• I feel like I am still trying to figure out who I am. I feel like I can get along with anybody, but in order to do so, I have to contort myself into the shape I think is most acceptable to the other person. There aren't very many places where I feel like I don't need to contort. The internet promises to be that place, but now that the internet effectively has an infinite memory, I feel like any minor mistake I make will haunt me forever, which has a depressingly chilling effect on me.

• My brand for the past few years was "neurotic, scared nerd." My brand going forward is "kind, confident, and fair nerd."

• I wore my Windows 95 ugly sweater through the skyway and six different people told me how much they loved it. I think a big part of my purpose in life is to find ways to spread joy, even if it's by doing something as dumb as wearing the most bad ass Christmas sweater ever.

• I got my son to try eating pizza. This is huge; he does not like pizza and refuses to even try. This is completely my fault, I've been horrible at encouraging my kids to be brave and adventurous with trying new foods. I, admittedly, am not exactly adventurous in that department either. My son told me he needed strength to be brave to try it, so I helped him bring all of his stuffed animals and cars downstairs into the kitchen, and we blased Sara Bareilles's Brave over the HomePod. And guess what? He put a piece of pizza in his mouth and kept it in there for a few seconds! Later that night, to much less fanfare, I bravely tried an Airhead. I didn't like it, but I tried it. It's cool to face scary situations together, even if that fear comes in various forms of high fructose corn syrup.

• I have this idea to build a mini website which functions as my music library. I have a very specific vibe for a design (bad ass 70s-looking lounge area but with 2025 technology). There would be this record table console with records mounted on the wall such that you could see their faces¹, and flanked on either side are the spines of records with the names of the albums on there. Clicking on a record would put it in the record player (maybe having it display some streaming widget dingus in view) along with why I like this record (interesting stories I learned about the production of the record, meaningful memories associated with it, vibes I get from it, recommended similar albums, etm.)

• There's a fun AI project that I'm working on right now, but I am finding it so difficult to drum up the motivation to work on it. You know why? Because getting computers to do anything useful is so, so, so painful.

• I watched this video called Why creating is crucial to human existence and it highlights the fact that what we do everyday is who we are. So in that spirit, I started a 100 day sit up challenge this month, because I wanna be the kind of guy who does stuff like that. I'm only a month into this challenge and I'm already able to knock out 100 sit ups without stopping in a little under 3 minutes.

• The formula for discipline is (1) Create rules and standards for yourself; (2) Never break these promises to yourself; (3) Keep these promises at all costs (so start small!); (4) Build up slowly to a disciplined lifestyle; (5) Be on guard for at least a year.

• For years now, I've had this recurring nightmare where I am being ushered out on stage in front of a huge crowd for a theatrical performance. I do not know the lines or the blocking or the choreography, and I feel this massive wave of embarassment and shame. This past month, I went to see a musical at my wife’s school, and I was unexpectedly asked to go on stage as a character. I had exactly zero idea what the show was, nor did I know the lines or blocking or choreography.² Sometimes, life literally presents an opportunity to directly face your nightmares head on, and that rules.³

• Direct passage from my journal from a year ago: "It's hard to write publicly about the things I am suffering with because it always seems like I look back on it in a couple of years and realize how silly it was to be stressed out about it."

• I tend to avoid the trance style of EDM. It amplifies my anxiety because of how logical it is; I find myself hyperfocused on the technical aspects of the music, completely ignoring how it makes me feel.

• The first big snowfall of the year rules when you have kids. The road coming back from the small sledding hill in our neighborhood was still covered in ice and snow, so I put the kids in their sleds and pulled them behind me. It was hard. My heart was pounding. My legs kept slipping on the slick road. But it was easy to continue, because I kept thinking: "why do you work out, if not for this?"

• Running is more meaningful to me lately. I've been using it more as a meditative period in my day, a moment to disconnect from technology and notice as much as I can in my neighborhood.⁴ Ten years ago, I would've been mortified if I didn't push my hardest every single time. Now, I will often stop in the middle of a run and stare at the fog traveling across the pond, or watch the color of the sky subtly change as the sun comes up.

• “Finns det hjärterum, så finns det stjärterum” is Swedish for "If there’s heart room, there’s butt room."

• I love learning new slang. This month, I learned two new phrases: sksksksk and ijbol.

• Christmas Eve felt particularly bittersweet for me this year. It feels like my parents are getting closer to downsizing their home, so I tried my hardest to soak up the ambiance. And when you're in a "soak up this moment" mindset, it seems like there's never enough time to do it.

