Treat Yo Self, Movies Galore, a Tiny App

Helloooooo friend,

How are you doing? What do you have going on these days? What's new? I'm Ratik, founder and CEO of C'mon C'mon, broadcasting to you LIVE from my bedroom. I'm listening to a Tiny Desk Concert as I type this email. The vibes are immaculate and I feel GOOD.

My workplace Kagi has a monthly meeting for the whole company. It's called the monthly Townhall. In this month's Townhall, we had a mini session by our AI Lead Matt about mental health and burnout. During the session, Matt told us about an important study on human psychology called Pavlovian counterconditioning. In the study, researchers performed an experiment on rats using food and electric shocks. Two scenarios were devised based on 'stimuli ordering'. In the first scenario, rats received a shock followed by food. In the second, food came first and then the shock.

Over time, something fascinating emerged. The rats receiving an electric shock first got comfortable with it. They started to willingly get the shock in order to get food. In contrast, the cohort of rats — which was getting food first — became averse to food and stopped eating. This study highlighted an important trait of mammal brains: the back-propagation of rewards. The rats started to enjoy electric shocks because they understood food would be given to them as a reward. Wild.

Counterconditioning is used heavily for habit building. A classic example of this is kids being given dessert only after eating their veggies. Whenever I need to do something I consider hard (cough writing cough), I treat myself with a small reward afterwards. Do this enough number of times and you slowly get okay with doing the hard things in life. Plus, life's too short to not give yourself little treats, no?

Film

My girlfriend aka my film buddy is back from her travels. So — of course — many-a-movies were watched this month.

Disclaimer: this section might contain minor movie spoilers. Reader Be Warned.

I rewatched Materialists (2025) and KPop Demon Hunters (2025) this month.

Materialists really fell apart for me during this second watch. It didn't hold up at all. My favorite character of the movie was ... New York City. The trio of actors came across as really one-note for me, especially Dakota, who seems to play the same role in all her movies (!!).

KPop Demon Hunters on the other hand is fantastic. I don't think its for everyone, but it CERTAINLY is for me. I love everything about the movie. It's got great music, funny gags, fantastic voice acting, and top tier animation. I believe the animation tech is the same as Sony's Spiderverse movies, just WAY more dialed up.

The movie is on Netflix in case you want to watch.

An eh film from the month was Oh, Hi! (2025) featuring Molly Gordon. I really liked Molly as Claire Bear in The Bear and had high hopes for Oh, Hi. The premise is good: Molly's character Iris is going on a romantic getaway with Isaac (Logan Lerman). Isaac is charming, and Iris thinks he is really into her. We soon find out that there is a mismatch in their feelings for each other. Iris is convinced that Isaac is her soulmate. Isaac disagrees. Over the course of the screenplay, Iris goes to increasingly ridiculous and problematic lengths (???) to prove to Isaac that they are meant to be together. On paper, this seemed like a thrilling watch. The execution felt short for me. Such a shame.

Another eh watch this month was the third installment of Paddington: Paddington in Peru (2024). I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the first two movies in the series. This one, not so much. The movie starts off on a strong note. We see Paddington and feel a jolt of happiness. Huh! What new adventure will this Bear go on this time? A few scenes go by and we find out that ... THEY HAVE CHANGED THE ACTOR PLAYING THE MOTHER. WHAT?! Everything goes downhill from that point. Sigh. I found out later that this installment is by a different Director too and not the OG Paul King. Changing the Director and the Bear's MOM (???) — of all people — was devastating for this film.

One good thing to come out of watching Paddington in Peru was the discovery of Paddington the Bear's Letterboxd. Yes, he's active there. His review of Paddington (2014) reads:

Oh dear, I do hope the Browns weren’t too angry about the bathroom incident. I was only trying to freshen up, but plumbing is more complicated than it looks.

He also has a review of Mr. Bean’s Holiday (2007):

Mr. Bean is such a delightful man, though he did seem to find himself in quite a bit of trouble. I think traveling is much easier when one packs a proper itinerary.

aaaand, my favorite — for Home Alone (1990):

I’m very glad things turned out all right in the end. If it were me, I’d have simply invited the burglars in for some tea. A little kindness can go a long way.

