I’m staring at my blog right now. You ever do that? Look at something you created and just stare at it in wonder? I often times will look at my blog or my YouTube page and think: “I made that!” It’s a good feeling, but not one you really remember until you’ve created something. It floats out of your consciousness, replaced by the lazy monkey in your brain that I talked about before.

It’s not like I don’t care about what goes on in the world. I do. But I don’t care about your opinion. It’s not personal, it goes for both sides of the political aisle. I think both sides are full of zealots who would watch the world burn if only they could be proven right. And the thing is, if you’re one of those on the far right or the far left, and you can bring yourself to be honest about it, you know I’m right.

I waste a lot of time on YouTube. I’m not proud of it, but I figure as long as I get my stuff done, I’m okay. I watch some very odd things on the ‘Tube, but lately, I’ve gotten into watching people farm. I’ve never worked on a farm before, nor I have I really ever wanted to, but I’m utterly fascinated watching other people do it on YouTube. First off, I had no clue there was so much tech involved. Oh, I knew about tractors, but some of these things have more monitors than I have. The water pivots have cellular technology! My dumbass thought farming was a quaint thing that existed in the same way it did 100 years ago. Now that I think about it, I know better, but I’ve never considered all that goes into it before, not had I thought that farming too had been taken over by the tech industry.

The title really says it all. I can’t imagine a world where I don’t have a dog in my life. There’s just something about dogs that only bring joy and happiness. Not many things in the world are like that. Even the most annoying of mutts will bring a smile to my face, and that joy is priceless.

I know there are cat people out there, and I love cats too, but dogs are different. They offer companionship when you’d otherwise have none. They offer love and compassion when you need it most. When you’re sad or when you’re happy, your dog is there for you.

I admit that I do a lot more doom scrolling than a healthy person should. I enjoy other people’s drama and opinions, and there is no shortage of that on social media, and I’m a little addicted to it. I also like good things too, and that is my excuse for staying. Things like BookTok and BookTube are usually great places to find some good books (though they do seem to all get attached to the same books, so you have to be choosy on who you follow), so at least it’s not all politics and hating on other people and people who want to constantly predict the end of the world.

I haven’t always had a clear opinion on this question. Back when I worked in the real world or even further back when I was at school, laptops were really the best way to go. It’s hard to heft a desktop, monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the library on campus so you can write that paper that’s due at midnight. Obvious when you think about it.

Of course, it’s easy to choose laptop when, in my case, the Michigan State University Computer Store had “sales” on those white MacBooks almost every week. They nearly threw those things at us students, everyone had one and nobody paid more than $500 bucks, and if there was a way to get your financial aid to pay for it? Free laptop. I don’t know if MSU still does this with MacBooks, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

Maybe I just have odd ears, but I’ve never found a pair of in ear earbuds that actually fit my ears. Oh, if they have wings on them or whatever, they’ll stick in, but that seems like cheating, and those too can be very uncomfortable. The promise of earbuds is that you don’t have to have heavy, hot, and obnoxious headphones over your ears. The reality is that the convenience comes with a big downside: comfort, fit, and often, pain.

I have nearly 60GB of wallpapers on my hard drive. I feel like that’s a lot. Every time I see a cool wallpaper online or on discord, I add it to my collection. 99.9% of this so-called collection I’ve never used. I could use a new wallpaper every day for the rest of my life and still probably not get more than half way through, if that.

The thing is, I only use about 10 walls in my usual Hyprland setup, one for each color scheme. So, it’s like I’m not even trying to use the others. And yet, I still collect new ones all the time. It’s a habit at this point.

Last year when I set up my new desk, one of the things I promised myself I’d do is make sure all the cables were properly managed. Now, I’ve been watching YouTubers for years show off their setups, and all of them appear to have no cables whatsoever. So, I figured: how hard could it be?

Turns out, it’s effin hard.

I have spent loads of money on tools to make it easier. I have straps, ties, rails, racks, and more. Nothing works. The damn cables have a mind of their own, and no matter how tightly I tie them together or stick them to the underside of my desk, they will find a way to look like this: