, it’s just there, in an app. Combined with the sheer volume (heh heh) of the music output, it cultivates a feeling, especially in those who are growing up with streaming services, that music is nothing special–it’s just background noise. Don’t like a song? Just skip to the next random track. Let the software build a playlist for you. You don’t need to do anything, just listen. There is no investment, no value. It’s product.
And everything kind of sounds the same.
As I’m typing this, I’m listening to Boney M’s Nightflight to Venus, a 1978 album that gleefully celebrates its disco roots. It’s silly, bonkers, but also super catchy, with terrific harmonized vocals. It even covers a nice variety of styles, not just disco. I mean, it has a cover of “King of the Road.”
Today, an equivalent album would likely be composed on a computer, probably feature hyper-processed autotuned vocals, a drum machine and probably no actual guitars. It would be musical sludge, a pile of muck in a larger pile of indistinguishable muck. But hey, there’s a million other songs on tap, so just skip to something else if you don’t like it. The pool is big.
Anyway, the video is worth a watch, and helps explain why I spend more time listening to my ripped CD collection in Windows Media Player than I do listening to the nigh-endless selection of songs on Apple Music2Consider that I started buying my own music around 1977, which is 38 years before Apple Music existed.
I had early success in June, dropping to 168.4 pounds after starting the month at 169, but then started to seesaw through most of the rest of the month. On June 23 I somehow managed to gain 1.7 pounds overnight, ballooning to 171.5 pounds.
However, the next seven days I lost weight every day, save for one, where I maintained. I ended up dropping 3.4 pounds during this week, which is kind of crazy. I didn’t skip meals or anything, I just didn’t snack much and walked about a billion steps.
I also spent several weeks enduring a summer cold (or what I assume was a summer cold), however this did not affect my appetite, though I did refrain from running.
I will maintain the low-impact snacks and walking (and soon, running) and hopefully the downward trend will continue in July as I approach my proper slim ‘n sexy weight.
Weight: January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds Current: 168.1 pounds Year to date: Down 4.2 pounds
June 1: 169.0 pounds June 30: 168.1 pounds (down 0.9 pounds)
Body fat: June 1: 26.0% June 30: 25.8% (down 0.2%)
Skeletal muscle mass: June 1: 30.0% June 30: 29.9% (down 0.1%)
Serene and bird-free pond. (Technically, there were a few birds.)
For the first time since we began visiting Reifel, we got stopped as the bridge to Westham Island was rotated to allow a sailboat to pass through. It was kind of neat for the first few seconds, then it was just mostly waiting for it to swing back so we could actually get to the birds.
Once there, I noticed the gusting wind of the last few visits was mostly being absent. It cleared up earlier than perhaps expected, and I slapped on sunblock midway through. I only got a little bit of a burn where the camera strap tugs near the top of my t-shirt. I blame a lack of mirror during application.
The wood ducks have vacated the sanctuary again, though I have no idea where they go, because they always come back at some point. This meant most areas were dominated by mallards. The geese seemed to have claimed the main pond by the west dyke and were disturbingly quiet, most of them spending their time napping, like they’re conserving energy for an invasion or something. I don’t think I heard a single honk. Eerie!
There were cowbirds on hand, and they were acting weird–something we would see again at Piper Spit, as the guys were showing off to each other and the women. None seemed particularly impressed. But they persevered, puffing up their feathers, arching their heads back and making lots of weird little peeps and calls.
The freaky catfish have returned to the London Slough, affording us some delightfully hideous shots of them, as they congregate near the surface and directly below the railing overlooking the slough.
We did not see any marsh wrens this time, but Nic managed a few photos of a Bewick’s wren. There were a few chickadees around, but only a few, and I could only get butt shots. But they were nicely detailed butt shots.
They couldn’t touch the robin butt shot that Nic got. That one was truly spectacular, hall of fame material.
The other highlights:
A juvenile killdeer! Cute! But a little too far away to get great shots.
Ducklings! Several groups, one quite close to us, still fairly young, so very fuzzy and adorable. We also saw some juveniles, which look more like mini adult ducks now. Strangely, we did not see any goslings.
