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Hack Your Nervous System: 4-7-8 Breathing With a GymBoss MiniMax

Posted on February 21, 2026February 21, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

I have been investing in my mental health way before it was “ok.” Dare I say, before it was cool? Or at the very least, before it was socially acceptable to say the words aloud. I tried it all. Red lights. Blue blockers. Yellow sun. Everything except white pills. Not that there’s anything wrong with those if you need them.

But if I am being honest, there is only one “hack” that has ever truly moved the needle on my anxiety: Mastering my breath.

It sounds like something a yoga instructor tells you while you are struggling to hold a plank, but it is true. Physiologically, your breath is the remote control for your nervous system. It is the only lever you can pull to manually switch your body from “Fight or Flight” (sympathetic) to “Rest and Digest” (parasympathetic).

The problem? Breathing apps are a trap.

To use Calm or Headspace, you have to unlock your phone. You have to see the red badge on Slack. You have to dodge a text. By the time you get to the “breathe bubble,” your cortisol is already spiking.

You don’t need an app with a visual bubble. You need a tactile rhythm. You need the GymBoss MiniMax.

The Ultimate Freewrite Alternative? Hello, Zerowriter Ink!

Posted on February 2, 2026February 2, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

I have a complicated relationship with the Freewrite.

On paper, it is the perfect device: a dedicated typewriter with an e-ink screen that syncs to the cloud. In reality, it is a $600 luxury item with a proprietary cloud service (“Postbox”). I love the idea of it, but I can never justify the price tag for what is essentially a glorified calculator that runs Microsoft Word 1.0.

I am a proponent of the used Alphasmart Neo 2, which is my distraction-free writing tool of choice to work on my novel.

But now, there is a new challenger. It’s called the Zerowriter Ink, and it is the first device that actually threatens the Freewrite’s monopoly on hipster minimalism.

I have not touched this device yet—it is currently shipping from its Crowd Supply campaign—but on paper, it fixes almost every gripe I have with modern writing decks.

CES 2026: The 5 Quietest Gadgets in Las Vegas

Posted on January 11, 2026January 11, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

There were 4,000 new gadgets launched at CES this week, promising to change your life. 3,995 of them just want to steal your attention to show you ads. Here are the other 5.

I waded through the sewer of dopamine-tech so you don’t have to.

CES is where tech goes to scream at you. But buried in the noise, there were a handful of products that get it. Here’s what I found.

Tascam DR-03 Review: Best Cheap Portable Recorder vs. Smartphone

Posted on January 8, 2026January 22, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

When I bought my Tascam DR-03 used at Goodwill for $22, I knew it was a great value: a portable solid state recorder that still holds its own almost 17 years after its release.

Unexpected bonus: The previous owner had left a 2GB SD card inside. When I hit play, I wasn’t just hearing audio; I was transported.

First, it was a lady practicing piano. Then, a clip of a preacher talking about God in what sounded like a cavernous hall. And even a psychology class in some lecture hall at the University of Unknown.

My voyeuristic side kicked in, and I listened. But what struck me most wasn’t what was recorded, but how it sounded.

It was spatial.

Unlike a flat phone recording that tries to isolate voice and kill the background, the Tascam’s stereo condenser mics capture the room. I could hear the silence between the piano notes. I could hear the echo of the preacher’s voice bouncing off the walls. It gave the audio dimension…like being there.

The $15 Cure for Nighttime Distraction: Westclox Baby Ben Review

Posted on January 5, 2026January 7, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

My nightstand used to look like the return bin at Best Buy.

It was a tangle of cables: a watch charger, a phone charger, a Kindle, and an open bottle of water balancing precariously in the middle. But the centerpiece of this clutter was always the phone. It sat there, glowing and vibrating, demanding to be checked one last time.

The breaking point wasn’t a work emergency. It was a pickleball paddle.

I reached through the wire nest at 11:15 PM to check my calendar. I saw a game scheduled for after work, which reminded that I had seen an ad for a paddle earlier in the day. That led to a Google search for a Tesla-created paddle, which spiraled into a 20-minute deep dive on a forum about aerodynamics and Elon Musk.

I lost sleep and sanity to a rabbit hole that only existed because I allowed my phone to sleep next to my head.

The solution wasn’t to organize the cables and tuck them into the alarm clock charger. It was to remove them entirely.

