i try to keep an arms length between a lot of my personal life and this blog, partly for privacy, and partly because i've found writing about a lot of my personal life sounds a bit boring. i hope you'll allow me to indulge myself a little. i'm currently feeling quite content, under two quilts and three blankets with my shitty busted up thinkpad sitting on my lap, typing into an obsidian window with a twee and whimsical theme (that is maybe a little to bright for 11 at night) (further observation, you can switch obsidian to dark mode without taking your hands off the keyboard using the ctrl + p shortcut. neat! i'll probably talk about how i use light mode in a lot of my software at some point in the future). my 2024 has been insane, having split with my (very) long term partner and having my friends swoop in to catch me. i'm currently paying fuck-all for a room in the house of my good friend that i've known since the start of university, and i've spruced my space up with plants and books, and absolutely plastered the walls with art. my wardrobe is now a free standing ikea nikkeby which is limiting, but also freeing. i'm listening to the pokemon platinum soundtrack. my fingers hurt from climbing, but i hung out with two friends who have just started dating (and have an almost tooth-achingly sweet story about the moment they decided to take the plunge) and another friend who has been rebuffed by someone they wanted to be more serious with. i had an accountability call with my discord art group where six people located all around the globe talked about what they're passionate about and how they want to aim to keep improving. despite it all, i've been reminded of who i am, and that i can be satisfied with just being myself. i've had a huge fear of loneliness after leaving high school, but my last couple of years have proven to me that i am entirely capable of connecting with people across a wide gamut of lifestyles and outlooks, even if cold call socialising still scares the shit out of me. my new freedom is both terrifying and exhilarating

pardon me if that was a bit rambly, but i was struck with inspiration while working on an upcoming blogpost and wanted to word vomit my feelings out. i've had a post about growing up socially and my journey of self-discovery and becoming comfortable around new people in the works for ages, and while i'm not sure i'll eventually put it out, the core conceit of "find people who like the same things you do and deal with the risk of conversation being hard until you figure out exactly where you fit" is still worth putting out there. like that one guy on tiktok said, "if you cant beat the fear, just do it scared". it'll suck for a while! it sucked for a couple of years for me. but i'm glad i put in the effort, because i'm not sure i've ever felt more loved or sure of myself. life is beautiful, basically

okay that was definitely rambly. lets get back to your normal programming, my top three albums of the month. this was a weird one! i listened to a bunch of new stuff but not very much of it stuck. despite my whinging i ended up listening to brat by charli xcx again, and dusqk dropped the excellent angel/mem, although i don't think i can say about that album that i haven't already said about gaia/rae. i also grabbed a bunch of music from tohomoko and napcast who are in the same neighbourhood as nobonoko, a big favourite of mine, but i haven't given them the careful listen that i reckon they really deserve

i'm also gonna start posting my last.fm monthly feed instead of my spotify playlist because i'm getting way more use out of my ipod and local music via musicbee recently. check the link!

no dogs allowed - sidney gish

i first listened to this album pretty soon after it came out, way back in my heavy folk indie era. the whole thing is super twee and upbeat, but there is a surprising amount of depth in the lyrics, almost like the tone is a smokescreen to sneak heartfelt musings from sidney under our noses. i normally actively dislike lyrics, but the fact that A. i was actually listening and thinking about them and B. they still somehow don't upset the overall feel of the album is a testament to how genuine they feel and how insanely whimsical the melodies, harmonies and percussions are

fever - kylie minogue

i know, i know, i'm hardly plumbing the depths of exciting new interesting music, but i've had some kylie on my local media library for a long while, and i decided to give it a listen while doing a bit of a clean up a couple of nights ago. wow. obviously, love at first sight and can't get you out of my head are massive, worldwide hits, but the rest of the album is serving the exact same level of confidence as the real big hitters. i'm not saying that i'm so fucked up about my breakup that i think i'm unlovable, but there's something about this music that makes me go like "y'know what? yeah, there's someone out there for me" and if a silly little dance pop album can do that then it's gotta have some value

joyride - kesha

yeah, the top ranked album this month is a single. i'm not sure i've ever seriously listened to kesha, but the amount of skill on display here truly blew me away. the accordion, the polyrhythmic clapping, the layering of multiple different vocalists for emphasis. kesha's voice sounds almost synthesised at moments, which could maybe be a callback to her heavily autotuned past, but this time it's all real. in some ways it's shameless, using every catchy club music trick in the book, but it works on my stupid little peanut brain

linux emoji picker

i really love how straightforward the windows emoji picker is. the win key + . brings up a menu at your cursor, you type your emoji, press enter, and you're right back in the action. it looks good, it works fast, and it's reliable

i tried five (5) linux equivalents (smile, emote, flemozi, gnome-characters, ef*ck) and found them slow, unreliable or both. the obvious answer? weird shell script that opens a new terminal window, opens fzf, searches a text file of all the emoji i could want, then pastes where the cursor was (with a delay if necessary)

if i was the kind of person that relied on the grid menu to select an emoji with my mouse this wouldn't be a great solution, but for my workflow it works perfectly. i find myself using it completely instinctually, which is a great sign, i think. anyway, the source code is here (check openemojipicker first)

alba: a wildlife tale

i checked alba out this month and was so unbelievably pleasantly surprised. from the outside this game looks a bit barren of meaningful experiences, classic cosy game fare, but the actual experience is extremely delightful. you wander around a small island collecting photos of animals and restoring the wetland and wilds back to their original state. your character moves slow, but i remember realising that it wasn't bothering me in the slightest because it meshes perfectly with a gameplay loop focused on hunting for birds and terrestrial critters. the story is simple but feels heartfelt in a saturday morning cartoons kinda way, and gives you an overarching goal to return to after semi-aimlessly wandering through a forest of across a beach for ten minutes. the design of the characters is super smart, with the plastered looking faces both looking kinda funny and extremely endearing, and the game manages to use them, as well some very clever game design decisions, to serve a couple of legitimately effective touching moments. my only complaint is that the price is probably a little steep to justify a 3-4 hour game, but i would easily recommend grabbing it the next time it comes on sale. this is up there with a short hike in the "games that might have cured my depression" box

emma in the moment

i've been watching a crapload of this this month. turns out that craft drama is huge and extremely entertaining, no doubt in part due to emma's amazing screen presence. this has actually got me kind of interested in making my own knitted garms - maybe i can toss my shitty uniqlo sweaters

whats the deal with all the marble busts?

whenever i want to dig into a new area of art, my first port of call is usually to find like thirty youtube videos, watch a bit of all of them and then dive into the one that grabs me. i've been wanting to get better at digital painting for ages, and this video was the one that stuck (sorry for no embeds, the youtuber doesn't allow them for some reason). for some reason this technique just clicked and has allowed me to make some stuff that i've been very satisfied with, which i'm sure we can agree is extremely important for motivating you further. hopefully it'll do the same for you!

short comics!!!

i have been LOVING pautipeep's latest comic series. the characters, the artstyle and the story are all super gripping for me and i am constantly waiting with bated breath to see what'll happen next