Several small groups of greater yellowlegs hanging out in the main pond by the outer dyke. There’s been a bit of a paucity of shorebirds lately, so this was nice.
We saw a mysterious sooty-coloured bird sitting up in a tree between two of the inner ponds. It looks like an all-black swallow. Merlin suggested a Northern rough-winged swallow, which is a clear miss, and even a brown-headed cowbird, also a million miles off. It’s rare to stump Merlin when you have pretty clear shots of the bird in question, but we did! We debated whether it might be a purple martin, but to me the beak did not have quite the right shape. I declare it Sooty Swallow.
The sandhill crane couple that is nesting on a small island in an inner pond has had babbies! Only about a week old, there are two of them, and we went to the viewing area (the central trail is temporarily closed to keep pesky humans away), where the “maximum 6 people” rule was, shall we say, loosely enforced. To everyone’s credit, people were quiet and letting them just do their thing. In the case of the babies, this was mostly just sitting, occasionally lifting a head up, or walking a very short distance before repeating the first two. Nic got a shot of a worm-feeding. Who doesn’t like a fresh yummy worm hand beak-delivered?
I had some issues with my camera that prompted me to use my new PACK1Portable Awesome Cleaning Kit, which consists of a repurposed earbuds case filled with cotton swabs and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, but troubles persisted, as you will see.
Centennial Beach
The usual very low tide at Boundary Bay.
Centennial Beach was fairly busy for a Friday afternoon. It was the last day of school, and I’m guessing they still do the half day thing, so the kids were taking advantage of the sunny weather. The pond had a few mallards, but we got some great shots of assorted dragonflies, including a couple that were…coupling. I’m not going to judge by saying the way dragonflies reproduce is freaky and terrifying, but.
We unlocked the Savannah sparrow achievement. Centennial is a pretty reliable place for seeing them, you just have to hope one lands close enough to get some good shots. In this case, we had one perch atop a sign post, which was very considerate on his part.
There were a lot of crows around, for some reason. We saw one cooling off on the ground by spreading its wings and “panting”, a few others bully some starlings out of the topmost branches of a tree, and another harassing a Northern harrier who probably got too close to some hideously rotten something-or-other the crow had down on the mudflat waiting for him.
We also saw two bunnies, the first of which gave us several excellent cute bunny poses and didn’t seem overly fussed by our presence. We aren’t raptors, so I guess that checks out.
I used the “level” feature in my iPhone’s camera app to see if it would help with my often-titled scenery shots–and it did!
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
Looking east from the pier, toward the towers around Lougheed.
We ended at Piper Spit, where the wood ducks were not at all absent, though the males in particular are looking quite scruffy in some cases. The geese here were also very eerily quiet, and the cowbirds were just as weird as at Reifel. Blackbirds were more plentiful, and a bunch of rock pigeons were hanging out. The regular rains of June meant the land mass is completely submerged, and the overall higher water level also meant no shorebirds here. :sadtrombone:
It seemed to be nap time, so many of the ducks and others were napping, nestled in the shaded areas filled with comfy grass. Like Reifel, we saw no goslings here. Maybe they were over in the fields. Or gathering for the invasion I mentioned above.
Piper Spit has such a different vibe in the summer. It’s utterly pleasant and pretty, but strangely quiet compared to the height of migratory seasons in the spring and fall (roughly speaking). Still, we did get some nice shots of a chunky gray squirrel doing that classic cute squirrel pose. And we didn’t get stuck waiting behind a train.
Overall, a fine morning and afternoon of birding.
The Shots
Bumblebee on a flower.
Barn swallow hanging out.
A butterfly of species "I'm too lazy to look up."
Cowbird on a rail.
A week old Sandhill crane baby, looking fuzzy and adorable.
Ducklings.
Ducklings on the move.
A baby duck.
A great blue heron flies low over a slough.
Dragonfly on wood.
Bee on a wildflower.
A red soldier beetle getting its pollen on.
A song sparrow looking contemplative.
Song sparrow state.
A song sparrow sings.
A house sparrow having a dirt bath.
A mysterious sooty-coloured swallow.