• "It's time to stop researching and start living."

• Before the sermon on Christmas Eve, my pastor said his words don't matter. What matters is what you hear. Sometimes, the thing you take away from a story is not what the artist intended, but that is okay.

• The most nutritional part of a potato is its peel. Apple peels are also nutritionally important. Nothing of note is lost in a carrot peel.

Movies I watched:

Knocked Up (2007)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. I got 30% of the way through it and decided “I’m good here.” It's okay for your tastes to change as you do.
• Will I watch it again? Nah.

Enough Said (2013)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. I heard Julia Louis-Dreyfus say on a podcast that she loved working with James Gandolfini, and it was cute to watch them interact on the big screen.
• Will I watch it again? Nah. I didn't even finish it.

Yes Man (2008)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. I remember watching it in college and thinking it was a nice sentiment. It definitely hits harder at 37.
• Will I watch it again? Nah. Wait, am I supposed to say "yes"?

That Christmas (2024)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. It was a cute movie, the kids loved it. It's nice to see some traditional ideas playing out in our modern time.
• Will I watch it again? Yeah, I'd watch this again next year.

Mallrats (1995)

• Glad I watched it? Meh. It was cool to see Eden Prairie Center in the 90s, but if I'm being honest, I've never "got" most of Kevin Smith's movies. I thought maybe I would now that I'm in my late 30s, but I think it's that I'm not a Gen-Xer.
• Will I watch it again? Nah.

Youth in Revolt (2009)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. I'm a little embarassed to admit that I identify with Michael Cera in most of the movies that he is in. I like how he created a character to embody when he wants to feel confident.
• Will I watch it again? Nah.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. I don't think I've ever watched the whole thing from start to end.
• Will I watch it again? Begrudgingly, I'm sure I will. This wasn't my favorite claymation Christmas movie.

Dear Santa (2024)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah, this movie ruled. The kid actors were quite talented, and obviously Jack Black killed it.
• Will I watch it again? Absolutely.

Arthur Christmas (2011)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. I snuggled and watched it with my kid on Christmas Day. It's an adorable Christmas movie.
• Will I watch it again? Absolutely.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

• Glad I watched it? Yeah. I forget how much slapstick is in that movie.
• Will I watch it again? Probably? I feel like that movie is slightly before my time, and because it wasn't on repeat at my house growing up, I don't have the same nostalgic feelings I get from other Christmas movies like Home Alone or Muppet Christmas Carol.

Home Alone (1990)

• Glad I watched it? Obviously.
• Will I watch it again? Obviously.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

• Glad I watched it? Yes. It made me want to watch Muppet Treasure Island again, too.
• Will I watch it again? Obviously.

I’ve said this throughout this entire experience: Frostapalooza is simultaneously the most and least selfish thing I’ve ever done. On one hand, I threw myself a ridiculously grandiose birthday party and demanded to command the spotlight. Total Ego Fest.

On the other hand, I know for a fact that my ego was not what was driving this. Not in the slightest. I’ve seen so many people struggling and suffering, constantly contending with anxiety, guilt, dread, stress, and overwhelm. I feel an urgent mission to emind them of the wonder, joy, fun, love, and transcendence we’re capable of experiencing in our finite time on earth. I want to help people (re)discover their potential as human beings. I want to connect people and lift them up. I want people to feel the boundless love and positive energy that is always there even though it’s often elusive in our day-to-day lives. I want to do creative things and help people.

Say, that sounds like some pretty good meaning-of-life shit.

As the heading for this section goes: “greetings from the top of Maslow’s pyramid.”

My 40th birthday is in three years, and I’ve also considered doing something epic to celebrate. A big party was what I had in mind, but getting all my musically-inclined friends together to have an epic concert together so much more fulfilling.

I’ve come to trust my instincts. When I see something interesting, I can simply observe, appreciate, and move forward. If something I’ve encountered holds value, it should resurface naturally in the most fitting form when the time is right.

I’ve been approaching my media libraries like this. If an album doesn’t interest me now, then why continue to hold up space with it? It should surface organically when the time is right.

It’s why some of my new favorite albums of the past year speak to what I experienced in the past couple years (grieving the past, discovering myself, reckoning with my decisions, simply being, etm.).

I've been wanting to make a blog post that I keep updated with what albums I'm currently bumping, and then I saw this website get linked the other day and figured it would actually force me to do this.

For now, head over to Album Whale if you wanna see what albums I'd recommend you check out. Many of these are from 2024, so go ahead and call it my "best of" list even if it includes Dookie and Nevermind lmao

If I walked into the Dakota Jazz Club and heard this, I’m not sure how I’d be able to go about living the next day.

