$75 Studio, Rebel Substack, & Starbucks Absurdity
TL;DR: A podcast setup that costs $75 instead of $700, a Substacker building outside the algorithm, a tabletop game that fixes your writing, and why my local gas station selling Starbucks in Spain is absolutely insane.
The $75 Podcast Setup That Sounds Like $700
I’m building my audio podcast with a Behringer XM8500 microphone and a small XLR mixer. Total cost with cables: around $75. Compare that to the $700+ setups where people buy a Shure SM7B and use it completely wrong because some YouTuber told them it was “industry standard.” The Behringer sounds great, looks the way I want a mic to look, and costs so little that using it feels like rebellion against gear obsession. My setup beats the gear recommended by every guru with an affiliate link. Sometimes “good enough” is just better.
The Leftovers: Taste over specs. Always.
Visit the Behringer Store on Amazon.com: [CLICK HERE]
A Little Video from the Sea
You don’t always have to travel at the speed of thought. Have a great weekend and do something fun to expound your mind!
The Substacker Building Something Real
Matthews @lukematthws on Substack just published something that reminded me why I’m still here: “Rebels and non-conformists are the pioneers of change.” He’s not chasing viral hooks or optimizing for the algorithm. He’s building work that matters by refusing to play the game everyone else is playing. Go find him, read his stuff, and remember what the internet used to feel like before everything became a content funnel.
The Leftovers: The algorithm rewards bland, but it remembers the rebels.
Dungeons & Dragons Is Making Me a Better Writer
I’m playing D&D as a hobby now. Full campaign commitment with hardcover rulebooks spread across the table. It’s forcing me to write more than any content calendar ever did because it combines digital tools (AI for quick lore), physical books, collaborative storytelling, and pure creative chaos. It’s like being a teenager again but with today’s tools and an adult’s execution. You cannot create interesting things online if you only consume interesting things from the same six sources everyone else follows.
The Leftovers: Strange inputs create better outputs. Get a hobby that doesn’t scale.
Get Some D&D Books from Wizards of the Coast [CLICK HERE]
The Starbucks Invasion Has Reached Spain
My local gas station is now selling Starbucks coffee. In Spain. Where you can walk into any bar and get legitimately delicious coffee for under €1.30. Meanwhile, I’ve been making my own “Starbucks style” coffee at home with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. It tastes better and costs almost nothing. The fact that a gas station in Costa del Sol thinks Spanish people need American coffee-flavored milk is one of the strangest cultural moments I’ve witnessed since moving here.
The Leftovers: Sometimes globalization is just absurd. Make your own coffee. Add spices. Save your money.
What’s In Your Hoard?
Here’s what I actually want to know: What are you hoarding this week?
Not what you think you should buy. Not what some productivity guru recommended. What are you actually acquiring, whether it’s for vanity, necessity, fun, or some combination of all three? What’s the thing that makes you feel like yourself?
(Note: Some links in “The Hoard” are affiliate links. For example, if you buy the cheap mic I recommended, your price stays the same and I buy more coffee. Not Starbucks. Win-win.)
Hit reply. I’m genuinely curious.
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See you Saturday for the editor’s letter.
Venga!