A gathering of greater yellowlegs at one of Reifel's larger outer ponds.
A bunny praying for carrots, perhaps.
Bunny in the grass. It seemed relatively unperturbed by our presence.
Look back and caw.
A crow beating the heat.
Dragonfly on dirt.
A killdeer exploring along the shoreline.
Cowbird shining in the sun.
A blackbird ponders.
What lurks in the mind of a Canada goose?
A Canada goose extreme grooming.
A mallard resting in the grass.
A mallard gliding off Piper Spit.
A pigeon observes activities from above.
The lighting and scenery almost make this squirrel shot look like a diorama.
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The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American goldfinch
American robin
Anna’s hummingbird
Barn swallow
Bewick’s wren
Black-capped chickadees
Brown-headed cowbird
Cedar waxwing
House sparrow
Mysterious dark swallow
Red-winged blackbird
Rufous hummingbird
Savannah sparrow
Song sparrow
Spotted towhee
Tree swallow
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Canada goose
Great blue heron
Greater yellowlegs
Killdeer
Mallard
Northern pintail (one!)
Sandhill crane
Wood duck
Common:
American crow
European starling
Seagull
Raptors:
Bald eagle
Northern harrier
Non-birds:
A chunky squirrel
Catfish (probably brown bullhead, though I am not a fishologist)
When I buy breakfast cereal, I have a few criteria:
Is it on sale?
Is it yummy?
Is it too yummy?
I tend to alternate between low and not-quite-as-low in sugar cereals. I never go for totally gross cereals that have “sugar” in the actual name. Surprisingly (or maybe not), a lot of supposedly adult cereals have as much, if not more, sugar than the crap we ate as kids (if you are currently a kid, please change this to the present tense). These usually have “crunch” or “oats” in the name.
Some low sugar cereals I like:
Original Cheerios
Crispix
Grape Nuts (sadly, no longer on sale in Canada)
Some quite-not-as-low:
Multigrain Cheerios
Corn Squares
Reese Puffs
Today, I noticed a new variety of Cheerios–and on sale! I should note that “a new variety of Cheerios” is utterly unremarkable, because General Mills seems to be experimenting with weird new flavours on a nearly-daily basis.
Today, I beheld this:
My first thought–as yours might be–was: I’m pretty sure neither apples nor strawberries are vegetables. But then the smaller print explains “naturally flavoured with sweet potato, carrot and spinach.” OK, that makes more sense1But not entire sense. Shouldn’t they be flavoured with apple and strawberry?.
When I got home, my manly hands applied too much brute force to the bag and tore a huge rip in the side, so I immediately had to transfer the contents to an airtight container. But as I did, I noticed that this was possibly the most aromatic cereal my nose has ever encountered. It smelled pretty! Would it also taste pretty?
Well, kind of. Despite being not super-high in sugar (11 grams), it tasted quite sweet. I found it a bit too sweet, really, and I say this as someone who will scarf an entire box of chocolate chip cookies if given the opportunity. It wasn’t terrible or anything, just a bit too much for my preference. I’ll finish the box (er, airtight container), then note that is an interesting taste experiment. If I want sweeter Cheerios, I’ll probably stick to my occasional indulgence of Chocolate Cheerios.
It also struck me later that this is basically an adult version of Froot Loops.
Next up: Revisiting Cap’n Crunch. Just kidding, I respect my mouth more than that.
Or meditation, as normal people call it. I need to learn me some. I’ll do it in my own way, which means bumbling about until I get it right. It’s the way I learn best!
But I want to do this because I think it will be genuinely helpful, possibly even transformative.
On the other hand, I could just decide it’s dumb, line swimming, or knowing how to ride a unicycle.
R.E.M.’s song “I’ll Take the Rain” is lyrically bland and the music is a weird mix of synth strings and other stuff, yet I can’t bring myself to skip the song when it comes up on shuffle play.
I don’t remember the last time the grass was so green at the end of June.
I don’t trust authority. Neither should you.
Facebook, as bad as it was, is even more awful now. I don’t know how any reasonable person can use it, or would even want to use it. “Inertia is a hell of a drug” may not be catchy, but it might be accurate.
I am inordinately pleased any time I draw a long, curving line and nail it on the first try.
I wish I could swim better, but I seriously doubt I will ever try lessons again.
It delights me to see the EU and other countries kick giant tech companies in the junk.
Posting on any kind of social media is apparently something I just don’t care about anymore, even on sites that have no ads, no algorithm and you control the experience, like Mastodon.
I can never remember how to spell “algorithm”.
I should post more.
Cats are funny people.
It would be nice to spend one day in the pre-internet past, I think. Maybe two days. I like the internet, but, you know.
The AI hype bubble may burst before the end of the year.
Getting sick still sucks, but appreciating how great it feels to not be sick after is nice (but not worth getting sick in the first place).
Here’s a random GIF I found in my blog’s media library:
I pondered what to do today in terms of activity. Last week, I did not run due to a head/chest cold, which continues to linger on into this week. It came down to one of three options:
Take the camera and walk to Piper Spit. Round trip: 12 km.
Do a casual walk to the lake and back. Round trip: 8 km.
Do a walk to the lake, then another back, but dressed for a run and treating the walks as exercise. Round trip: 8 km.
I opted for option #3 and in fact ran a great deal of the second walk back. The weather was pleasant, with a light breeze and a mix of sun and cloud. I experienced no issues during the run part (but forgot to stretch before, whoopsie). When I first got to the lake, I briefly contemplated an actual run (even just 2.5 km) but ultimately decided I was not quite ready.
You can see a clear difference in the two walks, though, with average paces of 9:25/km and 7:39/km when I kicked it up the proverbial notch.
My Garmin watch was not overly impressed. After the walk to the lake, my training status went from Detraining to, well, it stayed at Detraining. But after the second walk (which involved a lot of running), it improved to…Unproductive. I suppose the next time it will get nudged, possibly, to Recovery.
It was nice to at least get out and get moving again.
Turtle Nesting Area at Burnaby Lake, where I have still yet to see a turtle.
Stats:
Walk 111 Average pace: 9:25 and 7:39/km Location: Brunette River trail/Burnaby Lake Distance: 4.02 and 4.04 km Time: 37:48 and 30:54 Weather: Sun and cloud Temp: 20°C Humidity: 53% Wind: light BPM: 116 and 130 Weight: 170.1 pounds Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Total distance to date: 840.71 km
I logged into Facebook today. One of the first things in my feed is the insufferable “Reels” feature. If you click the three dots, you get the option below.
“See fewer posts like this” is a big fat lie. Even if I do nothing, FB will periodically refresh the feed and when it does, it makes sure Reels are the second thing, every time. I click Hide every time. It keeps promising I will see fewer posts like these. They keep coming back. I wouldn’t be surprised if the code for Reels actually has a line in it like:
haha /nelson muntz
Anyway, it’s yet another reason why Facebook is terrible trash and everyone should stop using it.
My mom died last night (June 22) at the age of 89. That’s a pretty good run. The last few years of her life were rough–she suffered numerous ailments and had early-onset Alzheimer’s on top of that. I last spoke to her a few weeks ago, and her memory was reduced to things from the distant past. But she seemed to still recognize my voice, and she laughed at my dumb jokes. When she laughed, she sounded the same as she ever did.
She was kind, generous and patient (five kids probably instills a lot of patience). She could also be a bit of a rascal, but was very sneaky about it. No matter how I try, I really can’t think of anything negative to say about her. She was a great person and the world is diminished by her passing. I don’t believe in Heaven or anything, but I do think there is the possibility that something non-physical survives our lumpy old bodies. If that’s the case, I’m sure her soul or whatever it might be is out there is having a good ol’ time wherever it is that souls (or whatever they might be) gather.
I don’t have many photos of her here (she kept most of the family albums), but I was also a bit of a rascal, and loved taking “candid” shots. One I do have is below. It’s a petting zoo, possibly at Knott’s Berry Farm, circa 1974 or 1975. I’m not sure what the goat was doing, but she clearly did not like it.
Complete with rounded corners, which was the style at the time.
