{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Stephen B's Blog", "icon": "https://micro.blog/DrOct/avatar.jpg", "home_page_url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/", "feed_url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/feed.json", "items": [ { "id": "http://droct.micro.blog/2023/09/19/really-thought-this.html", "content_html": "
Really thought this was an interesting and informative read.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-09-19T21:08:00-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2023/09/19/really-thought-this.html" }, { "id": "http://droct.micro.blog/2023/02/10/superbummed-about-the.html", "content_html": "Super-bummed about the end of the Cool Stuff Ride Home Podcast. I’ve been listening since the beginning (when it was a COVID-19 news show). It’ll be sad to not have that daily round up of interesting, fun, weird, and cool stuff anymore. Thanks for all the fun! #CoolStuffRideHome
\n", "date_published": "2023-02-10T22:57:54-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2023/02/10/superbummed-about-the.html" }, { "id": "http://droct.micro.blog/2023/02/07/im-going-to.html", "content_html": "I’m going to try running my own personal Mastodon instance rather than relying on one of the big instances. Will this be a huge mistake? Quite possibly! But it’ll be fun to try and I can use a domain I’ve held onto and never used for much. You can find me at: @droct@squidnet.net
\n", "date_published": "2023-02-07T16:34:12-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2023/02/07/im-going-to.html" }, { "id": "http://droct.micro.blog/2022/12/18/whats-the-best.html", "content_html": "What’s the best way to add a rel=me link to a Micro.Blog hosted blog so that Mastodon can verify that I’m the owner of my blog? I thought I had set it up before but as I’m dusting off my old Mastodon.social account I’m not seeing a checkmark on my blog showing it as verified.
\n", "date_published": "2022-12-18T17:10:40-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2022/12/18/whats-the-best.html" }, { "id": "http://droct.micro.blog/2022/12/18/i-love-that.html", "content_html": "I love that micro.blog has built in AcitivtyPub/Mastodon built in, but at the moment I’ve come to the conclusion that I think I’d rather use Mastodon more directly for the featurs that micro.blog doesn’t support. So I’ll be cross posting to @droct@mastodon.social for the time being. I’ll leave on my Micro.blog ActivityPub feed too, but what I post on Micro.blog will also be cross-posted to my Mastodon.social account, and I’ll probably interact with Mastodon folks more directly and more often through that account.
\n", "date_published": "2022-12-18T16:47:51-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2022/12/18/i-love-that.html" }, { "id": "http://droct.micro.blog/2022/11/20/ive-been-trying.html", "content_html": "I’ve been trying to download an archive of my twitter data all weekend. Has anyone managed to do this successfully since Friday? First attempt went nowhere, most recent just tells me “something went wrong” and links to a form to fill out. But the link is broken!
\n", "date_published": "2022-11-20T20:58:44-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2022/11/20/ive-been-trying.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2022/05/03/irises-are-blooming.html", "content_html": "Irises are blooming. Also just planted to marigolds near our vegetable garden.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2022-05-03T22:19:45-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2022/05/03/irises-are-blooming.html", "tags": ["Photos"] }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2021/06/07/shareplay-seems-pretty.html", "content_html": "Shareplay seems pretty cool! #wwdc2021
\n", "date_published": "2021-06-07T13:12:40-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2021/06/07/shareplay-seems-pretty.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2021/05/21/second-vaccine-shot.html", "content_html": "Second vaccine shot done! ✔️ Just two more weeks until I’m maxcinated!
\n", "date_published": "2021-05-21T08:28:21-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2021/05/21/second-vaccine-shot.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2021/04/23/got-my-first.html", "content_html": "Got my first COVID vaccine dose this morning! Very happy to be on my way to max immunity, and to be helping to end this pandemic!\n💉
\n", "date_published": "2021-04-23T09:50:10-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2021/04/23/got-my-first.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2020/10/13/i-was-working.html", "content_html": "I was working most of the day and am only just now getting caught up on the Apple announcements today. As much as I’d love those cameras on the Pro iPhones, I think if I get a new phone this year it’ll be the 12 Mini. I just don’t want a phone as big as even the smallest Pro.
