It was counterproductive for councils in the noughties to discourage loitering by stripping public spaces of benches and other sittable surfaces. Research now shows teenagers subconsciously interpreted the waist-high cover as a combat zone, instilling anxiety leading them to roadie-run to Maccies.

Been a long time since I found a CD in the gutter so I was excited to indulge a passion for finding weird CD-Rs ( www.rockpapershotgun.com/i-kinda-miss... ). Alas, no mystery, no romance: it's a regular CD, and one which takes little imagination to guess why someone would hoy it out their window.

I probably won't play until it leaves early access but a new Cosmo D game is buy-on-sight for me. One of my favourite developers for years now, colourful and loud and quiet and curious and delightful games which commit to their style with striking confidence. store.steampowered.com/app/2778210/...

Today at my volunteering I pulled this horrible object out the riverbed ok talk to you later bye

On Friday I cycled 408km/253 miles from Edinburgh to York, through the night, as part of a wee team in the Easter Arrow event. Lots went awry (up to our leader sadly needing to drop out) but going gently loopy with great folks while riding dark country roads under a big moon into dawn was perfect.

Considering becoming a dot-com millionaire by founding some sort of website named Pick 'n' Clix.

I have been cursed of late by an earworm smooshing the Sisters of Mercy's Temple of Love into the Bonanza theme song. We chased Lady Luck till we finally struck Bonanza! With a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain, we planted our family tree You run for cover in the temple of love Bonanza! Etc

I got into cycling longer distances over the winter, with a couple 230k rides complete then a 300k last week I had to abandon after my frame almost cracked in half. So now I'm uh getting into distance on my backup singlespeed, doing a 160k day last week and half-thinking about a 400k event in April.

You'll never guess what.

I'm glad to see these nerds writing. Too good to have become management!

You know, I sometimes fear I accomplished nothing and left no legacy in 15 years of writing about video games, and this is greater than I could have hoped.

I still think about Infra, and wish I had pushed more people to play it when I had a platform. It's nobbly and weird and surprising, a first-person explore-o-puzzler which opens with PowerPoint then tumbles into conspiracy and catastrophe. Down to £5 for a bit: store.steampowered.com/app/251110/I...

Wishing you a very merry Cyber Monday! Whatever your A/S/L, may you and your closest webring enjoy a day of mulling Jolt Cola and singing Front Line Assembly carols, free from trolls, lag, and power-tripping channel ops.

I won't reel off Edinburgh festival picks but if you're following me because of PC games, Stampin' in the Graveyard makes magical transformative use of trashed PCs. I was delighted by each turn as they were variously worn, illuminated, gazed into, held aloft, more. www.edfringe.com/tickets/what...

Hip hip hooray, yesterday was the Burryman's day!

Checking in on my last (final?) gameswords one year later... Epic, EA, Rockstar, and Ubisoft's clients have all forgotten my password again since I last used them. A perennial post. www.rockpapershotgun.com/if-i-never-w...

It's now a year since I left Rock Paper Shotgun and I still haven't written anything longer than a Christmas card. I'm still looking for something new and don't know if I'll ever write again. But I have learned dry stone walling and volunteered lots on river cleanup and landscaping, which is nice.

Full suit of plate armour fashioned from Displate metal posters.

I have kept updating my blog of mod readme files every now and then, by the way. Interesting ideas, funny phrases, unavoidable pornography, and such. readmedottxt.tumblr.com

Hot tip for my fellow meatheads this Christmas: white Toblerone contains the most protein, with a muscle-maxing 22g grams of 'tein per full-size Tobe. I know I'll be slamming at least six on the day myself.

Tired: the Star Trek TNG episode with the brainwashing video game is absurd because WESLEY CRUSHER rejects gaming?! Wired: it's perfect because Wes would decry this as a casual baby game. Inspired: it's absurd because Wes doesn't use this as an opportunity to once again fail to start a LAN party.

Christmas lifehack: you can chant "Now bring us some figgy pudding!" pretty much anywhere in any circumstances, and your odds of success won't be any lower. Give it a go!

I also celebrated Cyber Monday by finishing a new Hackers pager, this time in Cereal Killer yellow. Main change was redrawing the display decal. Still not sure if I think it's better.

Wishing a very merry Cyber Monday to you and yr subnet! May you receive ops in your favourite IRC channel and greetz in a mod's readme.

I'm as excited for Christmas as the next person who has already watched 35 Christmas movies since the start of November, but PLEASE remember the cyberpunks in your life. Their main annual festival, Cyber Monday was this year pushed into December and risks being drowned in mulled wine.

Counter-Strike 2's new Edinburgh map is cute enough, smooshing together some recognisable corners and architectural elements. But serious video game tourists must also visit Leith Waterworld via the Garry's Mod map for Trouble In Terrorist Town, which I've just noticed was remastered in 2020.

Spent an hour today with @v21.bsky.social's "Downpour", an app for making little games on your phone (still in beta). Made one about our cats called "Where's Madeleine?". Perhaps my greatest work? Takes 2-5 minutes depending on how good you are at finding Madeleine. downpour.games/~holly/where...

Rediscovered my 2006 pitch for a smartphone with ghost detection capabilities. Non-visible spectrum camera, EMF sensor, ultra-sensitive microphone with real-time reverse function, digital thermometer etc. Ultimately, my clients decided to instead invent the iPhone. Still, it worked out for them!

Christmas romcom pitch: a Romeo & Juliet between a builder and a burner of the Gävle goat.

The most alien part of American Christmas movies is music. A whole party singing The 12 Days of Christmas without drawing out FIVE! GOOOLD! RIIINGS! Away in a Manger set to a whole different tune. And though it's their most sung song, I don't believe Up on the Housetop exists outside these movies.

Autumn in Big Tree Country.

Erotica.

Halloween prank tip: before squirting fake blood up a nostril so it will alarmingly trickle down over the course of a Teams meeting (which you will refuse to acknowledge), do check you picked up the bottle of fake blood and not the bottle of blood-red skin-melting chemical exfoliation. Tingly!

Still no signups for my new film studies class: An Electro-Industrial Education, From Network To Video Nasties. The viewing list is all movies with dialogue sampled by 80s & 90s industrial bands. Final project is critiquing a fictional song from a band of your choice and its use of movie samples.