140 thoughts on “SLAM Awards 2026”

  12. Your good deed for today:

    Support Life And Music is going to raise music mental health awareness at SXSW (South By Southwest) in 2027. Please click the link and vote for our “Facing the Musician Mental Health Crisis” panel. It only takes a minute, and it will help musicians of all ages and all levels – – and your vote will help S.L.A.M.!

    Don’t wait – – the voting window is short!

    THANK YOU.

    https://participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sxsw27/community-voting-sxsw/page/community-voting/session/1784618929927001KEhb

  19. Crap joke for the day:

    A man walks into a bar, orders a double bourbon, neat, and downs it in a single gulp.
    “”How big is a penguin?”” he asks.
    The bartender says, “”Around 18 inches.””
    He orders another double bourbon, neat, and gulps it down.
    “”What’s the biggest a penguin can ever be?””
    The bartender frowns. “”3 feet, maybe an inch or two more.””
    The man orders a third double bourbon, neat, and downs it even quicker. He sighs.
    “”I may have run over a nun.””

  25. Extracted from a FB AI rant:

    “ The trouble starts when “more capable” quietly becomes “better.” Human beings have never had a particularly impressive track record of limiting themselves to noble pursuits.

    A brilliant AI tutor can help a child understand algebra. It can also do the algebra for him. A legal assistant can help someone understand a contract. It can also help your most irritating neighbor produce twelve pages of extremely convincing nonsense about your fence. A writing assistant can help someone communicate better at work. It can also help Janet from Accounting send an email that sounds polite while making it unmistakably clear that she would like you to die.

    That is not a criticism of AI. That is what happens when you hand humans tools. Silicon Valley has always struggled with this, because the imaginary user inside a product launch is an unusually wholesome person. She is curious, productive and desperate to improve herself. Give her infinite intelligence and she will learn Mandarin, study physics, finally understand her retirement account and perhaps take up the cello. The real user is going to ask whether her ex’s new girlfriend is prettier than she is, and frankly, I understand her.

    We already carry nearly the entire sum of human knowledge in our pockets. We can use it to read Plato, learn another language or study the Roman Empire. We also use it to Google “why does my dog stare at me when I pee.” The phone expanded what we were capable of. Then humanity got involved.”

  27. CP: Primeval — John Carpenter

    Yes, that John Carpenter. He’s collaborating with his son and Daniel Davies to make a soundtrack to his new graphic novel, “Cathedral”

  28. When did Amazon start lending books like a library? I went to look at the price of an ebook and it said I could “borrow” the ebook free with my Prime membership. Obviously I went for it. Free is better than any price I’d pay.

    • You can’t switch off government alerts here. If there’s a tornado coming, they kind of want you to know, no matter where you are.

  32. Another crap joke:

    Kevin walked into a doctor’s office and the receptionist asked him what he had.
    Kevin said: ‘Shingles.’ So she wrote down his name, address, medical insurance number and told him to have a seat.
    Fifteen minutes later a nurse’s aide came out and asked Kevin what he had….Kevin said, ‘Shingles.’ So she wrote down his height, weight, a complete medical history and told Kevin to wait in the examining room..
    A half hour later a nurse came in and asked Kevin what he had. Kevin said, ‘Shingles..’ So the nurse gave Kevin a blood test, a blood pressure test, an electrocardiogram, and told Kevin to take off all his clothes and wait for the doctor.
    An hour later the doctor came in and found Kevin sitting patiently in the nude and asked Kevin what he had.
    Kevin said, ‘Shingles.’ The doctor asked, ‘Where?’
    Kevin said, ‘Outside on the truck.
    Where do you want me to unload ’em??’

    • Surely you knew that going in? Cos it’s one of the things everybody mentions about the bloody movie.

      I enjoyed it and did not need to pee till after the film had finished.

      • I knew it was about 3 hours, yeah. But this one especially felt like 3 hours.

        All that hate seems unwarranted. . . I don’t regret seeing it. There were lots of good parts. I like the way it handled Odysseus, the horse, and a bunch of the other classic bits.

        My only complaint is that it felt long. I doubt if I’ll ever watch it again.

