Weeknotes: November 24th - November 30th 2025
Disclaimer: It should be mentioned that Weeknotes are always a snapshot of the week itself and lack the fullness of life - as is the case with any personal blogging.
✨ Happenings
- This is the week that winter properly started after an extended autumnal warmth. On Monday, my proper 31st birthday, I woke up to fresh snow dominating the city streets. Given my commitment to winter cycling this year, I commuted to work on my Marin Presidio 3 with my wonderful (and recently installed) studded tires and fenders - many thanks to the Sanford's! Though the first voyage was chaotic, it was a fantastic time. As the week progressed, the bike lanes and river pathways fluctuated between clear and abyssal, but my love for the daily commute did not falter!
- This week, Alexis and I went to Inglewood Art Supplies and I picked up a set of student-grade oil pastels. I started swatching them to get a sense of the colours and I have begun learning about the practice of blending them together.
- On Friday, Taylor, Alida, and I joined the city's monthly Critical Mass and it was legendary. Not only was it -20 C, dark, and dreadful riding conditions, but we also had the lowest turnout (less than 20 people) for the monthly event in years (based on one of the organizer's thoughts on the matter). Once at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, there was a fire prepared to warm up at before we biked back to the Beltline for pizza.
- On Sunday, Taylor and I again braved the winter biking trails to join Nyx and Gabriel for birding at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. It was a fairly quiet morning, but the Canada Geese were cozied up along the river and took off with quite the spectacle! Afterwards, we went to Vegan Street Kitchen for brunch (I had the vegan equivalent to Chicken and Waffles – very 2018), then we went for bevies and dessert at Canela's Vegan Bakery.
📗 Reading
- Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It by Cory Doctorow - Started Reading
This is an incredible book that cuts into the heart of why I created this blog in the first place. With corporate social networks degenerating into a cesspool of ads, misinformation, and AI Slop, there has been a growing sentiment that the internet is becoming shittier overall. Canadian author and digital rights activist, Cory Doctorow, discusses the process of enshittification. He breaks this process into three phases: (1) platforms provide initial surplus value to users, (2) platforms utilize users and their data to provide benefits to business customers, and (3) upon locking both users and business customers within the platforms themselves, the platform's ownership is free to drain the platform of any remaining value to enrich corporate power. Throughout the book, he provides countless examples of corporations undermining their own platform's technical performance to scrap a little more off the top. Just for a quick example: if you need an Uber and your phone's battery is running low, it has been reported that Uber will increase fares. What a bunch of parasites.
🎮 Playing
- Arc Raiders
I did not play as many games of Arc Raiders this week, but I did convince Avery to pick it up and we did duos for a couple evenings.
- Europa Universalis V
Dylan and I started a multiplayer game and played a two-hour session. He's playing as Bulgaria and I'm playing as Serbia. So far we've kicked the Byzantine Empire's ass and survived the Bubonic Plague.
- Balatro
Not much to say. Balatro is incredible! Try it and ruin your productivity for awhile!
🎵 Listening
- After the Magic by Parannoul (Album)
Just a phenomenal Korean shoegaze album that I love playing whenever the city receives a blessing of snow! I adore songs like Polaris and Imagination so much.
- Crumbling by Mid-Air Thief (Album)
With Parannoul on my record player this week, I was reminded about Mid-Air Thief's 2018 indietronica/dream pop album. You can listen to this lush album here.
🔗 Links
This is an article regarding our first big snowstorm of the season and how much chaos it caused in our city.
A summary of the relationship between the provincial government and Albertan municipalities with issues related to the levying of property taxes and government overreach into local autonomy.
📷 Photos
