September 2025, a month in review
September, this was a PACKED month. I wanted to do a little review and post it here. Why? I dunno.
Linkin Fucking Park
Okay, so, my best friend and I went to go see Linkin Park in AZ. I drove for 10 hours. It was actually a fun and very beautiful road trip.
There was this one spot I stopped in to get gas; the air smelled like heaven. It had just rained in the area, and I got out and it was just filled with the smell of petrichor (the smell of rain when it hits dry dirt) and pine.
I got 2 concert tees. One is a black tee with the group on the front and the LP logo in the back with "Phoenix, AZ September 6, 2025" on the back. The other was a pink tie dye tee with the band logo on the front and back (I think this one is my favorite). If you were at this concert, drop me an email!
The band opened with a guy named Jean Dawson. I liked his stuff (I later listened to it on my friend's spotify... I prefer him live honestly). Afterwards came Linkin Park. They opened with "Somewhere I Belong" and it was amazing. Emily Armstrong is a really solid singer and she fits well with the band's style.
The setlist for the concert is as follows:
- Some remix recording with elements of "Castle of Glass"
- “Somewhere I Belong”
- “Lying From You”
- “Up From the Bottom” (this song fucking kicks ass)
- “New Divide” (When this song came up, my buddy and I about shit ourselves we were NOT expecting this song)
- “The Emptiness Machine”
Act II
- recording with elements of "Castle of Glass"
- “The Catalyst”
- “Burn It Down” (13 year-old me SCREAMED, this was one of his favorites).
- “Cut the Bridge”
- “Where'd You Go” (Fort Minor cover)
- “Waiting for the End”
- “Castle of Glass” (with Jean Dawson)
- “Two Faced”
- Joe Hahn record scratching Solo
- “When They Come for Me” / “Remember the Name” (It was here that Mike Shinoda walked around the front row of the crowd, and found this dude dress in cap and gown because he just ditched his graduation. Mike gave the guy his hat. The graduate's mom was with him and was found out to be Chester Bennington's choir teacher in high school (makes sense Chester grew up in this area. Super Cool.)
- “Casualty”
- “One Step Closer”
Act III
- "Break"/ "Collapse" (recording)
- “Lost”
- “Over Each Other”
- “What I've Done”
Act IV
- "Kintsugi" (recording)
- “Overflow”
- "Billie Jean" cover; instrumental jam (basically Mike played a game with the crowd, he had someone choose a number between 1-3 and that would determine what drum style would be played for the next song. The person chose 2; disco.)
- “Numb” (with "Numb/Encore" disco intro)
- “From the Inside”
- “Heavy Is the Crown”
- “Bleed It Out”
Encore
- pre-recording with elements of "Castles of Glass")
- “Papercut”
- “In the End” (I wish they ended with this song)
- “Faint”
Just like the 2024 Green Day concert, I want to relive this day over and over again like my personal Groundhog Day.
Arizona
So, to talk more about AZ. I had a lot of fun, at a lot of food. We went to Olive Garden twice (he works there and I always get my Zuppa Toscana fix).
We were goofing around in target to which he handed me an Among Us plush, and I yeeted that thing 3 isles over. He just looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train, he looks and me and says "[My Name], you are proof free will exists." Thank you?
Anyway, drive was gorgeous both there and back. Took 2 different routes, for some reason. I think google maps just wanted to keep me on my toes.
Got a bonus from work / Stuff I purchased
Got a nice fat bonus from work. So, I got some stuff that have been on my list for MONTHS.
- Sony Walkman WM-FX10 (cassette player)
- Sony Dream Machine ICF-C7iP alarm clock (allows me to connect my iPod
- Kyocera DuraXV+ (my dumb phone)
- Minecraft PS4 Edition
- Extra cymbal and tom for my electric drum kit
- FL Studio Producer Edition
- Minecraft: Volume Beta vinyl
- Linkin Park's "The Hunting Party", "A Thousands Suns", and "Papercuts" on CD
- SLC Punk on DVD
- MF DOOM's MM FOOD.. on cassette
- Metal Fingers Presents: Secret Herbs 9 & 0 on CD
- Many date nights for my wife
- A pikachu plush for my daughter
- An SNES w/ Super Mario World and Super Mario All-Stars
A growing girl
My daughter is almost 18 months, holy shit is this kid growing on me.
She can say some basic words "hi", "bye", "Wiggles!", stuff like that. As well as some animal sounds like for a cat, cow, sheep, dog, and horse.
She is also learning she has opinions, strong ones. Which makes bedtime harder than it used to be. So, that's been a challenge, but I think we are moving in a good direction.
She's so excited to see me when I get home from work. She'll hear the door running saying "Dada!" Warms my cold dead heart.
She's developing her personality fully. She's stubborn like me, loves to make people laugh (also like me), and she's particular about her food (also like me). She's my little buddy, and I love that I get to watch this little human that's a spitting image of my wife and I grow up in front of my own eyes.
New therapist
My therapist quit (go ahead and get your jokes out now), I guess she was getting burned out with being a therapist. I got assigned this new guy. First ever therapist I've had that was a dude. So, it was certainly an adjustment, I tend to go to women in health/mental health as in my experience dudes are just SO in your face. This new therapist is cool though. I like him, I'm gonna stick with him.
Dumbphone Life
So, yeah. I'm almost a month into having a dumbphone. So far, I don't plan on going back to a smart phone. I do have a smart phone by my dresser for my sleep aid playlist, alarms for work, and 2-factor for work. Outside of those 3 things, I hardly touch the thing. It's actually great because the iPhone can't connect to wifi or bluetooth, so it's basically an iPod touch at this point.
I love having this thing. It's just advanced enough to be practical, but still not enough features that it would have just made sense to keep a smartphone. Texting on it is nice with it's use of autocomplete based on the keys you pressed so I don't have to press "5" 100 times just to get the letter "L".
Anyway, still going strong, nothing has really blocked me from using it as a daily phone. I just got my Sony Dream Machine, so that will now be my new alarm instead of my old iPhone! Hopefully I'll get it down to just the 2factor!
Final thoughts
Crazy month. Can't believe it went over so quickly. It was a good month, had it's ups and downs (because a certain somebody got publicly offed), but mostly ups.
Now let's go wake up Billie Joe Armstrong from his month-long coma.
Pirate is wearing PJs
Pirate is feeling tired
Pirate ate homemade brocolli cheddar soup and hot sandwiches I made.
Pirate is playing Bordlerlands 2 with my father-in-law
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