fly eye

 I'm just polishing up a book titled  so you're having an existential crisis  by Ben Thomas (better known as Sisyphus 55 on YouTube). In it, he briefly mentions the concept of  pleasure  versus  enjoyment . In short, the book paints pleasure as something that can be achieved quickly (scrolling, potato chips, you know the deal) whereas enjoyment takes a little more effort to develop. It takes goal-setting, attention, and effort for something to be truly enjoyed (the first thing that comes to mind is hang-gliding. Wouldn't that be fun to try?). From what I gather, enjoyment is something that can be thoroughly appreciated due to our more intentional involvement. Yeah - let's go with that!   To take this concept of enjoyment further, I'd like to discuss my own enjoyment of one French duo known for their sampling of 70s music with a thrashy-yet-melodic flare: Daft Punk. What can I say? That Fortnite collab put them back on the brain. You might see listening...

 Hello, Everyone!  I got the chance to get pretty close to the action during Hurricane Erin this past week. It's super duper fun to be out in the elements like that. Funnily enough, when I was a child, I was pitifully scared of storms, so much so that I'd panic over a cloudy day while we were out at the pool. The lifeguards were very kind to me though - I was a pretty cute kid, in fact.  These days, braving a storm feels like conquering an old fear - it's a simple reminder of how we grow. 😊  Here's some pictures I got while the shore break was up against the rocks. As you can see, we were lucky to get some sand deposited:   Snow?     No!        ML Buch - Well bucket     🪖 

 I love taking pictures of animals, especially at night! When a bunny sees me, I tend to stick around for a while for it to get used to my presence, then we carry on with our business. 🪖 I got a ton, but here's a few of my favorites:    Skidmore Campus, November 2023     Key West, January 2024      Quincy and some Cats in the Catskills, January 2025     Bunny on my block in Saratoga, April 2025     More bunnies on my block, May 2025   🟍  Grouper - Heavy Water / I'd Rather Be Sleeping  🟍

 Hey guys!   Lot's been going on this past month and a half. I'm outta college and settling back home. Adopting a more calm lifestyle for now, to say the least.  Anyway, I've been making peace with a lot of things.  So I wanted to talk about that: I find it easy to get wrapped up in hypotheticals that are far from the realm of possibility. Maybe a certain cast of characters is no longer in my life, or I never even  had  the means to create that hypothetical scenario to begin with. But I keep doing it! It's so easy to uproot the past when our future seems uncertain. So, how is it that I've made peace with this, even if my shower thoughts are the same? Well, to put it plainly, I believe our million dollar "what if?" questions can be used to inform us in the future - not out of fear, but as a blueprint to uplift ourselves. Now, I know that sounds convoluted, so I'll try to simplify it. Regret and missed opportunities hardly mean anything unless we reflect...

Nothing beats a good sticker setup! Everybody's got their own style - not only when it comes to their choice of sticker of also how they apply it. When I sticker something up, I take out my whole collection and organize the top candidates. This painstaking process can take hours, but I'm happy to be a near-perfectionist about something as silly as stickers. Here are some of my setups from over the years.   My bedroom door: 200 ? - 2020  I cleaned it up a ton after taking this picture.       Old laptop: 2019  Never getting rid of this laptop just because of the stickers.  It had some major structural issues, though.     Optical drive: 2024   Current laptop: 2024 - 2025 I had this laptop for a few years before stickering it up.  I love this thing.    Peace, yo. 🪖

This is probably pretty normal, but sometimes I'll skip a song purely because I don't want to face whatever meaning I've put to it. The weird thing is that I keep them in my rotation, just for the rare moment where it will hit hard, but I'm actually ready for it. Maybe if I hit shuffle enough times I can get a sense of how I'm doing... ...Or maybe I just need to get better at removing clutter. 🪖   Sebadoh - Bubble and Scrape (1993)    The Meeting Places - Find Yourself Along the Way (2003)   Pinback - Self-titled ( 1999)