Metrospective

Given the nature of things in the Year of Our Lard 2025, I’m not offering much by way of personal retrospection on the prior year. It’s been a bit much. So very much.

However, this year has me on a massive music acquisition kick. By my count, I’ve picked up 217 albums this year, which is astonishing to me that I can do that, considering once upon a time, if I bought 4 CDs and spent $70, I immediately felt buyer’s remorse and spent the next 4 months sucking the marrow out of every disc before I could afford another 4. Much of this year’s collection is from trawling the used CD bins at bookstores and record shops on the cheap. The remainder is from online shops, the artists’ sites, or from merch tables. Some are bands I saw at this year’s SXSW.

The absolute standouts for me this year are Lost Signal, Kirlian Camera, HEALTH, Envy of None, Art School Girlfriend, Trevor Rabin, David Sylvian & Robert Fripp, Qual, Dido, and SUSS. I find myself putting these on repeat.

I also find myself picking up more soundtracks, which is not something I do. But with the thrift of used discs, I’m doing a lot more experimentation and exploration, and filling in the gaps for artists I already love. I’m also re-buying albums that I already had in crappy low-bitrate digital files; now they’re gloriously lossless.

I hope to continue exploration in 2026, albeit at a not-so-voracious rate. Like I said, it’s a bit much, and I’m wondering what hole I’m trying to fill with all this, but that’s an entirely different discussion.

Posting the full list below the readmore fold.

May you have a good 2026. Vote the bastards out.

Continue reading “Metrospective”

Bestanden

Two-week-old news by now, but I share here. My final grade in Deutsch III is a mid-B, 84.8%. I still feel like Professorin was being too kind to me in her scoring, because I still don’t trust my competence. I feel like I did terribly. Scores aren’t everything. I’m not fluent.

Throughout the latter half of the semester, I resolved to stop here, to not move on to Deutsch IV. I have 100 reasons to feel bad about myself every day, and I don’t want to opt into another one. This class just makes me irrationally angry.

But, and this is my goddamned burden, I feel like I need to take IV for the sake of completeness. Sunk cost. Just to say, “Yes, I took all of it, and I definitely tried without quitting.” But goddamn. Why do I hate myself this hard?

Thumb Taps

Dreamed that the cloud had become sentient and hungry, and was optimizing handhelds to attract and lock people into their gravity. The moment anyone grabs a device, they quickly lose all presence and vitality. It was trapping the teenagers of the camp I was staffing. They become terminals, assets to the cloud in droves. Grabbing one, I could feel myself losing my perception until I stirred and dropped the phone. I resolved then to find enough flip-phones that I could substitute and break people from their chains. Whatever saves peoples minds and brings them back from the brink.

Yeah, dreams are dumb. I hate talking about them, because frequently they’re just random nonsense that means nothing to anyone. But sometimes they do shine a light on fears in the undercurrent.

Capped

Found out today, while scheduling PTO for the holidays, that I am currently at my limit for saving up my Paid Time Off. I’m unable to accrue any more free time-money. 280 hours, max. That’s 7 fucking business-weeks. What even am I doing with my life?

In “Star Trek: Insurrection”, Captain Picard mentioned he had 6 months shore leave saved up and that he’d like to visit the planet again. I’m not near that level of bank, but if not for the cap I’d start calling myself Jean Luc, because my dedication(?) to the job is just that selfless(?) and I’d have all that company liability owed to me. At my current rate I’m accruing almost 8 hours of PTO every 2-week pay period. At 26 pay periods per year, that’s just over 25 days; 5 weeks.

I am doing this wrong.

The last time I took a long vacation was exactly this week in 2023 to go visit friends in Seattle. Since then, I’ve taken only 1, maaaybe 2 days off at a stretch to go visit family back in Arkansas. But that’s penny-ante bullshit. That’s not a vacation. That’s work. I need a real vacation. I need real time off, to remember why I’m fucking doing any of this. To enjoy my stupid life. No fucking wonder I’m burned the fuck out.

I don’t have to travel; I can have a staycation (ugh), but that doesn’t feel right. I need to be out there, not in my dumb little life with my dumb little patterns. The burden of planning and booking anything keeps me from bothering. But that’s not right. Definitely not right.

Now that I have a coworker who can read a wiki, the lights will stay on while I’m out. So to hell with it, I’m taking Fridays off for the rest of the year, probably. At least until the holidays.

Or whatever.