Let’s get the important part of this review out of the way first: this is a 10/10 action movie. Good. Now we can dig in. I’m the kind of mediocre white guy who took a film class in high school and decided to make that the cornerstone of my personality. I’d like to say I got over it quickly, but I think I only really got over it about a year ago. So there was a good 5 years of me being unable to give a movie a “perfect” rating unless it was an “objective” masterpiece. I’m glad those days are over. ...

I haven’t been feeling well over the past couple of days so I’ve been spending some time surfing the web and going down internet rabbit holes. Here’s an interesting one. It started off with watching Adidas skate videos: [embed]www.youtube.com/watch Tangent: Here’s a video about the origins of the Adidas logo [embed]www.youtube.com/watch Which led to this 20|50 video that just got uploaded: [embed]www.youtube.com/watch Which led me down a rabbit hole of watching Mark Gonzales videos: ...

twitter.com/kanye_the… I can’t think of a better description of the discography of Kanye West. Honestly. I’ve read hundreds of articles about his discography and career, watched countless “Worst to Best of Kanye West” videos, done every Kanye Madness bracket, and this is still the best Kanye-related thing I’ve seen.

[embed]youtu.be/FXdYSQ6nu…[/embed] Everyone’s (least) favorite social network has been a very useful tool for bamboozling the US to elect a certified idiot as president. The fact that there’s ties between aggressive pro-Trump advertising and Russia has been written about ad infinitum, but now there’s more. A phony “research center” from “Cambridge” literally took information from millions of Facebook profiles to create voter profiles and serve them with hyper-targeted ads that are meant to sway their opinion on Trump and his opponents. And of course the data-gathering happened under the guise of awesome psychology tests and “who’s your BEST friend” quizzes. ...

There’s an endless amount of writing apps and services that try to make our (my) life easier. Spell/grammar check tools, research tools, and hundreds of “organizational” apps for keeping track of your writing, incoming payments, etc. etc. But none of that matters unless you put your words into some word processor. There’s the basic tools like Word, Pages, Google Docs, and plaintext editors. None of those work for me, so here are a few apps and programs that do work for me. They’re all for MacOS or iOS (cuz I’m that kind of person), but 5 min on Google will help you find their Windows (or Ubuntu, if you’re that kind of person) counterparts. OmmWriter: Meditative Writing App In terms of minimalist, distraction-free writing apps, I’d have to say this one is my favorite. In terms of the “typing experience” it can’t be beat. It’s fullscreen, it has a very soothing background color (and/or images), it has some nice “focus” ambient music/sounds available, and for the hipsters who want to feel hella old-school, it has typewriting sounds, but they’re more like rain drops? IDK, when you get into a groove, the rhythm of the sounds of you hitting your keys becomes very soothing and relaxing. Honestly, if I had to recommend it for one purpose only, I’d say that it is THE perfect app for journaling in the morning or at the end of the day. I don’t think a more “meditative” writing environment can be created by any one other application. ...

Tom Scocca’s War on Smarm Tom Scocca left his job, so that obviously sent me down a rabbit hole of reading his work and seeing what people have to say about him. Honestly, the idea of a goodbye roast is both thrilling and terrifying. I’m not nearly as good a writer or editor as Tom, but I can only hope to one day be the kind of editor who keeps everyone nervous. You know, like, I want my “Hm, this isn’t bad” to be the biggest compliment someone can receive on their writing. You have to set goals, and I guess these are mine. ...

I turned 24 a month ago. I had something written that I was going to post on my birthday. It was about how this past year was probably the most difficult one in my life; how despite things being “objectively good” I felt lower than I’ve ever felt, mentally. And I feel like there might be something in there that maybe was worth your attention, but I think that talking about mental health is something that’s done best when the difficult part is behind you. I don’t think I can be objective or say anything constructive about the way I was feeling as I was feeling all of it. I guess, in the back of my mind, I was hoping that turning a year older would bring some sort of new understanding to my situation. My birthday came, but the catharsis didn’t, and so that post is going to stay in my Drafts folder until I have more to say than just, “I’m not feeling so great, and it’s hard, but I’m dealing with it and figuring things out a little bit more every day.” One thing I can say is that feeling the way I’m feeling puts things into perspective. I value good art more now than I think I ever have. Art isn’t just something I escape into from time to time. More and more, it’s becoming a way to reexamine myself and the world. Then again, that’s also something I’m going to write about once I have a way to put it into words that mean something beyond “hey, this is how I’m feeling, and this is how art changes/emphasizes my feelings.” ...

I came back from Sziget last week and then proceeded to be sick, celebrate my birthday in bed, and then celebrate my birthday with my family (which was a weekend full of capital D Drama). My nine-to-five has started and university is about to start, but I’ve told too many people that I would write about my festival experience to not do it[1. I turned 24 and decided it’s time to keep most of my promises]. Sziget #25 Sziget festival happens in Budapest every year since 1993. This was the 25th one and I was expecting it to be huge. Like, I was expecting them to make a surprise headliner announcement, for the Foo Fighters or Libertines to fly in on a helicopter and put on a huge show. None of that happened. What’s more, I recently discovered (like, after I came back home) that the festival owners have changed, and it seems like they have a very different idea of what the festival is going to look like from now on. ...

Whenever you write, there’s always that mean voice in your head that keeps saying that you need to write much, much better. Shut it up by reading some books and making small tweaks to your writing workflow (this is a 2-part blog post). These books are great, obviously. I’ve read them, I’ve learned a lot from them, and they’ve helped me change and improve the way I think about writing. However, as you can see from what you’re reading, they’re not a magic cure that’s going to turn a mediocre blogger into a Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling writer. The Elements of Style by E. B. White and William Strunk Jr. ...

I obsess over things for weeks and then ignore them completely for the rest of my life. Here’s what I’ve been obsessing over for the past couple of weeks: Good Writing and Mary H.K. Choi Mary H.K. Choi After going on my street photography binge, I went back to read some more stuff about Daniel Arnold. That’s how I discovered Mary H.K. Choi and her writing. She (and her podcast) led me into my next rabbit hole. ...