Happy first day of spring! If you are subbed, then you already know how this works. If you’re new here and happen to stumble across despite Notes being really weird when it comes to reaching the right audience lately on substack, WELCOME!
This “Mood Bored” blog series summarizes everything I’ve gotten into for the past month. From media I’ve consumed, hobbies, travels, experiences, music, and everything else I’m currently geeking out on.
As always, you are welcome to drop your thoughts and nerd out with me on anything mentioned here, or if you have any recommendations, in the comments.
Listening to: A Day to Remember - “The Big Ole Album Vol.1”
This isn’t by any means the best record I’ve heard in this past month, but I wanted to cover this because of the interesting marketing they had with this one. Similar to what I was wishing for in my blog on What If We Treated New Albums Like How We See Movies in Theatres?, the band out of nowhere this album and announced it is available only on Vinyl and CD, and won’t be available on streaming for another month.
I loved this idea, as it brought back the excitement of trying to get the physical media and being able to sit with the album, with the cover and lyrics on my hand in full! I wish this would be a rollout for every new album, as I talk about on the blog on how I think album listening should be an event.
As for the tunes themselves on this record, I found it very enjoyable, aside from a couple of tracks. Very good touch of nostalgia ADTR, the pop-punk with the metalcore mix, with a stronger pop groove. The vibes needed just in time for spring and getting my longboard ready to roll!
Watched: Opus
I really wanted to cover Mickey 17 on this spot, as it’s my current favourite movie of 2025, but Opus ties into my points above on treating new music like an event, except this movie takes it a notch too far with murder and cultist rituals. The reviews aren’t exactly the best for Opus, but as a former musician who’s gone through the album recording + rollout process many times, I related heavily. It was fun for a movie to take all my extremes of how an artist expects people would enjoy listening to their latest work, one that took months, maybe years to create, treating it as a “once in a lifetime experience” rather than something you just stream in the background on shuffle while taking a dump. This A24 flick might not be their most original (Midsommer did it better), but the perspective from music journalists to creators is what hit home for me. I would give it a watch regardless of reviews or trailers, something I also covered on here recently.
Read: Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
Riley Sager’s Middle of the Night pulled me in fast— quick synopsis is a late 30’s guy moves back to his childhood home, where his best friend vanished (kidnapped? Murdered even?) decades ago where no one ever knows what happened. The whole thing had me second-guessing what was real and what wasn’t, as he started to relive some of his childhood memories to remember things that happened that his brain blocked out cause of trauma.
What starts out as a regular thriller gets into paranormal and even cult-like uncovering. It’s the kind of book that keeps you up way too late, flipping pages and side-eyeing shadows in your room.
Experienced: Deftones + Mars Volta live
Travelled to Seattle to see 2 bands in my top 10 all-time favourites. While my wife was even more stoked for Deftones than I was, Mars Volta is what sold this tour for me as I had not had a chance to see them live. I’ve been a fan of them for over 20 years and I knew of their boldness, but nothing could’ve prepared me for a 1 hour set of them playing an entire unreleased album where no one knew any of the music in advance! People were complaining, but I loved it. It was mesmerizing, very anti-” performing what the fans only want”, right before Deftones jumped on and blasted my soul with “My Own Summer (Shove it)”.
Playing: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
I’m only on Zora’s domain, but I’m having so much fun with this! Similar to Tears of Kingdom (which btw I spent close to 120 hours on), I like that you get to use your creativity to put things together and make the mechanics solve the puzzles for you. And that there is no one way to do things. Zelda being able to summon monsters I’ve grown up with battling is so extra, but man did Nintendo knock it out of the park with this one!
What is your favourite Zelda game?
Attended: Pokemon “Journey Together” Build and Battle
I entered a pre-release tournament for Pokemon TCG with 5 of my friends, all of us only starting the hobby this year. It was fun to be the absolute noobs of the room of 40! (apparently, the last event only had 8 participants). Showing how crazy this hobby has gotten.
I had a lot of fun opening the packs with everyone and building our decks with whatever we pulled, similar to Magic’s draft nights. The randomness made it much more fun for me than standard tournaments where everyone is playing the same meta “Charzard” deck they’ve been practicing with. This event made it so it’s very welcoming for newbies and experts alike, and everyone is playing on the same level.
For anyone looking into getting into Pokemon TCG either for collecting, playing, or both, check out my piece on this:
Catch ‘Em All Without Breaking the Bank: A Guide to Pokémon Card Collecting in 2025
Reading: Summertime Rendering
I tried watching this anime years ago on Disney+, and while I liked the premise, failed to keep me engaged with the execution because it felt too fast. It’s like they crammed what should be 4 anime seasons into 24 episodes and I couldn’t process what was happening or care about the characters enough. The manga however, allowed me to take things in my space, and somehow feel even creepier. Don’t let the art and fanservice fool you, this is a disturbing story with lots of gore and trippy scenes!
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Thank you for reading, Cheers.
I was curious about Opus until I saw all the mid/negative reviews, but now im interested again. Would love to see your thoughts on Mickey 17!
Wisdoms is soooo good and so much fun. It’s like playing links awakening but now you have a whole set of different skills cuz you’re finally the character that is in the franchise title haha