sourcewidder writes about how blocking is merely used for disagreement rather than a proper moderation tooland, having been on the other side of that way too many times i 100% agree with thisi think people are way too trigger happy to completely cut people off and its terrifyingit feels like theyre just completely denying your existance or that you have any valueand theres no chance to ever improveexcept on the off chance they maybe unblock youliberal blocking can lead to worrying way too much…

## Item! ## My number finally came up on the bowel cancer screening lottery and the vial with instructions appeared in the post this week. Pretty simple stuff, except I’ve can’t remember the last time I had to catch my poop before it hit the toilet water. A rather strange experience I’m not keen to repeat any time soon. ## Item! ## Speaking of butts, we’ve had sufficient rain over the last couple of weeks that the water butts I installed last month are over half full. I took the big ruler out…

i'm trying something t. susan chang mentioned - making a little rhyming couplet from a pair of cards... somehow transmuting a reading into something artistic to kind of imbibe its meaning, make it yours, integrate it into your life. (i didn't ask a question, wanted to just try the rhyming so the message was secondary): woman of wands - sensor she's absorbing, luxuriating in all the sensations and forms of spirit, spirit/god is everywhere and she bathes in them 8 of worlds - change the material…

Acorn bucket I recently came across this bucket at one of our local coffee shops — a common drop and collection point for free goods, from books and magazines to excess zucchinis and figs. The bucket and its sign reminded me how much I like this dusty little town and its inhabitants, human and wild. So I called Jeff and asked him if I could write a blog post about the acorn collection program. He obliged with an enthusiastic rundown, emphasizing that I should really call the folks at the zoo…

Over years, I’ve been talking photos of random signs that I find interesting. I’m throwing some of them together in this note to create some sort of photo-note. This post was originally published on abhinavsarkar.net. First my favourite kind, the cautioning ones: Asphyxiation is a nightmare thought to me. I’m not sure why they have spaces with hazardous atmosphere in a workplace, but I’m glad they put a big sign. Rest of these photos are also taken in my office, except the radiation warning one…

When I started physical therapy for my neck this spring, the therapist asked why I had stopped weight training five years ago. I gave him a pat answer: “I’m lazy.” But the question nagged at me. As far as exercise goes, I actually like weight training. So why had I quit? Was it really just laziness? I’m trying to apply some of what I learned from working with health coaches in the past and approach problems like this without self-judgment*. There’s a reason (or many) I’m doing what I’m doing,…

This list will not revolutionize your life. But it just might have a little positive impact on your or someone you encounters’ day. It is just a short list of things that came to my mind and may be updated or expanded over time. If things are present on both high and low shelves and you are able to reach the top one - grab them there. Others who are lower does not have the choice.

Today is my Dad's 88th birthday, and I wondered what he and I had been up to on birthdays past. I have 50 years of diaries so I looked back and checked. The 🎂 symbol means that he and I spent his birthday together. 50 October 20th birthdays Thu 20 Oct 1977:🎂 Opened presents and cards before school/work. In the evening we spent two hours at a Greek restaurant - the Culverhouses were also there! [I can't remember which restaurant, where it was or what we ate, sorry] Fri 20 Oct 1978:🎂 Dad's 40th…

James was kind enough to have me on his podcast, Wonders of Web Weaving. The audio version will give you the best experience — go listen over there — but if you’re more of a text person, I’ve lightly edited and annotated the transcript below (originally transcribed by Zachary Kai). I’ve broken it up with topical headers, made some addendums / corrections as sidenotes, pulled out some quotes I liked, and added additional links to related blog posts I’ve written. Recorded late June 2026. My…

In the thick of early-COVID grief-fog, I sought a much-needed achievement badge by contacting The Macphail Woods Ecological Forestry Project about its landscape consulting service.Catherine had always been the sexton of our churchyard and, in a move to establish dominion, I thought I should get to know it, and perhaps plan for its future.A few days later I was lucky to take MacPhail’s Gary Schneider on a tour of the backyard. To my surprise, rather than hitting me with a “you need to get some…

Today I learnt that our body can grow teeth at wrong places. If humans have a creator*, this creator must be using some Gen AI thingy with plenty of hallucination. * No. ~ Link: First Case of Teeth Growing Out of an Eye Socket – What You Need to Know About ‘Ectopic Teeth’, by Saroash Shahid, The Conversation

As I'm just shouting out into the abyss, I don't know what your goals are. But if your goals are to play live and you play electronic music, I have a word of warning for you. If you've ever played live or you're thinking about playing live, you know that electronically you really have to watch your sh*t re: gear crashing. The beauty of a guitar or a bass is that it cannot crash. You have to only worry about you yourself crashing. For instance, on my bass gigs, I bring my bass and a backup.…

I'm not sure how one measures the passage of time for a blog. Posterities? RSS-uscitations? Whatever the unit, today marks my blog's twenty-fifth birthday. It's old. (Reader, I assure you I've remained the same age throughout.) I started my blog as a fun broadcast for the handful of friends and family who stayed on the east coast after I'd absconded to the west. Over the years, it became a place to say the things that mattered to me, even (perhaps especially) when they didn't much matter to…

The big friggin' appleWent to NYC to visit a friend. This is the friend I went to Japan with - I love him very much. I'd never been to his place though. I never made it over there because I found excuses to not go, and refused to live life to its fullest for whatever gay reason... Unfortunately, New York City is fantastic. I've never seen a place like it. Not even the hyper-modern cities in Japan are like NYC. Nobody there's afraid to go outside. Not once did I feel like a weirdo for just using…

I bought this new Suunto Race 3S. Add me on Suunto (kevinwammer) or Strava and shame me into actual running.

