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Today, I had a nice talk with my dad. I say "talk," but really it was just him talking... I mostly listened. He talks a lot (and very loudly) about things he's passionate about. I don't think this is a bad thing, by the way, nor do I think our talk was a bad experience

on the contrary, in fact

but I did want to pose the question: do teachers speak loudly, in general? Both my parents are teachers, so it's a bit hard for me to tell. I know there's cultures that generally speak louder, I know my dad speaks louder than most, in general, but I can't say if my parents, being teachers, speak even louder so. Most of their friends are teachers, so lots of my friends have been teachers' kids. I've been in academia most of my life. I just don't really have points of comparison, here.

Anyway.

We spoke about his self-hosting system. He has... Well, lots of stuff. I don't know enough to explain everything in this post, but let's just say that he has lots of stuff that he uses to store a bunch of stuff, namely movies and TV shows. Pirated? Perchance. I shan't confirm nor deny! Who are you, anyway?! A COP?! Pigs get stitches, or whatever they say...

I kid.

It's legal here.

I've thought about setting up something similar myself

I've even discussed it on this comm, if I recall correctly

but to see that my very own dad has done it himself does give me a certain sense of pride. I really like my family, and it was a delight to hear him talk so passionately about that stuff.

That has also gotten me thinking about ways to store things, information. I've been big on mechanical pencils for a while, now, but I'm also considering buying some notebooks. I'm not sure what kind of notebook I should buy... The ones I currently use are low-quality and kind of bad. I don't like writing in them very much at all! I feel like there should be something else I could use that would make the overall experience more enjoyable, though. I'd hope so, at least.

Somewhat unrelatedly, I went back and watched the videos I'd stacked on my Watch Later playlist. I use that feature quite a lot. One of the videos was some guy playing and explaining the game "Scoundrel." The video itself, I feel, was pretty bad. I didn't like the way he played at all. However, the game seemed really cool. Here are the rules. I also saw YT user 4theWizard talk about a personal rule they used where Jokers work as merchants that exchange weapons for health potions. Really cool, too.

I'm huge (giga huge) on card games. I love cards. I love games. Bingo bango. I've created my own card games too, but it's cool to see other people's ideas. I really want to buy a nice deck of cards... I know of one that I really love, but it seems oddly hard to get one's hands on. Maybe I'd need to go somewhere specific to find it, or I'd have to pay too much on shipping... Maybe I'm too broke and too stingy for nice decks of cards? It hurts. I might buy it, one day... One day...

It's raining lots, today.

The day started off raining, then it quit during lunchtime, then the pouring returned with a vengeance. The sky is grey and the rest of the atmosphere has seemingly taken the cue to match the dress-code.

I like the sound of the rain, but I do also find it a little weird. It's like the inverse of a skeumorph. The noise reminds me of TV static. That's not like a skeumorph at all, actually... Hopefully you get my meaning.

As I write, this, the rain has mostly let up once more. There's a huge rainbow right outside my window. The wind has also calmed down, a bit, so the eucalyptus are pointing straight up again.

Eucalyptus are great trees for the wind. They have these long and thin leaves that really give the feeling of motion when they're being blown violently to the side. It makes the trees look very cartoonishly crooked.

If the weather stays decent, I'll try to convince my brother to go out for a walk with me.

Honestly, I wish I was a stone.

Specifically, I wish I was a stone at the bottom of a lake in the middle of nowhere.

I feel like it'd be really enjoyable. Nothing ever happens, except when it does! You'd feel the earthquakes, for example. You'd know about the activities of random fish, randomly. I'd reckon that'd be fun.

I think what would make this particularly exciting is the prospect of actually being picked up. Naturally, in this scenario, we're aware of our location and situation. As such, we're aware of the extreme unlikelihood of being picked up by anything sentient. But maybe! MAYBE!

Isn't that cool?!

I think that'd be cool.

Of course, being picked up would be rather annoying, I guess. I mean, we're chilling at the bottom of this lake and then some random human just, what, picks us up? And what?! THROWS US BACK INTO THE LAKE?!

The gall.

But it's one of those things that'd be fun to think about, though it wouldn't actually be fun to experience.

Today, I watched a great video by Shar, on YouTube.

I definitely recommend you check it out!

Shar's channel is really awesome. I love the mix of silly, short videos, and longer videos that delve a bit deeper into the topic at hand. Also, she's really talented! Her art is great, she's a developer, her editing is really cute and bubbly; watching her videos feels like eating cotton candy. Rather, it feels like what I envision eating cotton candy to be like. In truth, I never have a good time eating cotton candy. It's too messy.

I digress. Great videos!!

Oftentimes (glorious word, by the way, "oftentimes"), I find myself strongly enamoured

read, falling deeply and madly in love

with random people online. I've come to realize that this is a pretty common phenomenon. I really like Shar's videos, so I can't help but imagine that I'd really like Shar herself. Is this a so-called parasocial relationship?

Perchance; Mayhaps.

This has reminded me of a TikToker I used to follow. I still follow her actually, technically, I just uninstalled TikTok. I forget her @, but everyone called her "unc," which was funny in itself, but her videos were all about gambling with gas station scratch-offs. I can feel violent laughter bubbling up within me just from typing that out. What a concept. She's a marketing genius.

Continuing. She got tons of comments saying stuff like "fly me out unc" or "pay for my lodging at a place close to your location, unc," and other similarly parasocial requests related to a commenter's desire to meet the creator in the flesh. Pardon the run-on sentence, there. I don't want to meet my favourite creators at all!

