Weekend Review: July 14th & 15th

Every weekend there are new sights, sounds, and taste to consume. There are other sensory inputs that tickle my brain too, but saying there is stuff to feel sounds creepy. This is a journal of my weekend endeavors. Enjoy!

Northlanders
Brian Wood's work on DMZ and Demo made me a fan of his long ago. I started Northlanders this week and chewed through volumes one, two and most of three up through the weekend. Vikings and modern-ish dialogue mashed up to produce some great historical fiction. I dig it.

Ikea
It has been ages since we went to northern Virginia for affordable Swedish furniture. Our first two apartments were filled with their goods. On Saturday we went for a massive bookshelf (6'x6') to split Kaden and his soon to be baby brother's room. A wire installation to hang art in the playroom and a shelf system for my office desk, to elevate the monitors. All in all a successful trip, plus Swedish meatballs on the cheap for lunch.

CodeAcademy
Looking for creative outlets for my free time is a hobby in and of itself. My latest is learning JavaScript. An extension of my work life of sorts. CodeAcademy is a site developed to make learning to code more interactive and fun. So far the achievements associated with completing lessons have me coming back again and again. No clue what I'll do with it ultimately, but at the very least it is another item for my resume.

Aces Speed
Card games are decidedly not my jam. Something that royally bums out my wife. An admitted card fiend. So when she introduced me to Aces Speed on the iPad it felt like a trick. We have been playing it pretty regularly since. It is just Spit/Speed, but something about it being on a retina display and touch enabled makes me love it. I don't get it.

Aesop Rock - Skelethon
I've spinning loads of new hip hop over the past year thanks to my shared interest with Mike. In that time I fell off with a few of my old favorites. Namely Aesop Rock who I've listened to probably more than any other artist in my life (see: Wu Tang in high school). It was not that his flow or style got old for me, but he hadn't put out anything new in a while (2007). Skelethon is his latest release and I've listened to it on repeat since it dropped. I heart it.

Downcast
Podcast are the life blood of my daily commute. Managing them with iTunes was always a pain, but it was the price of admission. Then Ethan recommended Downcast a few weeks ago and the whole process changed. No more syncing to my desktop for new content 3-4 times a week. No more iTunes forgetting to downloaded the newest release. It is simple and requires no manual work from me. The way it should be honestly. That and the new Apple podcast app is a complete piece of shit.