\n", "date_published": "2020-10-13T20:29:53-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2020/10/13/i-was-working.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2020/06/19/happy-juneteenth-everyone.html", "content_html": "Happy Juneteenth everyone! Things have been hard lately, but its worth celebrating some too, and maybe using the day to have some more conversations about history and how we got to where we are, and how we can make things better. Black Lives Matter!
\n", "date_published": "2020-06-19T08:56:07-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2020/06/19/happy-juneteenth-everyone.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/12/25/merry-christmas-happy.html", "content_html": "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and happy whatever you may be celebrating (even if it’s nothing at all). I hope you all have a great day today.
\n", "date_published": "2019-12-25T17:24:30-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/12/25/merry-christmas-happy.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/12/16/i-was-late.html", "title": "Why you should be the one watching the Watchmen.", "content_html": "I was late to getting started on viewing HBO’s Watchmen (and I’m still behind, I just finished episode 7 this weekend, but hope to get caught up in the next couple of days). I was skeptical of the whole idea of the show from the start. For the same reason I’ve never read any of the comic book sequels or prequels; the graphic novel is pretty perfect and self contained. It doesn’t need a sequel, or a prequel, or anything else. The format of the book (all those nine panel grids and such) is also pretty intrinsic to making the whole thing work so well that I’ve always been skeptical of attempts to translate it into other formats. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but the movie version, which with a few exceptions was a pretty straight ahead beat for beat remake of the book, ended up feeling fairly flat. I think it felt that way in part because it was just trying to ape what happened in the book, but the book is so tied up with comics that that just doesn’t work well in movie form. At least not without some reinterpreting for the medium (though that opening credit sequence that gave the history of the world was pretty brilliantly done).
\n\nAnyway, all of that being said… This show is sensational. If you’ve been avoiding the show for any of the reasons I’ve mentioned, do yourself a favor and watch the first couple of episodes. I think you’ll be hooked. This show, a sequel to the comic book (and not the movie), is REALLY good. It might be the best show I’m watching right now and I’m watching a lot of shows I really like these days!
\n\nI just can’t say enough good things about the show. It extrapolates what our modern world might be like if the events of the Watchmen comics had happened as they did in the graphic novel. The show doesn’t rely too heavily one just giving you more of what was in the comics, or just leaning on the same characters, (in fact it almost goes out of it’s way, especially early on, to not do that).
\n\nThe show embraces it’s format format as a TV show (if not with quite the same vigor and experimentation as the comics did their own format) far more than the movie did. The show does a great job of actually having episodes feel like episodes, not just one long movie that happens to have been broken up into roughly one hour segments, but it is still very much serialized (in much the same way that the comic book issues feel like issues of an ongoing story and not just one story that’s been broken up into issues by page count).
\n\nThe acting, writing, set design, costume design, and everything else about the show are top notch. I can’t really complain about any aspect of the shows production.
\n\nI can’t complain at all about its writing either. (And I’m not just saying that because I went to college with, and was a vague acquaintance of, one of the writers.) It’s clever and interesting, and I have yet to feel like someone is doing something just because the plot needs them to, rather than because their motivations as a character would lead them to do it. These people are all interesting and well fleshed out, and they act consistently with their character even when faced with strange situations.
\n\nThe only caution I have in recommending the show to everyone is it’s fairly graphic violence and somewhat nihilistic tone. Lately I’ve been less and less interested in grim and dark tv shows and movies. The world is rough enough as it is. But Watchmen, which concerns itself very much with the racism of the present in the real world, does a good job with it. Things are grim and dark and tense, but it doesn’t feel excessive and it doesn’t just make me feel worse about the world. There’s a purpose to it, and it feels natural and interesting. Not like it’s just grim and dark because “that’s what makes things cool.”
