As someone who grew up during the golden age of digital piracy, I’m 100% sure records really do sound better than MP3s.

Sure there’s lossless audio too, but we stream everything now and the quality is really only as good as your internet connection.

Streaming is convenient; I’m not going to carry a suitcase record player with me in the car, but it does feel good to actually own your favorite albums instead of only streaming them. There’s nothing quite like thumbing through the little inserts and reading lyrics in print while you listen to your favorite bands.

I started collecting records a couple years ago and I’m only getting more obsessed over time. Listening to stuff like Minor Threat or Wu-Tang on vinyl is a downright religious experience.

This could totally be a quote from some sappy movie or a self-help book maybe, I’m not sure. But I went to a funeral a few months ago and saw a lot of family I’d distanced myself from over the years. Not because of something crazy that happened, or a political disagreement or anything like that; I’ve just never been much for sticking around family just because they’re your family.

But anyway, I had an uncle giving me shit because I hadn’t came to see him or so much as gave him a phone call in years. But then another uncle came to the rescue and told him to stop being so hard on me. “Life goes five years at a time,” he said. “You go to work, come home and watch a little TV every night and next thing you know, five or ten years have gone by.”

I like that....

I’m not one of the cool people who were on the Fediverse before the big Twitter exodus of 2022.

When Elon took over, I was one of many who mourned the death of Twitter and moved on to a better place: Mastodon. It was such a refreshing change of pace.

I’m a winter person. Snow is beautiful. Sun burns are not. Every year when the heat gets unbearable, I fantasize about moving to Alaska. My girlfriend unfortunately doesn’t share this dream with me.

When I stop at the gas station or the grocery store after work I’m in my full salesguy attire: a long sleeve oxford, usually black or grey slacks and black leather dress shoes with the little strip of fake wood around the heel.

People call me “sir” and look at me like I have my shit together. I absolutely do not, but I guess the clothes really do make the man 🤨

I walk into the same place on a day off, wearing an old t-shirt, jeans and some chucks. It can even be the same cashier from the day before, but they’ll talk to me in a completely different tone and never try to make small talk like they do when I’m dressed up.

People are funny. And shallow.