I follow lots of people; I watch lots of people's stuff on the regular; I enjoy and laugh at their uploads, and I imagine that they are fun and pleasant to be around. However, I don't want to meet them!

I very much enjoy watching their silly videos and reading their cool posts, but I enjoy doing that from the comfort of my home; safely, through a screen. Not that I think Shar (or anyone else whose content I consume) would be particularly dangerous to be in the vicinity of, mind you. It's moreso a matter of practicality, in the sense that meeting new people is inherently dangerous, regardless of the people in question.

An aside: it seems "moreso" is, at best, a dubious spelling of the word-phrase "more so." I find this incredibly disparaging. Moreso looks very cool. I will continue to use it.

Anyway. I really love finding these nuggets of lovely on the internet. I love finding things to love.

Met up with my parents and brother today.

I love my parents and my brother :D

Feeling very happy.

Ate some seafood today, which I love. Feeling very happy about that too. Overall, today was a good day.

Slowly, things get better.

I took the train today. Twice; to and fro. It was so much fun. I love taking the train.

I watched videos about comic books. Those were fun too! I love art and people that make art. I love the process and the end result.

I had a job interview today. It went well. I think I talk too much and keep saying the wrong things all the time, but I hope that I can get it across to people that I really am just trying to get by. I'm just doing what I think is OK to do in a way that I think it's OK to do them in.

I trimmed my pants yesterday. "Trim" as in I cut some loose threads and whatnot; it gets them looking much better, I think, and it's kind of therapeutic, in a way. It's very methodical, I guess; it's the repetitive process of looking for loose threads and snipping them.

I listened to some good music today. I love Megurine Luka very much. The main songs I had on repeat were Black Gold, Depression of Cybernetics, and No Logic. I love love love those songs! So much!

Spoke with my parents too, virtually. I'll probably end up meeting up with them tomorrow. Looking forward to that.

I haven't been sleeping all too well... As a consequence, I've been terribly tired...

Sometimes I wonder if I should be meaner.

I'm quite mean in my head, often. I think very mean things about others, but I catch myself and correct my thoughts. I say things like "that person is an idiot" (I often used more intense words) but then correct myself to thinking "they probably just misunderstood something." That sort of things. "That person is an asshole" to "that person might be having a bad day."

I feel like that's the right thing to do. There's really no reason to believe that people are bad, there's nothing to gain in doing that and I'd argue there's actually much to lose. I'd argue, but I won't, as that's not the point of this post.

Continuing.

I wonder if it could be better to not do that as much. For example, sometimes people really are just idiotic assholes. Sometimes just idiots, sometimes just assholes, sometimes neither. However, couldn't it be correct to assume it, sometimes?

For example, I think the block button should be used. I'm a big proponent of blocking people. I've blocked people on Reddit, on Twitter, I think I've blocked people on Lemmy even, on TikTok, on YouTube (you can't actually block people, I don't think, but you can effectively remove them from sight), etc. I've blocked people wherever I've been and there have been people there. Discord, too. I do this because I don't think it is my job to suffer other people's idiocy and assholiness; it is not my responsibility to suffer others.

I feel that that might be a bit... I don't know. Extreme? But good. I'm curating my online experience, and there's certain strains of people that I just don't want to be a part of my life.

Can this be applied to other aspects of how I think about people? Instead of assuming goodness or neutrality, instead of presupposing something exogenous that is causing perturbing behaviours I just block them out. Even IRL, it's not my job to tolerate assholes and idiots. Ignoring people is rude, but maybe that's just the best way to go about things.

I've been writing some Go (golang) for fun; and it is fun!

I don't get why people say it's "boring" or something. I heard Theo from t3 say that it doesn't make him feel smart

whatever that means; whatever reason he might want that lol

but I don't get that at all. It's not boring, it's cool! I LIKE IT!!! GO IS FUN!!

I've recently developed a mild obsession with Megurine Luka.

As such, I'd like to share some of my favourite Luka songs! In no particular order.

No Logic (absolutely LOVE this one; this is what put me on to Luka)

Master of Puppets

Iya Iya Seijin

Ame to Kusari

Black Gold (possibly my favourite)

Depression of Cybernetics

LUKA LUKA ⭐ NIGHT FEVER

I feel like Luka's dancing is kinda... Awkward? If that makes sense. It feels very normal and average. Some songs, like LLNF do have some more complex movements, but then there's No Logic. It makes her feel somewhat more human; less like a virtual idol and more like just a virtual girl that happens to sing. That's really cool, I think. That being said, her songs are absolute bangers, no two ways about it.

A streamer I love plays Project DIVA so we get to play lots of Luka songs. It's awesome! :D

I've had this lineup on repeat for a while, now. I hope to add more gems to my Lukartoire (Luka repertoire).

Faced with finding a job, I ask myself what I care about. What would I like to do?

The answer is nothing.

I really don't care about anything... Sometimes it'd so weird to hear people talk passionately about a subject. I've spoken passionately before, there are things that I'm passionate about, but not in a "do" sort of way. I'm passionate about my family, about injustices in the world, about music, about art. I'm passionate about a lot of things, really. But I wouldn't want to "do" any of them.

I wonder if it would be best to just find a menial job. Something that isn't anything in particular. It's just something people do because someone has to do it. They're not well-paid, which is a shame and annoying, but I suppose that's fine too. I just... I imagine everything else would be torture.

I wouldn't be using my degree, but I don't think I care, frankly.

I'll see if I can get a job at McDonald's.