Paddington the Bear: an instant follow.

Thankfully, the month wasn't completely filled with disappointments. I watched two great films.

The first was The Wedding Banquet (2025). I liked this one a lot. In fact — as time has passed — I've started liking it more. The film on the surface is a rom-com-y-dramedy, but watching it reveals its layers and nuances. I like movies that take familiar tropes and show them in a new light. The Wedding Banquet does this for the convention-parent-doesn't-know-about-their-kids-unconventional-partner trope. The leads in the film are gay Asians. There's social commentary on immigration in America. One character's arc shows their IVF journey. There's lots of heft in this one, yet the story is told in a light manner. I liked that very much.

In striking contrast to that, the other movie I loved this month was Chicago (2002). Boy oh BOY, there was no lightness or subtlety in this one. It was IN your face from the get go and I loved it! Chicago is a musical set in the 1920s, showcasing the glitz and glamour of the era while exploring themes of crime and celebrity. The plot revolves around two women, Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, who find themselves in jail for murder. They have a lawyer trying to prove them innocent in front of a jury. The story is thrilling and is told using RIDICULOUSLY good song and dance. I think this one is a must watch for any music fan, especially if you enjoy broadway and/or jazz. Masterpiece.

Fooooooooood

I finally visited BOMBA in New Delhi for a meal. The wait was definitely worth it. BOMBA is a pizzeria and taqueria. Strange combination, I know. The first page on their menu said that they wanted this exact combination of things because they love pizzas and tacos equally. Fair enough. I respect it.

The food at BOMBA was great. I really liked the pizza but the tacos stood out for me. More importantly, their entrance had a ramp and was easily accessible for me on a wheelchair. Lack of accessibility is always an annoyance when it comes to eating spots around my city. Thankfully, this place was a breeze to visit. I can't wait to go back!

I managed to get some nice shots of food. You will definitely get hungry seeing these. I'm sorry.

I'm documenting food photos I snap in a series called Nomnoms on Glass. Check it out!

Tiny App

Last night I decided to do some YouTube clean up. As per usual, my watch later playlist had ballooned up massively (C'mon, Ratik. 1000+ videos to watch later? Sheesh). Something had to be done. I had to put an end to it.

I sifted through the playlist and used a very strict mental yardstick to pick videos I absolutely 10000% wanted to watch. I saved URLs for these videos in a note on my Notes app. Then, I installed the YT Watch Later Assist extension on my browser and told it to nuke ALL the videos in the playlist. This is a slow process. The extension goes through the entire playlist and deletes each video one by one.

As far as I know, this is the best way to approach this problem. If you know a better way to do this, please reach out. I'm sure I will need this in the future.

T_T

While doing this cleanup, I decided to listen to some music. This was music I'd queued up while sifting through the watch later playlist. A lot of these were Tiny Desk Concerts. So, here I was — observing videos get deleted one by one — listening to Timberlake and his band absolutely smash it on the Tiny Desk — thinking to myself, “Damn, I really like Tiny Desk.” Why don't I listen to these more often?!

Introducing Tiny Desk Now!

In true Robin Sloan style, I spent some time today with my buddy Claude building a tiny, home-cooked app to solve my problem.

The idea is simple: type tinydesk.now in a URL bar and hit ⏎ Enter. The app should open and redirect you to a random Tiny Desk on YouTube. That's it!

If you enjoy Tiny Desk, try the app out! I've been using it while typing this email out and its been delightful. The sheer size (1300+ videos!!) of the Tiny Desk repository ensures a high probability of landing on a new concert each time. In a few hours of use, I have learned that seven years ago Steve Martin was on Tiny Desk?! What the heck? Steve Martin is truly the most precious.

Aaaaand, that's all for this month folks! Thank you for reading all the way through. I hope you found something worth your while here. After last month's fixes, email replies are now working as expected. Wink wink.

As I close this email out, I'm looking forward to October. Lots of festivals in October, including Diwali of course. I have time off from work coming up. I want to use it to relax, recover, and make shit. Can't wait! Happy Diwali in advance to all who celebrate! I'll see y'all on the flip-side.

C'mon C'mon,