Faraday Cat: I was wondering what it was that took up most of my headspace back in the day. I mean, before we had one AI thing after another, (data centres, music and films, total world domination), ongoing serial fuckwittery from Trump and then the state of Israel behaving like Nazi Germany in 1939-ish. I suppose there’s always some set of complete bastards who are going to spoil everything, ad nauseam. I should be used to it by now. I just need a break, or a good bottle of red.I can’t really…

Share a song that represents your current mood. I like to have upbeat music on in the morning, nothing to raucous just something uplifting that takes my current mood and elevates it. This is the song that was playing when I saw the prompt this morning and it feels very apt. A classic bit of house music (I’m on a bit of a DJ led exploration of electronic/house/disco music right now) and I can feel my mood lifting as I boogie in my seat. “Music Sounds Better with You (Radio Edit)” by Stardust…

In December 2025 I sat down with Gus of The Classic Adventure Gaming Podcast to discuss our ongoing campaign Conquering the Barbarian Altanis. I am joined by four players: JP, neverplayselves, SleazyB, and Dreadlord. We have been playing weekly since March 2022, and at the time of recording we were around 150 sessions in. Over the years I have shared some of our experience (see Resources at the end of the post), but this was the first time I did so on a podcast. It was a lot of fun, especially…

Lelia Hair The new single from London-based artist Lelia, Hair starts with a ripping bass line and thumping drums, immediately delivering a dark sense of confrontation. As an artist, Lelia builds her sound from a combination of thick synths, angular percussion, and direct confrontational vocals. With touchpoints that include artists who, on paper, appear very diverse — Lady Gaga, LCD Soundsystem, and PJ Harvey — Lelia weaves those references together to feel cohesive and, in retrospect,…

The Most Transparent Admin... EVER!

Nepalese restaurants are like buses; you wait for 43 years for one only to find out that the second one isn’t a bus at all, but a milk float with false advertising and a dodgy engine. Admittingly, that opening line is a push, even by my low standards, but it’s right. Last month I went to The Gurkha Bar & Grill in Stourbridge and heaped praise on the Nepali dishes. Now I’m in Gurkha Imperial Dining in Bromsgrove, a restaurant that identifies as being Nepali in a similar level to me identifying…

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align. Tracks are added to…

Desert Brat 2026-09-17 liar!!!

Power Cat 2026-09-17 the portal

On September 17, 1787, the United States of America was born with the signing of the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence is the date of conception; the Articles of Confederation mark the first detected heartbeat; and ratification in 1789 is when the first breath was drawn (or maybe shortly thereafter when Congress was elected and first met).† OK, so it's an overextended metaphor

In which we learn that we may never learn… Image by Author, yet another snap from my Christmas Village. Let’s just imagine that our characters in the following story shop at this local market, at least when they’re not busy trying to belittle one another… Original inspiration image: A still from the 1956 film “Autumn Leaves”, wherein Joan Crawford appears to be sitting on a couch or a chair or an underling, looking up at Cliff Robertson who might be clutching the front of her silk frock or…

Maps such as Pack Lightly's Best Time to Travel and Find the Best Time to Travel translate complex historical weather data into interactive heatmaps. By taking the guesswork out of trip timing, they make it easy to either match a destination with its optimal season or discover which parts of the world offer ideal weather for your travel dates.For travelers who want deeper control over their planning, SeasonMap takes climate-based travel visualization a step further. Rather than relying on…

I've had today's randos rattling around in a folder for quite a long time, and decided to just post them already. This first one is dated "July, 1964" and shows the familiar Flower Market from the far end looking out toward Main Street. There are blossoms in all the colors of the rainbow, even "olive drab", which just looks odd. One fellow has just admired the Carnation Milk Truck ("Gosh, what a honey!"), but otherwise it's ladies who really loved this Disneyland feature.Next is this scan from…

Monster Squad (1987)

If there’s ever a book which had me wanting to rush off to northern climes, it’s “An Island Rooing” by Joan Grigsby! The latest release from Michael Walmer in his Northus Shetland Classics series, it’s a fascinating work which was first published in 1933, and thoroughly deserves to be reissued. Grigsby was a young English sailor and journalist, and in 1931 she managed to persuade the documentary film maker Jenny Brown to let her tag along on a trip the latter was making to a remote Shetland…

Santa FeAll the wayAnd this farAs far as the heart can see.Words by Chris, model by James. Day dreams by Hilton and Mears.

