When I decided that I wanted to start a blog, I did it because I wanted to be able—like everyone else on the internet—to voice my personal opinions somewhere. After twitter was killed by the electric car billionaire fascist, I had to fill that void. It’s two things, cathartic and damning in every sense of the word. Just lettin em fly, fuck e-bikes, fuck AI, and fuck anything else I vehemently didn’t like. I generally am not a hateful person, but I am critical and analyzing and blunt and stubborn and at the very same time I like to think I am perfectly malleable. You see, people are like… oobleck. Non-Newtonian fluids. If you throw an idea at someone real hard and with some heat behind it, it’ll tense up, but if you approach it slowly and with a certain je ne sais quoi you can get them to soften up. The line between perceived passion and perceived aggression is about as thin as Rachel Weisz’s eyebrows in the 1999 film, The Mummy. That distinction usually falls on the writer to properly express that, no, I am not an immovable bucket full of negative opinions.

It’s always about perspective, that’s why anyone ever writes anything on the internet. “Here’s my view on things we collectively experience.”

But I’m not here to explain the concept of empathy, I’m here to shove some opinions in your face. In a change of form, I will be coming here every week to highlight things that I love. For any reason. There may be a post in which I only list cheeses, or niche bike parts you have no prior knowledge of, or even my favorite Fast & Furious franchise movies from worst to best. The point is I want to write something, not to try and get others to agree with me, but to get people thinking about why I love the Gameboy Advance SP so much, and maybe they love it too.

speaking of which:

The Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP.

Look at that beautiful machine. From that perfect time when technology was getting good, but things were still simple. I only really ever bust it out on long plane flights and when the power goes out in my house, but I love this thing. You don’t need an app, you don’t need the internet, the battery still holds charge for hours on end, and with a few cartridges you can buy on ebay for pennies now, you’ve got a fun way to kill time. It’s almost smaller than most smartphones, and you don’t get bombarded with advertisements because game developers had integrity in the 2000s. This one is over 20 years old, and despite being handled by my irresponsible child-self for most of it’s tenure, it works just as well as the day I got it.

The design stand out. It feels substantial but lightweight, with a plastic case that somehow feels metallic. Every hard edge is softened with a generous radius, and the hinge for the screen has satisfyingly snappy detents to keep it in the open and closed positions. It’s a well designed, while remaining utilitarian, and it was sold as a kids toy.

#2 for this week:

This video isn’t what most would call profound. It’s a fantastic exercise in how far can you take a really stupid question. The depth of knowledge and application to spend 3 years answering a question just because “I wanna know.” It may seem like a pointless endeavor, but I left the video knowing more than when I went in to it. I got tricked into actually learning things and I love that.

next is my cat:

kind of impossible to follow that one up but:

Here’s a playlist of songs that I’ve been jammin to for the last week.

this isn’t an advertisement and I wasn’t paid to say this:

My Dropout.tv subscription. I am pretty anti-subscription anything. I recently decided that my next great hyper-fixation will be acquiring a collection of physical media and the means to play/listen to said physical media. That being said, I saw an opportunity to support a brand and company that I thought was doing good things for entertainment industry (and comedy specifically) and so I subscribed. I didn’t really expect to watch it all that much, but it’s such a nice break from the typical slog of scrolling through the ever-changing list of mediocre films and shows on other streaming services. Sam Reich has created a platform for his friends and fellow comedians to try out new formats, reinvent old ones, and somehow convince an alarming amount of people that improv comedy is good again.

I’ve found new favorite comedians like Vic Michaelis, Anna Garcia, Zac Oyama, and Jeremy Culhane (recently hired onto SNL).

Several of the shows on the platform have really hit a stride, and I find myself actually looking forward to the next episodes or series. The concepts are fresh and ambitious in a way I haven’t seen from many other platforms. Make Some Noise, Game Changer, and Very Important People are real standouts, and if you’re a huge nerd like I am Dimension 20 has both a show and podcast with a few dozen D&D campaigns with rotating parties made up of voice actors and comedians.

It feels weird to say, since I am still cautious of anything that requires a subscription, but it’s really gotten me to enjoy ‘watching a show’ again. Love it.

rapid fire round:

the small bits of moss on my stone retaining wall
a cuban coffee
georgian folk music
scratching a good itch
the Santa Cruz 5010
an ice cold modelito
laser-levellers
driving with the windows down when it’s cold
and colorado in the fall

I’ll leave you with this,

Have fun, find the things you love and give them the same space and time as the things you don’t, fuck donald trump, fuck AI, and free Palestine.

things i love vol.1