Welcome to Corgi-Class Starship, the newsletter that thinks it might be time to reread Neuromancer

Update(s) on thing(s) I made or somehow helped to bring about.

Jon Plays a Show

I seem to have joined a band as their erstwhile violinist, and since it's full to bursting with extraordinarily talented people, I've also joined the broader cinematic universe of excellent side projects that come with it. If you're in the Bay Area and free on Thursday, I'll be onstage with Liv J at Spats (doors at 7p), providing string atmosphere for her melancholy epic piano jams and thoroughly astonishing voice. There’s a whole band! It’s gonna be great!

Instant Band Night Returns Sometime Soonish?

I'm not going to lie: the team working on bringing Instant Band Night back has had some stuff going on. But it may yet return, so we should keep the hope alive and watch this space in the meantime!!

Surprising and Unique Ceramics For YOU

Spare time has still been difficult to come by as of late; we know this. But we all need releases, and believe me when I say ceramics are high on the list for me even if I haven't been able to get my hands on the clay in a bit. Thus: the store still remains, and know that I haven't stopped thinking about new weirdos and perhaps even some dishware?? Watch this space, is all I'm gonna say, but take a peek at the shop in the meantime — maybe that garden you've been planting (or thinking about planting) needs a little buddy in there to surprise passersby?

Idea Factory Giveaway

I think it's probably safe to say the podcast is on hiatus after five+ years of inactivity, but I'm putting a link to its evergreen Apple Podcasts presence here, which includes a back catalog over 150 episodes long chock-full of excellent ridiculousness, including an experimental tabletop RPG and a couple of Star Trek fantasy drafts that could almost be their own show if I had the time to make yet another podcast

Skippable if you're in a hurry.

You might recall NASA has an orbital telescope that's falling slowly to Earth and a satellite called Link was sent up to try and clamp onto it and boost it back up. Well, Link's mission has run into some uh. Some problems. (Ars Technica) The good news is they're very gradually getting it under control and are even hoping to complete the original mission, just not the way they originally planned. There isn't really any bad news, but I want everyone to pay attention to this story and then look at the Business Idiots who keep insisting on orbital datacenters as a solution to the Where Are We Going To Put All These Datacenters And How Are We Going To Keep Them Cool problem. Neverfuckingmind that putting them in space doesn't solve the cooling problem at all you stupid dipshits — you think you're going to build an entire-ass datacenter on Earth and launch it into fucking space and it'll just work? You're going to maintain it how?? We spent $30 million sending a satellite up into orbit just to clamp onto another satellite and give it a lil boost — boop! up into a higher orbit! — and that didn't even go right. The fucking nerve of these people. Either they think we're stupid or they just don't care; likely a mixture of both.

Also skippable if you're in a hurry or don't care. No judgment.

I'm informed that this week of morning day camp has not one or two but three children in it named Felix. I don't know what that's about but I will report back if I have further intel.

Next week will be the last week of summer(!!!!!) before the kids head to school on Tuesday, and I'm taking the boys on the annual one-night road trip to Monterey (Mavis has a lot of work, and the kids are old enough by now that it's actually reasonable for one parent to take them on this trip). I had brief notions of altering the itinerary this time — maybe we'd go down a little earlier, take in the Aquarium upon arrival, stay the night at the Fish Hotel, and go tidepooling the next day? — but sanity has prevailed: let's not change too many things at once, how 'bout. Doing the Monterey Bay Aquarium after what's likely to be a 2.5-3h road journey is .......... probably inadvisable. Look at me dodging the red ball of hubris!! We're going to do the same thing we did last time, but maybe next year we think about switching it up a little. Maybe!!

I read a lot of newsletters; here are some links that caught my eye.

Something made-up that somehow suggested itself to me and which I could not escape.

A band and their album

(I remembered a formula for making fake album covers that involves searching for a random appropriately licensed photo and then applying your best Graphic Design Skills to the result; let me know what you think this band/album sounds like, because your answers are always incredible)

Last week's band/album was:

No reader interpretations came in for this one, which I think is the 2026 version of Broken Social Scene, whatever that would look and sound like.

If you've read this far, I thank you. Feel free to forward this to someone you like, or inflict upon someone you don't. If you received this as a forward and would like to subscribe yourself, you can do it at this page right here (which also has the archive)!