Who will love my ironies?

Okay, goodbye, 2025! You were... okay! A lot of bad things happened all around the world, but I also got front row seats to an AEW PPV, a thing which will probably never happen again, and also a new job that actually pays more for the first time in nearly a decade, so good things can still happen, too! Let's see what 2026 brings!

( Album #505/1001: Femi Kuti - Femi Kuti )

See y'all on the other side!

Three days until pre-sales for the AEW shows in Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver in April! Finally, I have something long-distance to look forward to again! Time to tighten my belt, post-holiday splurges, so that I can actually afford to go (or at least pretend that I can afford to go). Trip planning will begin tentatively next week (after I hopefully have tickets), and then begin in earnest come the start of 2026. DYNASTY!!

Mom bailed on the MMM last night because it was snowing (lame excuse), but I hopped on a bus and went all by myself and had a great time anyway with an insane melodramatic mess of a movie (complimentary???). I definitely overdid things with my back a bit, though, and should probably go back to taking it easy for the rest of the week to keep recovering. Things hurt! It's cold out! An outing was extremely necessary for my mental health!

( Album #502/1001: Soft Machine - Third )

Movies Watched in December: Song Sung Blue; Silent Night, Deadly Night; Starman, In the Mouth of Madness, Ghosts of Mars, Prince of Darkness, The History of Sound, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from L.A., Zootopia 2, Escape from New York, Christine

Six more hours until I can go home and make delicious noodles and put on a movie and also a heat wrap. BACK TO BASICS.

Still at work. Still cold. Still in pain, but it's steadily pivoting to just a deep soreness in the muscles of my back, which is a big step up from the seizing agony whenever I move, so hopefully that means whatever the fuck I did is healing up nicely. Getting my eating back under control to start easing gently back into my goals. I had such high hopes for the month and they were all derailed so abruptly!!!

Finished reading The Lord of the Rings. Started watching Sailor Moon from the beginning for some reason? 10-year-old Leshia is thriving right now while the current version falls the fuck apart.

I really like the idea of the Letterboxd Video Store and hope it does well, even if twenty bucks will always be way more than I can justify for a single rental. I think five dollars is probably my ceiling, especially for something without a dedicated streaming app. Blockbuster prices, you know?

( Album #500/1001: The Velvet Undergroud - White Light/White Heat )

Movies Watched in December: In the Mouth of Madness, Ghosts of Mars, Prince of Darkness, The History of Sound, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from L.A., Zootopia 2, Escape from New York, Christine

Today I learned that referring to things as gong shows is largely a Canadian thing, and it has rocked me to the core. TGIF!

It's almost December and I still don't think the temperature has dipped below -20 degrees yet. There's snow on the ground, but very little of it, mostly compacted into uneven layers of ice. There's still grass visible all over the place. It's honestly kind of insane? But at least it gives me something to focus on other than the current span of ~3 months in which I basically never see the sun, because I both arrive at and leave work in pitch darkness, and I no longer have every other week off. Things should start to get better towards the end of February. God I hate winter, even unseasonably mild ones.

Finished season 7 of Black Mirror, and not that anyone cares, but my ranking of the episodes goes Eulogy > Common People > USS Callister: Into Infinity > Bête Noire >>> Plaything >>>>> Hotel Reverie.

Saw Wake Up Dead Man, the first of the Knives Out mysteries to play in a theatre here, and absolutely loved it.

( Album #498/1001: Garbage - Garbage )

Okay, I should probably try to do some work. It's (dare I say???) a bit of a gong show!!!

Finished Poker Face last night. Good shit. Also did some yoga in a long-overdue attempt to stop being as goddamn sedentary as I have been since taking this new position. Also ate some pizza. It was tasty. Currently craving a tuna melt, though. And shopping online. And doing some actual work on the side, I guess. Heading to the movies after work, unless mom bails, since it's at 6pm and I would be unable to take the bus in time to go by myself. Unless I leave work early. Maybe I'll leave work early in that case. The concept of being salaried is still very strange to me.

( Album #496/1001: Kelela - Take Me Apart )

NYC went ahead and elected the certified sicko mayor, which is pretty rad. Have a random wrestling video to celebrate, because it is SO IMPORTANT to me that after years of scrubs on the internet saying that Kris had to drop the alien gimmick to make it to the next level, she dropped the alien gimmick, won the world fucking title (right in front of me and my salad), and then IMMEDIATELY went back to being an alien, tripling down on the gimmick instead, with her insane Australian girlfriend recording a '70s sci-fi intro for her very first title defense followed by an entrance with sexy Dune boys???? God, this was everything to me (starts about 15 seconds in, though obviously Toni's entrance rules, too).



