Status Report #3: 20th of April, 2025

 

The goodest of mornings to you, dear reader!

 

What do you mean it isn't morning? Look outside, silly! The sun is rising on a beautifully blue sky, with just enough white fluffy clouds to give nice decoration.

 

The morning air is fresh and pleasant, and we just had a lovely walk through and around town. Now then, time for a little writing, and perhaps a cup of green tea. (We already had our usual morning Assam. Don't wanna go too hard!)

 

Anywho, it's Amalia writing, today. So, let's get into our.....

 

Musical endeavours!

Right! So, good news on that front! After a bit of a lull in recent weeks, our pace with working on music has been picking up, again!

 

Curiously, it's partially thanks to a bit of a shift in the way we think of our musical activities.

 

See, since we've started releasing our own music, and thus established it as a (potential) source of income, we gradually started thinking of our music as less of a hobby, and more of a side job.

 

This is a mistake.

 

You see, you could argue that it's semantics, but really, when you think of something as a job, that has certain negative connotations, even if it's something you enjoy doing. And that goes double when you already -have- a normal full-time job like we do.

 

See, rather than being something you do because you love doing it, you start seeing music as something that you're obligated to do. Something that's perhaps even competing with your full-time employment, potentially creating unnecessary stress for you.

 

Obviously, this is a rubbish way of looking at things. So, we've been changing our way of thinking a bit. Coming 'round to the idea that despite all the forms we had to fill out, and despite regularly being told on various platforms how to get paid and optimize our income and what have you, music is a hobby. It might, in time, start to prove viable as a side income, but even if it ever does, it's something we do for enjoyment, and to express ourselves.

 

 Because let's be honest: We're approaching a year now since Minor Oscillation, our first published work, came out. And y'wanna know how much we've earned, so far?

 

86 cents.

 

Awyep. Now, don't get me wrong, we both think it's pretty cool that we've earned anything at all from our music, but the point is, we're obviously not doing it for the money, eh? If we did, surely we'd have abandoned it, by now. So why are we thinking about it like a job?

 

Well, we're shifting away from that. Part of that change we already mentioned last week, reducing the frequency of our releases a bit. We're still looking to release decently frequently, but sticking rigidly to the 1-release-per-month-rule just makes things feel needlessly constricted and forced.

 

So instead, roughly every 1-2 months, we'll release a song that we had plenty of fun making, because we've found our way back to the joy and wonder of messing around in the studio, rather than telling ourselves that we're working a second job. So yeah, good news all around!

 

As a result, we're also thinking way less about social media, marketing and all that. It's still part of releasing music and we're still doing some of it, of course, but we're now looking much more at doing things we're comfortable doing (Like this blog!), than trying to "Optimize our synergistic statistical SOE in order to maximize conversions on blah blah yada".😉

 

Point is, we're doing stuff that works for us, and that's good.

 

Now, as for our.....

 

Not-so-musical endeavors!

 So, for those of you who care, what've we been up to, lately?

 

Well, remember last time, when we mentioned that we got a Starsky and Hutch Boxset? Yes, well, we've been enjoying that. But also, it

-may- have started us on a bit of a phase, looking into old shows we never got to watch. (Or well, Michael didn't. I've only been 'round for a few years, of course. 😛) 

So, we wanted to get some more, and agreed on getting two more box sets. So we did some research, looking at some shows and seeing how we like 'em to find our top two picks.

The shows we looked into and a summary of our thoughts:

 

The A-Team:

Honestly, we both figure that this one is probably a good show, but only if you're quite young. Watching it as an adult, we didn't really like how the structure frequently broke down so that characters could just spend some screen-time being overly silly.

 

 Knight Rider:

Now, i was sort of neutral on this one, but Michael seems to really hate it. Mostly because of the direction and acting. I mean, i do have to agree somewhat, it feels.... odd to watch. There's a lot of overdubs, and some of the line deliveries felt rather wooden to us. Eh. 🤷

 

Miami Vice:

 This one was the runner-up! I mean, it's Miami Vice. It's obviously a good show. It basically still defines how we all see the 80's.

That said, we didn't end up getting it because beyond all the pastel colour suits and 80's glitz, this show's actually really dark, from what we've seen. Like, Breaking Bad-kind of dark. Doesn't mean it's bad, obviously, but there's another show that also radiates 80's energy without being so grim about it...

 

Magnum P.I.:

.... and it's this one! Yes, Magnum beat out Miami Vice for us, just because it's got an overall more light-hearted tone. It's cheeky, but without being childish. And overall, it's just a really enjoyable show to watch. And let's be honest, Tom Selleck and his epic moustache simply cannot be argued with. 😜

 

MacGyver:

 We ended up getting this one as well. Kinda came out of left field for us, because we figured that it might be a sort of "teach children about science"-sort of show that doesn't do much for an adult, but actually, it turns our MacGyver's clever solutions are unrealistic but ingenious action stunts a lot of the time. Which is more fun and gives the show room for creativity! Also, the variety got us. In the first episode, he's doing a Half Life and making his way through a half-collapsed underground lab, in another he's planning a diamond heist, and in yet another, he's saving a south american farm from a plague of ants. This show just does whatever it feels like!

Reminds us of our music. 😉

 

 Okay, but enough about old shows. It's just been on our mind a lot lately, as you can plainly tell.

 

Besides that, we've been having a good time playing Antistasi, a modded gamemode in Arma 3, where you take over the map, settlement by settlement, from an occupying force. But Michael is actually thinking of writing a whole blog post about it, so i won't go too deep into it.

 

Point is, we're having a pretty decent time. Been riding our little folding bike, too, both to work and for funsies, so that's good.

There was a bit of a worry that we wouldn't get much use out of it, but yeah, it's been quite nice!

 

Anywho, i think that's all we've gotta say for today.

 

Hope you're having a good one, too, and see you next time! 😀