My personal week looked an awful lot like the curve of the stock markets this week. A couple of middling peaks, but mostly trending down and occasionally cratering.

Most of the highs involved interactions with media, which…okay. Since my lovely spouse picked up an iPad a couple of weeks ago (she’s swinging her train into the Apple railyard a bit for various reasons including compatibility and social activism), we’ve got ourselves a three month free trial of AppleTV, so we’ve been exploring the compelling darkness and snark of “Severance” and the relentless positivity of “Ted Lasso.” I’ve been enjoying them both for entirely different reasons, and definitely recommend both. I also gave “Foundation” a shot, and might go down that hole some more; it’s very pretty, and seems to be finding a sufficiently narrow story to tell within Asimov’s sprawling worldbuilding experiment. But mostly, I’m hanging on the fact that I’ll be able to catch the adaptation of Martha Wells’ “Murderbot Diaries” novels, which have been some of the most fun I’ve had with books the last few years, and the trailer they dropped this week really seems to capture the vibe well.

Speaking of books, I’ve also been having a blast with Angela Giddings’ Shadow Into Light, which is everything you’d want in a book, especially if you’re looking for stories about cyberpunk psychic-powered vampire assassins with a wonderfully dry, sarcastic wit. Angela and I were on a panel together at Ret-Con this year (“Tales of the Old Internet”) and we hit it off with our shared musical tastes and experiences in IT. I’ll probably be jumping directly into the sequel.

Apart from those things and a nice dinner out on Monday with some of my work team to celebrate a retirement, it’s been all kinds of down. You’ve likely seen the headlines; you know what’s going on. Add in the couple of memos and executive orders dealing with federal workforce realignment and acquisition reform that impact my 28 year career directly, and a useless and depressing all-hands from the Agency heads on Monday that spent more time blathering on about how important we all are and not at all looking at the fact the folks above them in Government could give two shits (or less) about importance, and that cuts are going to come whether we like it or not. I’m all for leadership advocating for their people, but at the same time, it just doesn’t feel like they’re doing anything to prepare for what’s coming, and one could tell from the submitted questions that the entire workforce is stressed to the limit, and the gossip afterwards definitely showed that the messages from above are doing nothing to minimize that.

Oh, and I had to actually answer a poorly-constructed, quick-turnaround data call from DOGE this week (that was *not* the five bullets thing). They’re now inside the house, and it’s just going to get weirder.

I’ve also been dealing with a period of unpleasant side effects of some of the meds I’m on (I am, as one says, and old, and take some things for chronic conditions), which have me struggling to focus, and wreaking havoc on my digestive system (always fun), and with all the tree and shrub romance going on outside, seasonal allergies are hitting their peak. Yay.

One saving grace heading into the weekend is that there’s not much planned beyond the basics. Groceries, chores, and depending on what the final gravity reading on the beer-in-progress in the fermenter is this evening, I’ll likely be bottling my first batch of ale in nearly thirty years.

So, some tunes. Lots of blues-influenced classic rock ‘n’ roll, with a little bit of hair metal tossed in for good measure (as indicated in previous weeks, I’ve been listening to a lot of mid-period KISS lately, which is right in that wheelhouse). One thing of note is that in spite of the completely generic chord progression on #11, the bass line as recorded really makes this tune pop. There are questions about whether Nikki Sixx ever played bass on the records (and almost certainly uses backing tracks live), though that doesn’t mean it’s not a good listen:

1. “Love Stinks” – J. Geils Band
2. “Every 1’s A Winner” – Gun
3. “No More No More” – Aerosmith
4. “Slide It In” – Whitesnake
5. “Christine Sixteen” – KISS
6. “TV Dinners” – ZZ Top
7. “Bitch” – The Rolling Stones
8. “Stone In Love (2022 Remaster)” – Journey
9. “Fire of Unknown Origin” – Blue Oyster Cult
10. “I Need To Know” – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
11. “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away): Mötley Crüe
12. “Hey Tonight” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
13. “Synchronicity I” – The Police