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Space Age Madness
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The Weekly Bump: Episode 5

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It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done one of these. No excuses, but I’m also not putting too much pressure on myself. We went to the beach for a week, and I was at E3, which I should probably write something about.

Since it’s Summer and we went to the beach, one thing that’s been top of mind for me has been sunglasses. I’ve typically worn Ray Bans, which are $100+ a pair. Not all sunglasses look good on me, but the Wayfarer models usually look okay. Unfortunately, I have a horrible track record of scratching or losing them. At $100+ a pop, that’s shitty.  Additionally, I have an iPhone X, and actual Ray Ban Wayfarers don’t typically work with FaceID.

Enter Goodr, I discovered this brand via a professional runner who I follow on Instagram. (I follow a bunch of fitness athletes on Instagram. It’s one of my strategies for keeping myself motivated and inspired to work out myself.)

Goodr glasses are roughly Wayfarer shaped, but they only cost $25 a pair. They also, although you mileage may vary by color, work with FaceID. So I can lose or damage a pair of these, and not feel like I wasted a C Note. They also make pretty rad holiday color ways. The most recent is the “Betsy Ross” pictured above, which I purchased for my 4th of July fun.  (I’m not getting any referral credit or anything, I am just recommending these glasses because I think they are great.) 

One other item I wanted to call attention to this week is the limited availability of new Hypercritical shirts from John Siracusa.  As a long time fan of his reviews, blog, podcasts new and old, and social media, I own one of the original shirts, but was delighted that these were available, and in new colors. I went for the color pictured, but there are others. I have found that I have too many black t-shirts, and I am feeling the need to mix it up a bit more. These shirts are only available until June 29th, so better get hopping and get one if you’re going to want one.

Last but not least, the Andys are at it again. They will be conducting an XOXO Festival in Portland this year, and the registration application is currently available, through June 29th. I have attended three of the previous XOXO Festivals. All of them were great experiences, I met great people, was exposed to interesting ideas, and left inspired and refreshed. I could not recommend it more. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit into my September calendar. We’re taking the kids to Walt Disney World for a week the following week.  Hopefully I can still get some of those sweet sweet XOXO Field Notes if they make them.

See you next week?  I hope so.

 

The Weekly Bump: Episode 4

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Hope everyone’s had a great week.  It feels like Spring has officially sprung here in the Atlanta area. Last weekend was crazy busy, with a really enjoyable Foo Fighters show, which was the first ever concert at the newly renamed Georgia State Stadium, which used to be Turner Field.

It’s been kind of a mundane week, with the exception of moving my office at work, which always is a distraction. I had been in my existing office for almost exactly a year, and while I will miss it’s quiet corner of the world charm, the new one is more centrally located for what I’m working on. It probably took me about three days total to get comfortable with the new setup.

Each week, this post has gone a couple of days later…Now on to things I’m enjoying.

 

At the beginning of the year, I got a chance to try some peated bourbon for the first time, and I have to say that it’s really grown on me. It’s definitely not the first thing I reach for every time, but it’s a unique taste that I have come to enjoy. Specifically, the peated bourbon from Kings County Distillery. There’s definitely a debate about whether it still should be considered bourbon, but I honestly don’t care, it’s really good.  Two warnings, it’s not cheap, and not super easy to find.

 

In keyboard addiction news, these Zambumon GMK Serika Custom key caps are currently available to back on Massdrop. (That’s an affiliate link.) These look really high quality, and really nice. I already have a keyboard in mind for them. I’ve had really good luck backing key caps on Massdrop. Again, not cheap, but so nice.

 

Finally, I read the first two issues of Weapon H, a sort of mashup between the Hulk and the Weapon X series. I have found these really enjoyable reads, and it’s a cool idea. Can’t wait for the rest of them to come out.

 

 

The Weekly Bump: Episode 3

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What a great weekend, we didn’t do much out of the ordinary, but it was a really relaxing and constructive couple of days, with some high quality NBA Playoff games, and an Atlanta United victory mixed in. I’m continuing to take it easy, and my energy has returned, albeit slowly. I mostly played Hearthstone and Vainglory over the weekend, I want to play more PC games, but didn’t feel like shutting myself off from the family to play this weekend.

We finished our Lego Ship in a Bottle this weekend. Lots of little pieces.

A post shared by Robert Occhialini (@bump) on

I did also take my sons to the Pop’s Pancakes pop up at the Spindle on Sunday. If you have the chance to try these pancakes from my buddy Jeff, you definitely should check them out. I had the breakfast sandwich with Delia’s Chicken Sausage, and I am hooked.

A couple of Kickstarters of note that I wanted to mention. Both are fully funded.

Time is starting to wind down on the Mark One Pen from the Studio Neat guys. This pen checks all the boxes, and my friends over at the Pen Addict podcast had nothing but nice things to say about it, which is good enough for me.

The second one is the Kira Mechanical Keyboard from the Input Club. These guys really know how to put together a nice board, and I currently have and use a White Fox at home.  This board is unique in that it’s the smallest footprint you can squeeze a full sized keyboard into. It’s a bit pricey, but compared to similar keyboards, it’s a good price for the high quality they produce.

Some things I am enjoying.

