If AirPlay 2 really is cracked, and will work soon in shareport-sync on Linux, that is pretty exciting for me. I have been really enjoying pushing all my audio from all my devices (iPhone, two iPads, and a MacBook Pro) to a single Linux server, running shareport-sync, connected to my external DAC/Amp. Uncompressed audio goes over the network via the AirPlay 1 protocol. AirPlay 2 is better for multi-room audio, and has a shorter delay.

Today I learned that the Beatles' “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” is widely reviled. From the Wikipedia article:

“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” is often the subject of ridicule. In 2004, it was included in Blender magazine’s list titled “50 Worst Songs Ever!"[61] and was voted the worst song of all time in an online poll organised by Mars.[62] In 2012, the NME’s website editor, Luke Lewis, argued that the Beatles had recorded “a surprising amount of ropy old toss”, and singled out “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” as “the least convincing cod-reggae skanking this side of the QI theme tune”. That same year, Tom Rowley of The Daily Telegraph said the track was a “reasonable choice” for derision, following the result of the Mars poll, and it subsequently came second (behind “Revolution 9”) in the Telegraph’s poll to determine the worst Beatles song.

I always liked that song, and never thought of it as anything other than a light, fun song that is supposed to be—big shock here—light and fun. I’m more apt to be critical of art that takes itself too seriously.

Peak TV is exhausting to me. I recognize about half of the titles on this best-of-2019 list, and I listen weekly to a TV-related podcast.

🎵 I’m changing pace today with a classic rock album: “The Kids are Alright” by The Who. I’m very familiar with some of the tracks, of course, but I don’t think I’ve ever listened to this album.

🎵 I’m taking the “COMPLEX Best Alternative R&B Artists” playlist on Apple Music out for a spin today.

I have been eyeing the JDS Labs Element II desktop DAC/amp for about a week now. It looks great (I want the huge volume knob), it has all the power I would ever need, and it has gotten some great reviews regarding its sound quality and the excellence of its amp. I have almost bought it twice, and have almost bought its cheaper, older sibling, the famous Objective2+ODAC once from JDS and once from its other US manufacturer, Mayflower Electronics.

The main thing holding me back is that I already have a pretty great DAC/amp, the (discontinued) Oppo HA-2se. I want to upgrade to a desktop model mainly to have more sturdy piece of equipment at my (admittedly already crowded) desk. I have had problems with my Oppo sliding off my desk. I wouldn’t mind higher quality DAC and amp, though I probably wouldn’t be able to tell if it is any “better” than what I already have. Lastly, I think I just love audio gear. I would love to test a bunch of it and have a few pieces I really like around the house so I can use them all the time.

I have to stay strong, though, and avoid spending more money on my audiophile hobby, because I think my current equipment is already delivering me as much quality as my somewhat damaged ears can discern.

🎵 House music, which is not normally my thing, sounds much more exciting with my more bass-heavy V-Moda headphones. 🎧

I spent most of my workday listening to music today, and really enjoyed it. One album I revisited, thanks to a remaster and, basically, nostalgia, was “Green” by R.E.M. Green was my first R.E.M. album, which I got when I was in middle school. (I don’t remember how I learned about them. I know it wasn’t from hearing “Stand”. It was probably from browsing “Rolling Stone” in a bookstore.)

Now, instead of reading liner notes while I listen to an album, I surf the web for album reviews to read instead. The best “Green” review I found today was by Andrezj Lukowski on Drowned in Sound:

Green is the end of something and the beginning of something else and the continuation of something greater, but rather than get lost in grand narratives, maybe let’s focus on what it sounds like.

For the most part, Green sounds like innocence, a sense of youth and light and simplicity and clumsiness and play that had not been in the band’s makeup when they burst out of the Georgian murk with the Chronic Town and Murmur.

I don’t really know what the changes the remaster did to the album. It may have just made everything louder. Whatever the improvements were, the album sounded great on my super nice headphones. Of course, when I was a kid, listening to “Green” on repeat in my bedroom, I had real, but very cheap, speakers, so the experience isn’t exactly comparable.