System of a Down holds a very special place in my heart.

I was in seventh grade when Toxicity was released. I remember sitting in church on Good Friday a few months later and hearing the story of Jesus' execution on the cross. When my pastor, who was reading from the scriptures, got to the part where he shouts, "Father, why have you forsaken me?", my sister and I looked at each other and shared a knowing realization: "oh man, that's from the bible?"

I've been drawn to System mostly because of the instrumentals. Lyrics have not traditionally captured my attention when listening to music.

It took me a few years to discover that all the members of the band were Armenian-Americans. Until reading this book, I didn't give Armenia much thought. The last time I recall giving much consideration to the Middle East in general was in tenth grade world history class. I couldn't have picked out Armenia on a map if you had asked me.

Serj Tankian (the lead singer of System) recently released his memoir, and the title adeptly appends "of sorts" to that noun.

Yes, there are plenty of great stories in this book about Serj's experience with System of a Down, but I'd argue more than 25% of the book serves as a history lesson about Armenia for ignorant Westerners like me.

Even though I'm not much of a lyrics guy, it's hard to miss the humanitarian messages when they're shouted at you by Serj.

Like in "P.L.U.C.K.", from their debut self-titled album¹:

Revolution, the only solution,
The armed response of an entire nation,
Revolution, the only solution,
We've taken all your shit, now it's time for restitution.

Or "Cigaro" from Mezmerize²:

We're the regulators that de-regulate
We're the animators that de-animate
We're the propagators of all genocide
Burning through the world's resources
Then we turn and hide

Reading this book made so many of these songs come to life in a new way for me, especially reading of the horrible atrocities committed by the Turkish government. Serj really opens up about some deep, painful generational trauma that explains his drive for justice.

I also loved his reflection on what System means to him today. The closing chapter of the book talks about the 2023 Sad, Sick World show in Las Vegas. He went into the show feeling like System was nothing more than a cover band at this point, but came out of it feeling joy.³ I sure hope I can see them perform live one day.

If you're a System fan like me, I could not recommend this book any more highly. If it weren't for the fact that it's currently 6:15am, I would be blasting them in my house right now.

I’m sure most people are aware of how expensive it is to go out and see shows, but I’m not sure if most people are aware of why.

This video does a great job of explaining how the Ticketmaster + Livenation monopoly works.

We’re quickly approaching election season here in the US. Growing up, the importance of an informed electorate was driven into my brain.

This is the kind of stuff more voters need to be aware of. How do monopolies form? What market conditions lead to consolidation of power, and how do we hold those in power accountable?

So we’re not the frickin’ Foo Fighters here, yeah? We’re not goddamn Kings of Leon here either, packing stadiums, sharing their songs of perilous lust with thousands of people all hopped up on Corona Extra, making goddamn bank to support their beard oil side hustles, right? We’re just five 30-something Minneapolitan schlubs trying to play a little rock ‘n’ roll across the United States of America, mostly ‘cause we’re getting a little bored of playing the Eagles Club every month, OK?

Touring, for bands of our stature, is more like an existential vacation that’s intended to make memories and build connections while serving as a psychological endurance experiment, one that tests the limits of our social and moral boundaries. And hey, if we make a little cheddar along the way, peddling our new record and slingin’ our T-shirts? If that subsidizes the gas and keeps the light blue American Spirits puffin’, then that’s a big ol’ Al Pacino “HOO-AH!” for us.

I have nothing but respect for musicians who hit the road, especially when they aren’t “the frickin’ Foo Fighters.”

I enjoyed this piece about a band I’ve never heard of, but certainly will give their album a stream later today.

Long time readers of this blog may recall that I've been psyching myself up enough to try switching to the Light Phone.

I’m legit embarrassed to admit just how much I’m addicted to my iPhone.

It happened slowly over the course of the last 15 years. Today, I find myself frequently incapable of putting it down, even when it’s actively making me feel terrible.

The biggest expense of always being virtually connected is never feeling connected to the physical moment happening in front of me.

That wasn’t so much of a problem to me when I was sitting in front of my Compaq desktop in the basement of my parent’s house.

Back in those days, I used to hate being away from my computer. The very first thing I’d do when returning from a family vacation was to jump on the computer and catch up on a week of message board posts.

Here in 2024, though, I don’t subject myself to that experience.

The other day, I was playing a Lego game with my son and while he was explaining an aspect of the game to me, I pulled out my phone and went to turn on music. Mid sentence, he stops and says, “Dad, can you put your phone away? It’s distracting me.”

