Llanoland

http://stevellano.voicenotes.com

I have been using the Voicenotes app for a while now. It's really great, and a good way to not lose track of ideas when they pop into your head while you are doing something else. 

Today they launched a blog service - is it a blog? - where you can post voicenotes directly to a public website. This strikes me as something I was missing from the old LiveJournal days, where you could call a phone number and make a voice post. I doubt LiveJournal still has this feature (it's almost completely taken over by Russians anyway) but it was so amazing. I loved it and haven't found anything really close to it. 

Voicenotes might be considered a podcast but perhaps it's more like a blog that is only audio posts. Not sure what to do with it just yet but I thought I would share the link and see what people think of my early efforts.

Of course my real podcast is where it's at: In the Bin

That one slaps already. Not sure what to do with this new one but it is fun to play with. 

https://www.last.fm/user/Professor_Steve/listening-report/year/2025/month/3

March was when I was obsessed with Pvris. Excellent albums; why was I so unfamiliar? 

I'm listening to her still (her, I think? It seems there's a band but most of what I read says it's her, like Nine Inch Nails is to Trent Reznor) but also listening to all sorts of other good stuff coming out. 

I've been getting into ambient music quite a bit and Apple Classical, at least while I have it free for 3 months, is a great addition however it doesn't really appear on Last.fm like it should. 

This video seems to suggest that there's a band? I'm very confused. Anyway, this is my favorite tune from them/her at the moment. 

https://www.last.fm/user/Professor_Steve/listening-report/week

Music listening down since the winter. I wonder why that happens?
Perhaps I listen to more music during the cold days. Maybe I don't notice it? I feel my listening amount has stayed the same. 

Last.fm is so important to me as the data - when I look at it - makes me consider my relationship with music. It raises a lot of questions for me that force me to create explanations and accounts, which is great rhetorical practice. 

I heard this song on the radio the other day and I felt quite sad as I really saw the connection of it to many of the experiences I have been having this semester. Plus, the meta of remembering listening to this song in college and really liking it. Even the like of the song has changed (faded) from the meaning and association I developed at first (shimmer).

Really getting back into pop music this month, but how could I not? There are so many good releases right now. I also have a trial of Apple Music and I'm wondering if I should keep it. It doesn't work well with last.fm however so that's a big strike against it. 

This song is too good. I hope the rest of the album is as good. This song really hits me, I love it! 

In two years I will have been a professor for 20 years. Too long to do anything!

I should have left much earlier; now I don't think I can leave!

It's a bit much trying to adjust to the students' incapability all the time. But what else would a teacher do? 

This term is nearly over, and my run as an authoritarian did not work out well at all. I thought I'd try it as my colleagues get such joy out of this kind of power. I wanted to see what the fuss was about. There's no fuss and nothing about. 

In the fall I shall go totally lax to pay back some of the karma. Not sure it works like that but we'll hope.

Four weeks left of this nonsense then the summer for thinking.

Should I refresh every old computer I work on? Probably.

However I think that if a computer works and can do the tasks that you need it to do, just leave it alone. 

This old Macbook has been backed up and I removed a bunch of software from it that is outdated or no longer working. Seems fine. I think I'll just leave it as a writing machine - one that is distraction free because trying to run a Google Search on it takes longer than it does to make a cup of coffee in the Keurig. A big cup. 

I should finish up Violet so I can have my Pokémon ready for A-Z which was announced at the Pokémon direct the other day.

I'm excited for a Pokémon game that is in the modern Pokémon era but has the play style and combat innovations of Pokémon Legends: Arceus which was the best one so far in my opinion. 

The Fedoras on all the characters is a hilarious subtweet I think of the player base. But then again maybe not. I'm not sure why I like Pokémon so much but I'm definitely not one of those kinds of fans.

Watching this speedrun while working this morning really brought back some great memories. I think this is my favorite Super Mario Brothers game if not the best one. 

I think a lot of people might say Super Mario World is the best Mario game. Not really familiar with the debate around the best Mario games but I think my ranking here is a mix of nostalgia and just the relaxing, no-timer play that feels very Metroid Vania, even though technically this isn't a Metroid Vania. 

Maybe "feels like" is my standard for what video games I really love? 

https://www.last.fm/user/Professor_Steve/listening-report/year/2025/month/2

Big difference here between January and February but March should be larger than January. There's a lot of interesting stuff coming out to listen to but Spotify isn't very good anymore about notifying me. I have to rely on producer websites, emails, and label-spam, all of which is so easy to just ignore or delete out of your email. 

The super low week was because I wasn't alone at all - hanging out with the best person ever! But chatting and doing stuff cuts into music time, and I always forget to run shazam on my phone when driving around listening to XM radio.