\n\nAnyway, I just can’t say enough good things about this show. Unless it really falls apart in the next two episodes that I have yet to watch (and the snippets of reviews I’ve seen for the finale don’t lead me to think that will happen) it will go down as one of the best seasons of any TV show I’ve watched.
\n", "date_published": "2019-12-16T14:29:00-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/12/16/i-was-late.html", "tags": ["Comics","TV"] }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/11/28/happy-thanksgiving-everyone.html", "content_html": "Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
\n", "date_published": "2019-11-28T20:49:59-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/11/28/happy-thanksgiving-everyone.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/11/25/my-rpg-group.html", "content_html": "My rpg group recently started playing Pathfinder 2e and so far we’re really enjoying it! We haven’t played anything this “heavy” and tactical in a while so it’s a nice change of pace. It’s defintiely not D&D 3.5, but it shares enough history with it to feel pretty familiar. 🎲
\n", "date_published": "2019-11-25T15:56:53-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/11/25/my-rpg-group.html", "tags": ["Tabletop Games","Games"] }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/11/13/im-very-happy.html", "content_html": "I’m very happy to hear that the new 16” MacBook Pro has inverted T arrow keys again. I hope that’ll filter out to the Magic Keyboard too. That’s the one thing I don’t like about the one I use with my iPad.
\n", "date_published": "2019-11-13T12:04:54-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/11/13/im-very-happy.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/11/06/good-job-virginia.html", "content_html": "Good job Virginia! We did it! Take a moment to enjoy it. Then it’s time to get to work improving the state, and working to help fix the rest of the country in 2020.
\n", "date_published": "2019-11-06T14:15:06-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/11/06/good-job-virginia.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/11/05/hey-virginians-dont.html", "content_html": "Hey Virginians! Don’t forget to vote today! There’s a real chance we can flip both the House of Delegates and the Senate and get some real improvements in the state. We can send a message to the rest of the country too. #vote 🇺🇸
\n", "date_published": "2019-11-05T08:34:00-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/11/05/hey-virginians-dont.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/10/01/my-party-playlist.html", "title": "My 2019 Party Playlist!", "content_html": "So I think I’ve basically finished up my 2019 party playlist. You can find it on apple music here:
\n\n\n\n\n\nIt’s meant to be played on random. It’s long enough to cover one really long party, or to be used at multiple shorter events without getting too repetative.
\n", "date_published": "2019-10-01T10:42:00-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/10/01/my-party-playlist.html", "tags": ["Music"] }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/09/23/happy-bivisibilityday-im.html", "content_html": "Happy #BiVisibilityDay! I’m bi, and I’m here. ❤️💜💙
\n", "date_published": "2019-09-23T13:50:28-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/09/23/happy-bivisibilityday-im.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/09/21/hey-its-one.html", "content_html": "Hey! It’s one of the best days of the year!
\n\n\n\n\n", "date_published": "2019-09-21T13:31:56-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/09/21/hey-its-one.html", "tags": ["Photos"] }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/09/10/im-very-happy.html", "content_html": "I’m very happy to have had my Apple Watch Series 4 for the past year, but if I’d known an always on display was coming I might have waited another year… Definitely looking forward to that feature in a few years when I do get a new one!
\n", "date_published": "2019-09-10T13:49:14-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/09/10/im-very-happy.html" }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/09/06/our-plan-to.html", "content_html": "Our plan to plant Milkweed and attract some Monarch butterflies to lay eggs on them seems to have been a success!
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2019-09-06T19:58:00-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/09/06/our-plan-to.html", "tags": ["Photos"] }, { "id": "http://DrOct.micro.blog/2019/07/19/looks-like-agents.html", "content_html": "Looks like Agents of SHIELD is finally going to end after the next season. What a great, weird, little show. It’s consistently been one of my favorite shows since about the midpoint of Season 1. www.wired.com/story/far…
\n", "date_published": "2019-07-19T12:16:00-04:00", "url": "https://www.brandonshire.blog/2019/07/19/looks-like-agents.html", "tags": ["Comics","TV"] } ] }