Oof. That’s not how I want my son to remember me.

I’ve tried all the techniques people say can help limit screen time. Grayscale the screen. Delete apps. Block toxic websites. But because none of those tricks are actually working, it’s time to take more drastic measures.

My plan is to move my phone number onto the Light Phone for a month. Just a month.

I'm going to do this during the month of August. That will give me a couple weeks to prepare for it. I am honestly worried about what I’ll be giving up, and so I'm doing what I can to brace myself for that impact.

I’m mostly excited, really. After more than a decade in the comfortable, walled garden of the Apple ecosystem, I think it will be nice to experiment with new tech tools again.

The Light Phone is designed to be as boring and practical as possible. It can make phone calls, send texts, and give driving directions, among a few other things.

But there are certainly some activities that the Light Phone won’t do very well which I am unwilling to give up. So here are those activities, along with how I'm thinking I'll deal with those activities for the time being:

Taking notes and reminders.

A notepad with a pen. ✅

Next.

Reading.

Sometime in the last couple of decades, I stopped reading books.

I’m not exactly sure why. I used to love reading books when I was a kid. I would go to the library and read every book they had on building websites and computer programs. I’d also read every new edition of Animorphs, Goosebumps, and Harry Potter as soon as my library stocked it.

But beginning in high school, I stopped reading books for fun. Reading felt like a burden, something you were assigned as punishment. I resented reading so much, in fact, that I used to pride myself on not buying books for class in college and finding a way through without them.¹

If I read books these days, I almost only read non-fiction, which is fine… but I miss reading for fun.

Earlier this year, I helped my wife proctor some tests at her school. I wasn’t allowed to be on the internet, so I brought a book along that a friend recommended called What You Are Looking For Is In The Library. I burned through it in a day, and it got me interested in reading fiction once again.

I think I wanna try getting into a fiction series. The last series I read was the Left Behind books in high school, so uh, yeah… I’m a bit out of the loop with what’s good out there.

If anyone has recommendations, let me know!

Taking pictures.

I used to be really into cameras when I was really into making clips². When my oldest was born, we thought it made sense to buy a good SLR, so we picked up a Canon Rebel T6i.

I do still grab it out of storage and bring it along to the occasional soccer game or choir performance, and the shots feel better to me than the ones I get with my iPhone. It helps that I have a decent assortment of lenses, but I think it also speaks to the joy you get from using a tool that was intentionally built to complete a task.

Of course, I can’t realistically carry an SLR with me all the time. I need something more practical.

When I sold cameras at Best Buy³, the camera I recommended the most was the Canon SD800 IS, and it was the camera that documented some of the most fun moments of my life. It was small enough to fit in my pocket alongside my iPod.

Even though it fit, I still didn’t carry it with me every day, which makes the pictures I did take with them feel extra special when I browse through them today.

Maybe having a camera on me all the time is less necessary than I’m worried about. I mean, in a normal day for you, how many situations can you envision where you must take a picture of something and can't flag down someone to take one and send it to you?⁴

So I’m in the market for a camera that’s small like the SD800 was, but perhaps more professional. I remember seeing someone mention the Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III and I thought the silver one looked kinda dope.

It makes me happy to see Canon keeping these devices up to date. The G7 X can shoot 4k video, and it’s got WiFi and USB-C so it’ll be easy to get media off of it. Most importantly, its size means it can stay in the drawer by the door and leap into service at a moment's notice.

But anyway, what about y’all? Anyone else use something besides their phone to take a picture or a video?

Listening to music.

The whole reason I wanted to make this post is because I wanted to brag about my restoration project with my old fifth generation iPod.

But because of course this is what happens when I brag, I’ve been stuck for a few days trying to debug a hardware failure that is proving exceptionally frustrating to resolve. Chef’s kiss.

So instead of bragging about that, I’ll instead confess that I’m one of those sickos who maintains their own library of MP3s.

I’ve always looked at streaming services with squinty eyes. Maybe it’s because I’m still mad at what they did to our beloved Napster. Maybe it’s because I think it’s important to not give complete control of my cultural history to massive corporations⁵. Maybe it’s because buying an MP3 version of an album from an artist will give them vastly more money than my combined streams would ever account for. Maybe it’s because I am an aging boomer.

Either way, transitioning away from Apple Music will not be too excruciating for me. I’ll still use it because I have HomePods all over my house, but when I’m not home, I want need a way to bring my music with me.