A decade after writing about my camping stoves, I revisit what Joan and I actually use today and why different trips still call for different tools. Read More ... Continue reading Stoves for camping – A Decade Later at PMags.com.

I’d not fished this particular stretch for barbel for quite some time, which is probably why, in a moment of complete irrationality, I suddenly developed the overwhelming urge to go and annoy one of them again. There are few things in life more predictable than an angler voluntarily returning to somewhere that has previously caused him considerable frustration, armed with exactly the same tackle and considerably more optimism. It’s a strategy that has served me badly for years, so naturally I…

NOTE This is not going to be exhaustive, I didn’t compare them against exactly identical tasks, and this blog post is effectively me turning a somewhat wordy journal entry into a short blog post. Take it with an appropriate amount of salt as per your dietary needs. I’ve recently been testing out the famous Matt Pocock skills package to rebuild a slop tool that had achieved slop singularity and become such a mess not even the clankers could figure it out any more. I’ll probably write a separate…

Of course. ;p [ in progress... ]

And just like that, I am dreaming I learn Korean 😅 should I answer the call? I am still mid-way on Japanese...#japanese #korean #languages #learning #dreamsThank you for following my feed! ♥ Leave a reply here.

A long period of helpless infancy after birth is one of the most unique and mysterious characteristics in human life history. Because this trait is intimately linked to rapid postnatal brain growth, which is essential to produce the large human brain, researchers have long been interested in when it evolved. In a new study, researchers introduce a new method that serves as a direct indicator of helpless infancy and can be easily applied to the existing hominin fossils. They focused on a type of…

Commando Presents… The Vietnam Files— a brand-new graphic novel out now!The first widely broadcast war in human history, the campaign in Vietnam changed everything. Spanning 20 years, it has gone down as one of recent history’s most controversial wars. But within the fighting, on land and in the air, were heroes on both sides and stories of camaraderie and bravery like no other!This special

Charlie recently gave a talk at Chain React about the future of mobile app development. I like his talks because they still sound like him: loose, opinionated, slightly nerdy. He’s an unusual CEO, a decent human, and a huge nerd. At one po…

Earlier this month I was listening to an episode of the BitFlip podcast, which talks about self-hosting. In that episode one of the two hosts was explaining how he had been looking for a good stand-alone self-hostable calendar server. Nothing he had found was as good as Nextcloud Calendar plugin (I agree there) but he didn’t want to run a full Nextcloud instance. Since, as he told his audience, he lacked any coding skills, what he did was ask an AI to isolate the calendar code from Nextcloud in…

The regalia. Oh, my God, the regalia. The post I Went Powwow-ing Because It Sounded Like a Good Idea first appeared on Correr Es Mi Destino.

September 17 is one of the most meaningful feast days of the year for me. First, it is my daughter’s birthday. It is also the feast of Saint Lambert, the patron saint of marriage and the patron of the parish where my family regularly attends Mass. The Church also remembers Saint Robert Bellarmine, one of … Continue reading Saint Hildegard of Bingen: Finding Joy and Courage in a Shipwrecked World The post Saint Hildegard of Bingen: Finding Joy and Courage in a Shipwrecked World first appeared on…

In contrast to July which held a lot of classic crime reprints, August seems to have been a quieter month (although I suspect there may be some lurking in the shrubbery, so if I have missed one let me know!).

Q&A with Paul Massell, founder of Catholic Gigs. Sponsored: This article is made possible by Catholic Gigs, supporting quality and engaging Catholic content. Start at the beginning. What is BOSCOS? BOSCOS is a free, ten-minute assessment on Catholic Gigs. You answer a set of statements about how you tend to act in ordinary situations, and … Continue reading How Were You Made to Work? Inside Catholic Gigs’ BOSCOS Assessment The post How Were You Made to Work? Inside Catholic Gigs’ BOSCOS…