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Date: January 18th, 2020

Time of Writing: 7:54 PM.

Weather: Cold, from the draft I felt when I helped my Dad bring in the groceries earlier.

Mood: Too tired to really have a mood.

Day Overview: I woke up, I played Death Stranding for seven hours, and then I sat down to write this post. Yes. That is all I did today. It's my last day of vacation, so I decided to spend it being absolutely as useless as possible. I haven't even gotten around to packing for my return journey tomorrow yet. Oh well.

On My Mind: My winter break this year was longer and more eventful than any I've had before (certainly more so than two years ago, when I didn't leave the house for a whole week because I was no-lifing Danganronpa) but it still feels like I didn't do enough, in some ways. It still feels like I was idle, even though every other day or so I was leaving the house. I saw friends I haven't seen in months, I started this website, I went to a couple of concerts, and I went on a few adventures, generally speaking, but it still doesn't feel like enough. I guess there's technically a few more hours left in it, plus Monday is a holiday, though I'll be back at my university on that day, so it's not quite done yet, but I'm through the main portion of it. When I try to think about what I'd rather have done, or what I didn't really get the chance to do, it's hard for me to come up with much. There was that one time where I full on slept through a time I was supposed to be spending with my friends, that's the one concrete thing I wish I had done differently. There are a couple people I wish I spent more time with but there wasn't anything I could do to make their schedule magically become empty or anything like that. Overall I enjoyed myself, but I wonder if enjoying myself is the point. I don't feel fulfilled, and that's a thought that's going to stick with me into this next semester at university. Speaking of, I am still woefully underprepared, but I'll wait for things to start happening that I am actually underprepared for before I start whining.

Consumed:

• Population by Brandon Maclean (recommended by Brackie): Figuring out which version of this EP to listen to was a bit of a struggle. There's different tracklists on Bandcamp, on the Rateyourmusic page, and on Soundcloud. I went with the Bandcamp because it was the easiest one and it's one in the morning. Flip flops between sarcastic pop about relationships and more introspective and quiet but still pop driven songs. I liked the latter more, predictably. My favorite songs were the ones produced by Richard Belkner, and if this was on Spotify and I could take a song and drop it in my one-song-from-every-album-I've-heard-this-month playlist, I'd pick Fox Dance. The winds on there are nice. Otherwise I felt like this was trying too hard most of the time, and I feel like if I listened to the first half of the EP too much I'd grow to hate it eventually. 5/10.
• Ur Fun by of Montreal: I don't know if it's my current mood talking right now but this album feels pretty insufferable right now. These lyrics are gross coming out of the mouth of a guy as old as my Dad. This brand of glitzy pop feels fake, artificial, forced, disingenuous. I generally like of Montreal, even the albums that most people don't like that much, but this one just feels like it's treading the same ground as the last one. It doesn't go TOO far, like it would if it was trying to make some kind of satire about the topics of social media and love in a digital age and whatever and openness about all sorts of things and I don't even know what the fuck it's trying to say, it's just rambling with annoying synths tacked on top of it. all these topics it tries to talk about but it just sounds like reading down a list. I'm not in the right state of mind for this, and I don't think I could be. I don't really want to listen to any of these songs ever again, honestly. But I'd rather hear it than a lot of other shit out there. That shouldn't really be the standard to which I judge things but it applies here. I'm calling this one way too early but I don't care, it's also a 5/10.
• Good Luck Everybody by AJJ: Now this is more like it. A great album for our current political moment, a lot more varied sonically than I was anticipating since the only AJJ album I've heard is the one everybody has heard from back in their folk punk days. I like how much this album branches out a lot. It's also a lot more defeated than the last one, which was more angry. I understand that too. It sucks to hear this band lose a bit of hope, but the fact that they've put the rest of their hope in a Mega Guillotine 2020 is very reassuring and relatable. Some of the lyrics are a little cringe-inducing and too on the nose, but the vast majority are witty and good commentary. I'm going to replaying this one a lot as the election goes on and necessarily gets worse and worse and more shitty and - I've made it a bit of a point to not get too political on this blog, because I don't really want to allienate any of my readers, and I've internally shot down adding an In The News section, where I comment on recent happenings, even though the absolute shitstorm that was the start of the year made me feel like one was absolutely necessary. I might add it in the future. This album has convinced me that such a record might be necessary. This can be more than just a record of my thoughts, it can be a time capsule of what it was like to live through this decade, these Double Downward Twenties, - but I get ahead of myself. This album is a 9/10, the first of the year, I'm pulling the trigger, yup, go listen to it.

Produced: Got some late night writing done, didn't get anything else out of my system on account of sinking way too much time into Death Stranding but oh well. I should have been packing so I wouldn't have had time to make stuff happen anyways. I anticipate making a playlist for the drive tomorrow as well, and yes, that totally counts.

Other Thoughts: If the last few days of ennui on the blog have bored you, then don't worry, things are likely to pick up big time from here on out as I introduce my university and all the weird and wonderful characters I hang out with over there. Thank you for reading, especially through this long period of downtime!