Last Friday, I did a thing.

I closed my Twitter account…

Like probably most of us, I have been having my issues with Twitter, especially in the past two years or so. I don’t know exactly what took over me on Friday, and I basically rage-quit it.

At (underscore)Gabytron, gone!

It has been a week since then, and it’s weird. It’s like I am missing something. My Instagram usage has gone up considerably in order to fill that gap. I find myself missing it at times, specially after I have been all cough up with my Micro.blog and Instagram timelines. There have been a few. Times that I have wanted to reach out to someone from Micro.blog _separately _from Mb and not being able simply because I ain’t got the twitters.

I knew this was coming, that one day I would just nuke it out of existence. I do have still a Twitter account that I opened this month. I told myself it was to safeguard that specific username — mhm. I haven’t done anything with it yet. It is only following 5 users and simply because Twitter requires you follow 5 accounts when creating it. It’s just sitting there for now.

If I were to get back into the Twitterverse, I would use that account and maybe be better at managing my timeline. Make my perfect bubble and definitely, most definitely, stay away from the official app. I want to avoid being tempted by the trends or “people you should fallow”, etc.

The main idea, though, is to eventually be Twitter-sober, to never look back. Or, I can be honest with myself and realize that I like healthy fun interactions on Twitter, just need better managing skills.

That being said, again, it’s been a week; therefore I cannot call myself Twitter-sober yet.

This afternoon, I went to my local Albertsons store, as I do. I felt so out off place, again. I was probably the only person wearing a mask. And I started questioning myself, if I am really the odd-man-out. Is it okay to not wear a mask anymore? What am I afraid of? The people not wearing them that aren’t vaccinated? Are we letting go far too easy?

In this town, it would not surprise me that we are just letting go easy. This is a conservative, very red state. Specially in my side of town, you still see Trump flags around.

It is hard to decide if is it because we are better than we were months ago, or if the people are just fed up, or is it a political thing. Maybe I’m too used to it that I don’t see we are there yet? Or perhaps all the above.

Is it really okay to let go? Is it “safe”?

Either way, I feel uncomfortable, still to let go.

Here is how I handle my photos. Pictures are taken, the SD Card goes into an Insignia USB Type-C Memory Card Reader. RAW photos get transferred to the 11” iPad Pro, and edited in Darkroom. Then they go to Photos and from there they go to Micro.blog and maybe to Instagram.

Some might consider me a monster for not having a backup system for my photos other than iCloud. Maybe I should look into that…

Update

So, thank you, @pratik, for asking. When I wrote this post initially, I didn’t even think of mentioning taking photos with my phone. And I think is because it is actually much simpler workflow, I guess. I take the photo, some get edited within the photos app or Darkroom, and that’s all there’s to it.

😎📷😉

DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition

In the past few days, I have been playing DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition on the Nintendo Switch lite. And man, am I having a great time with it. My first DW game was Dynasty Warriors 3. I remember I was in college, young and very stupid. I walked by an EB Games, and saw they had on their PlayStation 2 demo unit Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. So, obviously, I had to buy a PS2 with MGS. Then I remember my buddy looking in the used games section and found Dynasty Warriors 3. Oh boy, after that, not only we played that game almost every single night. I have been playing every single DW game ever since.

For whatever reason, I don’t remember playing 8 but then again, almost every DW, it’s just a reiteration of the same game, same formula, over and over. So, in a way, if you have played one, you have played them all.

Before 8, my most recent like-game from the same “franchise” I played on the Switch, was WARRIORS OROCHI 4. This one is more like a crossover of, Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors with other godly characters.

Playing 8, was like going back in time to those first DW games, where the story was the same, maybe adding a few characters here and there. But it was the same old school DW game I felt in love with back in 2001-2002. Even some in-battle dialog are the same.

Love the nostalgia, and I am having a blast revisiting this franchise in all its glory.

Yesterday, I posted some thoughts about my photography skills or lack thereof. Specially around the true way of black and white photography. Although there’s probably no such thing, right.

I guess what I was trying to get at was, how can I go about taking black and white pictures without resorting to filters of any kind with my current camera? Today, I went down a rabbit whole, “there has to be a way I can do this with my camera”.

And there it was, I had forgotten there is an option in my camera under “Picture Mode”, for Monochrome. Like I said on my previous post, a camera like the Olympus PEN-F, has a manual switch for this instead of going into the settings. What I did is that I basically mapped it to one of the dials settings, so I can switch back and forth.

Having rediscovered this, I took my camera, put on the 45mm lens, simply for no reason, I don’t know. I am working from home today, so I started going around the house taking random pictures, just like the day I got my camera for the first time.

Now, in the excitement, I don’t know how, but I’ve lost my lens cap 😅

I’ve to go find it.

Here are some random pictures I took, using the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III with the m.zuiko 45mm f 1.8 — unedited.

I have been a photography enthusiast since my early years of college, and never really knowing what the fuck I am doing. Fast-forward fourteen years or so and still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I do it anyway. I truly enjoy whatever form of photography I’m doing. And in the recent years, I have been enjoying black and white photography more and more.

The same way I don’t know what I am doing with my photography, I also have no idea what I’ll be talking about here, so bare with me here.

I often wonder, how “true” black and white photography, is done… Well, I know that with film there are specific films for this purpose. But what about digitally? I know pf monochrome cameras, I know the Olympus PEN-F has a manual switch to change from “regular” to monochrome. What about regular cameras, like mine? I currently have and Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III that I snap my pictures with. I know it has some black and white grainy filters, which they feel fake in a way, so I don’t use them. If I want a black and white photo I take the normal, in-color, RAW picture and use a filter to make it black and white, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo!

Is that cheating? Or that’s how most people do it anyway? Is it all in-camera editing? Is there a secret legit editing magic I don’t know or haven’t learned about?

This also sounds like a lot of impostor syndrome 😅

Regardless of what the true way is, if any at all, I will continue with my way of doing it until I learn otherwise, I guess. 😎