      • I did have to pee once during the film. But I have bladder issues, so there are few movies I can sit through without needing to pee, even if they aren’t 3 hours long

  38. Back in America from our big Eclipse trip. After getting clouded out a couple of years ago, Mrs. from Texas was determined for us to find a way to catch one. Took a cruise out of Southampton that included the eclipse and four stops in Spain and one in France.
    Overall a most excellent trip – though we really need to get those transporters invented. International economy flying is definitely getting harder. Though, honestly, walking through the business class section to get to the cheap seats, they didn’t look lime something worth paying 4x for.
    This was our first family trip since my youngest turned 21 and I don’t think I was prepared for how that would change the character of the trip with all four of us being unrestricted adults now. It was nice and I know we aren’t going to get many more chances like this.

    • That sounds like a great trip Ed! We pondered doing the same, but with with Alaska this year. Was it crowded in Spain with all the eclipse enjoyers?

  41. This weekend I found out the husband, myself, and a few friends are all terrible people.
    We are playing a western rpg. We had to find an outlaw so we ask a character (the game master a.k.a the husband) if there were any distinguishing features for the person we were looking for. The husband, without thinking said he had a lisp.
    Then we found out his partner’s name was Silas. We were crying laughing by the end of it.
    I think we’re all going to hell.

  42. I hope that we’re not about to go over yet another waterfall of horror around here.

    Sorry to be vague. Please keep fingers and toes crossed.

  54. JW: The Wild Bunch

    Although I’ve seen bits of it over the years this was the first time I watched it all the way through, I do love bleak endings.

  55. In another ‘feeling old’ moment, this week I will be seeing the 30th anniversary rerelease of Trainspotting at the cinema

    30 YEARS!!!!! WTF!

  60. Between fatigue, obligations, and working on stuff for SLAM, the SLAM Awards, and SLAM season 2, I’ve been pretty boring lately.

    I never imagined when I left corporate hell that I’d become even busier, but in hindsight… of course that’s the case.

  67. OK, as crazy as this seems to be to type, I’ve just gotten back from China!

    We took a two week trip with the kids and their significant other others. “Long ass flight” aside… It was a really good time. There is so so much I could say about the experience. Short synopsis of the itinerary – we all flew from our respective homes to Vancouver and from there flew to Beijing for a few days. From there we went Bullet train to Xian (she-Anne) then flew to Guilin (guy-Lynn) then boat down a river to Yang Shu than flew Shanghai.
    Short bits:
    China is BIG.
    -“The Great Wall“ seems misnamed. “ Overly Extensive wall“ or maybe “amazingly ambitious wall“ might be more accurate. Stunning to be sure but “Great“ just seems to denote something else.
    – The PEOPLE were great. Wonderfully gracious and seem to love Americans. Go figure.
    – We had arranged for guides at each location, which was pretty important for language and cultural reasons. Although surprisingly enough, my kids and their others had learned (before hand) enough Chinese to be able to order food or find bathrooms. My kids are so much smarter than me!
    – Beijing and Shanghai are stunningly large. More than 23 million people in each city. Beijing is physically 60 km in size.
    – The countryside is phenomenal. Gorgeous and exotic.
    – Real Chinese food… OMG! So tasty.
    – Getting over there is exorbitantly expensive. Existing there is amazingly cheap for Americans. We could order “family style”, six delicious dishes plus drinks (including beer) and walk away from dinner having spent $45.
    – Driving is insane! People pass whenever they want. Scooters zipping in and out cutting across roads and up onto the sidewalks. Cars/trucks will do three point U-turns in the middle of any road, in car choked traffic, when ever they want. The “car horn” may be there national anthem.
    And driving itself is a new experience for them. Most families have only owned cars for about 15 years. yet… I never saw so much as a single “fender bender”. Easily half of the vehicles are electric. Even in the “country“.
    I’ll do a separate post on cultural observations and it may or may not surprise you that things aren’t what we’ve been told they are over there.
    If you get an opportunity to go there, do so. Especially before trump ruins that for Americans as well.

  71. There was/is a band called Hue and Cry. They had a few hits in the 80s.

    Saw them perform in the early 2000s, they had changed direction with their music and it’s the only concert I’ve been too where a load of people just walked out.

  72. My life is boring so I haven’t posted much but I thought I should get this one in as the next post I make will cost (most of) you 50% more

  73. Memory is a strange thing I always remember what a pain in the ass defrosting the small chest freezer is when I start defrosting the freezer.

  82. It’s been a whirlwind of a day. The next few days promise to get even more crazy.

    Lots of exciting stuff and some less good stuff on the agenda.

  87. Started listening to a podcast that is the third season of Death of an Artist. It covers the suicide of a a couple, Petra and Michael Mathers (children author and photographer). Although in their late 70s they were both healthy, sent letters to family and friends then killed themselves.

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