#weeknotes

Random notes inc work stuff

Vicky dying still does not feel real. I feel privileged I got to spend some siginifcant time with her when she came along to Conferencia Agile Spain (like most people I primarily knew her from her writing and online presence, altho we met briefly a few times when we overlapped at GDS) and was hoping to follow up on a few things we talked about at GovCamp but equally it means I can't just indulge in my full-on denial mode...

Worked through xmas-ny break like usual. It's usually a chill time unless I am in this department, where apart from the ongoing time-sensitive work lots of random emergencies happened. So glad I'm off for a couple of weeks now, I've not had a proper break since Japan in March/April and I'm shattered.

Overall so much random and weird shit was going down at the end of Dec / start of Jan (including both me and my flatmate having very strange dreams) I was beginning to suspect a gas leak... 🙃

Got extended till Feb 2026 in my current contract. 🎉 It should make getting a mortgage easier, now just fingers crossed that the property does not get down valued like the last one and my sellers find something they want to purchase soon.

Quite a lot of change at work, lots of it quite neatly coinciding with my leave. The migration from GOV.UK PaaS my team was prepping for for the last year got delayed last minute and now I'll be missing it but I'm sure it will all go fine.

Booked in with Keemee for a tatoo just after the holiday. 🌺

Govcamp happened and I was mostly helping our rather than going to sessions. :o Good times as usual, felt particularly busy this year for a 'normal edition'. I really like that we finally have a bit of a Teacamp return with TransformGov Talks and also sort of DataBites! \o/

Spanish classes are back. I've not signed up for Korean yet, there's probably a fair bit I can do to brush up close to my former level by myself if I just find the motivation. :s

Watched

Lots of Taskmaster, the perfect crocheting accompaniment (see below)

Nosferatu - the scene in castle 100% played like something from What We Do in the Shadows, I'm not even sorry for giggling throughout. 😔 Needed more Dafoe hamming it up. I was shocked the cat was not named in the credits - breaking a sacred tradition of cinema. 4 stars.

Presence - not a horror, not my kinda thing otherwise (family drama). The central gimmick could be fun in an actual horror movie tho. Another one they kind of employ ('not being bound by time') is sort of redundant because the progression is linear (I suppose otherwise the twist would be ruined). The marketing vs movie kind of fell in place for me when I realised it's the same distributor as Longlegs which was also underwhelming.

Late Feb / March seems staked with releases I want to see: The Monkey, The Last Showgirl, Mickey 17, Death of Unicorn... probably more. Those are just the trailers I saw before Presence lol.

Played

This is probably between Dec-Jan rather than strictly Jan.

Fledgling Manor - Stefan's route only, basically not sure how the other ones can top it so I lost interest but it seems all need to be played to resolve some plot points so maybe in the future...

Sorry We're Closed - I thought this would be a VN but it's a survival horror and I find the shooting stressful haha. You can say I hould have read the description before buying but I was blinded by the art. -_-

bits of Arco (love the mechanics and the story is good but I got stuck at an encounter I can't pass but I'm too stubborn to back out and return at higher level), Animal Well, Stanley Parable (at very long last - yes, it's as good as I thought it would be), I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (tbh the mechanics were more interesting to me in a more down to earth setting of Growing Up), Cryptmaster (Steamdeck does not work well for this).

Waiting for Yakuza in Hawaii, more Hades 2 patches, next Deltarune chapters, and Ghost of Tsushima sequel + Assassins Creed Japan (open world map marker slop > therapy, don't @ me).

Makes

Decima is still closed so no pottery. I've probably forgotten 100% of what little I could do. I'll probably do a course at Mudgang when I'm back to return to some working level and then get either a studio space subscription from them or Turning Earth near Haggerston, depending on how the flat buying is coming along.

In the meantime I have finally sort of learned how to crochet. I got a kit from TOFT to make a black and white cat, resembling Bella a bit. I tried crocheting before a few times (I learned very basic knitting during lockdown and have half a pride blanket from Wool & the Gang somewhere) but it always ended up with me crying, once in public. 🥲 The kit said it's level 2 so I got another level 1 one (labrador)

TBF they are not that different, cat requires changing colours which is actually not hard if you get over the initial barrier to entry of crocheting anything at all. 😬 The cat is also bigger which makes the process much less fiddly.

TOFT instructions are quite barebones and don't have any interim 'this is what it should look like by now' pics which as a complete beginner is quite rough, but I think I managed to make decent approximations of the cover images. I made some changes to the cat on purpose.

Belly disagrees.

The biggest issue I have with TOFT kits so far is that the amount of yarn provided leaves no room for errors or even leaving longer tails. With both patterns I made mistakes (crocheting with dark yarn is particularly hard going if you don't know wtf you're doing) and the yarn started fraying real bad so I had to chop it. I actually had to buy more yarn (which doesn't exactly match...) to finish the cat at all. :(

I got yarn and patterns for two sheep (Seth and Tobias) from them to keep busy on the upcoming flights so we'll see how consistent this minimalism is. 😬

Anyway then I went crazy at John Lewis sales so I have lots of materials now, just need patterns and ideas. The first one is not going particularly well and I'm losing my patience sligtly, might swap to something else.

General:

Had an xmas dinner with some pals at Mallow - a last minute change from Bancone to accommodate ever more complicated dietary preferences and restrictions (maybe we ARE getting old...). Lovely as usual and I managed to avoid any mushrooms.

I'm so bored of the bougie xmas markets appearing left and right and filled with boring as hell beige pottery and candles. Does this shit sell?

Laura's house purchase went through and Belly moved to Brighton with her. 😭 My cat!!!!!

I'm finding it trickier than I'd care to admit to get to grips with my three new teams and figure out what they all need/where I can add value. Having some thinking space over xmas/ny period definitely helped and I even got some data together to back up my hunches. It doesn't necessarily help that the new portfolio I joined does governance quite differently - and more often, making me feel a bit like I'm on a running wheel...

I went swimming on the Christmas Day thanks to London Fields Lido being the best swimming pool in London, possibly the world. 8)

Playing/watching:

Quite a good month for boardgames culminating in finally playing Witcher: The Old World! \o/ Unsurprisingly it's one of the games with so many rules the whole group is in low spirits by the time the game finally starts, but we really got going in the end and I'm looking forward to a couple more campaigns at least. 👀

I rushed to finish Deep Space 9 after Netflix announced they're removing all ST which I'm pretty sure caused me some lasting psychic damage (not as much as reading 50 chapters of One Piece per day for weeks a few yars ago tho....). The high point of the series for me was definitely at the start of season 6, and I continued to enjoy all the Ferengi-centric episodes but overall I never warmed up to most of the characters. :( Dukat's short stint as a cult leader was one of the flops of all time, you can't just jump into mass suicide after ONE sus baby my man!

Crafting

I finished the jumper!

And got started on Lancer

I also did some planning for my temperature blanket (actually scarf), and ordered yarn for the second jumper. \o/

2025

Top 3 things that happened this year in no particular order:

learned to crochet

bought a flat

learned to knit

At work, things mostly kept chugging on. I did not escape the unrelenting presence of AI (in fact despite actively saying I am not interested in it I was, and continue to be, more involved in AI related related projects than most of people in my role - what gives?! 💀) but I think I managed to help teams deliver some necessary (infra wise) and sensible (for the users) stuff.

I continue to be frustrated with things changing post-pandemic which is increasingly giving an 'old man shouts at cloud' vibe. :/ Maybe it's the governance principles that need an update, seeing as I can't seem to turn the time back and get boards on the wall to have a standup around? 🤡

It's been a good year for crafting, gaming, and keeping up with friends. I hope I can keep all of this up in the next one \m/

2026

Goals

sort out my heating and plumbing (lol sorry to be boring but both are lowkey annoying me 😩)

pass DELE B2 🫣🫣🫣 and maybe go back to learning Korean after that?

learn to sew! and learn woodworking, or FINALLY go back to ceramics

The Japan/Korea holiday would be nice but IDK if I can make it happen. 😩 It'd probably be more likely if I got a lodger but living alone is so chill. For now I'm letting my heart win over reason on this one.

Work

DeliverCon - as usual I could only help out around my general work responsibilities but this time I got way more kudos than deserved cos two out of three actual organisers could not make it. 🤭 Sam did an amazing job as usual and the volunteers were fantastic. Special acknowledgment from me to Suzie, Karina, and Liz but everyone got really stuck in. :)

 I managed to attend a full session on team's tendency to goldplace and how to get away from. While the group ended up talking about assessments, which is not that relevent to me at the moment, it's grounding to be among people from all sorts of places that have a similar problem.

Uncodebar - I've not been to a Codebar session for years and years - awkward! It's such a great org and the events were always so welcoming, I've just not had a tech 'project' for ages and I am pretty sure I will not become a developer in my lifetime with the genAI trashfire going on. Can I go and crochet?! 🙈 At the unconference, the talks were mostly quite techy or about getting into the industry, I enjoyed the one about managing stress and trauma with some good theory and actionable day to day tips. :)

Finally kicked off an alpha for a bit of functionality we did disco for this time last year and I was really hoping would begin when I was on holiday in Feb/March. :') There's a small win as we finally managed to convince steakeholders to go with commodity tech instead of building our own to prove users demand - this wouldn't have happened earlier.

I had a couple of chats about new contract opportunities

Strangely, all of them so far have been health-adjacent. I did not have a great experience working in the area previously, which tbf is made me quite apprehensive from the get go... I really wish I just went for one of them but I overthought, dilly dallied, and I am living to regret it. 🫠 A good reminder for me that I have to take those chances and step away from the predictable if it's just a false comfort - it makes me too uneasy to live like that anyway.

Anywhooo if you are reading this post I have updated my CV. ✌️😗 Fortunately something else that I think can work out came up over the weekend and I'm hoping to have a call with the recruiter on Monday.

Had some chats about potential permanent things as well, with promises of more flexibility in exchange for lower income but I don't think this is for me at the moment...

Crafts

I stepped away from actually making and finishing things to pick up new techniques I will feel guilty about not using.

Tunisian crochet (including colourwork) - fun on a bun, I got a set of hooks immediately after the session at Knit + Stitch show. 🤣 I will use it to make my 2026 temperature blanket!

Mosaic knitting - pressed flower kerchief workshop at Loop. I made some good progress on the spot, unravelled it to make it 'better' and continued to flop three times over. It's a cute and not too big project tho so I will try again in Nov.

Weaving - the workshop was meant to be on Cutty Sark but ended up in the museum, boo. It was cute anyway and I enjoyed learning how to weave on a small scale. Not sure what I could use something made on this sort of loom for (placemat? art?). Are you meant to make things in bits and stich them together? 🤔 I'd looooove if Freeweaver ran their winter coat course again. I had to use the Greenwich foot tunnel to get across (and back) which was quite thrilling in itself. :D I also learned about London Wool at the workshop which is such a cute idea. It only comes in neutrals which is not quite my vibe, but I'm tempted to get some anyway...

Gaming

FINALLY A GAME OF ARCS WITH FOUR PLAYERS. I was so lost in the sauce (aka cherry mead) that I forgot to take a pic but it DID happen. The difference was not massive but it was neat to finally use most of the board and the highest/lowest cards. I'd like to play with the leader cards at least one more time. We played Quacks of Quedlinburgh in the same session which was also fun. \o/

Ghost of Yotei. Good, fuelling my Hokkaido plans further (see previous post on this very blog!). I've not finished but I'm finished with it, if ya know what I mean? I enjoyed the gameplay a lot but I'm not motivated to see the story through.

Seance of Blake Manor - GREAT deductive game in the vein of Golden Idol/Obra Dinn, and perfect for Halloween! Really really enjoyed this and highly recommend.

Ball x Pit - tbf I thought this will be a bigger thief of time but it's not quite Vampire Survivors level to me. A relief!!

Watching

Good Boy - a horror film with dog protagonist, soooo good. Genuinely a good creepy horror but also sad. Fabulous performance from a very good boy actor too. :)

Bugonia - crap. Why did I expect anything else if I thought Save the Green Planet was crap? Idk. But still garbage film.

Cure (1997) - Elden Ring tie-in about dangers of smoking and gun (NO MORE GUN).

Wicked (the musical) - a friend invited me for her birthday, I ended up enjoying it more than I thought. Poor Dorothy was just a victim of Young Adult relationship drama. 😥 The actress playing Glinda was very good, supr funny. The big dragon puppet was amazing. The subplot about Elphaba's sister was probably the weakest/most boring bit.

General

I got stuck in a lift!

There's green parakeets living in the tree just outside my window!

I saw the sumo wrestlers in Chinatown!

I preordered an extremely whimsical lamp and got some half price paint at House of Hackney sample sale!

The weather was so nice at the start of the month it was still doable to have a sunny evening pint in the pub garden (time changed fucked that one, eh. can't wait for BST)!

I'm slowly finding local communities and activities. Not something I really invested in while renting (even tho I stayed in rented places for ages at a time!), as in I was more flexible with location of.. anything. It's nice not to have to travel very far for things, and since the other people are more likely to live nearby there's more general friend potential. : ) I might look around for boardgaming meetups...

Food highlights: pal's birthday lunch at Hawksmoor, meal with good friends at Merkamo (Ethiopian), biryani at a post office followed by a nighttime stroll around Barbican.

Food lowlights: Singapore crab - too much work for too little meat, I am sorry. ✋😔 I had decisively below average dahi puri two times this month as well, a knife in my heart (the heart of a dahi puri lover who could happily eat only dahi puri for every meal forever).

Next month

Quite a lot of travel for work...

Jumper workshops at Wild and Wooly! I ordered yarn and I'm bit annoyed it's not here yet. :/ I'm going to attemp the upstream jumper.

I went to Open Data Camp 10, which I should probably write about separately so it can be linked somewhere, maybe along documenting the cowl I made (which has found a new caring home! 🎉). It was great to catch up with the usual suspects as usual but I feel like I also met a higher than usual number of fun new peeps (and completely forgot to take their names / other contact info) haha. Hopefully see them next time!? 😬

TBH the event was mostly an excuse for me to take some days off (I am very bad at this) and go up to Scotland (not been since maybe 2015? so I am also very bad at THIS), including to see my oldest friend on this island. ❤️ Seeing some stuff from our old flat (a plate, a pillow, a stool I badly painted) made me feel very melancholing and it's making me reflect on my life now that I'm back in London. Some sort of emotional hangover? 🥲 I'll be in my feelings for a few days/weeks still I think....

Anyway, I made a cat-shaped doorstop based on her sweet elderly kitty. :3 It took a couple of tries to approximate the markings, I think they are not perfect but decent. I'll write it up the process separately.

I went to whopping three crafting workshops this month: knitting a massive blanket on my arms, knitting a little sock on DPNs (what the everloving fuck... cables please), and sashiko embroidery. All were interesting in different ways, I think I'm least likely to make another giant blanket but I went with my Product Manager who thinks it'd make a fun team session so maybe speaking too soon. 😅

I also started a beret for my mum, amigurumi Greg from NITW (I'm trying to find a willing victim to make him a leather jacket....), and been faffing around with some lovely yarns I bought in Edinburgh trying to figure out how they behave knitted / crocheted and what they'd be nice for. : )

Watched One Battle after Another (very good), Some Like it Hot (classic; wish I lived closer to the Arzner Cinema!), played Hades 2 (the plot goes mehhhhh) and Silksong (motherfucking platforming will make me pop a Vessel).

Ate at Miga (justified hype, don't get the pancake because it will stuff you up), Adoh (not the best kothu roti I've had but still very good), Facing Heaven (INCREDIBLE and fully vegan the cauliflower is fucking amazing, it rewired my brain). Some pretty mid stuff in Edinbugh (couldn't be bothered and only had a coffee with someone else) but very nice stuff in Glasgow with vegan haggis and best mushroom sandwich ever seen in 13th Note being the highlight. In conclusion vegan restaurants always knock it out of the park. 💅

Nothing special to say about work, apart from the fact that after 1.5years in the same environment I am beginning to feel quite in a rut. :/ Not up for serious search at the moment tho so I will need to find another way to blow up some portion of my life (esp given my Scotland-induced crisis), stay tuned I guess?!?! 🤩

UP NEXT

Knitting and Stitching Show - I have a couple of workshops booked including two tunisian crochet ones. Very excited to learn about that:)

I passed my Spanish end of unit exam so off to B2.1 which Instituto Cervantes very generously calls 'Advanced level' 😳

I will need to eat all the jollof rice that I made with all my tomatoes.... and also pick up the rest of the tomatoes..... pay no attention to the fucking mess in the background of the tomatoes........

The Flat

Among the packing, paperwork, moving, and doing adult stuff like selecting an energy tariff, any spare creative energy is being spent trying to find a kitchen table that's good for crafts and boardgames.  🤔

I've not even been to my cemetery-allotment yet!

