This whole social media thing is not terribly social for me. As far as I can tell only 5 of my followers are real people & I don't think most of what I post is seen by anyone. It's long past time for me to accept that I have no place here. Be well.

Won't be playing any of the new Two Point games. Cos when you're making the "spiritual successor" to one of the most endlessly replayable single player experiences of the 90s, fucking all replayability to tack on zynga-style multiplayer *and* never fixing game-breaking day one bugs is a no from me.

In an act of extreme violence against my sanity I woke up today to my internal jukebox playing Give It To You by Jordan Knight.

I probably shouldn't have read that article today, especially given now I get to sit awake, alone & in silence all night.

If you, like me, gave up on the MI films cos 2 was a mid edgelord wank fest & 3 was perfect proof that JJ is a talentless nepo baby then you're cheating yourself out of some fun spy/heist movies with only minimal epic scale creep that came after.

Oh good. My gas meter & boiler have developed faults. It only took the council a actual entire decade to repair the boiler last time.

Hey, just saw that cute "can't sleep? have you tried going to bed?" meme again &, sure, for a lot of people that will work. Our brains are all about modes & you can brute-force them. However, don't *ever* use it to respond to someone discussing insomnia. I have been failing at sleeping for 40 years.

You cannot imagine how Cassandra I felt trying to explain to people how good John Cho is when all they'd seen was his more gross-out comedies. His episode of Charmed is legit one of 90s TV's best short stories.

The fact that all of Off Centre is on YT makes me feel something is right with the world. That 00s tail-end of the 90s sitcom boom birthed so many underappreciated gems that were only shown over here in the 3-5am slot on itv & ch4, & now anyone can watch them.

I wish I wasn't awake & alone while my body is doing this. Not that I'd be the most scintillating host. I mostly need someone to make all decisions for me for a few hours while my body rights itself as I writhe & occasionally groan.

Oh that's a fun new wrinkle. Those little freakouts my body has if a particular internal thermostat breaks where it reads the air being colder than my skin as me being colder than the air are now tipping it so far I get hot enough my body takes away the capacity to breathe through my nose.

I made bolognese & ate so much spaghetti. This is still less continental than when I chainsmoke & chaincoffee.

I do not understand how bad rich people are at being rich. If I were a millionaire I'd probably spend my time burying my face in the mane of one of the Aslan puppets from the 80s BBC Narnia & leaving rave reviews for every service/business I interact with that deserves it.

Trying to convince my brain that despite its insistence it does not in fact want to start a game of Alpha Centauri cos if I do I won't move for the next 30 hours or so.

Tbf to it, I'm not sure the first season got the best shot at me given how close I watched it to Rig 45 which arguably does substantially more with less. Like seeing Departure too close to Vigil.

Ok so season 2 of The Rig was fine. I don't know if there's been a series with this level of performance & character that has been this let down by the overall structure of its narrative. Everyone is doing such good work but something is just off.

It remains fascinating to me that when two people decide to get together & to give forever a go, everyone is still using hunting & fishing language to describe it like that's a normal & ok thing. Have you considered just being happy for people?

It makes me sad beyond measure that my dad's business will not pass to his children cos a secondhand bookshop is a beautiful thing, but it's his dream, his life's work, also none of us have any aptitude for it, & he never expected us to be defined by it as adults.

There's just something about walking past a business, now empty & lost to venture capitalists, with Estd. 1926 still visible on the window that feels like it could radicalise Gods.

I know I'm into my 40s now cos I just had a long moment of wistful pining for a specific chocolate from a no-longer-extant local chocolatier. [Strawberry, white pepper & white chocolate if you're ever near a Digby's yourself.]

We need to consider a global body that evaluates all new technology on the basis of one simple question: Does this sound like the start of a Dr Who script? We'd save so many resources & so much heartbreak.

we've been the garages is officially out! this album was such a labour of love - shout out to ras and the whole community for putting together an absolutely rad surprise (in pdf form 👀) for anyone who buys the album on bandcamp! thegarages.bandcamp.com/album/weve-b... Streaming coming soon <3

There are still [I think] 4 accounts in the other place that I pop back to check for posting a bluesky handle every now & then. The ad at the top of my feed was some kind of online church of Tate delivering "his final prophecy" & I had a "remember when The Onion was satire?" moment.

