kevin spencer

What things have been in my earholes and eyeballs since the last time I did one of these? Lots of movies, but some I must have really liked seeing as I gave them all the stars. Flash Gordon. This is so utterly utterly bonkers. Hammy dialogue, cheap costumes, Queen soundtrack, Brian Blessed yelling DIIIIVVVEEE. Quite possibly one of the greatest things I've ever seen. Once Upon a Time In…Hollywood. This movie was a masterpiece. Always rated a flamethrower. True Romance. What a cast! Seriously if…

Hello from out here in sandland. This is the world's worst photo, but I was so surprised I'll take what I could get. Meep meep. A roadrunner came into our backyard today. Sunsets make the heat worthwhile. No matter how you want to live your life, don't be this asshole.

As a little addendum to yesterday's mention of Nick Cave, I feel remiss that I offered no examples of said songs that stopped me in my tracks. Cinnamon Horses.

Hello from out here in sandland, where, in shocking news you won't believe, it's hot. Yesterday was 117° and today, well, I'm not even going to look. I saw someone running this afternoon. Quite what you have to prove, when you should be melting, remains a mystery. As did this chap's choice of running style which I can only describe as Steven Seagal but somehow funnier. I'm looking forward to a couple things when summer for us is eventually over. Having cold water actually coming out of the cold…

Damn. Tim Curry. Well this week can fuck right off.

And as a fitting tribute to Dolly, one of my favorite bands of all time cover Jolene.

Damn. Dolly Parton.

Who did I listen to most this week? #lastfm says: The Cure (36), Placebo (34), Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (18), Tackhead (18), and Kate Bush (14) [via lastweekly]

Lookout Phoenix metro area, a severe thunderstorm warning in effect until 11:00pm, they say. I'm very much ready for summer in the desert to be over. I mean for one, I can never figure out if I'm over watering or under watering the flora on their last legs.

We have a few stray cats that venture into our back yard from time to time. One of them is a regular and he comes by most days. He was a big bushy chap when he first started paying us a visit and we called him Bushy La La and the name stuck. He was a little skittish at first. I'd leave food down but he wouldn't come near it until I backed away or went inside the house. Now he has his own bowl, let's me pet him, and is quite the chatty fella. Some days he'll just sit by the patio door and look…

Widow's Bay on Apple TV is excellent. Jaws meets Parks And Rec meets The X-Files.

I remember my first CD player having a shuffle feature. Being able to play the album in a random order was like some kind of sorcery. Since then, we've gone through the iTunes playlist years, and onto streaming, all with their own shuffle features. I'm here to tell you I don't think Spotify's shuffle is particularly good. One playlist I listen to most is my liked songs. Makes sense, I like them so I listen more often. But I do like the element of surprise so I always listen on shuffle. I have…

The Odyssey was just incredible. Just every bit as good as everyone said.

Would you look at that, I've been scrobbling songs to last.fm for 20 years. It's almost the perfect venn diagram of things I love: music, statistics, and music. I couldn't be happier paying them to keep the lights on and can't wait to hear what their independence will bring. Here's to another 20 years in which I'll be scrobbling when I'm 72. Ok, that can fuck right off.

The new Spider-Man movie has been out for two days and it's already made more money than The Odyssey.

AccuWeather are reporting Phoenix reached 116°F today. The local news station says tomorrow will be hotter. So that's fun.

Manuel is decoupling from the web and downsizing after wrapping up his 150th people and blogs interview. Many of the reasons he lists are the same for why I quit social media a couple years ago and haven't really gone back.

What things have been in my earholes and eyeballs since the last time I did one of these? Well, I seem to have watched a lot of movies of late. Signing up for letterboxd seems to have ignited a spark. I won't list everything, but a few highlights. Weapons. This is what great story telling looks like. Loved how they progressed the plot from the point of view of each character. Josh Brolin was great in this (he's great in everything). In fact I loved this to death. Civil War. This was not at all…

At Blanco last weekend.

Do you remember that old Movable Type activity feed plugin? Sure you do, it scoured the web for things you'd done and logged them. A feed of activity. So what happened was, I missed it, and over the past few days decided to write my own. It's called river because it's an endless…river.

It's 9:28am and 101° already. They say it could hit 115° by 4:00pm, that's 46.1° Celsius for non-Americans. Desert life

Godmanchester England, July 2026.

Had a lovely, and mostly offline, trip across the pond back to the old country. There's just something special about England in the summertime that I really miss. We picked quite the time to visit. The first week we were there had the hottest temps recorded, it was absolutely brutal. Now, Phoenix is much hotter in the summer. But the old adage is true, it's a dry heat. The humidity in England just sucks the very soul out of your body. The lack of air conditioning anywhere meant no relief in the…

Star City is really really good.

Apps that refresh your place within the same session because engagement are a fucking blight on humanity. Good morning everyone.

Kinda liked how the sunset lit up the window of the building across the way. Phoenix, 2026.

If only there was a way to give Elon Musk more money.

Things that would have been tweets back in the olden times. • Spotify have reverted back to their original app icon. I know the reason for the disco ball one, but it was just awful. • Short notice plans are afoot for summer trip back across the pond to the old country. I miss summers in England. • Reading about the Siri AI improvements this week and realizing I shall have none of that because iPhone 14 Pro Max

Summer approaches this desert southwest. Three signs you cannot ignore. Cold water, what even is that? You turn the tap on, and it's warm. Warm, warmer, and hot are what's available until November. Out of town mountain trail hiker rescue. Look at those pretty helicopters save the silly afternoon mid-westerners with their half bottle of water. The palm tree snowfall. All blossom, everywhere. You can see it falling through the air, in the pool, on the roof. It's also everywhere.