Dutiful cleaning of my computer and phone

I'm using my good ol' desktop computer right now. I haven't touched it in months, mostly because I haven't been playing computer games and because it's getting really sluggish. Sluggish yet still going strong. I've had this beast since mid-2009 and aside from the yearly cleaning and some software tinkering, I've never updated any of the components. When I have a bit of extra cash, I might soup it up a little bit, but there are more important priorities in my life right now.

Right now, I'm busy uninstalling a bunch of software (again, mostly games) to try and free up some space and hopefully speed it up a little bit. One thing I'm noticing while I'm doing this is that it feels good to have a program clear up space on a computer. It's almost akin to vacuuming a dusty room and although I'm not going to be able to breathe better, I feel as if I'm liberating some space, somewhere.

I'm also taking this time spent on the computer to clean up my phone's music folder. There's a bunch of music I don't anticipate listening to any time in the near future. Getting rid of some Eminem - that shit's angry. Getting rid of some pop-electro stuff, like Far East Movement. Too much autotune. And I think I'm going to remove some of the heavier metal stuff, too. It's just not light enough for the summer.

I think I'll add some Beatles. There's a lot of joy in their music. Some Sting & The Police, because he does yoga. And let's see what kind of good dance music I can find... well, there's this song from Skins, the British version. It's pretty catchy, and not too well known, so that kind of makes me feel cool. Wait, nevermind, over one million views on one of the videos! I am so off. Regardless, it's kind of dancey.

And now I've extended past the amount of time I wanted to spend on the computer so it's time to sign off.

Wasting time on Netflix?

The ease of opening a new blog post and writing words appeals to me. It's easy to open that new tab and start typing away. It's slightly less easy to go fetch my journal and a pen and then start writing.
I blur the line between what should go in a personal journal and what should go in a personal blog. I blur it, but I don't erase it.

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Netflix. It's everywhere. And it's dangerous. Well okay, no, not dangerous... More like tempting, charming, captivating, engrossing. You get the picture. It's very tempting to watch multiple episodes of a TV show in a row. Especially when you have to exert a greater effort to STOP watching than to continue, thanks to the 15-second countdown timer that automatically starts the next episode for you.

Case in point: two days ago, I was on season 1 of a British sitcom called The IT Crowd, which is a show that kind of reminds me of The Office minus the mockumentary style and with fewer characters. Today, I'm in the middle of season 4. I'm not setting any records or anything (especially since each season only has six episodes), but it's still a little scary to see how much time I've spent glued to the screen in such short a time-span.

It's entertainment, and it's pretty good. Enough to make me laugh out loud at least once per episode, and that's a good thing. If I'm just laughing on the inside, I'm probably not producing endorphins and I want those. Diverting attention from a somewhat monotonous life is also a goal. So it's not like I'm completely wasting my time.

Other recent TV Netflix binges: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (7/10), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (5/10), and a documentary called Web Junkie (7.5/10).

If you're interested in how Netflix can be both good and bad for you, this article sums it up pretty well.

That's it for today!

Kaleidoughscope #2

Some free writing on a hot spring day

Hey it's Friday! Hey I'm feeling ambivalent about this long weekend. I have something planned on Monday, and that something is a nature expedition. Into the wild. It's not actually that wild because it's in the middle of the city but my guidebook with a personalized note in it says that it will take me two hours and fifty minutes to complete the circuit. I'm going with a friend and I wanna invite this third person but I've never hung out with her aside from her official duties and it's a little scary to send an invitation to someone because they might say no and then you feel rejected.

Scary scary things. I'm not scared, I felt like this on my way home. I'm not scared, I felt like this on my way home. Inspired by music and music is playing while I write on my blog which I used to do all the time, like that one time I was listening to Guns n' Roses and I ended up quoting some lyrics at the end of my post in 2008.

I went back to try and find that post that mentions GnR but I can't seem to remember what song or what post I was talking about and it's too bad because I read online recently that it's a good thing to link back to previous posts on your blog when you mention them. It allows for better continuity or something like that.

