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Read Vibe Check №9 A digital scan of the cover of the journal I used during September, 2025. It's a custom MIKIE NOTES 'Born Again' edition, featuring the cover artwork of Daredevil #232.

Vibe Check №9

Notes from September 2025

TL;DR

I went to three pro wrestling shows in five days, spent a couple hundred dollars to learn about the limits of lamination, and was reminded of a particularly poignant quote.

A September to Remember

All Elite Wrestling came north of the border for the first time in over a year, so naturally I had to go all out (pun intended) and hit up as many local shows as possible.

The interior of an ever-renovating Union Station in Toronto.
Boarding the VIA Train to London.

The first show was in London, Ontario on Wednesday, September 17th for AEW Dynamite: September to Remember, a 3-hour live TV broadcast from Canada Life Place. I basically travelled to London by train for free using the travel vouchers I’d earned after my first horrible experience with VIA Rail. I watched Train to Busan on our way there for the immersive experience. London is known to locals as the Busan of Southern Ontario, after all. With no delays and working A/C, we pulled into London around 1:30 PM.

The exterior of Tilt Arcade Bar in London, Ontario.
Playing pinball, poorly.

My brother & I had a quick lunch at Waldo’s before checking out the Covent Garden Market, where I bought $30 worth of fudge because mentally I am a 12-year old with zero impulse control. I don’t even like fudge. We headed back to our hotel for a little siesta, then killed some time at Tilt Arcade Bar over skee-ball and sour beers. The venue opened at 6:30, and was thankfully right across the street. The ~3,500 fans were rabid as hell. I just couldn’t get over just how enthusiastic the crowd was from the opening bell. We had some incredible seats and the go-home show was over before I knew it. I enjoyed some well-deserved mozarella sticks at Holy Diver after the show before heading back to our hotel.

An enthusiastic child enjoying some good old graps at AEW Dynamite: September to Remember.
The interior of Holy Diver, a nice little dive bar a stone's throw from Canada Life Place in downtown London.

The second show was three days later, on Saturday, September 20th in Toronto for AEW All Out 2025, a 6-hour live pay-per-view event at Scotiabank Arena. I accidentally slept in so we missed our lunch reservation, but we still made it downtown in time for doors. The merch lines were crazy. I managed to score a signed Christian Cage/Adam Copeland poster. Pretty sure I may have inadventently stolen food from the self-serve market too after reviewing my transaction history? Serves them right for not employing real people, I guess.

We met up with my friend Nick from Undead Media, and the show itself was incredible from start to finish, as AEW PPV’s usually are. The opening match featuring our hometown heroes Christian Cage & Adam Copeland vs. FTR was red-hot, with the absolute highlight of the night coming early watching Cope hit the five-knuckle shuffle in tribute to his former rival. I never would have expected to hear 13,000 people chanting “CENA! CENA!” at an AEW show in a million years, tbh. Briscoe & MJF brought the tacks out, PAC made his long-awaited return, Okada, Takeshita, & Dorada tore the house down in what was probably the best match of the night, and the main event between Hangman & Fletcher did not disappoint, lighting issues aside. Cowboy shit, forever. The early start time means I was home and asleep by 10:00 PM. I’d need the rest with one final show to go.

The view from our seats at AEW All Out 2025.

The third and final show was the very next day at noon, on Sunday, September 21st for Mystery Wrestling 18 at the Rec Room Roundhouse back in Toronto. It was kind of the perfect type of show to close out the weekend. I had a lot of laughs and I’m pretty sure the mystery man in the sasquatch costume looked oddly familiar… Could have been anyone though.

Toronto's CN Tower looking real tall.
The view from our seats at Mystery Wrestling 18, live from the Rec Room Roundhouse in Toronto. There is a tent in the ring in a match between Cecil Nyx & ‘Man Scout’ Jake Manning.

Three shows in five days. A september to remember.

An Expensive Lesson

I’ve been continuing to tinker with my notebook making process in the hopes that if I can just solve these last two problems, it can actually be a feasible business model and I can open up an online store:

  1. I need a paper supplier.
  2. I need a more efficient, consistent ‘finishing’ process.

Up to now, I’ve simply been recycling my unused Field Notes notebooks by ripping the cover off of them and replacing them with my custom designed & printed versions of my own creation. The inner paper quality on the Field Notes books are fantastic, but spending ~$7.00 for 24 sheets of notebook-sized paper isn’t exactly cost effective. I’ve found a cheaper Amazon alternative that can bring the cost down to ~$3.00 for 24 sheets of worse (but still usable) paper, but I’d still be going through the same process of replacing the cover, and I don’t really want to give Bezos any more money. I tried contacting some Chinese wholesalers to see if I can arrange a purchase of unbound notebooks without covers but that led nowhere fast.

I really have no interest in investing in a paper cutter to make my own line/graph/dot paper, so until I can find a supplier – and ideally a Canadian one – who can cut line/graph/dot paper down to 7”x5” for me, I just don’t have good paper solution.

