Hard Luck (2006)

This year's Stirling Prize for architecture has just been awarded to a project in London, way down south in Coulsdon off Lion Green Road. Previously the site was a large car park, but housing needs are tight so they've shrunk that to a really small car park and replaced the rest with mixed housing. It's understatedly impressive. [RIBA video] This is a well connected site, close to the shops and the station, but also a challenging site being on a noticeable slope. The original plan was to…

There’s a particular kind of December panic that ends with you in a shop at closing time, holding a scented candle and wondering whether “they like candles” counts as knowing someone. Here’s the alternative: make the present yourself, with someone who actually knows what they’re doing standing next to you. The workshop supplies the materials, the kit and the patience. You supply the idea of who it’s for. And you get an afternoon out of it, which is more than the shop at closing time ever gave…

I’m down in Uckfield this weekend for the exhibition and will be enjoying sharing Coalbridge Street with you all…Yet I don’t like hotel stays on my own - so on the road I like to take some trains with me… set up last night with a beverage was my N scale GWR branch line!I build ‘serious’ models but I love the simplicity and honesty of this little train. My first electric locomotive was a Pannier tank, this little N gauge re-incarnation rolls round the Kato circle with a mix of new - and old…

X is bad. Obviously. Davey hits the nail on the head here: People return to X just want followers in the strictest sense of the word. Sycophants that will just click like and subscribe on their posts without calling them out on anything. Much like the companies they cover, they just want to see number go up. Couple of interesting game projects. The first, PS2 games in the browser with WebAssembly. Secondly, someone ported a bunch of N64 games to Miyoo Mini and a there was asecond project just…

Now there are days when you wake up and know that a spot of fishing is exactly what you need, and then there are days when your body is telling you to stay in bed, drink something warm and stop behaving like a complete idiot. Unfortunately, when there's a river involved, I have a remarkable ability to ignore the latter, so despite having a cold and a trip to Glasgow looming the following morning, I decided that a bit of sunshine and fresh air would do me the world of good.After all, what could…

Wow, what a week. There was a gigantic pile of to-dos from both regular work and freelance, which I knew would be a lot. I was ready to knock them all out, but suddenly coming down with a bug/virus/something threw a wrench in things. Weirdly enough, despite feeling like garbage, I forced myself to the gym on Tuesday because I really feel happy when I go. At first, I thought I was going to drop weights from how messed up I felt, but I got into a groove after a few sets and exercises. By the end…

Every week, I share something I learned in the previous seven days. I usually find these while I’m putting my weekly newsletter together but somehow, they don’t quite fit!This week I learned that there’s a flying saucer for sale in California (where else?). It’s a Futuro house, designed in 1968 by the Finnish architect Matti Suuronen as a ski cabin you could drop onto a mountainside and heat in a hurry. They sold for $14,000 until the 1970s oil crisis made plastic too expensive to build with,…

The haze has been bad in where I'm at and it brings back when I could see the haze inside the office lobby of the company. Which brings to mind the barista who added hazelnut syrup into my latte instead of vanilla. Back when I worked for the FMCG place. I remember being so lost. Uncertain if I will ever find a job that I didn't find utterly horrid. Keeping in mind that I have only been doing "beginner" jobs like administrative, reception, and customer service. Never in my imagination had I…

Saturday 17th October 2026 And so to the most northerly bus route numbered 99 in England. My journey from the South East, South West and South Wales through East Anglia, West Midlands and the Potteries as well as South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside before heading back over to East Yorkshire arrived in the North East for last time’s adventure in County Durham and with the second of two route 99s to ride in this region being in Tyne & Wear running between Grangetown and Hylton…

When my mom bought her phone, I did everything. Passed the contacts, added her email account, downloaded her social media, set up a password, and did the biometry. So obviously I put my digital too. She didn’t know, and got really surprised when I had full access to her bank app. The other day I had to go mark an appointment for her to make a new ID, everything involved her CPF (Social Security Number), which I memorized years ago, and her email. But for some reason I didn’t have it on my…

A good friend, Curtis, was just in Tokyo for a business trip. Come weekend, we got to spend some quality time together. Breakfast Now that I’m an owner of a MANSION, I’ve spent some time exploring where to eat out. (It’s 50m², don’t get too excited. The English loanword makes condo sound a lot grander in Japanese.) I’ll be here for decades, so I want to become 常連 at all the best spots. I meet Curtis at the station, drop off luggage at my MANSION, and head to Cheerup Cafe. It’s about a…

