Mandaris

Hello, good morning, good evening, good afternoon.

So this is another episode of my podcast.

It’s been a while since I posted anything.

The last time I ran into technical difficulties where the file didn’t load properly.

So it made a page, but not an actual audio file.

So sorry about that.

I’m hoping that this one works out a little bit better.

So what’s been going on?

Well, I just came back from a vacation over on the East Coast where I got to meet some of my family over there.

My father’s side of the family there on the East Coast, and I got to meet his sisters.

And I got to see the Statue of Liberty and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun.

Just getting to see different places.

I did a lot of driving though.

That was not as fun, but anytime I can just get away from a lot of things and just focus on me, that’s great.

Not just on me, but on my family and just away from work, anything from work.

Yeah, work did pop in my brain a couple times, but I didn’t do anything.

I did think about logging in and saying, hey, everybody, is everything okay?

And sure enough, when I got back, things were okay.

So catching up to work right now, it looks a little bit different, just I feel being away from it and seeing how much or how little happens when you’re gone or even when you’re there, it kind of puts it in focus, like okay, so what exactly am I doing and do I want to do this for however long?

That’s not to say I don’t like my job or I don’t like making money, because I certainly do, but seeing how I make my money, it’s a lot different.

So what’s going on on the blog?

I posted in the middle of June that I was going to kind of just wind down the, or at least stop doing as much development with my theme, Labyrinth, and I have not been really true to my words on that.

I’ve done a lot of small tweaks, just kind of winding it down, not winding it down, but I’m still adding things, but they’re not new functionality.

It’s mostly accessibility concerns, like making sure that I have ARIA labels for certain things like the table of contents and colors, just playing around with the colors.

I don’t know how many people listen to this podcast or actually check out the site or even know where the site is, but yeah, it’s been, it’s one of those things.

I think I am, once again, having my joy taken by comparing myself to others, but I think I really do enjoy the site.

I don’t think I’ll take down the theme.

I might just change some things or make my own private repository where I make some changes, the last time I checked, there were at least four or five people who do use the theme, and I want to make sure that if they find some joy in using it, then they continue doing so.

It’s an example that they can then take to wherever they want to go with their blogs, and they can do that.

So if you’re using Labroom, thank you.

Let me know if there’s something that you want to do, or what changes you might make if it was your own, or just if you’re using it and you’re like, hey, I did this to it, feel free to send me some kind of link or something, and I’ll check it out.

Nothing makes a creator happier than knowing like, okay, this is not just me, this is something, well, now for me, because I’m a little bit of a narcissist, I would love to see, oh yeah, wow, this person’s using it, but if you’re just doing it because you love to do it, go ahead.

Also, I decided I really wanted to do more writing, so I sat in front of my computer, and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write.

I just knew I wanted to do more writing on the actual site instead of writing about the site.

Luckily, I came across this post by Lou, Lou Palmer, hopefully I got the last name right, and he’s got 50 different post ideas, and so what I did is I’m challenging myself to write something on every single post or post idea, so I’m on five out of 50, so that’s pretty good.

So I’m going through there, I’ll have a link to that post in the show notes, so if you want to do something, challenge yourself to writing, feel free to look at that post.

He followed up with another 50 different post ideas.

I haven’t looked at those yet, because I just want to focus on these first 50 and see if I can make it through there without too much trouble or hassle.

The whole exercise is I just write more, and I take the next post, I don’t even look at the next one, I just take the idea and type it out.

I don’t even edit, but if you’ve read my site, you know I don’t edit myself anyway, so it’s just make it and send it out there, and no one’s, you know, dance like no one’s watching, so write like no one’s reading, and I’ve really enjoyed the process, because I write, and then I’m like, wow, I didn’t know how I felt about x, y, or z, and it’s fun, it’s fun.

Next up, I still do media reviews, and I’ve been trying to write every time that I finish something, something new, and I have a couple things I’m doing that are ongoing, versus, oh, I watched this movie, and here’s what I felt about it.

I’m watching The Acolyte, which is getting review bombed by people, and I’m enjoying it.

I like going over it week by week, and I feel that people forget that this, this is Star Wars, so it’s not, it was never supposed to be this, how do I put it, um, how do I put it?

It’s not supposed to be this massive, um, massive, oh, I’m gonna put, I’m gonna leave this in, see how many people talk about it.

It’s not supposed to be this big masterpiece of cinema and acting.

It was the thing that George says, oh, it was made for kids, and like, yeah, the language and stuff, the way that they talk to each other is like, not something, or the way I see adults talk to each other, you know.

With the first one, there was a clear good guy, and a clear bad guy, and we’re fighting, and we’re, everyone loves Luke, and everything like that, and you know, wow, it’s great.

These stories are, especially the Acolyte, they have a little bit of nuance to them.

We have our good guys, and bad guys, and everything in between, and I think it’s a really interesting take on just Star Wars, and if you watch it and feel, hey, I could, I could watch what I know, and it’s not going to quote, unquote, ruin my childhood, because that, such a thing doesn’t exist, you know.

Your childhood is your childhood.

How you look at it might be different, but it’s one of those things that, as we grow, we should be able to change how we view something, and still have that joy of it, and also be able to feel a separate way.

You know, it’s okay to have multiple emotions about one thing.

Another thing I’m watching is The Boys, and that first episode, oh man, I, it was, it was pretty rough, because I think it’s the, the writers do a wonderful job of kind of having this allegory of what we see in real life, and what we see in the TV show, and I mentioned the fact that in previous seasons, we’ve had things where, like, the action was so over the top, it doesn’t, you know, doesn’t really affect me, but some of these action scenes were, like, that’s a little close to home, and just seeing how certain people can react, and when they’re stuck, or they’re in that zone where, hey, the pressure’s on, you know, there’s that famous example, like, oh, hey, you know, if someone put a gun to your head right now, what would you choose, pancakes or waffles, and, like, you know, and jokes, well, oh, if I had to choose, I’d choose, and they choose, but in this case, it’s a walking, talking human being that had the gun being a Homelander, so what do, what to do, what to do, so the only thing I want to mention about the reviews is, like, I’m not quite sure on the format that I want to do when I’m writing them up, so for movies, I put the images, I just use one image, the poster, and then I have my little synopsis, spoiler free, and then sometimes I’ll include a description of the actual movie, or whatever, in case someone comes across a post, they don’t have to look up, oh, what exactly is this movie about, and sometimes I put a link to the, the, the trailer, and sometimes I don’t, I’m still working on it, like, okay, if I was to read this just blank, what, what, what would I need in order to get the most out of this review, other than saying, oh, the reviewer read it, or did the reviewer like it or not like it, what did they feel, it doesn’t have to be a eighth grade paper on an episode, but just trying to find out, find my, find my voice, if you will, on how I want to do a review, and I, last thing, I’m trying to think about my own mental health and fitness in the next couple, a couple weeks, I’ve been playing around with the idea of joining a gym, and the price is kind of steep, but I feel that I am my best self when I do exercise, and my whole family is their best when they get some kind of physical activity, so just trying to find something like that, and it’s been, the last couple weeks have been actually pretty good, but there are things that are kind of in my mind, I have one friend who’s going through some stuff, and another friend who’s going through some stuff, and I’m just trying to keep my, my own boat kind of sailing away as I try to at least reach out or listen to what they have to say in order for them to make their best decisions going forward, so that’s a lot, not, not so much a lot, but it’s a, it’s enough, so anyway, thank you very much for listening, and I hope to hear from you next time.