The second issue I’ve been facing is that I need a more efficient/consistent method of ‘finishing’ the book covers’ exterior once they’ve been printed. For my personal notebooks I swear by Renaissance Wax to apply a protective coating. The feeling in hand is amazing, as is the water and scuff resistance. It’s the perfect solution for my personal notebooks, but it just doesn’t scale due to the time it takes to apply. I’ve tried fixative sprays that take less time to apply, but they don’t feel as good in hand or work as well as the Renaissance Wax.

An Intelligent FM-3510 roll laminator machine, which I had hoped would work for my notebooks, but sadly, did not. It's in a bright yellow chasis.

Does it come in orange?

I really thought I’d figured out improving the efficiency & consistency of the post-processing by opting for soft-touch lamination. I found a local supplier who hooked me up with some soft-touch laminate film and a used roll laminator at a decent price. Unfortunately, I forgot to account for the fact that one-sided lamination doesn’t work, as it causes the paper to curl outward when applied to the outer cover. And I can’t do the usual two-sided lamination because you need to be able to write on the inside cover. An expensive lesson to learn, but thankfully the supplier was cool about it and I was able to get my money back minus a $30 restocking fee.

And so I’ve kinda hit a wall here, I’ve officially run out of ideas in figuring out how to take some custom notebooks to market without compromising on cost and quality. If you’ve got any ideas, please shoot me an email at howdy@mikie.zip!

A Quote from Henry Rollins

The far-right American influencer Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in the neck speaking at a college campus on September 10th, 2025. I won’t devote another sentence on this website to talking about him or his politics, I only bring it up as a contextual preface for this Henry Rollins quote that I find myself coming back to:

It is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility, and your sense of community… people are getting a little desperate. They might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you don’t like. There’s not better time than now to have a moral and civic backbone, to have a moral and civic true north. This is a tremendous opportunity for you, a young person, to be heroic… weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality; all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor.

Henry Rollins

Highlights

Here’s all the stuff I’ve been into this month:

Movies

Weapons 2025

  • Directed by Zach Cregger
  • Loved
  • `4.5/10`
  • Watched on September 14, 2025

Never expected the world’s most expensive Campbell’s Soup commercial from the Gallon of PCP guy would be my favourite film of the year, but here we are! I also didn’t expect this to be as funny as it was. But if you can get past how creepy it is, you’re rewarded with a delightful final act. Seriously. Fuck yeah.

All of this coming from a self-confessed lil bitch who does not enjoy horror movies.

One Battle After Another 2025

  • Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
  • Loved
  • `4.5/10`
  • Watched on September 30, 2025

Two featured movie reviews in one month? Is that even legal?

Didn’t really know what to expect going into this other than “it good” based on the Letterboxd reviews you’ve all been posting, so I ponied up the $10 to get my ass to the local cineplex and judge for myself. And it’s played pretty straight for the first 30-40 minutes, but once I realized how absurd everything is, it really clicked for me. And by the end, I had found myself lulled into a climax so suspenseful I was on the edge of my reclining seat. Great score, great acting, great directing, great script… it’s gonna be One Oscar After Another come March. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only bad thing in this film is Sean Penn’s haircut. Go see this while it’s still in theatres.

TV

I Think You Should Leave 2019

Season 1

  • Created by Tim Robinson
  • Loved
  • `4/10`
  • Rewatch
  • Rewatched on September 23, 2025

Other than finishing up Alien: Earth, binging Gundam Wing, and trudging along through Peacemaker, I’ve been rewatching ITYSL (for research purposes). Thank God Tim Robinson isn’t a real person.

Books

Starter Villain 2023

  • Written by John Scalzi
  • Loved
  • `4/10`
  • Read on September 22, 2025

Hi, Charlie,” the dolphin said. “I’m Who Gives a Shit, and these are my associates Don’t Care, Fuck You, Fuck Off, Burn It Down, and Eat the Rich.

Legitimately laugh out loud at times, a great premise falls off about halfway through but still kept me coming back for more. Will Wheaton provides some wonderful narration for the audiobook too.

YouTube

Please don’t ask me to explain any of this to my parents.

I enjoyed these other videos, and you might too:

Purchases

Like $300 worth of fake plants from IKEA.

I (conceptually) regret nothing.

I may or may not have gone to IKEA for a hotdog and come home with $300 worth of fake plants this month. The above image is a crude composition of the previously mentioned hypothetical haul. I would imagine that these fake plants would add a delightful presence to a room and that I would really enjoy seeing them when I wake up.

A self-portrait photograph of the author holding an SLR camera viewfinder to his eye, obsuring this face.
Mike Mali (@mikie.zip)

If you're reading this, it's too late please let me know any thoughts, ideas, questions, comments, concerns, or corrections at howdy@mikie.zip. It would literally make my day to hear from you. 🤠