When people tell me they miss the "old internet," I ask them what they miss in particular, because, like, I'm an internet person, and I know what we lost because I was there, back in in the day, knee deep in the culture. I was messing around on bulletin board systems in like, 1991. Microserfs has been my favourite book since 1995. I eagerly awaited the existence of products and services and technologies I ended up using in the mid and late nineties because growing up I had such a clear (and, as…

Thanksgiving dinner was at my house this year. It always is. I planned ahead, anticipated almost every possible problem and prepared accordingly. I also put my sweatshirt on backwards and installed the electric carving knife blades upside down. This is why no one ever asks me to organize a military operation. A Thanksgiving Curse A...Read More

For some reason Apple Intelligence has shifted all my photos to an “amber” ambiance, but I’m ok with this. I guess.

I got this crinoline out to drop off at the costume swap but Mina was so excited to have it back that I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it — it’s extremely cute playing with the dancer toy in it because she uses the folds as cover 😸 Win of the week: got my flu and COVID shots — went for both in the same arm — very little soreness and no other symptoms 💪 The pharmacist told me about racing his corgi! Looking forward to: been researching stuff to do with the fam in SF! Stuff I did: 14 hours…

On October 7, 2026, I covered a Halloween decoration making light of the long-delayed reopening of the Carroll Gardens branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, which I had first written about all the way back in 2023 (see Halloween and the Closed Carroll Gardens Library). This Halloween decoration is a skeleton, emerging from the ground, holding a white board which reads “R.I.P. THE CARROL GARDENS LIBRARY OPENING IN 2026.” In light of the fact that I had noted in prior articles that the Library,…

It was a short visit and I didn’t get much time to go shooting. We managed to win a pub quiz despite our non-NZ knowledge handicap. It’s a nice place. I’d like to see more of it. 🔗 ∙ Tagged in My Photos, Travel.

By Ruben Schade in Sydney, 2026-10-17.

It’s a Saturday morning. Been playing with how I want to do a notes collection in 11ty. Have a few possibilities. I don’t like actually doing the work in the mornings. I like puttering around in the diary and then starting this instead. All the other stuff is meant for after I walk and do coffee. That time is coming soon. My best time for going for a walk in the mornings is when I feel like it but usually around 730am. It just seems then that all the little things come together from the…

Well, it’s done! Also, I will be kept overnight, though I still get nurses asking if I’m ready to go home. Only one bothered to ask if I lived in the city. I did get to finally eat, though! It was actually pretty good. Chicken Alfredo fusili with cubed squash. Cappuccino cake. Tea, and milk. … Continue reading Overnight

Once again waiting to pick up a kid from swim practice. Selfie a day for a year, day 49: Oct 16, 2026 edition.

Happy Friday! Today is National Boss’s Day (I’m a boss!) and National Dictionary Day. Which is cool, because about two weeks ago, I bought an actual physical dictionary. I’m moving (back) toward physical media and this is one nice dictionary. It’s hardcover and smells divine. What is your history with cats? I have been lucky enough to share my life with four cats: Noelle, Misty, Ferdie (for about a month), and Charlie. I loved them immensely, I miss them to bits and pieces, but even though…

September was focused on behind-the-scenes work, much of which you can see over on Patreon. That said, I managed to release some new prints as well: They Only Make Broken Hearts I'm Not Ready To Let Go The Lovers' Burden

In September, Satoshi was diagnosed with prostate cancerHe had a biopsy done in August and out of the areas that were checked, one area was determined as high risk, so even though the other areas were low risk, his cancer was labeled as high riskHe had a bone scan and CT scan to check if the cancer had spread and luckily it had notHe just started hormone treatment, to shrink the cancer, this

The other night, we went out to dinner with our friend Eric before the Sting concert (which was amazing, BTW). That's when he learned that there was a method to my madness of nights out at taprooms; we have a "Craftapped" membership, which gets us BOGO drinks at taprooms across the state 9and across the country!)Basically, for $60 year or so, we get ten BOGOS a month at various taprooms. Which is honestly enough that we almost never use all of them each month, and it's long been a bucket list…

Looking up, again. I was waiting for the flock of birds on the rooftop to take off, but they didn't.