hi british vogue, i’m nick, and this is what’s in my bag
water bottle
a yeti bottle specifically. get one. they keep things cold for like 12 hours. basically everyone in the hottest parts of australia have them. i staved off the urge for a while, i’ve been awfully at keeping hydrated, bragged about it even, but at the start of the year i made a resolution to make small changes to my lifestyle to improve my health, and spending $80 on a water bottle is enough money to make me accountable to use it. it’s nice not immediately pruning up in the shower, skin so dehydrated it physically hurts after say 10 minutes from my skin contract. water good!!!!
book
whatever book i’m reading at the second!! right now i’m in the early stages of this classic. my friend tanami gave this one to me along with clockwork orange and the great gatsby. i’m trying to read more. recently i’ve blazed through the tatami galaxy as mentioned, 1984, a collection of short stories by jorge luis borges. i also went to my local book shop, a rotary club operating out of my old kindergarten and picked up catch 22, the crucible, an extensive collection of edgar allen poe and a guide to digital photography. it was awfully strange seeing rooms i barely remember. deeply, deeply nostalgic. reminded me both of my time being a vice-president of a rotary club and taking a fat fucking chunk out of my knee when i was like 3.
cigarettes & lighters
:^3 cigarettes don’t count if you’re pure of heart.
mints
for after cigarettes. usually i get the grape ones, i fuckin love me some artificial grape flavour.
headphones
as mentioned in a previous post i got these recently. audio technica az100s. mint. crisp. good sound reproduction, goes fucking loud when it needs to. i have to say however, the active noise cancelling is by far the most impressive feature. i can genuinely tune out everything around me if i want, even on lower volumes, and the ambient mode is perfect for when i need to be aware of an suv travelling at 70 kph in a school zone to avoid being hit. they’re almost eye-wateringly expensive, which on one hand is good because they’re fucking quality, but also because it disincentivises me to drop the case, which is how the last pair i had broke.
ear protection
i go to gigs!! and occasionally still act as engineer for them. generally though, these are just decent noise protection. i had some overears, but they’re sitting in a locker at my old job, along with a socket set, and i can’t be fucked going back for them. i actually stole like 5 pairs of these from my uni, which had them in a tub outside the studio rooms, very responsible. the moment i got an ear test and found out i was losing perception of the upper frequency register, i got scared straight into these fuckers.
leatherman
another recommendation, get one of these. there’s a reason my first technician job specifically listed a leatherman as required uniform and not a gerber or kinchrome. this shit will save your life. i’ve always absolutely adored high functionality in compact form. i used to binge watch micro-apartment tours. this got 3 knives, 2 files, tiny scissors, a phillips and flathead screwdriver, combination pliers with side cutters, a crimper, ruler, can and bottle opener, a wire stripper, eyeglass phillips and flathead, a larger flathead and i think that covers it? overkill, maybe, but when you have a loose screw or need to open a can and cut your nails that morning, you will come crawling to me. i keep that mf thang on me. makes me feel prepared for… something. i am diy capable.
powerbank
what can i say, i like to be practical. before i moved out for the first time, i decided to spend some decent cash repairing / buying all my essentials. this included my audio technica earphones, some bookshelf speakers, this powerbank, some quick dry clothes, and some other shit. i don’t remember. saved my ass many times.
scroggin
i love a good hike! but more than a hike, i love me some nuts and fuckin berries. it’s a good snack to have, definitely better than scarfing down 2 metres of licorice because i’m impulsively hungry. i’m still min-maxing my trail mix build, but i started off with the cape cod combination, almonds, cranberries and cashews. bianca (who you should remember from the last blogpost) recommended yogurt chips instead of the sprinkle of choc chips i put in. yummyyyy. i’d love to hike more, but last hike i went on i partially tore my acl in the middle of a gorge that required climbing over rocks on 45 degree angles to go both forward and back. i also got overcharged by the uber driver that helped us get back to the carpark. fuckin asshole. anyway. i’ve been meaning to go up one of the trails near my house recently. takes me back to eating dried fruits, nuts and banana chips in primary school because i struggled with the squelchy texture of fruits.
po-133 w/ wired earphones
the fun one. this, for the uninitiated, is a special edition of the pocket operator 33 by teenage engineering, called the po133. i got it shipped in from america right after they went out of production. it acts as a sampler and sequencer, allowing you to record either line in or via the inbuilt mic, chop, filter and repitch samples, and program basic sequences with them. this one is inspired by street fighter 2, meaning it obviously has the display with ryu and chun li, but also comes with a bunch of stock sfx from sf2. the default patterns are recreations of the ost too, by the way. unfortunately the memory is 44 seconds, and while it’s not brittle, it’s obviously a bit thin to withstand a beating. te sells protective cases, but i’d have to snap off the little hanger on the top, which i quite like. i also bring wired earphones to be polite to my surroundings. fuck i love this thing. i’m hoping to get the ko2, which is basically this on fucking steroids.
stimmy toy
eh. got this for $2. it’s the only stimmy toy i have. it’s aight.
moisturizer and sunscreen
part of going bald that big hairloss doesn’t want you to know is you need to put sunscreen on your scalp. it’s fucked. like my hydration, i also didn’t take sunscreen seriously, until i started seeing pictures of myself where i was visibly sunburnt. all the time. that and having a hot shower with sunburn is a certain hell reserved for the most heinous crimes. musilini would have hot showers while sunburnt. also moisturiser! keep that shit on lock. i use scent-free ones cause i try to be very intentional with my scents via bodywash, aftershave, beard oil, shave gel ect, and the idea of adding on another layer is another musilini-esque horror.
first aid
hey mang, you never know. i did scouts so i know the basics, and also did a first aid course when i was doing youth work ages ago. i also got a mental health first aid course, which was laughably simple. turns out ignoring depression is… bad?? bro what???
forks
i used to buy pre-made meals from the supermarket, katsu chicken, beef curry, and instant noodles. the holdover is that i still keep forks on me in case anything edible enters my immediate vicinity.
nail kit
i could use my leathermans file, but this one is much nicer. good if ever i notice my nails get rough. i actually like the practice of giving other people massages. i’ve taught myself basics, been told i’m quite good at it. having sharp nails don’t mix with that.
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