14 october 2026

Wednesday, October 14th, 2026

Well, it's 7am in the morning and I haven't gone to sleep yet. Even worse? The sun isn't up yet, either. I don't know how I forget that the days get so short so quickly every year up here in the north.

I spent the night figuring out how to fix the boot record of my workstation after doing a Windows update, which caused this to pop up:

Unexpected return from initial read: 
Volume Corrupt, buffersize 1000
Failed to load image ▯▯: 
Volume Corrupt start_image() returned Volume Corrupt.

I realize my last diary entry was too technical already, so I won't bore you with the details. But I will say, the feeling you get after you figure out and fix and debug something successfully? It's such a wonderful high. When the hours of work you pour into something actually make the damn thing work. There's this real tangible feeling of competency and control—like oh, I am actually kind of smart and can cause things to happen.

It was also Canadian Thanksgiving and I had a really nice dinner-at-the-table with my family. Byron came over and I haven't seem him in a couple weeks since he moved out, and my mom did a bunch of organizing and cleaning in her place—I told her that once we clear out her basement that it should be Frank's (my stepdad) space. He needs a place to put his tools, and maybe a billiard table.

Anyways, the reason why I moved folk.zone off my gaming PC to my humble ThinkPad was because I wanted to start using the desktop as a creative workstation again. I mean, to also play games, which is why I still have a Windows partition on it but man, so much more trouble than it's worth, clearly.

I realize I need to get into my creative hobbies more again. I have such a nice Fujifilm mirrorless that's collective dust, alongside a solid wood 1970s Yamaha guitar. Not to mention my backlog of audiobooks or 300+ games on Steam or practising more fundamentals of digital art.

It's difficult balancing my thirst for life and trying to experience as much as I can with the hyperfixations I am so compelled towards. Writing is my main thing, for so many reasons, along with web development (and now, web mastery as well), but surely I've written enough at this point, right?

It's funny how this has been the shortest yet longest year of my life. Writing every day slows things down, and it's far easier to recall details of any day that I wrote and posted an article on. And yet this is the first time in my life I've been free from the masking and scheduling of school or vocational trade. Having total autonomy over my time makes each day go by so quickly. I'm sure you know the sensation—during the summer between school grades or any sort of vacation. Despite the fact I work hours each day, it really does feel like a never-ending vacation.

I never feel like I'm paying my dues enough, or earning my keep. That's a big reason why I'm always trying to make free open-source projects online and do good by others, as repentance for this gift of a life I feel as though I sorely do not deserve in all its wonder and affordances.

And, really, I'm even grateful about that never-ending gnawing feeling. I would much rather be neurotic and tinged with guilt that be ungrateful and arrogant. Perhaps it doesn't have to be one or the other, but it certainly feels like it.

By the way, there are so many birds in my neighbourhood. The magpies and crows are always around during midday and they yap so much! I know they are gossiping and laughing at the expense of others. Pigeons have actually started to gather in their territory and I thought this would lead to conflict, but it does not. Magpies bully squirrels and cats but leave pigeons alone. I wonder why this is. I also wonder what they think of me. I get very close to the murders and parliaments when I take out the garbage every day and they don't fly away. Surely they wouldn't have a grudge against me, right? What for?

Anyways, I'm tired now, and my brain is mushy peas. I have once again failed at writing a short diary entry and instead still hit the arbitrary word count of 750 words. It is baked into my bones at this point.

permalink