Whoop 5.0 Long-Term Review: The Fitness Tracker for People Who Hate Being Tracked

Posted on December 26, 2025January 2, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

This review is for people who want health data without turning their wrist into another screen.

As a marketing exec and passionate creative, I live a data-driven life. I have dashboards for spend, spreadsheets for ROI, and analytics for this very blog. I might even have a chart for tracking ridiculous expenses. Information is everywhere.

Most modern wearables deliver health data like the Vegas Strip: they buzz, they light up, they make demands. They turn your biological metrics into just another notification competing for your awareness.

I need the data, but I despise the distraction.

I have been wearing a Whoop for over five years, recently upgrading to the Whoop 5.0 with EKG. It is a strap. That’s it. No screen. No buttons. No lights.

It creates a boundary that modern tech has forgotten: The data exists, but only when I ask for it.

No More Laptop: My reMarkable 2 Evernote Workflow for Meetings

Posted on December 24, 2025December 25, 2025 by Drew G. Rosen

My day job has me in meetings, lots and lots of meetings. A few years ago, I looked around the conference room and realized something depressing: everyone was multitasking. And even if they weren’t, the illumination of the laptop screen made them look like they were.

When you open a laptop in a meeting, you are signaling partial attention. Even if you are taking notes aggressively, the speaker will likely assume the worst. You aren’t present. You are emailing a coworker or a friend.

I needed a way to lower the barrier without losing the data. I needed a “Safe Mode” protocol to make me feel a bit more human.

SanDisk Sansa e280: The Blue Ring Time Machine

Posted on December 23, 2025December 25, 2025 by Drew G. Rosen

I dug my old Sansa e280 out of an unmarked cardboard box under the steps in my basement ready to laugh at my 2006/2007 music preferences. I plugged it in, hoping for five minutes of battery life, and scrolled past the albums—Taking Back Sunday, Rise Against, Ke$ha. It was a perfect mid-00s fossil.

Then I found a folder labeled RECORDINGS.

Inside weren’t songs. They were “Audio Blogs” I recorded many years ago with travel writers I used to work with. And underneath those was a file simply dated from a Tuesday in 2010. I hit play.

It was my old Shiba Inu. Barking, crying, being a puppy. Kenji passed away early this year, yet there he was again, transmitted through a scratchy internal microphone on a $200 MP3 player. I sat there with wired headphones, listening to my “good boy.” I’m not sure a cloud backup from the 00s would have survived this long. But the Sansa did.

AlphaSmart NEO2 Review: The $95 Distraction-Free Writer’s Deck

Posted on December 22, 2025January 2, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

I didn’t buy the AlphaSmart because I needed another keyboard. I bought it because I needed to stop editing sentences before I finished writing them.

Writing on a modern laptop is an exercise in self-defense. You are constantly fighting off notifications, email pings, and the urge to “just quickly check” a fact, which inevitably leads to a 20-minute deep plunge into the history of the spork.

I wanted a “Writer’s Deck”—a dedicated machine that does exactly one thing: captures words. Now that my short-story collection is out, I need all the focus I can get to complete my novel.

I stalked eBay for weeks, ignoring the beat-up units formerly used by school districts. I waited for an immaculate AlphaSmart NEO2 that looked untouched, complete with a fresh internal backup battery (important for memory storage) and a working USB cable. When one popped up for $95, I didn’t hesitate.

Fujifilm FinePix Z90 Review: The $70 CCD Time Capsule

Posted on December 21, 2025January 5, 2026 by Drew G. Rosen

I admit it. I fell down the rabbit hole.

I wasn’t just looking for a camera. I was hunting for the secret sauce that has made a recent comeback: the CCD sensor.

For the uninitiated, CCD sensors are the tech world’s equivalent of vinyl records. They render colors in a way that feels thick, warm, and distinctly not like a smartphone. But finding one in 2025 usually means buying a bulky brick that requires its own carrying case.

I didn’t want a project. I wanted something I could slide into my pocket or hang from my bag.

I stumbled onto the FinePix Z90 on eBay late one night. It was sitting in that awkward teenage phase of technology—released in 2011, right when cameras were desperately trying to be smartphones. It had a touchscreen. It had a sliding lens cover. It looked like a prop from a Y2K sci-fi movie that got the future slightly wrong.

I hit “Buy It Now” before I could talk myself out of it.