TL;DR

A month exploring various creative endeavours, featuring a new travel vlog series, a custom notebook line, and a personal website revamp.

Small Worlds

With an upcoming trip to Montréal planned for early July, I recently picked up a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 with the express intent of documenting the trip. It’s a camera I’ve had my eye on for a while now, and the sale price was too good to pass up. And HOOO BOYY did I ever fall in love with it immediately.

My friend Nick at Undead Media organized the latest instalment of Terroronto, a horror market at Eyesore Cinema featuring a variety of vendors and artists, which gave me the perfect excuse to take a day trip downtown and test out the camera.

I had a great afternoon visiting some old friends, making some new ones, petted a cool dog, took a stroll through Trinity Bellwoods, and finally visited Matty’s Pattys Burger Club for the first time. When I got home, I edited footage I had shot into a little travel vlog with it:

The process made me realize how much I missed shooting. It’s a process that puts you in a different mindset, one where you’re both equal parts more present and more distant from the world around you. That observer effect makes you appreciate the smaller details you might have otherwise overlooked. Most of all, it’s an excuse to just get out of the house, something I’ve been desperately needing for a while now. As such, my latest creative outlet has been born; a travel vlog series called Small Worlds.

The whole idea behind it was to give myself another reason to go travel more, not only exploring the world-class city I’m privileged to live in, but also the rest of this beautiful country I call home, and the world beyond those borders. As I get older, the more I realize how more interested I am in experiences, and I want to hoard those memories like Smaug.

What’s great about it is that there’s no real structure, schedule, format, or expectations to adhere to here. Maybe I’ll start vlogging to the camera? Maybe I’ll start making short films again? Maybe I’ll shoot some documentaries, interview with friends, or start a podcast? Maybe I’ll turn this into a coffee table book?

Watch this space.

Mikie Notes

Going back to last year, one of the habits I’ve finally picked up is (semi-regularly) journaling. It’s been something I’ve dabbled in over the years – starting and stopping through numerous Moleskine notebooks – but I never really stuck with it. I’m not sure if it’s just that I wasn’t in a place where I was ready, or the amount of pages to fill became too daunting, or it wasn’t pocketable enough, but I could never really make it work.

I couldn’t really tell you when it happened, but once I picked up my first Field Notes notebook, something finally clicked. The 48 pages were no longer a roadblock, but rather a invitation to fill them with whatever notes, ideas, sketches, and thoughts I had on any given day. A reason to write down my thoughts and feelings, document what had happened both big and small; especially the boring stuff. I was hooked.

I’m not officially diagnosed but if we’re being honest, I suspect that I exist somewhere on the spectrum. Be it sneakers, action figures, books, instruments, loose leaf tea canisters (long story), etc… I simply cannot turn down collecting items that come in variations of different colors. I blame the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for this, but I digress. And as such I fell deep into the rabbit hole of collecting Field Notes notebooks.

Two wooden crates filled with various Field Notes notebooks.

I mean DEEEEEEEEEEP

But you can only spend so many hundreds of dollars on notebooks before you start to feel a little guilty about it. So I did what any self-respecting punk would do, and I did it myself. It’s been a long journey to get here, but I’ve finally worked out a process for designing and printing my own notebook covers. I call them Mikie Notes.

Three Mikie Notes notebooks displayed on a wooden desk, featuring various scenes from season one of the Bear.

This is a delicate fuckin’ ecosystem.

The latest edition – “The Original Beef of Chicagoland” – was inspired by season one of The Bear, and I got a lot of kind words after sharing it on Reddit. I’m planning to make a detailed blog post covering the entire process of how I made them, just as soon as I can find the time. Which leads me to…

Site revamp: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Copilot

Since (re-?)building this site earlier this year, I’ve somehow managed to keep my promise of not immediately abandoning it, and I’ve been slowly adding more and more features over the last 3 months.

Perhaps inspired by Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language, I got the urge to do a major site revamp and change up the design. The major thing for me was to figure out a solution for the homepage. I knew I wanted to make it more dynamic, a dashboard of sorts that updates itself with my latest post, show off what I’ve been watching, reading, and listening to, a microblog feed for those more transients thoughts, etc…

Before…

…and after.

And so I landed on a Bento Box-style layout, which took a few weeks to get it just right, but I’m super happy with it at this point. I learned a lot about the power of container queries and container units, a definite gamechanger for me. For the dynamic bits, I first tried going with an SSR approach, but it became apparent that it’s just easier to dynamically load the data on the client side with only a little bit of JavaScript.

I also finally embraced using Visual Studio Copilot to assist in writing the code, which has been a huge time saver. I’m still trying to only reach for it when I need it – which honestly is just mainly to avoid having to read documentation – but it’s been really helpful in handling the more tedious tasks. Not sure why I didn’t give it a proper go sooner?

It’s been a really fun month working through these various creative outlets.

Highlights

Movies

Sinners 2025

  • Directed by Ryan Coogler
  • Loved
  • `4.5/10`
  • Watched on June 14, 2025

Fuck it, this is the best vampire movie ever! It's also hands down the best movie I've seen this year, and I'd put good money on that still being the case come January.

If I have any complaints it's that my dumb ass didn't find the time to go see the 70mm screenings near me.

That one scene in the juke joint was so unexpected yet welcome, I'd love to know how those ideas came about. It became crystal clear in that exact moment that this movie was something special. Bravo.

I watched 15 movies this month:

TV

The Last of Us 2025

Season 2

  • Created by Neil Druckmann, Craig Mazin
  • Loved
  • `4.5/10`
  • Watched on June 7, 2025

I’ll pay the price, because you’re gonna turn away from me. But if somehow I had a second chance at that moment… I would do it all over again.

I didn’t agree with the general criticism around the second game, so of course I don’t agree with the criticism around the second season. In fact, I liked this one more than the first, even if it still felt a bit rushed.

Favourite Episode: S02E06, “The Price”

I've been watching 18 shows this month:

Books

The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 2 2018

Artificial Condition

  • Written by Martha Wells
  • Loved
  • `4.5/10`
  • Read on June 28, 2025

Yes, the giant transport bot is going to help the construct SecUnit pretend to be human. This will go well.

I’m going to miss ART. 😭

I've been reading 11 books this month:

Music

NEVER ENOUGH 2025

by Turnstile

  • Loved
  • `4.5/10`

I’m happy to give myself away. I’m happy to fix what I can’t change. All because you know I care. All because you know I’m there.

Favourite Track: “I Care”

I've listened to these 11 albums the most this month:

YouTube

This might be recency bias but I’m pretty sure this is the greatest thing to ever happen in the history of human civilization.

I enjoyed these other videos, and you might too:

Purchases

An offically image of the DJI Osmo Pocket 3.

I’m officially in my Vlog Era.

I honestly haven’t had this much fun shooting since I first picked up a camera back in 2008. The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 is so pocketable that it’s become a borderline obligation to take it with me any time I leave the house. I especially love how quickly you can just turn it on and start shooting, a satifying flick to rotate the screen and a quick press of the record button and you’re ready to go, often in under 3 seconds. I did go a little crazy with the accessories, but it’s a easy to justify because it’s in a creative pursuit. That’s my cheat code.

A list of the other impulsive purchases I made this month that I don’t totally regret: