2025-12-06 23:44:00
I've got two Bandcamp habits that I've adopted this past year which bring me so much joy that I wanted to share them here.
First, whenever I come across a pre-order for a band I love, I buy it right away. What happens is that I inevitably forget about it until I get the "your purchase is ready for download" email. It's like giving a gift to myself.
Second, whenever I come across an album I want to buy, I leave a reminder for it in a separate list on my reminders app. Once Bandcamp Friday comes along, I go through that list and buy them all.
It's an easy way to make sure these artists that I dig end up with a more reasonable share of the money they deserve.
Anyway, here's the gems I picked up yesterday:
RIYL: alvvays, smart melodic indie pop
RIYL: early 2000s melodic punk, emo
RIYL: modern tropicália, samba-jazz, cosmic soul, brazilian indie (you probably haven't heard anything quite like this, it's dope)
RIYL: emapea, lo-fi hip-hop, chillhop, downtempo, mellow beats
RIYL: lo-fi hip-hop, ambient, chillhop, holiday-themed mellow beats
2025-11-28 09:39:00
And so I remain at an unresolvable juncture: the intersection of the very strong belief that we must experiment with new modes and systems of communication, and the certain knowledge that every time I so much as glance at anything shaped like a social feed, my brain smoothes out, the web of connections and ideas I’m weaving is washed away, and I tumble downstream, only to have to pick myself up and trudge heavily through the mud back to where I belong.
It’s exhausting. It is, at this point in my life, unsustainable. I cannot dip into the stream, even briefly, and also maintain the awareness and focus needed to do my own work, the work that is uniquely mine. I cannot wade through the water and still protect this fragile thing in my hands. And perhaps I owe to my continued senescence the knowledge that I do not have time for this anymore. Perhaps it’s age that grants the wisdom to know where my attention belongs and the discipline to be able to direct it. The great power of a middle-aged woman is that she knows where to give her fucks.
This is such a beautiful article, a great example of what it means to have a vision for your own life’s work and to go for it.
This website is a container that fit my needs around the COVID era, but now? I’m ready to start fresh. Dream big. Figure out what it is I want out of this site and start making it that way.
The same dreaming is also taking place in meat space. My wife gave me permission this week to build a new shed and a new mini office in our backyard. I get to spend all winter dreaming of what I want to see, and then I get to spend all spring / summer / fall making it a reality.
Perhaps related: I haven’t had a nightmare in months now. I’ve had a few bad dreams, but nothing close to the paralyzing terrors that met me nightly for around a decade straight.
Life’s good right now.
2025-11-26 12:10:00
I remember finding a ton of inspiration (and incredible music, of course) from this collection last year. The artistry on display is exquisite.
2025-11-25 12:51:42
I had a plan to publish these photos today for my weekly post, but I had found myself wondering what is the point of it all. What is the point of taking a camera to the streets to snap these photos, and what is the point of publishing them? And recently, I cannot help but wonder what is the point of sharing my thoughts online in a world where the internet is no longer a safe space.
When I was younger I desired to publish my thoughts online because I couldn’t do it offline. It was an outlet. These days I have started wondering if it is better to keep my thoughts to myself, and I find myself less and less interested in online connections. Actually, I just find myself less interested in human connections overall. I think the pandemic has changed me. If I was cynical before, I am worse now.
I don’t think I’m as cynical as Winnie here, but I do find myself wondering “why” a lot lately.
This past year, I’ve found myself drawn to the gym. Beating the sunrise over the horizon and watching the colors of the sky shift from darkness to a deep purple to suddenly orange.
Lifting heavy weights, squeezing my muscles as I reach the apex of the movement, feeling the tissue subtly break apart, doing hard things.
Sweat. So much sweat. How does it get all over the treadmill?
I can’t explain what really motivated me to finally get back into shape, and I still often find myself wondering “what is it all for?”
I guess if I’m being honest with myself, I work out because it feels good. Every aspect of it, from walking into the gym and saying hi to Alan at the front desk, to pushing a 40 pound sled 275 yards in four minutes, to drinking my vegan PB&B smoothie after taking a shower. It never fails to make me happy.
It’s okay to do things because they make you happy. It’s a lesson I learned from watching my kids, embarrassed that I forgot that (to paraphrase John Gruber) having fun is one of the best parts of being alive.
The gym isn’t the only area in which I question the point of it all. This blog has been prime on my mind lately for “what am I even doing here?”
I have never had a strong vision for this site. Sometimes it’s a portfolio. Sometimes it’s my todo list, a place to dump interesting links, my workout tracker, my beer tracker.
Like Winnie, I’ve never particularly felt safe having a blog like this, with my real name tied to it. There’s nothing to hide behind. I don’t track my visitors but I can only imagine this site is now soaked up and memorialized deep within several LLM training sets, only further making the things I say online matter.
But lately, I’ve wanted to have an alter ego. A persona who allows me to truly express myself without any professional baggage attached to it. A clean slate without reputation.
I turn 38 in five days. And I still don’t know what I wanna be when I grow up.
2025-11-23 09:44:00
I didn't quite make it to the top, but I got way closer than last year!
2025-11-16 05:30:08
lsis a good program.lsis a tool. It does what I need it to do and stays quiet otherwise. I use it; it doesn’t use me. That’s a good, healthy relationship.At the other end of the spectrum, we have services. Programs that constantly update. Programs that have news, that “keep you informed”. Programs that need something from you all the time. Programs that update Terms of Service just to remind you of themselves.
Programs that have their own agenda and that are trying to make it yours, too. Programs that want you to think about them. Programs that think they are entitled to a part of your attention. “Pick me” programs.
And you know what? Fuck these programs. Give me back my computer.
I wanted to treat my son last night to some new Minecraft content.1 So I grabbed his switch to charge up whatever the in-app currency is. Mine coins?
Before I could do that, though, I had to create a Microsoft account for him.
Why?!
I’ll spare you the details, but it took a total of 16 emails just to authenticate and establish accounts for him, my daughter, and myself.
I had to abandon the idea of buying credits through the official Microsoft store because it blocked my credit card after the first purchase.2 I ended up buying digital Minecraft gift cards through Best Buy, but couldn’t redeem them in the switch app because they only worked on xbox.com?
What the hell guys, I just want my kid to be able to play SpongeBob on his switch! It was, literally not joking, a 2.5 hour cavalcade of the worst UX interactions I’ve encountered in years.
Remember when it used to take substantially less than two and a half hours to bike to Best Buy, buy a disk, and start jamming?
I agree with Niki here. I’m gonna start purging my 1Password accounts and deleting everything I can everywhere I can. I’m done signing up for stuff and being tracked and getting almost nothing in return while companies get to hold onto my info in perpetuity and use it basically however they see fit.
And thanks to vibe coding, I can build my own software that does exactly what I want without needing an account.3