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“Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair.” “To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight,” E.E. Cummings told students from the hard-earned platform of his middle age, not long after Virginia …

Copyright David Kushner Growing up in the 90s, id Software was synonymous with groundbreaking games – and parental concern (how did I get away with playing DOOM?!). David Kushner’s “Masters of Doom” (ISBN 9780749924898) dives into the origin story of this iconic studio, focusing on its founding duo: John Carmack, the programming prodigy, and John Romero, the rockstar designer. While I devoured the id Software classics like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein …

Proxy mother Tikoy Aguiluz's Bagong Bayani was made in two months on a shoestring budget, has been plagued by unaccountable production delays (due to pressure from Viva Studios, perhaps?); so far no theater has agreed to release it, so the closest you might get is this article. Which is a filthy shame: Bagong Bayani is the best Filipino film of the year. "But the year's only half over," you might …

So, my last attempt fix a few things around here did not go entirely to plan. There were issues with the footnote rendering (particularly on small screens, and especially when Javascript was not enabled). This weekend, I have gone back to the drawing board, and also gone a lot further (I hope!) with my Webmentions experiments. Footnotes The fundamental issue with the footnotes was that the anchors pointing to the …

Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.

I don’t know about you but I spent most of my life not knowing what I wanted to do. I never had dreams or big goals. Never had a dream job, never aimed for something specific. I spent most of my life drifting through it, without trying to stir the ship all that much. I don’t know why I did it, it’s probably because of the kind of person I …

International Peening Day on the first weekend in April each year is a great opportunity to get out scythe blades from hibernation and get them cleaned and peened ready for the new season. There are inevitably occasions where rust forms and it needs removing to restore the blade. This ranges from light surface rust blooms when blades are left and not cleaned and oiled in a timely manner, to heavily …

Kelly Link's stories are often inspired, in some small or large way, by fairy tales, but they are modern stories and in no way emulations of the classic fairy tales. White Cat, Black Dog is her fifth collection, and it contains seven stories, the first concerns a white cat, and the last a black dog, thus giving rise to the book's title. And it follows the flow of a typical …

The Killers (1964), directed by Don Siegel

The Midnight Pub - A tiny forum in the form of a virtual pub. It even has a speakeasy. This website is personal - Frills - I really identify with this post, and the feeling that my posts aren’t worth anything if they’re not useful in some way. In reality there are no rules at all about what you should post on a personal site! Don’t Disable Form Controls - …

Due to other factors progress on Westhill Road is somewhat slower than I have anticipated , this is a quick post to show one of Westhill Road’s intended key buildings, the provender / perishables store. The Hawkhurst Provender Store The intention from the outset with Westhill Road is to add an element of perspective modelling to give the impression of greater depth than the physical 18″ deep baseboard. Positioned centre …

A funny thing happened on the way to Austin this past weekend. My younger son and I were driving to the University of Texas for a campus visit. We have a rule when driving - whoever is behind the wheel gets to pick the music. So, since my son was driving, he put on a country music playlist from Apple Music because that's the genre of music he's currently heavily …

Well, winter still hasn't arrived and the rivers are in a constant state of flood, now for Barbel that isn't the end of the world but now valentines day has passed my attentions typically turn to plump Dace, solid Roach and Gigantic Grayling, all of which will be close to their pomp. Issue is these conditions are not conductive to targeting any of the above. Therefore I still feel persuaded …

While I was relaxing in the Crows Nest yesterday afternoon and writing about the forthcoming Merseyside Pub Guide 2024 book, the proof copy was already sitting on my doormat. So I can now put it on sale.This year's edition lists 1,982 pubs of which I have visited 1,472.You can order a copy direct from the printers by clicking here. Or in due course it will be available from Amazon and …

In my post last month about life-drawing I mentioned that the amount of oil used in the Faber-Castell Pitt sanguine pencil meant that I couldn’t get the tonal variation from it that I could from graphite pencils. I ordered myself an oil-free sanguine pencil, but then — as often happens — discovered I already had an alternative buried in one of my many art supplies boxes! So this past weekend’s …