I have been in some kind of slump for a while on several aspects of my life. It makes me feel lethargic, slightly unhappy and unmotivated, all kinds of feelings and states I do not enjoy. Stuck though I was, and I had to do something about it.

Earlier this year I got Super Woden: Rally Edge with which I have been having fun. It reignited my solo-gaming, which is a fun way of decompressing. More recently, I came across Mini Motorways and it is captivating in all the right ways for my brain: soothing visuals, an engaging big puzzle of a constantly changing networks, challenges that jab me just right. It complements the more fast-paced racing game nicely.

I still want to dedicate some time to picking up Hades again, but I really need to be more awake for that type of gaming experience, so picking up my Steam Deck in the evening feels not like the right moment.

Reading stays one of my favourite hobbies, but for some reason I have been having troubles actually sitting down and just engrossing myself in a book. It is almost as if my attention span is not like it used to be :) I am pretty sure I still can focus on long-form reading though, but even though the books I have been reading are very interesting and enjoyable, I somehow encounter a mental hurdle to take when thinking about picking up my book. Maybe the big Brandon Sanderson books feel daunting for my tired brain, even though he writes in a very accessible way, with great world-building and accessible characters. It is weird. However, recently I discovered the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, and it has been an amazing time reading them.

Before learning about this series, I did not even know about the whole 'litRPG' genre, but these books are an unexpectedly great read. I will not spoil the details, but the premise is that Earth is taken over by an alien company mining its riches, and eliminating a large part of the population in the take-over event. The people that are left briefly have the choice to enter some mysterious Dungeon, or stay on the surface having to fend for themselves. Our protagonist chooses to dive into this Dungeon and encounters some real life version of Diablo/Dungeons and Dragons, complete with an inventory system and lots of mobs to fight. Needless to say it goes deeper from there.

I have been devouring these books and as of writing this, I'm reading book five (it is next to my laptop while typing). It might just be a catalyst to continue reading the Stormlight Archives, just like the Murderbot books were last year (another gem of a series by the way).

Another hobby of mine is photography. I love taking pictures, both as a way of visually journalling my day-to-day life, and in a slightly more serious way by applying (considerable amounts of) time to taking pictures of a specific subject. The latter I generally do with my Canon 70D dSLR, which is still a lovely camera to shoot with, although a bit bulky. The daily photography generally is done with my phone, which is fine, but... just that, fine. It's snapshots, even though phone camera's are pretty amazing nowadays.

I craved a bit of a middle ground, a way of escaping my phone, not needing it for photography, but also not having to lug around ~1kg of slightly bulky glass and electronics to, well, everywhere I go. I thought a lot about small point-and-click camera's, but those aren't really an upgrade over my phone. There's loads of system camera's nowadays though, and after going back and forth through options like the tiny-but-capable Sony RX100 series, up to the aps-c Fuji X-T5 (and X-T50), ultimately setting on the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV. A mouthful of a gamble, but it turned out to be a lovely little camera that feels great in my hands, has very satisfying handling and takes great images. It is just plain fun and I needed that in my life. It makes me want to go out and just look at things, exactly what I was hoping for.

Old Olympus C5050z from 2003 (left) next to Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV with 14-42mm lens (right)

Isn't that just the cutest telelens?

Two tree branches with blossom seemingly reaching to each other

Daisy surrounded with dew drops

Tiny leaf with lots of dew drops

Dandoleon

Cat with a background of crocus