I love November Rain. I was singing along to it while I was cooking breakfast for my sister and I this morning and at first I thought I was singing well but then my throat started to hurt the tiniest bit and I thought "if my throat hurts then I'm not using my diaphragm which means I'm not singing well".

I ran into Kate on St. Clair today. Well, not literally because she was sitting eating dinner on a patio and I was just slowly walking by on my way home after badminton and she was in a conversation with some older folk and I wasn't sure if I should interrupt or not. So I said "Hey" and she coolly said "hey", but not cool as in distant, more cool as in that cool way of being nonchalant. And she asked if I was still at UofT and I hesitated because I don't really know.

Whoa! It's pretty cool that when I started writing I was feeling kind of sad and lonely like that kind of loneliness you feel when you've missed your shot at going on a road trip with your best friends and now I don't feel nearly as bad because I've written a kaleidoughscope of writings. That's what a KoW is. A kaleidoughscope of writings, or little fragments here and there of what's going on in my head.

I'm feeling more unsure about how the kaleidoughscope fits since I don't eat dough at all anymore. Not even cookie dough ice cream. Because that stuff is not good for my brain. Like, did you know that for gluten sensitive people like me, gluten stops blood flow to the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex? You can scroll to just below the picture with the frowning toast for that citation if you'd like.

It's getting late and I am tired. I'm listening to Lights again, but mostly her earlier songs because I find they're more positive and less sexual than the later stuff. Okay, maybe her later stuff isn't sexual at all and I'm just imagining things and yet... the cover art on Siberia has a bit more cleavage than I'd like but who am I to judge. Regardless, I'm listening to this one song called Face Up and it's the last song I'll listen to tonight. It starts 46 seconds or so if you want to skip her intro but she talks about her cat a bit before and I like cats so I start it at the beginning.

Goodnight.

Extra-special

Pen on paper; inverted

A list of things I've witnessed recently

I don't write enough lists. They make a lot of things simpler - things like recipes, invoices, and yes, even blog posts. Too many of them is probably not that great a thing though. Can you imagine your life being filled with a series of checklists? A list of checklists, turning into a list of lists of checklists ad nauseam. It's actually pretty scary to think about, because if you fill out the lists you eventually turn into a robot. But there's something to be said about having just the right amount of lists in your life, so here's one I want to share.

A list of things I've seen in the past couple weeks or so:

• A car followed by a small truck zooming past me on the segregated streetcar-only tracks on St. Clair. The truck driver quickly realized his mistake and practically jumped off the tracks back onto the road. The car just kept going, at least till the next intersection
• 2 dead rats in the backyard. Suspected killer: Winnie the fat orange cat
• White petals blowing off from the cherry tree and coating the ground
• A badminton birdie twisting on the top of a net and barely making it over to the other side of the court
• Hundreds of little purple flowers dispersed on a hill in High Park
• Two wood ducks, one male and one female, surrounded by four male mallard ducks who were quacking at the lone female in Grenadier Pond
• The Weeknd catch fire on Youtube
• A sketch painting in the subway of a middle-aged Asian woman looking at her phone with headphones on
• A woman in her late twenties nonchalantly twirling her black hair while speaking about her sister-in-law to a male friend on the bus
• A plastic box containing a couple dozen homemade ginger snap cookies
• A full moon partially obscured by clouds in the late night sky

Paraphase over

I think my Paramore phase is finally over. Actually, it's probably been over for a while now, as I haven't been listening to them much. Not at all during the winter (or not much other music for that matter).

The official realization came today while cooking myself breakfast. I had decided to plop in their self-titled CD in the music player and I found myself skipping to the next track halfway through a song. And during some favourites like "Ain't it Fun" and "Part 2" - songs that I was sure I would love forever -, I realized that although the guitar riffs and drum solos were pretty great, the lyrics were making me feel isolated, sad, and even angry at times.

I don't like feeling depressed. Nor do I like feeling angry. And I've written enough about loneliness to know that anything that contributes to that loneliness is not something that I want in my life. So it's time to move on to music that makes me feel happy, and there's plenty of that out there.

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Oh, looks like I'll be going to a Blink-182 concert this summer! Maybe not the happiest music in the world, but I'll be going with good people so that's pretty great.