Likening customer service to purgatory is extreme but it feels like it some days so I'm working with the melodrama. For many reasons, I'm in a much better situation than most. Still, this line of work can't be my life forever. At least, when I leave, I can say that the way I view customer-facing workers has shifted drastically. For the better. Don't get me wrong, sometimes they suck, sometimes I myself will withhold help because I've been pissed off or I don't have the energy to attempt the…
I’ve never actively tracked this or cared to, but if I were to nominate my favourite and most cited quote of the year, it would have to be: “The purpose of a system is what it does (not what it claims to do).” — Stafford Beer I’m obsessed with this quote, and people have started to get that here he goes again look on their face when I say it. My obsession is due to how that statement informs my thinking and how I increasingly view the world around me. Broken or built that way? Before coming…
A side jaunt on the WonderSwan gave the Klonoa developers a chance to dig into the puzzle aspects of the original release, and no enemy suited their needs more than the Boomie. These bomb mice wrap up each of the primary Klonoa mechanics into a neat package: they can be carried, they squish under ceilings, they enable Klonoa’s throw-based double-jump, and they trigger interactables, all while exploding on a timer. By not disappearing upon being thrown, they additionally add a storage element…
Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of the release of The Beatles' album Revolver. It is my favourite Beatles album and I consider it the greatest album ever made. It is also one of two Beatles albums on which my favourite song is by George Harrison. In the case of Revolver, it is "Taxman." Today I will share with you another song "Here, There and Everywhere." It is my favourite song by Paul McCartney and he also considers it his favourite song. The Beach Boys' song "God Only Knows" served as…
The Tropics – Lincoln, IL – Fujifilm X-E5 – Vivid Velvia After yesterday’s post, Thoughts on the Upcoming Fujifilm Camera, someone reached out to me on Instagram and proposed a question about the upcoming sixth-generation cameras: if I could ask Fujifilm three things about it, what would those questions be? It was an unusual message, but it did get some cogs turning in my brain. How might X-Trans VI look different than X-Trans V? While this seemingly should be pretty predictable, each X-series…
I don’t watch a lot of movies. But, since I was traveling a bit this summer, I’ve watched probably twice as many movies as I usually see per-year and it’s only August. At some point I caved and got a Letterboxd account, where you can follow me and read my quick little reviews. But for your convenience, I’ve collected my recent ones below. Enjoy! The Prestige I was not expecting the wild Spy vs. Spy vibes. Very fun! Lincoln I liked it. I don't know enough about history to know how accurate this…
Reposted Shueisha Makes Global Push With MANGA MILLION, A Manga Platform Available in 100 Languages by SHUEISHA Inc. (Cision PR Newswire) Shueisha Inc., one of the world's leading manga publishers, has launched MANGA MILLION, a new digital platform available for a limited time that provides readers worldwide with free access to manga with no registration required. I learned today that manga publisher Shueisha is making apppproximately 400 manga series free in 100 languages for a limited time…
Finished reading: The Shining by Stephen King 📚
Investigation into the possibilities of connecting LCD/TFT displays.
Finished reading: The Butcher’s Masquerade by Matt Dinniman Wow, this book was very nearly serious fantasy! It has huge stakes, multiple meaningful races, some hope that what they do in this book will have impacts on the next one, and some actual pathos! Easily the best in the series so far. 📚
Cefalù appears from around a bend on the coast road east of Palermo, its pastel walls creeping up the cliff sides of the La Rocca promontory. Every crate of lemons that left Palermo harbor was grown on a tree nobody was buying. For centuries the sour orange made no one rich—it just held up everything above it. Part II of The Citrus Kingdom heads east to Cefalù, past a friend who finds nothing remarkable in Sicilian villages and another who has ruled out medieval alleys on the grounds that they…
Finished reading: The Gate of the Feral Gods by Matt Dinniman This book takes place inside cosmic bubble wrap. Dinniman’s brain reminds me of a Gary Larson quote: You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It’s like that. 📚
Finished reading: The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman It’s so nice to just plow through fun books like this. Sometimes I get too serious about my reading and forget that you’re allowed to read fun stuff with no telos. Weirdly, the title object is a bigger deal in future books than in this one. 📚
Nau maiYesterday we played at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada. I woke up at 1:30pm after one of those bus sleeps that leave you foggy and discombobulated. My internal alarm clock had failed and I had completely missed the morning’s events. Liz had already hit the casino floor and had turned her $10 into $12 at digital craps while Gabe had taken the fight to the slot machines and doubled his $50 investment. Liz and Annie had been out exploring other areas of the ‘Strip’, riding Las…
Finished reading: Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman This series continues to be excellent empty calories of entertainment. I particularly love that the title refers to an object, not… a scenario. 📚
Simon Willison on blogging: My number one tip for blogging is to lower your standards! Aim to hit publish while you are still actively unhappy with what you have written, because the only alternative is a huge folder full of drafts and never publishing anything at all. Nobody will ever know how perfect the thing you intended to write would have been. The flaws you see in your writing are invisible to everyone else. No matter how many times I read this advice, it’s always useful to read again.…
A Florida police chief must solve a vicious double homicide before he himself falls under suspicion. Good crime mystery movie starring Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes and Sanaa Lathan. Was a treat to see John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox in Star Trek Enterprise) and also Dean Cain (90s TV Superman). All in all, it’s a good evening watch. Three popcorns. To see all 12 photos, visit the article page. This article was originally published at: https://andrei.xyz/movies/out-of-time/
Hasn’t really warmed up at all this week, still cold and damp after the promise of spring last weekend. The kerbside rubbish dumping continues … Clayton’s collection is in about a month’s time Overcast, 10°C, Feels like 9°C, Humidity 88%, Wind 1m/s from WNW - by Klimat Garmin / Strava / ridewithgps
5:40p Lyft to airport Dinner at Shake Shack in MSP Airport Flight delayed 1 hour Take off 8:55 p.m. on DL 162 from MSP to AMS
If the title was "Meta developers accessed the internet and hacked another firm", the reactions would have been different. There would be some lawsuits at least. Why not now?
I didn’t realize regrinding old vinyl records was possible, but in the face of our climate crisis, it’s another trick the resuscitated industry has focused on. Good piece by Kyle Devine — Longreads link here, which is an excerpt from his book.
I didn't realize it'd been more than a month since my last post. So, here's what I've been up to in that time: We had the baby shower. It was a lot to plan and prep for, but it came together nicely, and was really fun. I think everyone had a good time and I was really happy with it. The nursery is coming together. I chose the colors and Hubs did the painting. The walls are a sagey green (called restful, I think) and the accents are yellow (icey lemonade). Stenciled yellow sunflowers line the…
When will the hot weather end? It’s beginning to feel like never but inevitably the earth spins, seasons change and before we know it, autumn will be here. What will the cooler months have in store? More extremes, more storms, biblical rain? What mugs we are! Anyway, hot weather doesn’t motivate me to fish any more than freezing cold. I had one recent trip which was a short evening session on a rising tide at ‘Sandy lane’ with the purple queen as company. We sat facing the sea, there was an off…
Desert Brat 2026-08-06
Power Cat 2026-08-06
Blaugust has a bunch of gamers taking part and it has encouraged me to talk about gaming on here. So, here's an overview of what I play videogames on, the state of my backlog, and what I am currently playing
In the latest Running Track release, I added far more stats to Goal Insights. I also added a custom font and 7 new colour schemes, which happily satisfies my need for snazzy colours and novelty. I’ve added a page to the Running Track website showing off all the themes. Magenta and Teal, in Dark mode, are my current favourites.
Really second guessing myself with these photos recently. What is the point? I need to find time to make more photographs. I have often talked about intentionality, but recently it has been mostly just capturing anything that looks vaguely interesting and hoping that I at least have something at the end of the day. That is not why I created this blog. So I guess, I'll either manage to carve out more time for taking photographs or I'll drag something out of the archive that I am proud of. (I am…
I was reading today the news that Devolver wants to delist itself from the stock market, and it made me smile. For years I've been saying, when rambling about it with friends, that having an IPO was a death sentence because, yeah, you can get a large injection of cash to keep things going, but then a lot of "investors" that don't understand the market will start demanding things that make no sense just so "the line keeps going up". That's why we end up with decisions only a lunatic would make,…