Years ago, I wrote a post asking whether wine could be sexy. I considered alcohol and wine as an aphrodisiac. Wine as a romantic symbol. I even considered the convenient fact that a bottle of wine, unlike a whisky bottle, is just the right amount for two people. But the argument eventually wandered somewhere more interesting. What wine shares with erotic experience has to do with the kind of attention we pay in each case. Desire makes us notice things we would otherwise miss. A glance held for…

It’s taken nine and a half months of wandering, planning, and occasionally sheer opportunism, but I’ve finally struck gold. Yes, the magic ton has been hit. For those who don’t follow my particular brand of eccentric ticking, that means I’ve now visited one hundred unique pubs so far in 2026. By unique, I mean pubs I’ve set foot in once and once only this calendar year. Plenty of hostelries have seen me more than once - some far more than once, but for the purposes of this annual tally, each…

It’s definitely exhibition season. I took time out from wallpapering to visit the Uckfield show (excellent as usual) and will post some pictures later this week. But first, what have we been doing. Michael was on duty on the Bluebell Railway and caught the 9F on a test run. And the following week went as a punter on to the ‘Giants of Steam’ gala. He sent me these records of the magnificent ‘Duke of Gloucester’. Meanwhile, the usual suspects were playing trains exhibiting at the 17th Reigate…

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Go-Ahead Group’s presence in Kent has been steadily increasing during 2026 so I recently made a couple of visits to catch up on developments. The Group’s ‘Kent Country’ branded operations are part of Go-Ahead London and began a couple of years ago in November 2024, following the company’s success at winning the tender to run the Fastrack network (formerly run by Arriva) including the introduction of a new fleet of Irizar ie tram type battery-electric buses. After a…

I've felt the fires in the distance, finally getting up close to one of the beacons. For a long time the fires scared me. The only shine for so long, before they are fed for the path, for my path. To continue in search of the next, and the next, and the next. Eventually, all the large ones will have been used as feed. The search will continue for subtler and subtler fires. Until finally, you notice, the whole world glows.

you guys i've made a huge mistake by not preparing anything and being tired from working. its starting to feel like fall, i say this because its finally not 80 degrees, and it will probably even rain this week!! i'm burning the trader joes honeycrisp apple candle, this is a stupidly good candle. i buy one every year and savor it. it's only $3 or something else reasonable. i had to work today and i'm on my 4th cup of coffee, which should be my limit. also just so you know, i wrote like 4.8k…

I've been procrastinating one of my autumn jobs which is doing a houseplant audit. I thought also making it a blog post might help motivate me. There's no app or anything. I just have my own notes. An accurate list of who's alive and who's died. I also like to take progress pictures. I'm bad at remembering to note when I potted on or propagated. Ideally I'd log in spring and autumn but I think I didn't even do last autumn so there's some catching up to do. I like this little area. In the end,…

There's a spare corner in the barge, so I decided to fill it with a log burner. After all, it gets cold on the cut in winter, and we don't want our sailors to freeze. I looked at a few photos online, and then decided to just mess around with some bits of plastic tube. The result looks OK when seen through the windows, it even has a tiled hearth. If we are going to make smoke, there better be a way to let it out, which means a chimney on the roof. Here, it became apparent that I'd not thought…

Friends and readers: I have cancer. The type of cancer is not yet fully confirmed, but all signs point toward kidney cancer that has spread to my hips, back, and pleura. On the bright side, all my blood tests so far are normal, suggesting that the cancer is moving slowly, which is typical of kidney cancers. There is no evidence yet that the cancer has spread to any vital organs, and I am not in imminent danger of death. With new treatments, I am hopeful that I have several good years, perhaps…

My mom was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950. Growing up the youngest of eight kids in a small house off the downtown core, she was quiet, shy, and always the baby. Her three older brothers received the bulk of the family’s praise, attention, and money for education, while the girls were taught to sweep floors, work the stove, and scrub the work clothes clean. My mom used to sit on her front porch and memorize all the license plates of cars that drove by. She’d guess the numbers from a distance,…

Ben Robertson, FatalePhoto by The Ginger QuiffTenement Trail has become an annual event for my friend Joe and I. This can be quite tricky as the event falls at the start of the October schools week off, so we need to manage family expectations for a holiday to ensure that nothing is booked until after Tenement Trail!Expectations were heightened this year by the fact that a number of bands we have been following were on the bill. Two of whom, Ferguson HiFi and Fatale played the Pretty Green TT…

Sorry I’ve been quiet, life got in the way. I enjoyed Ross’ post entitled “The Search for Joy“, it’s been roughly where my head has been, trying to find a meaning. Life can feel real hectic at the moment, where you’re trying to run to stay still. This is especially true as a business owner, as you’re batting away AI driven instructions as you rescue another site from a client’s mitts (seriously, I’d be a lot more open to it if – as a technology – it learned to say “no!”). It can feel…

Tickling my son, chasing my son, generally just being silly with my son, illicits his laugh and my heart swells with joy and love. The back and forth banter between my wife and I. Pronouncing bagel BAHgel. Mash Potato. Coffee at the perfect temperature, not too hot to scald, but hot enough to feel going down. Watching Dave, our old boy dog, slowly waking up and looking around the room, realising a new day has started. The turning of the leaves in Autumn. Losing yourself in a great book (finally…

One of the perks of being both perpetually unemployed and a credit card nerd is the ability to "afford" to go somewhere on a whim with the help of award travel and the generosity of your best friend who is willing to host you for free. And it turned out to be one of my best decisions... maybe ever? One of my closest friends, initially "just" a language partner, told me last month that he would be headed to the Bay Area for a few weeks on a business trip. His first time in the US. We had met in…