Stuff This Week #81

A dark brown cake loaf resting on crumpled parchment paper placed on a wire cooling rack. The background is part of kitchen with blue cabinets slightly out of focus.

I cooked Nigella’s Banana Bread recipe this week. I have never eaten or made banana bread before. it was her chocolate version, so there’s cocoa in the flour and chocolate chips as well as walnuts and the bananas themselves. Everyone loved it. Would make again.

😶‍🌫️

A black and white photo of a train station platform shrouded in fog. The platform is empty and stretches into the distance, disappearing into the mist. On either side of the tracks are metal benches and lamp posts. The buildings in the background are barely visible through the fog. The overall mood of the image is eerie and quiet.

Just because I’m trying to not drink beer at the moment doesn’t mean I can’t take pics of photogenic pubs!

A brick building with a green roof and lit windows stands at a street corner. The building is a pub called "The Bakers Arms," with warm lights glowing from inside, creating a cozy and inviting atmosphere. Potted plants flank the entrance, and a sign advertises "Real Ale Daily." The scene is set during twilight, with a deep blue sky overhead, suggesting a peaceful evening in a quaint village or small town.

A large orange sun sets behind the rooftops of suburban houses. The sky is a deep blue, and the houses are silhouetted against it. The mood is calm and peaceful, suggesting the end of a day.

Caught the blood moon on a walk tonight! 🤩

A black and white photograph of an elderly couple walking down a tree-lined path. The path is wet, suggesting recent rain, and the trees are bare, indicating late autumn or winter. The couple is walking side by side, with the woman wearing a coat and a backpack, and the man in a sweater and trousers. The mood of the image is peaceful and contemplative, evoking a sense of quiet companionship and the passage of time. The perspective of the photo draws the eye down the path, creating a sense of depth and journey.

🤝❤️

Two people walking along a path in front of a row of colourful beach huts. The huts are painted in pastel shades of yellow, pink, blue, and green, with white trim and gabled roofs. A tall hedge separates the path from the huts. The sky is clear and blue, suggesting a sunny day. The mood is calm and leisurely, evoking a sense of a pleasant seaside stroll. — 🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠

Stuff This Week #80

A person sits on a paved path next to a bicycle, looking out at a calm sea under a blue sky with scattered clouds. The scene conveys a peaceful and contemplative mood. — ☀️🚲😌

☀️Sunshine! Shhh don’t startle it! You might scare it away! We had a beautifully sunny day on Saturday. Myself and my wife had some errands to run around Weymouth and afterwards just parked up near the beach and had a walk down the front. It felt so good to walk in the sunshine annd recharge a bit.

Actually got to take some photos as well! 📷

The Blog Question Challenge

If Alex posts a challenge like this blog question challenge then I do it. Simple!

Q) Why did you make a blog in the fist place?

I came to blogging quite late in life. No LiveJournal. No MySpace (Even though I am extremely old enough for that timeline). I originally just wanted somewhere to post some photos and my thoughts on stuff like video games.

Q) Why did you choose your current platform?

I love love love Pika. It has juuuuuust enough customisation to put my personal spin on things but doesn’t send me down a rabbit hole of customisation that stops me from actually writing. It’s one of my favourite services and it’s a delight to see how it’s evolving.

Q) Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Yep! As a younger man I had a couple of abandoned attempts to use Squarespace. Do not believe the YouTube sponsorships… It is horrible 😆. I would inevitably give up on the whole thing and the domain would just sit there.

I would say I properly started with Micro.Blog and was on that platform for a good few years. I became extremely disappointed with the direction the owner was taking on community values and I was one of many that decided to up sticks and move on. I decided on Pika, felt instantly at home, loved the feel, love what Good Enough do and have been happy ever since 😊

Q) Do you write your posts directly in the editor or in another software?

90% of the time I use the Pika editor. It’s good and I use pictures a lot so I like to position them as I write. Most of my posts are short to mid length as well so I find it perfect. If I’m working on something extremely long or complex then I do use the wonderful iAWriter

Q) When do you feel most inspired to write

At the weekend? In the morning usually with a coffee and a fresh brain. But with the gym, two kids, a wonderful wife and a busy job, I take time when I can get it!

Q) Do you publish immediately after writing or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft

Drafts 4 lyfe… 👌 There are 6 sat in drafts right now 🤣 Sometimes I will just draft the sentence of an idea and revisit it later. Some sit there for ages. I do occasionally go directly from writing > publishing but it’s very much the exception that makes the rule.

Q) What’s your favourite post on your blog?

Oh god, I hate them all equally 😜 Terrible terrible writing. I am very proud of finishing my Japan Diaries on my dream holiday to Japan in 2023. I got an absolutely wonderful mail (Thanks Pete! And others) about my post on setting up Echofeed, and some other blogging posts. I reminds me I should do more guides/technical content on occasion probably.

Q) Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, changing the tag system, etc?

I’m very happy with my fonts and colour scheme (for now…) I did have a play with some custom CSS to underline some bits of text in a highlighter style for emphasis but I couldn’t get it to work properly and ultimately hated it so took it all out again. I should tidy my tags at some point for sure. I call my long and short posts “micro” and “macro” and I would like to rename them maybe to just “long” and “short”. But not enough to do anything about it. Maybe change the derpy picture of my face? Play with Echofeed tags and do more funky stuff with them? (And there’s a blog post as well! 🤔)

All in all I’m pretty happy with my little house on the pika prairie to be honest.

All plans cancelled. I am now just a human cat bed. We’ve both been napping this afternoon 😴

A tabby cat with brown and black fur is sleeping on a person's lap. The cat's eyes are closed and its head is resting on a yellow knitted blanket. The person's legs are visible, wearing blue socks with yellow and orange patterns. The background is blurred, but a white door and a brown piece of furniture can be seen. The overall mood of the image is peaceful and cosy.

We have actual sunshine! ☀️ warm sunshine! this is not a drill!

A tabby and white cat is resting on a sunlit wicker chair with a white cushion. Its shadow falls clearly across a knitted grey blanket draped over the chair. In the background, a teddy bear sits beside a green plant on a windowsill against a blue wall.

Trio doesn’t know what to do with herself! 😼

Let’s go! Very exited to see how this turns out!

Review : Pools

Brick-lined circular chamber with tall columns and small square windows, partially flooded with dark reflective water. A central brick platform and staircases rise above the water beneath a large round skylight that casts soft light from above. Overlaid text reads “Pools – 2023: Tensori – iPad” with a three-star rating.

“Backrooms” horror or “liminal spaces” horror is my kinda horror. Essentially it taps into that fear of being lost in an in between space. A hotel corridor. An office. A service corridor in a mall. A space that exists purely to serve as a conduit between spaces. You’re not supposed to spend that much time there. And why the Hell would you want to?

Stuff This Week #79

A Gundam model kit box on a wooden table.

Green plastic model parts and instruction manuals on a wooden surface.

🤖 I bought a Gundam Gunpla model kit ¹. I had a “Oh… these instructions are difficult…and in Japanese…and also difficult…and also completely in Japanese… However. I am the GOAT at Ikea furniture building and after composing myself with a cup of coffee it actually wasn’t that difficult and was pretty fun! Not sure if I’d get any others as I don’t have the room, but I’m glad another bit of Japanese nerd culture is ticked off for me now and I have a li’ll robot buddy 😊🇯🇵

A green and black robot figurine next to a yellow figurine on a white surface. — Why yes that is a AMX-011S ‘Zaku-III Custom’ thanks for asking 🕺

A shop window display with a winter theme. Two small figurines of people ice skating on a snowy surface are positioned in the lower half of the window. Above them, large, colourful paper cut-outs of the Olympic rings hang from the top. The reflection of a street scene, including buildings and trees, is visible in the glass. The overall mood is festive and cheerful, evoking a sense of winter wonder.

Great use of action man toys to make a winter Olympic display in this window! 😂 ⛷️🏅

Patient handling dummy update…

Someone has put googly eyes on the dummy and tucked them in 😂

A mannequin dressed in a sits in a metal cage. Googly eyes have been fixed to its face.

The cage is covered with a white sheet, and a yellow caution sign reading "Wet Floor" is nearby.

a good food day today 😋

Two plates of breakfast food on a wooden table. One plate has toast with butter and a cup of coffee. The other plate has scrambled eggs, sausages, grilled tomatoes, mushroom, baked beans, and hash brown. The mood is warm and inviting, suggesting a hearty morning meal.

A freshly baked croissant with a glossy chocolate glaze and crushed pistachios sits on a white plate with a blue rim. The croissant is placed on a black stovetop, and the background is softly blurred, suggesting a cozy kitchen setting. The overall mood is warm and inviting, perfect for a delightful breakfast or snack.

A black and white photo of a busy street with a crowd of people standing in line outside a shop. The shop has a balloon arch and a sign that reads "Land Rover." There are two small cars parked in front of the shop. The street is wet, suggesting it has recently rained, and people are holding umbrellas. The mood of the image is lively and bustling, with a sense of anticipation as people wait to enter the shop. — Queue ☔️

🎬 Playing with Final Cut Pro on iPad and now Mac thanks to the Apple Creator Studio subscription show just how disjointed these apps are.

There are whole features on both apps that don’t exist on the counterpart.

iPad has a fantastic dynamic soundtrack feature. Not on Mac.

Mac supports automatic caption creation. FCP for iPad doesn’t support captions at all…WTF (But you can hack this using titles…)

As a newbie, having access to both apps seems to just make things more confusing… not less 😵‍💫

Review : Woman Of The Hour

An extrapolation of a true story. Woman Of The Hour shows what women had to put up with in the 70’s in their personal and professional lives. We watch women being objectified, patronised, bullied, ignored, threatened and even attacked.

Sadly something that still hasn’t changed much today.

Stuff This week #78

A black and white photograph of a tall smokestack with the word "BREWERY" written vertically on it. The smokestack is partially obscured by the roof of a building in the foreground. The sky is overcast, creating a moody and somewhat somber atmosphere. The image conveys a sense of industrial history and the passage of time. — Brewery 🍻

👆I’m still very much enjoying playing with the Halide Mk III Public Previews B&W mode. I’m very excited to see how it evolves and it’s great whilst one of their team members have left that they seem to just be moving forwards with an energy and purpose. Very good stuff to see.

🙇 I missed writing an entry last week as I just didn’t have the time! Sumimasen!