On other R.E.M. album remasters, I have found that I can understand every one of Michael Stipe’s elliptical, nonsense lyrics on R.E.M.’s oldest songs, and that isn’t always a good thing. By the time R.E.M. made “Green”, Michael Stipe’s lyrics were a lot more straightforward, and his singing was clear and up front in the mix.

Anyway, “Green” was and is still great. It was fun to revisit it today.

📺 “Watchmen” is still fantastic. I’m going to miss it once season one is over—which is really soon.

Today is day one for my diet, once again. Thanksgiving turned from a one meal deviance to a week-long cargo-loading buffet. Now I’m back to clean eating (I hope!).

I’m not a big Black Friday shopper, but I did pick up a bunch (too many) Nintendo Switch games for sale for $15 and under.

The gingerbread looks good to me. I’m excited to try some tomorrow.

Prepping to make gingerbread later

Baking snickerdoodles

Lin-Manuel Miranda is both (1) the primary reason I got interested in the “His Dark Materials” TV series, and (2) didn’t seem right to play the “grizzled Texas cowboy” character, Lee Scoresby. I barely remember the movie version of “The Golden Compass”, but what I do remember is Sam Elliott playing that role.

Myles McNutt, writing for the A.V. Club, argues that that is intentional, and has a pretty good take on Miranda’s part:

Lin-Manuel Miranda is not really playing that Lee Scoresby. Yes, he’s an aeronaut, ostensibly from Texas. Yes, he’s got a history with an armored bear. And yes, he is swiftly caught up in Lyra Belacqua’s journey north with the Gyptians to free the children taken by the Gobblers. But his personality and his role within the tonal framework of this story are nothing like the character in the books, which is likely not a byproduct of Miranda’s casting but rather the reason behind it.

“His Dark Materials” is, mostly, a straight-ahead adaptation of “Northern Lights,” so the different take on the Lee Scoresby character surprised me. It took me a few minutes to warm up to his performance and take on the character, but, by the middle of the episode, I enjoyed it and was on board with wherever it would lead the series next.

We changed my son’s crib into a toddler bed today, and he hasn’t gotten out of it yet! (I’m tempting fate by sharing this, I bet.)

I don’t mind that Apple removed user reviews from the Apple Store website. Honestly, those reviews were sparsely populated and completely unhelpful.

I did a little audio geekery this evening. I set up shairport-sync on the little Ubuntu server that sits toward the back of my desk, so that I can AirPlay to it from all my iOS devices. AirPlay is great because it transmits audio over WiFi with no quality degredation, and AirPlay devices are always listed in iOS, unlike BlueTooth speakers, which have to be connected to. Next, I configured PulseAudio to automatically switch to my headphone DAC/Amp when I turn it on. (My DAC/amp is a portable one with an internal battery, so I can’t leave it plugged in all the time.) So far, so good with the new setup! By far the hardest part of the setup was searching online for the correct instructions to type into the terminal. I was happy to learn that shairport-sync is now in Ubuntu’s repositories, but I think that things like this need to be easier to discover, and possible to install, in the GUI.

Why do I keep wanting to buy new audio equipment (DACs and amps, mostly, now that I have so many headphones), when what I probably should want is a subscription to a lossless, hi-def streaming service? I am happy with, but stuck with, an Apple Music family plan.

I canceled my Apple Arcade subscription. It was…not for me, which surprised me, to be honest. I wish I hadn’t bought an Xbox Wireless Controller to use with my iPad and Apple TV, but I can still use it for other games, I guess.

🎵 I am enjoying the album “All Mirrors” by Angel Olsen.

I was doing pretty well with the New York Times crossword puzzles this week—until this morning, that is. 🤯

📺 I watched Bears from Disneynature tonight with my kids. The photography is just incredible, and it is exactly the sort of thing I want to get my kids interested in. My daughter loved it so much she drew a picture of a bear. 🐻😀

One thing holding me back from ordering more Amazon Echo Show devices, for other rooms in my house, is the feeling that I don’t own them. I can’t fully control what is displayed on the screen (I just want the clock), which is frustrating.

I wish there was a social club for people who want to go to concerts that aren’t too loud for my ears to handle.