The food I’ve always found comfort in is usually sweet, especially if it’s chocolate:
Milk chocolate
Dark chocolate
Dobash cake (I just learned this is the Hawaiian variation of a Hungarian cake, then adapted in New Orleans, called, “Dobosh torte. I didn’t know this was a thing and I grew up with Dobash cake!!!)
Chocolate ice cream
Triple chocolate fudge ice cream
World class chocolate
Chocolate with caramel (Rolo’s)
Belgian chocolate (I WILL go to Belgium for the chocolate alone!!!)
Chocolate Chantilly cake (Hawaiian style, not Mainland style)
Anything that has chocolate, as long as it doesn’t have nuts or mint or coconut shreds or is white chocolate, I’ll eat it. I’ve been made fun of for liking a “very plain” flavor and I just shake my head at people. Like, “Seriously? I don’t make fun of whatever flavor you like and you throwing shade at what I like? Forget you! I wouldn’t want to share anything more with you anyways.”
There might be other types of chocolate that I’ve never heard of, but as long as it doesn’t have any of the things I listed above, then I would like to try it. Everyone has their own way of making chocolate, so I wouldn’t mind getting diabetes (knock on wood) if I got to try the differences in other people’s chocolate!
That should be the reason I should travel, besides visiting the local libraries and bookstores in the area of whatever state and country I would like to visit; I should go on a chocolate tasting spree! I wonder where I could go after visiting Belgium being my first stop. Where else in the world could have really good chocolate treats? If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know in the comment section. It would greatly help me map out the destinations I could go. Thank you!
Some aspects of a typical day followed the same patterns that I barely noticed, though noticed enough, the disruption in said patterns. The day only becomes “atypical” if I believe something has changed, something shifted, and I experience a mixture of emotions all at once:
I felt dread and trepidation because my vacation ended, I have to return to my full-time job that drains me. Yet, I feel relieved that I can step away from the keyboard for a little bit.
I felt hatred and resentment towards myself because not much has changed since taking my vacation; I’m still working for a corporation that pays me well enough being a college drop out, offers great benefits, but kills me on the inside every second I’m present. However, I get to dictate what I want and can do in the day.
I’ve gotten curious to try something’s from Pinterest because I want to be proven right and wrong at the same time. At least, until I can work at my part time rage room job, then I’ll be hating everything and everyone at work. Unfortunately, that’s typical for me until I wake up without the help of caffeine or energy drinks.
I’d want to finish up the work week already, jump straight back to being my days off, so I get to decide how to spend my time without someone looming over my shoulder or dictating me: be it learning, experimenting, or pursuing new outlets and passions.
I feel dreadful that I don’t want to get out of bed, I don’t have much energy to bother, but I have to get up, follow my routine, or I’ll fall behind again.
The main difference from my typical day shifting to an atypical one is mostly from the small progress and projects I hadn’t done before, but gave it a try anyways.
Been working on my story telling and writing skills.
Read and finished 1 more book than the prior years.
Learned and advocated my needs and boundaries, even if that meant walking away from people I used to call “friends”, but they never really called me that in return.
Taking charge and accumulating wins from the moment I wake up to when it’s time to sleep again.
The list goes on and on, it provides a small silver lining within my usual pessimistic and neurotic perspective, yet I am grateful that things are slowly changing. Small acts of courage, even when I feel afraid, has given me another “second chance” I never gave myself years prior. Things can change, are changing, and are becoming something different that I can’t wait to see what and where it could lead to.
I’m terrified, although I feel more courageous to move forward regardless of that fear, and that is the most atypical of a day it could get for me. Wouldn’t that be one of the best feelings in the world to experience?
Slight Change in The “Typical/Atypical” Part:
Update: So, this became an atypical day because a few things happened today:
1) According to my coworker, we had a tsunami watch last week, even though I told her that I didn’t get a notification. She said a lot of people didn’t get it, but lots saw it on Facebook, which I don’t have.
2) The tsunami watch was supposed to have ended the same week it was announced, but it didn’t.
3) Now, the watch became a tsunami threat, so a lot of people were panicking, driving crazy, all because, and I understand, they’re trying to get home to evacuate the coastal areas and move to higher ground or further inland.
Thankfully, I made it home to my apartment, my family are packing everything to move to higher ground or further inland, but this has been the first ever tsunami threat in probably decades. We’ve been able to avoid a lot of tsunamis and hurricanes for a long time now. I guess Mother Nature decided we needed a wake up call, get us to set our priorities straight, and see if we are ready for her violent and vicious visit approaching in a few hours after this update.
I’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully, everyone makes it to where they have to go safely because I’ve seen first hand how crazy people can get from small inconveniences. I know I would get upset and mad if someone cuts me off in traffic without using their blinker. That’s over an inconvenience.
But when we feel our life, and our loved one’s lives, are being really threatened? That’s a completely different story. But the only thing we can do, especially what I can do, is wait and see. Thanks for letting me rant a bit, but things should be okay for now.
The kinds of food I make are simple and depends on how much time I have to meal prep. Since I’m living on my own now, I don’t have to make a lot of food as I used to when living with family. I wouldn’t want to waste a lot of food too often.The things that I like to make are:
Chicken long rice
Chicken or shrimp pasta with mushrooms, broccoli, and home made Alfredo sauce
Chook or Jook (Not sure how to spell it, but its a rice dish)
Spam, egg, and rice/fried rice
Boiled eggs
Saimen (sorry, Ramen) with egg
Tuna sandwiches
Fried/baked Salmon with asparagus
Chicken or beef (Japanese) curry/stew
Steak and hot dogs
Something simple, something fast, some things can be eaten cold, others are quick to heat up (without a microwave, stoves are good too). I can make enough to last a few days, have for lunch or dinner, and can last me during long work days where I have no time to cook. Adulting is tough, but it’s only making me tougher!
I used to think about this question often in high school and in university, exclaiming, “the world is messed up! It needs to change; politicians need to do better; If only things were done a (vaguely specific way without evidence or driven by assumptions).” You know the kind of rant I’m talking about, right?
I would love to make changes to (modern western) society, but I don’t know enough, let alone properly informed, about what changes are necessary. I don’t have social media, I stopped watching the news years ago, and most of my information comes from people’s opinions. Are they anymore reliable than FOX or CBS News? I don’t think so, but people do provide information to potentially look into.
Otherwise, everything from me would be to ask questions:
What is it about (modern) society that is terrible?
Am I projecting what I dislike or am unhappy with in my situation onto the whole society?
Have I taken steps to solve a real tangible problem in my power to change? If so, what, when, and how did I contribute or could contribute?
Am I listening to the opinions of others who, if asked to elaborate on why they think about X and Y, they would be able to provide clear and concise answers?
It’s likely easy for me to ask questions because, whatever is going on in the world, things haven’t impacted me as harshly as the people in the mainland. I live on an island, we have our fair share of problems, but it’s still problems that need to be addressed.
Infrastructure
Tourism
Homelessness/Available housing
Education
Although, trying to change society is WAY above my pay grade, even if a hypothetical. I’d rather, for now, donate my time, money, blood, and spare resources I could share. I can start small, set a goal for how much and what, research where to donate to, and simply do my part. That’s good enough and easier for me to manage – society is too vast – and engage with.
I wouldn’t know where to begin if I were to describe myself to someone, be it familiar or stranger. No two people would say the same thing twice. I could be anything to anyone at any point in time:
Friendly
Empty
Neurotic
Dull
Lazy
Bitter
Angry
Excited
Loyal
Curious
Inquisitive
Experimental
I could be everything in between or nothing at all to anyone. I could be polarizing, neutral, or static, but the answer changes and it’s never consistent. We’re all the strange phenomena of, “Schrödinger’s Cat” – we’re all walking paradoxes of being both alive and dead – we’ll never know the answer unless we open the box, right?
Even if my task is to describe myself to someone, I wouldn’t be able to. I, myself, have an insufficient vocabulary, so, I wouldn’t have much words to properly express myself well. I am whatever the other person perceives me to be and nothing – reputation or action – could change their mind. I’ve slowly have come to terms with not changing someone else’s mind. Trying to is a terrible waste of time, energy, and resources.
The one thing that I could share though, despite it all, is that I’m still here; I’m still navigating the complexities of life and seeking simple pleasures wherever and however I can. I know I’ve made strides from the person I used to be to be who I’ve grown into, but old patterns linger and have festered when I thought they were gone. Nope. Out of sight, sure, but never far from mind.
So, in essence, I’m still fighting to live, fighting to remain, the only word here is fight. I might not be standing on a blue mat, I’ve been thrown around by life, be it by choice or circumstance: surviving, battered, beaten, bloodied, even without obvious evidence showing otherwise. I get up against my severe need for rest and I keep getting slammed anyways. Eventually, I’ll be able to retaliate, I’m bidding my time and waiting for the chance to strike. I know how far I’ve traveled in my own journey, some people don’t need an explanation, only I do and that’s enough.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I somehow fixed an Xbox 360 with a mysterious E68 error code — and I did it with zero prior electronics experience. The console wouldn’t turn on properly, and every old YouTube guide I tried failed.
After hours of testing, poking around, and stubbornly refusing to give up, I discovered the culprit: a small removable hard drive that was malfunctioning. One vent, one hatch, and a lot of trial-and-error later, the Xbox is fully functional again.
In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly what I did to solve the E68 error, what I learned about the console’s hardware, and why you might not even need that hard drive to get your system working.
If your Xbox 360 is acting up and no guide seems to help, this could save you time, frustration, and maybe even a trip to a repair shop or GameStop.
Let’s Get Tech Savvy as a Very Stubborn Person
Last night my boss at my rage room job received an Xbox 360 in great condition from a customer who said that it was “broken”.
I own a 360 myself, and, since a lot of consoles are expensive as shit, I hated how a perfectly good looking system was going to be sold to be smashed to bits.
A coworker wanted to see what made it broken and tested it out on our job’s TV to see what it looked like and it looked like this:
This video was taken in my apartment, but the system error remained the same.
The power bank light is green, though the power on the system itself is red, and the screen shows an error message on my TV. I had spent about over an hour looking for solutions to fix this Xbox.
I turned it off
laid it on its side
turned it back on. Only to have the same message appear. Most of the advice I found was from over 10 years ago and it showed those advice did fix their systems. It didn’t work for this one…
Like this was going to work, but I was skeptical.
Then, after reading through the comment section from this one YouTube video by “Huzaifa Techincal Guru”, it is when I finally found out the reason for the error code for this Xbox.
Now, my Xbox (right of one in video) is fully functioning after all these years when I realized I put the AV cords into the wrong ports of my LG TV. So, I figured, something is causing this other console to act up.
That’s when the video asks that I take it apart. Not apart to it’s minuscule component, rather to get to it’s hard drive.
If you can’t spot something different about this vent, then I’ll point it out that the vent looks different where I circled in red. There’s a gap in this vent. That’s where the hard drive is. I was mind blown when I learned those 3 vents were a button to open that hatch!
The inside to the hard drive!!!
Once you have the cover off, you will see something with a small piece of fabric sticking out now. That is the hard drive. From my understanding, it is not for extra memory, rather it is used to play first generation Xbox games on this second generation system. It makes it backwards compatible and able to function as though it is the original system.
Once you remove this hard drive, as far as the error code E68 goes, this is what happened.
IT’S ALIVE!!!!
The Xbox starts to function and the error code is gone! Apparently, as far as this experience went, E68 occurs if the hard drive is malfunctioning. You technically don’t need it.
This is only for allowing the Xbox 360 to play Xbox games.
The Xbox 360 has it’s own internal memory, unless you want to play games that require more memory or you have a lot of game profiles, the best solution is to remove the current malfunctioning hard drive and get a new one. Else, it’s really not needed and works fine without it.
This “Broken” Xbox System Has Been Saved!
After trying to figure out what was wrong with this system, I felt dumb because the solution was so simple — I didn’t have to open the entire system open. I would have broken it for real because I don’t know what to do, then my boss could sell this at work to break. Some people get ecstatic when they get to break a gaming system not theirs. I was so happy because I told them I was going to fix it, with no prior electronics experience AT ALL, and I did!
Now, my job can do what they want with this system, but I figured that, since it works, we could put it to use than break it when can still be used to play on. The customer that dropped it off also gave the remote controllers and the Kinect system too. All we’d need would be batteries and a few multiplayer games, then we’d be set!
I’m glad that I was able to figure out how to fix this system, I didn’t want to give up on it until I went through every option possible. Now the Xbox 360 will have multiple error codes appear, but I am thankful I was able to solve one of those error codes today and not resort to watching a system get utterly destroyed.
A Little Time and Stubbornness Shown Through To Get This Fixed
Anyways, I just wanted to share what I learned and, if your Xbox 360 is having the same issues that you want to keep and is fully functional, maybe this might help.
Let me know in the comments, what technical issues you had to deal with and how did you fix it?
I’m curious to know what kind of electronic mis-adventures you’ve all had, especially if you have no idea what you were doing, but fixed it somehow.
Until next time, Co-conspirators, The Archives will now be closing. Until we open again!
If You Made It To The End
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I write about other DIYs, fitness, finances, AI, and other things I find interesting.
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When I first thought about starting my blog, discomfort wasn’t just a passing feeling—it was a weight. Thoughts swirled in my head:
“You’re falling behind in life.” “You’re stuck in jobs that only keep you afloat.” “Why aren’t you building something of your own?”
That spiral came from something as small as reading a chapter of The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber. Suddenly, I was face-to-face with questions I had avoided for years.
Life in the Grind: Between Gratitude and Restlessness
I’ve been lucky in many ways:
I live on my own in a small studio.
I have steady full-time work with benefits.
I pick up part-time hours on top of that.
I see family often, and I’m not alone.
But I also know the grind: 3AM alarms, long commutes, and sitting in traffic wondering if this is all my life will be. I should be grateful (and I am), but envy and restlessness creep in. I want more—more peace, more freedom, more of a life that feels like mine.
Why I Finally Chose to Write
I knew I couldn’t keep waiting for the “perfect time.” If I didn’t start now, I might never start at all. A blog felt like:
A break in my exhausting routine. A way to sharpen my voice and courage. Proof that clumsy and done is better than perfect and never begun.
This space isn’t about being polished—it’s about being present, learning, and creating even when it feels uncomfortable.
The Dragon We All Face
Many of us wrestle with that question: “Am I doing enough?” The truth is, it’s never comfortable to face it. But discomfort is a sign of movement, of growth, of slaying the small dragons that keep us from even trying.
I don’t have the answers yet. But I know this: starting, no matter how small, is already a victory.
A Note to Fellow Archivists
If you’ve found your way here—whether in the early morning hours, on a restless night, or during a pause in your own journey—know this space is for you too. This little archive is a safe place to reflect on your path, even if it doesn’t fit neatly into life’s expectations.
If something here resonates, I’d love to hear your thoughts. And if you’d like to walk alongside me, subscribing means you’ll also get my Letters from the Void—personal reflections and early glimpses of projects I’m building behind the scenes. And a copy of The Stratagem’s Manifesto as a thank you gift from me to you for subscribing.
Because sometimes, finding each other in the noise is proof that we’re not as alone as we thought.
Other Articles
If you’d like to explore more about doing things even though you’re not ready to comfortable to, I have other articles below too check out:
