Give creativity room to breathe, and happiness will follow. I consider myself to be a creative person. Not in the sense of painting pictures, sculptures, or drawing, but in the world of business. I've said it before, but being an entrepreneur is my art. But like any artist, I can't be satisfied if I don't have the space to fully express my creativity. This used to cause me a lot of stress in that if I didn't have that mental space, I would feel constrained and frustrated. But my perspective on…
We don’t usually feature fashion on Kuriositas, but when this video of Robert Wun's FW26 (which stands for Fall/Winter 2026 in case you didn't already know) Haute Couture show, Childsplay, popped up in my feed, I felt I had to share because these clothes are something else. The event took place on Wednesday, 8 July 2026, during Paris Haute Couture Week at the Dôme de Paris – and if your reaction is like mine, it will be something along the lines of who the hell is ever going to wear these? I…
Between the heat and the remains of Canada’s forests floating through the air, we stayed indoors Saturday and convinced Finn to binge the first season of Stranger Things with us. As a Child of the Device, she would much rather watch TikTok shorts than television, but we convinced her the series was good, and within the first fifteen minutes she was hooked. While that was on, I sat my laptop on my knees and updated my new storefront with products—a tedious process of updating each design with an…
2026/07/19: It's Dog Food Day!
The Dave Kline Band with Senator Tim Kaine After Friday night's less-than-stellar experience, we tried again. Yep. It was a two-concert weekend for us. The day got off to a good start as I completed my first Bird Friendly Habitat Certification (not counting my own yard). So now we have two certified yards in Sandston! We got whacked by a severe thunderstorm around 4 PM and lost power around 4:15 PM. After a couple of hours with no power, I fired up the generator and plugged the fridge into it.…
(image courtesy of Cheryl Jowen) entry's soundtrack above ^^ i have always been one to guard things close to my chest. the sanctity of life, of everything i've been afforded, cherish, discover, possess; bony fingers wrap protectively around them, worn stuffed toys rising and falling with each measured breath. i just wish to warm them with my endless, messy, human... love. to love the world and everything in it. unapologetically, bravely, and unashamedly. to find, create and have a place of my…
I watched The Odyssey today. AMAZING. It’s a must watch for sure. I liked it so much that I booked another show for next Sunday so my dad and I can watch it. Again at Allu Cinemas. Other than that this week was very work focused. Yesterday, I made really good progress on my portfolio. I am constantly questioning myself in terms of the choices I am making because this is very different to what I’ve been doing thus far. I guess that’s part of the process.
You have made a fool out of yourself. You've done something you regret. You feel embarrassed because of something you said. Guess what? People have already forgotten about it. No one remembers what you did or didn't do as hard as you do. People move on, and so should you. Take lessons and keep going. People don't scrutinize every little detail and turn it inside out. They don't study the past with a magnifying glass and take notes. You're not the center of their world 24/7. People don't think…
I watch a lot of YouTube videos. That's probably not something to be proud of. When I was single, I could sit down and spend a couple of hours writing a blog post. That was mostly in the Groundhog Day era. Today I'm lucky if I get 45 minutes. And it bugs me because I feel like I have something important to say, but I can't make the time to say it. Hopefully that'll change once the new house is done and I'll have the "Dave Cave." Anyway, AI came up again at the Tinderbox meetup. The first half…
A long-lasting concern in communicating transit to the public is how to best package the information: whether to do something like the iconic London Underground map with its complete ignoring of geographical reality or just slap the transit stations on a geographical map and let that do the work, or something in between.Even London has gone through some evolution historically on this.And perhaps obviously many cities do both, or a middle ground, or a mixture, since there are obvious benefits to…
I’m currently on a weight loss journey—I’ll tell more about that in a future post. But I just heard a statement once again that confused me for a long time: When you’re losing weight, you need to be careful that your body doesn’t burn your muscles instead of your fat. This is very misleading and oversimplified. It can sound as though you’ll stay fat while your body consumes only your muscles. It sounds daunting and makes it seem more difficult. In reality, your body does not choose exclusively…
On Tuesday the cicadas reawoke, officially marking the start of summer. Both heat and humidity dials are set to “high”: And it’s easier to deal with if you stay outdoors. Between the cracks this weekend I revamped my /about page, and have experimentally added a /now page. My recent MCR and DNB phases came together in the discovery of a producer and in particular their live-set at the Camden Assembly in 2025. If you only have 2.5 minutes: 1:15:15~1:17:45. Truuuust me. Wrote my objectives for the…
I miss my 120 Minutes CDs. Like many people, I was lured in by the iPod. I could have all of my music on a little machine? I wouldn’t need to store anything? Sign me up! In the early 00s, I was already sick of moving boxes around. I did brisk business offloading them-interestingly, a lot went to APO boxes-and I never really looked back. The future was bright, and it belonged to these cool new devices being sold to us by impossibly cool ads. We didn’t think much about the second-order effects of…
A shot from our stop in Milan on our trip 🏍️ Back from holiday and tomorrow I will return to work1. This weekend has been about those practical “Returned from holiday” type jobs. Holiday washing has been done. House has been cleaned and tidied. We also emptied and defrosting the media room fridge that our eldest son left open for 4 days without noticing (That was a nice bonus) 🙄 YNAB has been updated and I only partially passed out as I input the holiday costs and balance the books 2. Now it’s…
As you might have noticed, there’s been another heatwave in the UK, and we’ve noticed signs of drinkers and pubs adapting to this new reality. At The King’s Head the other week we found ourselves sitting next to a group of rather elegant older ladies all cooling themselves with patterned folding fans. Between that and the humidity we were almost able to convince ourselves we were at some colonial outpost in the 1920s. Most of the pubs we’ve visited recently have electric fans directed towards…
§ Monday was Caroline’s and my two-year anniversary. I took off work and we spent a nice relaxing day together. For dinner we went back to the boat shaped restaurant we ate at last year while the in-laws watched the baby. § Thursday was Caroline’s birthday. We woke up to the city blanketed by smoke from the Canadian wildfires. We were looking forward to spending the day outside but this changed our plans drastically. The smoke didn’t fully dissipate until Saturday. It made me appreciate how…
Hello everyone. I was minding my own business a couple of days ago, just living my life, when my phone began buzzing. And buzzing. Curious, I picked it up and was delighted to find out that my short poem, Istanbul Tourist , was Freshly Pressed by WordPress Editors! First of all, thank you editors. It is wonderful to be recognised in this way and I am grateful. Secondly, hello to all of you who have recently joined the Nomad Online community! Thank you to you as well. This blog has been around…
Perhaps we spend so long looking at the main creature feature of giraffes – their elegant, incredibly extended necks – that we miss other interesting bits. That may be the case with those things on the top of their heads (and we don’t mean their ears!). So, what are they and what are they used for? The Ark in Space, our sibling site, has a new feature on this most interesting anatomical oddity with a cool gallery of giraffes to boot. So, nudge nudge, wink wink, pop over and take a look! They…
I've admitted here before that I used to be a bit grumpy about taking requests when DJing. I realized that to get out more and play a lot more, I needed to not be such a turd about it. And, this has really served me well. Not only have I started playing requests happily, I enjoy it because I know I'm doing what people want. + more shows, magically. For yesterday, I prepared a prefect pool set: six hours of very curated deep house. After about 30 minutes, a lady came up with a huge tip and asked…
I like to play multiple instruments at once, and really enjoy how this lets me create a fuller musical picture. Sometimes this looks like mandolin + foot drums + bass whistle: youtube Or guitar + foot bass + singing: youtube Or piano + foot drums + talkbox: youtube People often hear what I'm doing with Kingfisher and ask how it works, but when I show them they say they couldn't do it because they're not good enough at multitasking. But I didn't start off being able to do this either, and it's a…
This demonstrates why I love bear reading - as an aside to bear blogging. Peeking at 'trending, recent and random' this morning, Robert Birming's post 'Blank Blogging counts too' caught my eye. Now, my 'problem' is the reverse of not knowing or having nothing to write about... There's a posse of post topics with notes attached waiting to be blogged about. It's which one? [Which is also an invitation to procrastinate in disguise and decide tomorrow!] And on top of that, there's also The Book on…
"You wished for this." Bear (Michael Johnston) wishes that his crush Nikki would love him (Inde Navarette). When that wish is granted, things quickly go awry. Even though this could have been just a monkey’s paw story, thematically it’s a little more nuanced. Yes, it’s about ‘nice guys’ who would rather rob women of their agency than be emotionally vulnerable. However in its setup it also captures that myopia as a guy of having a crush on someone but being too paralysed for fear of rejection to…
The Radioactive Kaiju in the Room The Why Real Example, Watching Media Your Version Actual Needs Media Box Requirements Flexibility More to Come It occurs to me that, for all the time that I spend implying that you should probably walk away from big companies (technology-wise and not) for independent and especially Free Culture counterparts, I haven’t laid out the whys and hows. I vaguely got into this in my post recounting my own move to Linux and broad advice based on that, and tried guiding…
This week is a week of complaints. A friend complained about her parents. She deliberately works late is because her mother nags her. Another friend complains about his career. Another complained about the house that she is living. There are a few more, but I choose to forget. My only conclusion is, you complain is because you are lucky. Complained about her parents, because her parents are still alive and healthy. Complained about his job, because he is employed. Complained about her house,…
It's that time again for my weekly update, which includes a short collection of noteworthy finds, posts that inspire, as well as a few reflections from the past week or two. I'll aim to land these in your inbox by the weekend, in time to pair with your morning coffee (or your preferred cup of inspiration).The Latest Drippings ☕️Infinite Choice Is the Curse of the AI Era, and You Already Hate It. Ok, breaking my 'limit talking about AI' rule a bit as it's just dominating the hype cycle these…
Seventeen. How? Honestly, if you'd asked me yesterday I'd have sworn Ben was still an emerging teenager leaving socks in impossible places. Yet here we are. Seventeen years old. Time flies when you're repeatedly asking, "Whose plate is this then?"Ben still in his own delightful little universe, orbiting somewhere between his reality and the next slice of pizza. But if there's one thing that can cut through the cosmic fog, it's the promise of molten cheese on dough.So the family descended at the…
We've been talking about blood as food, and some recipes using blood in cooking, but now let's talk about health-related blood.Blood was considered one of four "humors" that were the key to health and personality. I wrote about these humors before. When the four humors were in balance, health was maintained.Hippocrates would have it that "The people who have red blood are friendly. They joke and laugh about their bodies, and they are rose tinted, slightly red, and have pretty skin." The…
This, so much. Something seems to be lost on my peers today: it’s still easy to not use AI. The food we eat, clothes we wear, and every electronic device we touch may embody innumerable injuries to the world, and all this is inescapable. Eschewing AI is one thing that we can actually do to live out ethics that affirm values of human and environmental rights. It’s almost a gift! Just use a computer the same way you did three years ago!
What's been happeningIt's been another pleasant week. My usual swimming instructor was on a holiday so I had a different instructor. She had a different way of teaching which was nice, was more on the theory of why you should be doing in a particular way - for example, my usual instructor would always say tuck your chin in and look down, while this week's instructor not only told this but also showed why. That was good - built a lot more confidence. Not sure if she'll be around for next week's…
