By Executive Order I am designating today National Give Your Kids a Nice Hug Day. Sure, we could spend all day doomscrolling the news - or we could make it a decent day for our loved ones.
As always, this is advice for me disguised as advice for everyone else.
If this subject line doesn’t make my readers unsubscribe en masse I don’t know what will
www.cynicsguidetoselfimprovement.com/what-you-…
It turns out I do have an aesthetic and mine is blue jeans and useful shirts and pallet timber and self-tapping screws
Righto, checking in, how is everybody today. Where I’m at: blue skies, the sun has burned off the morning mist and the roof is generating a healthy 3.31 kW
I think a nearly flawless neurotypicality test would be whether or not you liked SSR in school 🤔
(I loved it)
Today has been a Day for all of the usual reasons but on the bright side I just purchased the last one of these sets remaining in the North Island
A reminder, in case you need it, that you can put your phone down
If you’re posting pics on Pixelfed, hit me up. I’d love to follow more people (I am pixelfed.nz/tworuru)
Oh god it’s that cursed time of year when I’m getting interested in Linux again. I’m so sorry in advance for the posting to follow. Has anyone given Bazzite a good hoon? bazzite.gg
Baking bread and preserving plums: apparently 2025 is my tradwife era
This morning’s no-knead bread was an unparalleled success, thanks to @dreddieclark.bsky.social’s incredible recipe
Happy International Day of Avoiding Social Media for Existential Horror Reasons!
Playing Neva and, my god, every frame is a painting. You could take continuous screenshots from beginning to end and every one would be a stunning piece of art
I sat down for a sleep-deprived interview with the Waikato Times and it somehow came out coherent and possibly even funny
www.waikatotimes.co.nz/nz-news/3…
The last decent picture I got before the clouds rolled in really shows the power of a good crop. This was me leaning against my garden shed under a hedge but a bit of judicious cropping makes it look like taking a picture of the sky from in some kind of enchanted wood #auroraaustralis
If you’re planning on using one of my images of Luxon from my TradeMe auction as a profile pic a.) what’s wrong with you and b.) feel free. But use this one. The effect when you use it as a circular profile pic is just… something else
By way of explanation, here is a long post including a Q&A with David Farrier explaining just why I felt the need to paint a truly hideous portrait of the Prime Minister
www.cynicsguidetoselfimprovement.com/i-painted…
Tim Winton nails it. “Many of our leaders are devoted servants of the status quo. Which is a polite way of saying they’re collaborators.”
Happy Needless Mandated Jet-lag Day Everyone!
Wrote a piece for David Farrier’s Webworm about the feeling of futility that arises from being denied agency to sort out the wicked problems that afflict the world, and explores some of how we got to this place.
TLDR: I blame Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker: www.webworm.co/p/fantasy…
New Cynic’s Guide post: the truly remarkable results from my “dopamine detox” (which isn’t a thing that’s actually possible, but never mind).
If you like my stuff, I’ve put up a tip jar. A bit more manageable than a paid subscription, but still helps pay the hosting costs and keep me in coffee!
This is probably a metaphor for something
New newsletter post: about the completely bogus trend of “dopamine detox” and why I’m doing it anyway
https://www.cynicsguidetoselfimprovement.com/rope-a-dopamine/
Every time I drive past I am fascinated by this sign. Not only is it textbook irony - the sign site is an incredibly popular informal dump - I’m always trying to puzzle out what on earth is going on with the slogan. You might - with effort - make the case that Hamilton is New Zealand’s most beautiful large town, but large city? No. Not even close. Auckland is spectacular even by world standards. Wellington has that astonishing windswept harbour. Even post-earthquake Christchurch has its gardens and a kind of broken grandeur. Tauranga is framed by mountains, the beach, and the Mount. And Dunedin looks like someone transported Edinburgh to the utter ends of the earth. Anyway, today I finally took the photo I’ve been threatening to take for years and I couldn’t be happier with it. I hope they never get rid of this absurd sign and that people keep using the site for overt drug deals and illegal dumping.
After a solid evening’s work on this beautiful new painting, it’s perhaps 60 or 70 percent finished.
I’m still not looking at social media or notifications as part of my dopamine fasting nonsense, but I’m quite looking forward to reading them when I’m done. 🖼️
