It's the first day of spring today! AKA The Vernal Equinox.

A co-worker reminded me. It doesn't really look like it but it does feel different. It's getting brighter. The sun is up on the slow train from work - I'm reading a book about how to make a tree. The streets are free from winter gravel on the way home - hastily swept up by clumsy machines. Humans will do the second sweep. Robots aren't all this awesome. Yet.

Over in the Hindi hemisphere it's currently Holi(day)! The air's dusty with color, and celebrations sound all over town. Thanks for the well-wishes DIWAKAR! May the day by golly be holly. Hey.

I ordered a new microphone a couple of days ago, and it's arrived. It's waiting in a probably dark compartment in a recently closed shop.

It's a Shure SM58. A legend. A considerable upgrade from my previous no-name dynamic DM-2. A new pop filter should be in the same box, so I can finally discard the nylon sock on a wire, and a portable mic stand too so I can try the other condenser without holding it, which probably drastically reduced the effects of the vibration shield last time I tried it. But wait... I couldn't even get it working last time. Missing drivers? I shall try again.

If that doesn't work though I'm pretty confident that dynamic's the way to go. It can take a beating. It can take some noise. It's good for hiphopping. For heaving a voice. It's the evening of choice! Things be popping. Steady improvements. The barren wasteland's about to bloom: room about to turn into a studio: studio about to go boom.

Hope to pick up the Shure tomorrow anyway, and I'm heading off on my last quick trip (last before summer... maybe) this weekend. And after that: I'm overdue to make some tunes.

Spring does feel pretty soon.

Boom.

(Those of sound mind will get this.)

I'm not sure why or how, but somehow I had a big house. Either I was given this house or I'd attained it through some shadier means, but I was suddenly richer than Barry Seal, with maybe not 2000 acres worth of land but a house that was like a castle, with a gigantic living room - candle-lit like in Castlevania - where I danced with a girl who didn't know how to dance.

I didn't either. She practiced her steps while I went to the bathroom to practice mine, and yet we somehow both danced like professionals when we were together on the floor, accompanied by the shine of a thousand candles, under high-set portraits on the walls, with thin round pillars holding up a terrace that ran along the edges of the room.

She drove away, and I stayed in my house, wondering what I'd do about her. For some reason I was very secretive about my... everything about myself. Maybe the house wasn't mine? I'm sure she was an accountant or a lawyer - something related to the house, but it seemed like our relationship might sail further than that.

The house reminded me of Häringe Castle, but bigger. The living room and dance reminded me of the introductory one in Eyes Wide Shut, the girl of Nicole Kidman, and the feel of it all like American Made: like the world around me might crumble if only those I relied on took a wrong step.

Later on we were in the city, me and a group of people I'm not sure of - one might have been my brother, and we'd been infiltrated. A girl. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but though I really didn't want to I had to kill her, or they'd be on to us. It was a sad moment, but we realized there must be a very professional group working behind the scenes, since nothing about her led us any further up the chain of command.

Suddenly the world was crawling with these people. We were spread out, and had to take care of at least a few of them each. Some of us were driving. Some of us were in parking garages. On rooftops. In the city square. They kept to the shadows, real professional-like, but we managed to sniff them out anyway.

When it was all done we met up in a little garden, where some kind of strange fruit was growing in the ground. One of the guys had managed to save it from the group, and we realized that this must be the secret. This was how we could figure out who they were really working for.

We never did though. I woke up and that was the end of this strange dream.

Maybe details would've been clearer if I woke up to write this right away, but for some reason the main scenario is still fresh in mind, even though it's been a while now. Best write it down quick though... and leave the dream interpretation to all of y'all. Was definitely one of the weirder ones in a while now.

Just a little something on time use... I'ma prioritize better today.

So I relapsed.

Earlier this week. I was looking for something to watch and I stumbled upon Black Lightning, a TV show about a black hero who fights gang crime to keep his two daughters safe. Relevant, right? Principal by day, vigilante by night.

The effects were cool, and the relations intriguing - you want to see how they evolve, but the we-made-this-to-last-as-long-as-viewers-and-budget-let-us faux pas shines through, and thus I don't want to waste my time on it. I watched the first episode and that was that.

Then I opened up DOOM and played through almost all of the fourth episode. Classic Doom. With GZ. And Brutal.

I played the rest the next day, and (I assume almost most of) TNT after that, and the rest of that the next day. Plutonia up next?

It's been a while since last time. Even though I consider myself a pretty hardcore Doomer at this point I keep running into new secrets, and committing level routes to memory. For the first time I think I didn't spend hours trying to find the exit in Wormhole - I went into the dungeons by choice, to as Metallica say: Kill 'em All. And I'm remembering that TNT was not my favorite one of the two unofficial extra episodes. It was the one with mazes and enclosed spaces and puzzles I never really figured out.

I'm still having fun with the game, but I'm also disappointed because I'm almost purposefully staying up late again, and eating snacks, and browsing through BBS BS, and posting one of these by effort redeeming posts about it again.

Despite my best intentions it seems that whenever life is going well I turn to time waste to distract myself. Maybe because I'm nervous. Maybe because I'm stressed. Maybe because I'm scared of progress. Maybe because I'm slightly depressed. Maybe because I'm just tired.

Who knows.

I'm taking extra walks, I exercise, I try to be efficient and then I play DOOM for two hours and eat a bar of chocolate. What the hell man.

I swear good things are coming fast though! I've just got to catch some cash flow. Plans supplement out that stomach: I'm gonna defrag and fraction. Life's a kneecap on traction. And like they say about Boyka: good knee, bad knee, no knee - he's still going Oni.

Oh me? Maybe I'll go play the Bungie phony and get a slow meal.

Music? Yeah! Almost too much lately. Zero to sixty once again here.

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