EXP TV is a live tv channel broadcasting an endless stream of obscure media and video ephemera.

EXP TV’s daytime block is “Video Breaks”–a video collage series featuring wild, rare, unpredictable, and ever-changing archival clips touching on every subject imaginable. The nighttime block starts at 10pm and features specialty themed video mixes and deep dives.

-EXP TV

Alright Grendel movie! Let’s go!

Finished Reading: The Test (Animorphs #43) by K. A. Applegate 📚

Tobias books are always so damn rough.

It is silly how happy these matching outfits made me. Thank you Finch friend.

Parents who send IEP/504 Snapshots or intro letters are the best.

Of course, I will read and annotate every lengthy IEP/504 plan. But, having quick bullets and fun extra special interest or trigger information that can easily be reviewed regularly is incredibly helpful.

Plus they show more personality than a big collection of clinical documents.

Yes, I need to know that the student may need extra time on assignments, but I also need to know that they love monster trucks.

FOLÍAS DE ESPAÑA - Concierto de Jordi Savall

Insanity Day 56. 💪🏃

Tomorrow was supposed to be the start of my last week of the program.

Just tested positive for covid.

Insanity Day 53. 💪🏃

Every part of my body feels like it weighs 10,000 pounds.

Even the simplest movements are arduous.

Thus begins the final two weeks of this workout program.

Slept 11 hours last night. Wasn’t sure I would be able to do this today. Especially because it was a longer day, the whole workout took about an hour and forty-five minutes.
Still, I did it.

I didn’t move as fast as usual, and I had to take extra breaks. My muscles were just not working and mentally it felt like an eternity.
But, I did it. I pushed through.

I’m used to giving up. Hiding away. Talking myself out of things.
But I showed up today.

What other areas of my life can I push myself to do things I absolutely do not want to do?
How can I continue this mindset, and move beyond self-coddling disguised as self-care?

Currently Reading: Friendship in the Age of Loneliness by Adam Smiley Poswolsky 📚

This is definitely aimed at people who already have lots of friends who want to build stronger relationships. Sooooo, not me.

In each of the short chapters the author takes the opportunity to plug his successful friends. This gets tiresome and almost makes it feel like the book’s purpose is just to promote these people.

The author lives a life of privilege, so it is hard to relate to most of the stories, like being at a destination wedding in Morroco, attending a small private university on the East Coast, and attending Burning Man.

And some of the advice, like taking a little vacation with a friend for a few days each month seems ridiculous.

Rich-tech-bro vibes.

There is enough helpful information to push me to finish the book, but it is going slowly, which is telling.

Today was day 40 of the Insanity workout.

The first week into the second month feels just as hard if not harder than the first day.

One of those days when my muscles were so sore I could barely get through the moves.

One of those days of being on the floor struggling to do a variation of a pushup and all insecurities come flooding in and I have to put my forehead against the carpet, release a few sobs only to hear Shaun T give me permission to take a break as long as I got back into it. Some days are just really fucking hard.

Exercise is supposed to help with depression and anxiety, and it does, but some days it is just too difficult to get out of my head, so I struggle and end up feeling worse. Luckily those days don’t come around too often.

This is my second time doing the program and I love it.

I love the structure. I love not having to think about what to do to exercise or what stretches I need to compliment them.

I love that it is so hard that each day, even the shittiest days, I still feel like I accomplished something. I’ve been so low that sometimes it is the only thing I accomplish in a day, but what a thing!

I love Shaun T. As an instructor, he has the perfect personality to encourage you to go beyond what you think you are capable of but to still be gentle with yourself.

Twenty-three more days to go.

Finished Reading: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 📚

Well, that certainly was a ride.

Been really enjoying this 9-part (zoom) series - Plant Families in Our Food on Wednesday mornings.

It is a nice, casual introduction to botany. Each session focuses on one family.

So far we’ve covered: Rosaceae, Brassicaceae, and Apiaceae.

An old, but solid list of 101 Artist’s Date Ideas.

The absolute thrill of finally finding a book you read as a child but could only remember vague bits of.

Been searching for this FOR YEARS and came across it completely by chance.

Finished Reading: Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding by Daniel Lieberman 📚

An enjoyable dive into evolutionary biology and the perfect kick in the butt to start exercising again.

Heat Death of the Internet

You want to order from a local restaurant, but you need to download a third-party delivery app, even though you plan to pick it up yourself. The prices and menu on the app are different to what you saw in the window. When you download a second app the prices are different again. You ring the restaurant directly and it says the number is no longer in service.

Been taking private mountain dulcimer lessons for the first time in my life. I hadn’t looked into it before because of financial reasons. Luckily this one is inexpensive.

I decided to stop fooling myself into thinking I could learn something without structure and outside motivation. If I don’t have those things I just can’t. I have come to accept this and now I need to work with it.

Previously I was slowly going through my book and practicing whenever, not with any regularity. Now I am forced to practice almost daily, so that I don’t show up to the session with nothing.

Having an online lesson is strange, especially getting the camera angle right to show a lap instrument haha. But since the sessions are only 30 minutes it makes more sense than driving over to the place and back.

It feels good to be playing music again. This is my first time trying to play a stringed instrument, and I am enjoying the challenge, even if it makes my hands hurt from stretching to get those chords. 🎶

Hearing Dead Can Dance on Peep Show was certainly a surprise. Perfect for the scene though.

“When you first start out playing Magic, when you’re playing with kids in the schoolyard or around the kitchen table with cards that your older brother played with, that is the way it works. Your friend will have a card you don’t have. But when you enter the store system, then that’s no longer the way it works, you just get many, many more cards, to the point where the magical aspect of having unique cards which nobody else has goes away.”

This wasn’t just nostalgia talking. There seems to be something objectively more magical, more infinite-seeming and treasurable about this smaller, more limited version of Magic. But wasn’t the idea of deck-construction the epiphany Garfield had at Multnomah Falls: that you should be able to choose any card and put it in your deck?

“It wasn’t that you should be able to choose any card that was printed. It was any card that’s available. I was not picturing that you’d get the thing you wanted from the store, and I was not thinking that anybody would ever purchase an entire box of boosters or anything like that.”

The Creator Of ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Knows Exactly Where It All Went Wrong