It looks like our usual seats at the theatre have been purchased! Inception is presumably a go! Okay, that means it's back to work time, and refilling the popcorn tanks will be my reward~

ETA: Actually, fuck work, I'm still thinking about that WrestleDream match again, because for all that it's still frustrating to see the 'two steps forward, one step back' steady progress of the AEW women's division, that progress should still be celebrated and it's just so fucking cool that two women were allowed to work such a subtle, deliberately-paced match as that one was without being given like, eight minutes to get it over with? All three (!) women's matches on the card were a solid 15/16 minutes long and all had wildly different feels to them, and that's just great. It's great! And that bit at 2:50 where Kris counters the Storm Zero by bracing herself with her arms at the last second is some amazing, blink-and-you-miss it wrestling, OKAY BACK TO WORK FOR REAL NOW.

Oops, I disappeared again! Keeping on keeping on. Going to the movies a lot. Mad we didn't get Bugonia, though. There's lots that I should be doing, but also, I don't wanna? Maybe I'll just take a Monday night bath.

( Album #494/1001: Circle Jerks - Group Sex )

Wrestling remains very good. May I interest anybody in some shameless Hangman Adam Page propaganda?

I am... phlegmy. But feeling a bit better. Better enough to see an almost three-hour long movie tonight, at least! And hopefully do my laundry. And take a bath? And do my nails. THERE ARE NEVER ENOUGH HOURS.

( Album #492/1001: Happy Mondays - Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches )

ALL OUT REWATCH BEGINS TONIGHT. I will probably only do a match or two at a time, though, both to savour the memories and because of the aforesaid never enough hours issue.

Okay, time for my... second update this month? Jesus christ, working Monday to Friday is soul-sucking. Money, though! And a bit more time in the evenings after work, I guess? And thirty extra minutes of cozy time in the mornings, there are perks, and I do actually greatly prefer the work, I'm still just adapting, I guess.

I've gone to the movies... five times so far this month? Bad Guys 2 (good!), The Naked Gun (good!), Weapons (great!), Top Gun (Top Gun!), and Nobody 2 (good!).

Been finally catching up on a bit of TV, too: Ironheart (good!), Castlevania: Nocturne season 1 (good!), Yellowjackets season 3 (bad!). This week: I finally finish my Leftovers rewatch (great!).

Forbidden Door will be my reward for making it through the work week and hoo boy, they barely bothered to actually crack that thing open this year, huh? It's basically just an AEW PPV with a couple of special guests, which is disappointing and does a bit of a disservice to the matches themselves, which I'm genuinely hyped for; it's a great card, but a shitty Forbidden Door card specifically. Nevertheless! I WILL BE SEATED.

( forbidden door london matches in order of how much I care )

( Album #490/1001: XTC - Apple Venus Volume 1 )

I'm still alive!! Honest!! Largely MIA and unavailable because it turns out completely upending your schedule and life overnight takes some getting used to, but I'm doing okay! I think! I hope???

The new job is interesting! I'm not good enough at it yet to really be comfortable and have time to fuck around online that much (a little more every day, though!), but I think eventually I'll be able to settle into a nice routine once I get the hang of things. I'm technically a service advisor now?? I just only deal with used vehicles coming into inventory, so I'm more of the middleperson between the techs and the salespeople (and also the body shop and sometimes parts depending on what's going on). It's kind of a lot! But it's not bad, and I think I can be good at it if I keep working at it. We'll see how things go, I guess????

I still don't know how I feel about the schedule. Having my number of days off nearly halved is tough, and while the extra time to get stuff done in the evenings is probably ultimately better for actually getting stuff done, I don't like how it feels like my entire life revolves around going to work now. Two days off is not enough! I miss that nice, sharp divide!

( Album #489/1001: Dagmar Krause - Tank Battles )

Okay, I've got a bunch of work orders to open now, byyyyyye~~

Settling into the 'brain-death' portion of the work week. Need to snap myself out of it. Not sure if I will. Not sure if I'll be going to the movies tomorrow, either, since I'll want to see Materialists, my mom will want to see How to Train Your Dragon But It's Brown Now, and neither of us want to see the other's choice even remotely. Hopefully I can convince her to meet me in the middle and just go see the OG HTTYD, which is also playing, and in an improbably late enough slot for me to go after work. We'll see! It's Friday the 13th, why are there no horror movies out this weekend???

( Album #488/1001: The Young Rascals - Groovin' )