Picked up a Schon DSGN Limited Edition “Punk Rock Pink” pen a couple of weeks ago, and it’s become my EDC pocket pen. I’ve always like the Fischer Space Pen refill, and this colorway is striking. This color is sold out, but they have a lot of other combinations that are equally as nice.

 

Upgraded my computer audio monitors to these Mackie Monitors. (Amazon affiliate link) I had been using the same Bose setup for maybe ten years before this. These speakers also support Bluetooth, so I can pipe other audio to them when I am not using my gaming PC. They sound great, and are small enough that I didn’t really have to make any huge changes. I am running out of plugs to power things in my home office.

Finally, I ran my Twitter account through Watson after reading this Kottke post about Watson Personality Insights.

Here’s what came back for me:

You are skeptical.

You are authority-challenging: you prefer to challenge authority and traditional values to help bring about positive changes. You are dutiful: you take rules and obligations seriously, even when they’re inconvenient. And you are hedonistic: you feel your desires strongly and are easily tempted by them.

You are motivated to seek out experiences that provide a strong feeling of organization.

You don’t find either tradition or taking pleasure in life to be particularly motivating for you. You care more about making your own path than following what others have done. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.

Still processing that.

The Weekly Bump: Episode 2

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I’d aimed to have this done on Monday, but my energy levels have been all over the place the last few days, and I just never got to it. Small subtext is that I had a medical situation a couple of weeks ago, and am recovering from it, but slowly. The energy levels are really the last thing to get back to normal when you don’t eat for a few days. I won’t get more specific than that, I’m reluctant to post medical related information on the internet or social media.

Like most of the gaming world, I’ve really been enjoying Fortnite this week and for the last month or so. For those who aren’t gaming adjacent, it’s a “Battle Royale” style game that has skyrocketed in popularity. The game is available across a wide variety of platforms, but I play on PC. I am “bumpish” should you want to friend and play with me, but don’t set your expectations too high on what my level of skill might be. I’d love to play with you in any case. I’m only on a few times a week, and for a brief time, I don’t get much dedicated PC gaming in these days with family duties.

I’m also enjoying the rollover to the Year of the Raven in Hearthstone, which happened this week with the release of the Witchwood expansion. I exalt in the end of the mill deck era. There is one card, Shudderwock, which is totally broken and makes things less fun than they could be. Here’s a great video from Disguised Toast that elaborates on how broken, at least the animations, if not the whole mechanic are.

I did go to the Atlanta Pen Show for a couple of hours until I ran out of gas.  My new purchases were an “Aiken” pen from Carolina Pen Company, which is colored to look like the Northern Lights using the same material as this pen, and a Seed A5 case from my friends at Nock.

I did also buy some Gigante Note Cards from Nock while I had the chance in person. These folded over notecards are a favorite of mine, and I keep a couple in my pocket sheath with me all the time. They are essentially the smallest available notebook, with only 4 pages.

Top of mind for me on the music side is Black Moon Rising from the Black Pumas. There are listen links for a variety of music services on that page. At first I thought it was Cee-Lo Green, but it’s not. I haven’t been able to find anything else by them, they are from Austin, TX.

Last night we watched the first episode of the Pastry Chef season of Chef’s Table about Christina Tosi from Milk Bar.  If you have Netflix, I highly recommend this episode, I found it really inspiring. Be careful though, you can order just about anything in the episode from their web site. My cookies are on the way.

I’m thinking about getting a ReMarkable Tablet based on the recommendation of some folks online who swear by it.  Seems like it might either completely replace my work notebook, or it won’t work for me at all though, making the price tag a little tough to swallow. The iPad hasn’t really worked for me for this particular use case, and I love my e-ink Kindles, so the idea of the product might be in my sweet spot.

ttfn.

 

The Weekly Bump

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After struggling for a few months with wanting to update this site more, I think I’ve come up with a strategy, at least to start. I am going to try and do one of these “Weekly Bump” posts every Monday morning. Hopefully that will lead to more posts, but we’ll see.

Looking ahead to this week, I’m pretty excited for the Atlanta Pen Show, which starts Friday, April 13th and runs through the weekend. It’s always nice to see everyone in the pen community, although I never get to spend as much time up there as I’d like. I’m not heading up there this week with any specific pen in mind.

Looking even further ahead, I’m super excited about this new restaurant opening in Midtown Atlanta soon from the team that runs Brush Sushi Izakaya in Decatur. Brush is one of my favorite Atlanta spots, and is walking distance from our home.

Here are some things I enjoyed in the last week.

Charlie Gray’s Instagram feed has some amazing portraits, with the most recent batch being focused on the new Wes Anderson movie, including this striking one of Bill Murray.

I really enjoyed listening to The Talk Show ✪: Ep. 217, With Special Guest Jason Kottke As a longtime super fan of both guys, this was one of my favorite podcast episodes so far this year. Even more so given that I feel like I have lived a lot of the subject matter in real time over the last 20 years. (This blog is 22 years old this year.)

Why I Love Compact Mechanical Keyboards and You Will Too: from The Wirecutter. I am about two years down this rabbit hole myself, and this post is the perfect place to start.

I really enjoyed Bladerunner 2049, and I am a huge Run the Jewels fan. I was astonished when El-P shared his rejected Blade Runner 2049 Trailer Score. While I like the Hans Zimmer score, what could have been is apparent. Looking forward to the movie that EL-P is going to score this year, which hasn’t been announced yet.