The Light Phone does have some storage and an MP3 player option, but because of the intentional design, you’re limited to a single playlist and 1gb of tunes. That doesn’t work for me, brother.

I’ll keep y’all posted with my progress on the restoration process. I want to get Rockbox installed on it so I can experience what the home brew community is doing with this old hardware.

In the meantime, if anyone knows how to address issues with an iFlash Solo syncing with an M1 Mac mini, holler at your boy.

I’d like to take this opportunity to express how pathetic I feel that I need to take these extreme steps to reclaim some part of me that I feel like I’ve lost ever since going whole ham on the mobile revolution.

I talk at length about the joy that comes with technology, but I should also recognize the negative impact that tech can make.

We went through an era of unfettered growth from Silicon Valley-powered firms who had nearly no supervision and did everything they could to exploit our political and economic systems for their own gain.

And to be clear, their growth did bestow some incredible tools onto us.

But as much as our society derides subgroups like the Luddites and the Amish for their apparent aversion to technology, there is clearly some merit to how they approach technology. You should adopt technology because it’ll help you, not because everyone else is using it.

Every night around 10:30pm, I find myself lying in bed, entering the casino that is my iPhone. Every app is a different section of the game room floor.

My email app is a slot machine, where I hope I’ll hit the big bucks and get an email saying “yay you’re hired!”, but the odds are better that I’ll see an email saying “lol you owe me money still.”

LinkedIn and Reddit are craps tables, where I sometimes roll an 11 and see a post from a friend who had a successful day at work or a post on /r/AskHistorians that teaches me something interesting (like Did President Andrew Garfield ever eat lasagna?). But more often than not, I roll snake eyes and see something which makes me feel like a failure or living in a dumpster fire of a society.

Even my beloved RSS reader app, filled with feeds that I explicitly opted into, can feel like a game of blackjack. Yeah, I often walk away with at least some money, but I still sometimes leave the table feeling unsure why I’m passionate about anything anymore.

I let this happen to myself. And every time I pull my phone out of my pocket during a family dinner, I rob myself of what makes life worth living in the first place.

Like our Silicon Valley overlords like to say, you can’t stop the march of progress. Technology is rapidly improving, and major advances in our collective understanding of the universe are unveiled at an overwhelming pace.

There’s gotta be a way where we can harness the good parts of technology without entirely succumbing to all of its detriments. The first step, I suppose, is defining what I want to get out of life.

And really, it’s pretty simple:

• Play Legos with my son
• Sing karaoke with my wife
• Watch Rocko’s Modern Life with my daughter
• Make music, work out, and learn new things
• Be able to visit the doctor when I’m not feeling well without going bankrupt
• Build something useful for people
• Not make other people’s existences any worse than they already are

If those are the things that are important to me, then why would I burn precious energy spending time on a device which gives me anxiety attacks on a daily basis?

So yeah, come August, I’m signing off from my iPhone for a bit. It’ll feel good to step out of the casino and focus on building legos, taking walks, shredding on the guitar, singing karaoke, hanging out with friends, and listening to music.

It is hard not to see this development as a true indicator that we're nearing the endpoint of robust, meaningful music criticism as a concept. The idea that music journalism has no value is one of the most pervasive thoughts circulating among the suits who control the industry. What those people continue to deprive us of is smart, varied music coverage produced by actual journalists, most of whom now find themselves being squeezed out of an industry that only rewards slavish devotion to the biggest pop stars, or a constant courting of drama, gossip, and violence that is only tangentially related to music.

If there's a better future for music journalism to come, it will perhaps spring from the re-emergence of small-batch music blogs and more localized coverage. But what we're left with now is a corporatized wasteland, and fewer publications than ever equipped to write about music with all the rigor and passion it deserves.

I’m glad Iz mentioned the optimistic part of the situation at the end.

I’m, of course, sad and frustrated by what mega corporations are doing to journalism as a whole (not just music journalism).

But what keeps my hope alive is continuing to support smaller writers who cover their beats with an infectious passion.

I don’t see a future where journalism suddenly becomes a six-figure kind of job, because capitalism is not a system where art (and nuanced, considered discussions of art) is valued enough to justify that sort of business investment.

I suppose that could be seen as bleak, but take it from someone who is currently grappling with the costs associated with doing the thing I love in exchange for a salary: it’s great for the pocket book, but damn near lethal for my soul.

And I suppose by trading my passions in for money, I can use that money to support artists who are out there making stuff that makes me happy.

On a similar note: how do y’all discover new music these days? Are there any good writers or blogs I should be following?