ive been having a hard time thinking of how i would be able to recap this month and come across as anything short of repulsive since nearly day left me feeling absolutely self-satisfied and completely content. trust me, i know no one likes to see you winning son: my entire entertainment diet has shifted towards watching people's lives fall apart in 4k. I am romulus and remus suckling at the teat of youtuber downfall commentary videos.

rather than have me gushing about how the world wraps around me like a blanket, i'll just show you some stuff i have pictures of that apply to the past month, and sprinkle in some silly shit i came across.

(Hover to reveal, click to enlarge)

biggest surprise of the year thus far was my taking to this book. FULL REACTION HERE (I've also gone and made areadingjournal printable for no reason as i probably wont use them.)	a great deal of whats made this month so great is coming off the back of the rad xmas presents i was given. Case in point, framing this sucker felt like an accomplishment. I elected to use chinese classified ads for karaoke bars and possible brothels ive had saved for eons.	a lot of time dedicated acting as chola's personal tailor. made her a beautiful winter coat to keep her cozy and expanded her raincoat (she fat). Both garments were made compatible with her harness so she can wear both, or all, at once.

i've also gone about sticking with some daily and weekly habits, that call back to gifts i got: jotting down daily journal entries at the end of each day in my ARTS&SCIENCE A6 hobnonichi techo; and scanning 1 roll of ancient 35mm film per week. while i havent taken proper pics in a couple years, I have dozens and dozens of uncut negatives rolled up in plastic bins i got from daiso*. a proper gallery in all its CSS glory coming soon.

*ok i realize its been an extraordinarily asian-centric month, more than the 50% i usually operate at, but like my recent embrace of internet drama culture ive fully settled in to my era of oriental excellence. so be it. Also im writing this on Chinese New Year so technically this is still coming in at the top of the new month and moon.

Year of the Trash Dragon

Ok february let’s go

Notably chinese new year fell in February this year, which meant hot pot for no less than 21 people and red envelopes. I love chinese new year because it means fortune telling from my mom, an endless amount of shabu shabu leftovers, and pineapple cakes erryday. chinese new year is really thanksgiving for asian people, you see all your fam and eat until youre almost dead. love it.

Second major event, i got banned from etsy, making this the second or third platform ive been excommunicated from (See: the great yeetening), which is super annoying and fucked up, made more maddening by the fact that they kept the money from my last sale, and a wound that continues to sting as i keep forgetting and coming up with new ideas for products i cannot post. For now I will be looking for other e-commerce platforms, but my hopes are low since I cant really think of any others that have that built in audience/discoverability through the search feature, and i really dont want to put in the effort of marketing, at least not right now. I think I’ll add a comment box to this post if you have any suggestions for selling platforms please lmk. FUCKIN BOO.

Beyond that shit with etsy, things have been pretty great. Ive been thinking about neocities a lot since i decided to make a video about some of my favorite sites. That should be done sometime in march and of course I’ll link it here. This month I read CURSES, an anthology by George Wylesol. I happened upon it at a comic book shop I discovered in January, and was determined to purchase it when I had a decent paycheck. It did NOT disappoint.

Here's my little post-it review i stuck in my planner. Similar to CURSES, im equally motivated to get →Internet Crusader←, a previous title of his that is absolutely oozing with web1.0 goodness. I guess im on a graphic novel kick, since I also spent my reading time trading off between Curses and the manga adaptation of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness from Gao Tanabe. I've always wanted to read Lovecraft, since there's so many great movies inspired by his work, but every time I've tried, I really couldnt get into the swing of things. This manga has been the perfect solution, re-pacing the story through exceptionally illustrated panels, while being a faithful and accurate re-telling, using typeface to indicate when the original text is quoted. The style is very un-manga and reminds me of a classic works paperback comic collection I had as a kid. The story I'm reading now is a two-parter and on top of that dude's supposed to have redone two other works from Lovecraft. If you too have struggled with Lovecraft, but are similarly interested, I highly suggest u give these manga a try, I found mine at B&N.

Ok, i guess that's it for now, I also got a sweet new work gig, but technically that happened in the beginning of march. I keep forgetting I can post updates about my life here that don't have to be framed within these monthly update things, but.. whatever. ttyl.

PS. There's a shitton of new fonts added to

mama's got a new job boys! on top of the other shit i was already doing, i am now training ai models. yes, ive joined the darkside. i was gonna start going off about how im probably the only person you know that is emotionally indifferent to ai, but remembered where I am. i figure half of yall aren't going to care about what im doing to put hello-kitty toasted bread on the table, and the other half aren't even going to read this sentence. which leaves the margin-of-error outliers that might actually be curious. so to save myself from the effort of typing it all out, i have found an article that kind of explains what it is im doing.

This is an interview with the lead researchers over at Anthropic, makers of ChatGPT's only competition (as far as I'm concerned). Hover down to the third question, just below the illustration, for a sense of the kind of work I'm doing, why it pays so well, and a cheap shot at Amazon's MTurk. Oh yeah, the pay is great. It's gig work by definition, in that I can pick it up whenever I want, but unlike gig work in that I am paid well, consistently, and actually adds enjoyment to my day.

Another thing that has brought joy this month is the album Angel Eyes from Stephen Sanchez. It's been a hundred years since a) I found new music I felt compelled to make other people listen to and b) found an album and artist through a song that was playing on the radio. And its a concept album no less! The story is so Scorcese: "Taking place between 1958 and 1964, the concept album chronicles a love story between a famous crooner (The Troubadour Sanchez) and Evangeline, the girlfriend of a mob boss who owns the club where Sanchez performs."

Stephen Sanchez - Evangeline

Listen to this and tell me the ghost of Harry Nilsson isn't living in this man's throat. usually you gotta be an uggo to sing this good, which adds a whole nother layer of rarity since he registers as attractive in my eyes, which rarely favor celebreties and their kind. read: I dont find many famous people men to be attractive.

Link to live visual album
(slightly out of order, and not complete)

In all March was a great month despite me spending 55% of it in utter dread as my birthday approached. It was a big one and i denied any kind of celebration, thinking I was going to be an emotional baby. Most days leading up to it, it felt like i could hear crashing waves emotion ready to pull me under. but the day came and passed just fine. it was fun even. I had japanese wagyu for the first time in a 30s inspired steak house with a picture of ODB in the staircase. I also had american wagyu for the first time (it was kind of a steak flight, with dry-aged and wet-aged cuts too), and shit was beyond compare. it was like a krispy kreme donut facing off with one from 711. ok so within compare.

Gifts I received included a pen nib I had been oggling over since it was first presented on JetPens, a household favorite supplier of Japanese stationery. I have watched their videos radicalize several people in to becoming pen collectors, so approach their youtube channel with caution. I also FINALLY got the three hour version of the cinematic masterpiece Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which I still haven't watched since.. turns out I dont have a blu-ray player.