Dallineation

If there's one thing I miss about Twitch whenever I take a break from it, it's the people – other streamers and viewers that I have gotten to know over the last couple years. I genuinely enjoy interacting with them and I miss those interactions.

I'm a few days late to the party, but I just heard about the new product announcements from Clicks – the company that makes physical keyboard cases for smartphones – and I haven't been this excited about mobile device announcements since the BlackBerry KEY2 (2018).

My mental, emotional, and spiritual health have been pretty terrible since about mid-2025. But earlier in the year, when I decided to observe Lent for the first time leading up to Easter, it was the best I had felt in a long time. One of the things I gave up for Lent? Twitch. So I'm taking a break from it again to see what happens.

To help encourage and facilitate intentional use of technology, I've declared my bedroom a technology-free space. None of my devices with screens will “live” in that room anymore.

I just finished bingeing both seasons of the TV series Andor again before my Disney+ subscription lapses. Along with Rogue One – the film it was based on – it remains my favorite Star Wars story to date. They've made that universe more relatable and real to me than any other movie or TV series.

The last week was a blur. We drove some 1500 miles round-trip, saw some beautiful scenery, visited with family and friends, ate way too much food that's bad for us, and spent some quality time together as a family.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains the Christian perspective on the relationship of human individuals to one another, and two errors we are tempted to fall into.

A relative bought us movie tickets to see Avatar: Fire and Ash with them on Christmas Day. Since I have never seen the first two films, I thought it would be a good idea to catch up. So I subscribed to Disney+ for a month (and promptly cancelled) and finally watched Avatar and its sequel Avatar: The Way of Water this week.

I just left an online community I've been participating in for the last five years. It started out on Slack at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic in late 2020 and later moved to Discord. I've been considering leaving for quite some time, but after an unpleasant interaction this morning it felt like the right time to move on.

As part of my responsibilities as a lay minister in my church, I help lead the youth age 12 to 17. We have weekly youth activities and yesterday we went Christmas caroling in a 55+ community in our neighborhood.