Just heard the handful of seconds of Would I Lie To You by Charles & Eddie on the Heineken 0.0 ad. Yes. YES. A new generation will know the most successful one hit wonder in British music history. I'm telling you, baby, you will never find another girl in this heart of mine/Look into my eyes can't y

Aw shit. Up before 10am & capable of getting a few bits started before my second pint of coffee. It's almost as if improvement is iterative or something. Sleeping a full 8 hours after a 5 hour nap is totally normal, of course.

Such a good day. So much done. So many progress bars inched on. Even remembered to eat & had a [accidentally 5 hour] nap.

Really we elder millennials are primed for early dementia detection. 2/3 of our conversation is callbacks & deepcuts.

Join us this Sunday (Jan 5) for the release party of our farewell to blaseball album, "We've Been The Garages" - 10pm GMT / 5pm ET / 2pm PT. Come hang out in the chat with us and say goodbye to this game that we are all love thegarages.bandcamp.com/merch/weve-b...

Had trouble sleeping the night before last. Finally slept around 10am. Woke up shortly before 11pm so befuddled it took two pints of coffee to get me going but once I was going, damn was it worth it. Got so much done. Still doing! [also resting cos pacing, ugh]

Hasui Kawase (1883-1957) Asahi bridge Ojiya #japanese #woodblock

1 hour heads up!

One of the genuine joys of my life is Desert Bus For Hope & I will be forever grateful to DB for introducing me to these lovelies. Treat yourself to the music of love, acceptance, collaboration, & joy on this newest of days. We're in this together, my loves.

So far the new year for me is the same migraine I've had for days & a garlic smell in my bathroom so pungent it nearly made me hurl. May yours be happy, pain- & weird odour free.

RDR 1 winning best soundtrack cos it only came to Steam this year is a sack of bullshit so big you could almost use it to hide Rockstar's record of human rights abuses.

This thought brought to you by the "accessible" taps on my toilet sink, which are so inaccessible to me I never use it, developing exactly the fault I said they would cos they are also totally unsuitable for the water pressure in these blocks.

One of the things that comes up again & again from ableds [especially ones in any kind of authority] is this weird belief that accessibility is one size fits all. It's not rocket science. A ramp won't help a deaf person understand your show. A BSL translator won't help the blind. Etc, etc.

Kawase Hasui (1883-1957) Shikishima Riverbank, Maebashi #japanese #woodblock

Not to be THAT person but if you were going to turn a skull into a bong you'd turn it the other way up & use the foramen magnum [literally "big hole"] to insert a mouthpiece. The only choice after that is whether you want the bowl to come out of an eye or the nose.

I mean if I had to have a migraine that keeps me up all night it may as well be Christmas Eve into Christmas morning. There's a pale grey dawn out there. The crows & wood pigeons are collaborating on some high class atmospheric foley. Have a merry day, my lovelies.

Anyone else snap a salute every time they hear Judy Garland sing "make the yuletide gay"?

Aw damn. Rest well, Marni Bakst.

HORSE

This is one of those conflicting access needs things. The socks allow me to use my stick for longer without it aggravating the disability in my hands. Without the stick I can achieve a higher speed but not for long. Good maybe for a trip to the bins on a good day but not for anything meaningful.

Trying to sum up positives from this year & one is definitely the 3 separate strangers who stopped me on one of my rare times outside the house to thank me for the idea of putting little colourful socks on a walking-stick handle as a gentle cushion. Yeah. Comfy FTW. But also style.

And, look, I know it seems like I peaced out on BG3 in February but that's just when I started transcribing my dreams. Plus it does not include me Diana-ing my chap through his first BG3 run. I can promise you that faith is kept.

Looking back at my Steam Replay is hilarious. I did not flit at all this year. Favourite result is probably the little graph showing that the games I play are mostly Dwarf. ROCK & STONE!

So the people who didn't give a fuck when I was starving, penniless, homeless, the ones who didn't gaf when I was being kept prisoner, the ones who said my brother was right to come to kill me, are now texting me from unknown numbers at 7am & accusing my chap of murder.

Here's to the guy in the park who just shouted "The world is fucked & everybody sucks!" Totally the vibe.

For those going "a what?" Have you ever had an apple martini & thought "this should be made with tequila & chillies"? It's that.

3pm is a perfectly acceptable time for a manzano fuego.