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A lot of the week went quite well. I did a workshop for a couple of hundred people, played some good games of Underworlds, had a lovely time with family. Monday evening I went to some back-pain friendly pilates. First time. I’d been nervous, but the session felt very chill. I was stretched in new ways, but nothing out-and-out hurt. Slowly, through the week, my back pain (which had been …

A splendid album that blew me away. View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize The amount of superb jazz recorded in the 70’s is vast. Very late to the game on much of this stuff, but I’m on the other hand grateful to have so much still to discover. Like this beautiful recording from 1973 by tenor …

An onigiri smushed at the bottom of your bag. Water splashing off a spoon. Burnt toast. Life is full of small disappointments. But helping us see the humor in it all is Makosun, a Japanese maker of weird plushies—their words, not ours—who renders all these small disappointments as handmade plushies. onigiri smushed at the bottom […] Related posts: Mythical Creatures from Ukiyoe Turned into Collectible Plushies New Pillow Lets You …

I’ve finished the game; this is continued from my last post. Via the Centre of Computing History. ftb on Discord pointed me to one of these mega-shareware discs having a copy of Raspion, but compiled for DOS. First off, RavenWorks cleared something up for me: that SLIT message was referring to the acronym that goes with the “say Lymbar in tomb” in the book; I hadn’t been paying attention to …

The Stag, Dumfries A four-storey pub situated in a narrow side street just off the town’s pedestrianised High Street. The StreetView car couldn’t actually get up the street – it is just visible on the right in the StreetView image. (My own picture)

Hello, and welcome to another edition of Weeknotes, a stream-of-consciousness post about life, work, media and everything in between. Here’s what I’ve been up to: Life I have very little to report when it comes to my life at the moment. Other than passing my driving test, I’ve mainly just been catching up with friends and family before we scoot off to Mexico in a few weeks. I always feel …

Dave Perry (kneeling), Tom Von Ruden, James Metcalf, John PerryAfter 59 years, James Metcalf, John Perry, Tom Von Ruden, and Dave Perry were inducted into the OSU Hall of Honor recently. The Perry brothers and Jim Metcalf were present. Tom Von Ruden passed away in 2018. When I was at the University of Oklahoma we frequently ate their cinders in various races. It was always a great rivalry. Coming from …

BORROWED:The eXtra Files: The Humor Is Out There (Hyperion Avenue) After reading my first book from cartoonist Jeffrey Brown in a while (Batman and Robin and Howard: Summer Breakdown, below), I consulted his recent-ish output and saw there were a handful of works I hadn't yet read. Given that I've been following his work for about as long as he's been working, I figured I should rectify that. This is …

I’ve always had a bit of an unusual attitude towards my ‘career’ and it has only got more pronounced as I’ve got older. I’ve never really been driven by stability or progression or benefits. For the most part even money hasn’t been much of a motivating factor – I only let that influence a decision significantly once and that didn’t end well. Depending on how I count I’ve worked for …

Now I thought this lot were one of those typical hairy Grove 'n' Gate freedom fighters in the vicinity of The Deviants and Edgar Broughton Band. Fuzz freakout. Kings of oblivion. But this here "War Girl" is gorgeous, lyrical and dreamy - the guitar-tone closer to I dunno Manuel Gottsching. Love that hovering slide in the back of the action, like a cloud canopy shot through with sunset.It's a Twink …

I took a lot of trains in Central Europe over the last couple of weeks but this wasn’t one of them. Waiting for our actual train early in the morning the sun was low and hitting this colourful train car just right. I couldn’t help but to capture what was right in front of me. Ljubljana was the star of my trip for me, I loved the vibe of the …

Albrighton was a proper English village. Everything about it glistened with history and middle-class privilege, right from the proper Victorian station building.Sadly it's no longer in use for railway purposes. Looking through the window I saw a vacated office space, power cables laying across the floor, empty tables pushed up against the wall. I followed a man with an adorable excited Golden Retriever puppy down the path to the street …

The title of this post might seem like a truism, but for about a decade some people have claimed the opposite, and many people have spent much time and effort trying to understand why. Much of that effort was wasted. A decade ago, Nature Geoscience published Cohen et al (2014), a review paper on potential connections between the Arctic warming and extreme events (which has been cited an impressive 1449 …

Photographed with a Fujifilm X100VI – 23 mm focal length – 1/220″ at f/8 – ISO 125 Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, United States – Newe Sogobia (Eastern Shoshone), Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla, Shoshone-Bannock, and Tséstho’e (Cheyenne) land This photograph, titled “Mormon Row, Grand Teton National Park. October, 2024.”, was originally published on All-Encompassing Trip.

I have just put up the final dates until next summer for these two walks if you would like to explore these areas with me, using my father’s photos from the late 1940s: The South Bank – Marsh, Industry, Culture and the Festival of Britain on Sunday 20th of October. Click here to book. The Lost Streets of the Barbican on Saturday the 2nd of November. Click here to book. …