Where: Rocky Point Park, Old Orchard Park, Inlet Park, Old Mill Site Park (Port Moody) Weather: Sunny, 27-28°C
The Outing
Be very quiet, we’re despatrely searching for herons
While it looks like we covered all of Port Moody’s parks, these are all clustered along the north shore of Burrard Inlet along a several km stretch, so it’s actually quite compact. Handy, considering the unusually high heat.
Due to my annoyingly slow recovery from my current cold, I passed on the early part of the birding in Pitt Meadows, but it was mostly out in the open under a cruel sun (ie. hot), though pretty, based on Nic’s pics (plus my recollection of being there last summer). Nic’s quest to see a Bullock’s Oriole paid off, and he didn’t even know it until he was looking at his photos later, which is like getting just the prize you wanted in the bottom of the Cracker Jack box1I dimly recall the prizes being small, plastic and unremarkable, so a Bullock’s Oriole is even better. He also saw a red-winged blackbird with a white tail, which is decidedly weird, as well as cliff swallows tending to their nests, which are reminiscent of something you’d have H.R. Giger design for an Alien film (the nests, not the swallows).
I joined in the next stage of the quest in mid-afternoon: To find the heron rookery at Rocky Point Park before all the baby herons left their nests. We were aided in several ways:
Helpful signs on the path saying, “You’re in a heron colony, be quiet, you clumsy loud human!”
Some directions given to us weeks ago by people who knew of the rookery when we were last at Rocky Point.
It turns out the directions were off probably by a factor of two and the heron nests, which they said would be at or near eye-level, were only at eye level if you were 10–20 metres tall. Which I am not.
But after wandering the lower trail several times (twisty, dirt-packed and filled with enough exposed tree roots to give me PTSD), we opted to try the path higher up, which is paved, civilized and also available for cyclists. This gave us the vantage point we needed, and we saw plenty of nests up (way up) in the trees. Yay! Most of them were empty. Boo. The ones that weren’t had nearly full-grown herons, so we totally missed on the goofy baby dinosaur stage of development. But we will know where to look during the next nesting season.
Although we did see more birds than we normally do at Rocky Point, there still weren’t a lot, and most of my shots were mediocre at best. Even my scenery shots taken with the camera were crooked (I fare much better with the camera than the phone). I blame everything on my cold. At least I never coughed while taking a photo, though that might have at least looked artsy.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold. I have omitted birds from the Nic-exclusive part of the birding, otherwise the list would have been much longer and more interesting.
Checking my journal, I first wrote I may be suffering from seasonal allergies last Sunday. After a few days, it became clear that this was more of a cold, not allergies. I am still feeling the effects five days later, mainly in terms of coughing (mostly in the evening and early morning) and tightness in the chest, and some intermittent stuffiness. It could be worse.
But this is also only the third time I’ve been sick since January 2020, a period of four and a half years:
April 2022: I caught the big one, Covid-19, after my partner brought it home from the university. I don’t blame him.
June 2023: I caught something similar to what I have now, also after my partner presumably brought it home from the university. I still don’t blame him.
This time, my partner is blame-free. Er, I mean, I still don’t blame him, and he hasn’t gotten sick. So now I wonder where I caught this particular virus, since I live a generally hermit-like existence. A summary:
I first experienced symptoms on Sunday, June 16
I went birding on June 8, about a week before. This feels like too long a gestation period, but I had exposure to strange people. And birds.
I rode public transit the same day, June 8, but again, it seems a long gestation period. I don’t remember anyone coughing on me.
I went to the grocery store multiple times. A possibility, though I’m never up close and personal with anyone there, and the building itself is very spacious and well-ventilated.
I walked around public parks and trails several times. This seems an unlikely source.
Maybe it was my partner and he just hasn’t shown any symptoms, so I can blame him!
Aliens?
In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter. It just makes me a little paranoid. Mostly, I’m just annoyed because I had just finished my first post-injury 5K run and was looking forward to more exercise this week, not a lot of naps, feeling blah and popping Tylenol. Also, being sick only three times in four and a half years is pretty good. The irony is that of the three times, Covid-19 was actually the mildest. I am not advocating catching Covid-19.
