blog
2025-03-17
i was abroad for 3 weeks and now i'm back :) the first order of business was replacing my phone screen this weekend. i use a scraggly iPhone 8 since 2018 or so, and the screen had been damaged since february when i dropped it during a concert.
we have a lot of affordable, competent phone repair shops around here, but i was curious if i could replace the screen myself. my partner has all sorts of tools for fixing electronics (including a heating pad to open glued components) and i'm already used to exchanging drives and batteries in my macbooks, so this felt like a natural next step. i love the fiddly work with the tiny components and even tinier screws, and i enjoy working out how to maneuver all those parts gently.
to replace the screen, i also needed to transfer the front camera and the home button to the new screen, which raised the stakes. when i suddenly held my tiny front camera and the sensor in my hand, i had a weird "backstage meeting the artist" moment. after putting it all back together, i started up my phone to check the results: the new screen worked fine!
however, the home button wasn't working anymore. i knew immediately that i should take it to an expert instead of troubleshooting this myself, so i went to one of the shops. in just under an hour and for 10€ the guy quickly fixed it. i completely forgot to ask what had been the issue because the energy in that shop was crazy. it was saturday afternoon; dads with excited kids came and went to pick up repaired tablets, a guy called "zero zero" dropped off some repair job, some other guy got reimbursed 70€ out of 80€ because the work turned out easier than expected (what an honourable move), meanwhile the cashier was talking with a client about "if blind people dream, what do they dream?" and "we'll never know what it smells like under water". great end of that mission.
2025-02-17
i'm listening to incredibly corny Japanese City Pop while my partner and i are both lying on my bed, both busy with our laptops. his cat is chilling with us, occasionally stepping on the keyboard, pausing or muting the music. we just had pizza for a quick weeknight dinner and did our debrief of the day. this moment is a safe haven.
during the past week i gave my design portfolio website a makeover. as long as i'm not adding logic features i'm all good by myself, all i do is write html and css. my css skills are like bike riding skills; they're lodged somewhere deep in my brain paths and no matter how little i practice, once i'm in it it all comes back. that 6 month long web development internship 8 years ago had a lasting and profound impact.
2025-02-12
right now i'm listening to Dust To Dust: The NTS Guide to Ambient Americana in an attempt to calm down after having a day which was busier than my entire past two weeks. i did so much today, and i'm gonna tell you all about it. this morning my alarm woke me up very early and right in the middle of deep dreaming. i couldn't even move for the first 10 minutes. at 8am i left my apartment and went to two different doctors to collect lab results. a big part of my journey was just biking in a south-east direction under blue skies, sun shining in my face and on the road ahead. it felt glorious and changed my entire outlook on the day. back home i took care of paperwork, and carried spare shelving parts into my basement. then i went upstairs to load a laundry with all my wool socks and played with the cat a bit. after that i went back down to the backyard to throw out the glass recycling. i made myself a quesadilla for breakfast and sat down at my laptop to design a flyer for an event next week. after sending that out, i made a quick lunch of rice noodles with peanut sesame sauce and green bell pepper. basically breakfast and lunch back to back. then i headed out to a glass repair shop to drop off the remnants of my coffee table top. the guy wasn't in, so i left the glass shard at a convenience store next door. earlier than expected, i took the train to meet my friend at ikea. she had asked me to pick some curtains with her. we chatted in the ikea restaurant and i had a quick look at some documents for her before starting our tour. we picked a cute pair of curtains and then proceeded to choose, and just after, drop a bunch of stuff we didn't really need; a fun dance with overconsumption. in the end i bought just three items: a picture frame, a basket and a new doormat – sensible. i had a hot dog at the checkout, which in turn inspired my friend to also get a hot dog, so i had another. finally, proper plant based hot dogs at ikea. we said our goodbyes at the train station, and i walked home for half an hour, pushing my bike, because it was freezing and i was too tired to even mount my bike lights. i dropped my things at home and then went to pick up two metal baskets nearby with the remainders of my energy. my dinner was some slices of bread which i picked up upstairs and a big glass of ayran made from soy yoghurt, no energy left to cook.
tomorrow i will do nothing, then i'll do more of nothing, then i'll stay home and in the evening i'll (for real) go to a spa :]
2025-02-06
been sick for >1 week, several different issues chained and stacked. on the weekend i felt okay though, and i finally built up a bigger kitchen shelf and i have a new shelf for my clothes. i'm taking advantage of the winter months to improve my apartment a bit. i'm halfway done with taking down old wallpaper, it's a project i continue every couple weeks. doing these renovations is a good exercise for learning to ask for help, something i struggle with. last saturday i had completely miscalculated what had to be done so i reached out to a couple of friends, mind you on a saturday evening. rejection therapy. i got 3 no's and 1 yes which led to a super sweet evening of dinner and shelf construction with a friend. happy i did that :)
2025-01-29
i've long been missing a space on this website to express myself in a spontaneous and informal way, to keep track of stuff i find online, and to share updates i'm making to the website. today i've updated the page out there with a long list of all my internet radio station updates. i've also removed some music and art links from that page which i felt didn't reflect me anymore. stuff like that will have space here now.
recently i've been listening to lots of music because i've been working lots. i'm about to complete a website redesign project which has been in the works since november 2023, so 14 months total. i'm beyond excited to hand it over to my clients and hopefully see the website online sometime this year. while working i keep coming back to this 5 hour mix of ambient techno and to this set by rosa terenzi played at sameheads/heads radio.
ciao for now ✦