It's ex-council with everything that brings but honestly space-wise it is an incredible deal in London, and the location is so good for me (the lido), plus the roof access, plus the unexpected allotment...

My seller was THE LOVELIEST too, left me so many white goods (inc a brand new fridge) and prepped so much information. It was not the smoothest process in the world (I offered at the start of the year) but by herself she made it so much better. 💖

Work

August = annual leave zone. Nevertheless, the team finally released the AI feature so a bit of a win (I have generally very little interest in AI stuff and despite the novelty it's EXTREMELY NOT FUN to work on if you're in a profession that has to deal with all the governance 🫠 goodbye to AI things for me, only CMS template iterations and retiring services now pls).

Watching and stuff

Eddington - Fine. It's no Beau is Afraid. Advertising it as a pandemic movie is very misleading imo (more of a BLM film if anything). Unironically loved Emma Stone character's art, her character is definitely the most interesting in the film too - wish it was centered more on her.

The Matrix - I've never seen this in cinema!!!!!! Such a fun film and the trans angle we gained in the years since it came out is the cherry on top. Still, I do wonder about Sandra Bullock version... I went to Everyman Chelsea to see this, the cinema is honestly _incredibly_ lush and cozy (I think there's like... 10 seats total). You wouldn't believe the dramatics around their free drink and popcorn offer tho. General public don't be a bunch of miserable geezers challenge [Epic Failure].

Motivated by the move, went to a couple of Westminster institutions I neglected to visit through the cumulative decade+ I lived there, like The Cinnamon Club (fantastic) and Sapori (enormous portions, how can you not love a place with mismatched wine glasses? also we glugged out this wine in 30 seconds flat - so good!).

Cat 🥺

Special section for a goodbye to my flatmate's cat, my squeaky sweetie pie cutie patootie that I will miss so much now that I've moved out. 😭😭😭😭 At least I can pop in for a visit as long as they're in London and maybe she'll stay with me when the owner is on holiday but it's SUCH an adjustment after nearly 10 years with her around. 🥺 No more cat for size with crochet! 😭

If you have a cat you should get it some purr pops.

Next month

Food

I don't think I went out more than usual but definitely remembered to take photos...

In no particular oder:

Regency Cafe is changing hands as the original owners are retiring. Apparently the new ones want to franchise it, including in Dubai and uhhhh....

Mamapen at the The Sun & 13 Cantons after a friend said she's going back in less than a week after her first visit. I will be back soon as well.

The recenly hyped Breadstall - fine but Pizza Union is undefeated for me.

Bancone and Pophams for pasta, both as good as usual.

Nagare, Big Kid Ice Cream, Flat Iron, Mother Mash, probably other incidental places.

Very VERY sadly I'm always around way too early to get anything from HoHo. :( One day!

About town

Leigh Bowery exhibit at Tate Modern - fab show about an extraordinary person, with pretty iconic wallpaper too.

Tooting Bec Lido - it..... made me appreciate London Fields Lido much more for sure. 🙃 Like yes, the length is nice (it's 90m rather than 100m like I heard tho) but the facilities are quite horrid with only tiny lockers that require you to bring your own padlock, most changing rooms not closing and people just leaving all their shit on the ones that were. It's also absolutely in the middle of nowhere. It's also the only pool I've been to that had a security bag screening??? Like many things, I'm glad I've tried it or I'd be left wondering but there is zero reason for me to go back...

Flat is nearing completion / exchange so I went to see it again (since it's been *six bloody months* T__T). Turns out that apart from everything else that's great about it I get access to mini-allotment space at the edges of a 300 year old cemetery, with a space for BBQ as well. Should be on track for late August / early September move as well so I'm stressing about getting everything sorted and part of it into self-storage cos there's not even enough space for all the boxes in my room.

New tat! Well, extension to an existing tat (same artist, the faded bit). And a future tatoo inspo from a 2500 year old mummy?? 👀

Played Arcs again, but still with 3 people. A 4 player game may never come to pass. :|

Work

the thing I worked on finally got announced officially and we can talk about it yay

still trying to get another thing from my old team released before i can whole-heartedly be on the new one - it's pretty annoying and distracting. my PM will be on leave after this week so I definitely need an out urgently

a took a single sick day (first one since I started contracting) and all I could think of was how much it's costing me. bad attitude, yes. am I EVER doing it again unless i'm literally fucking dying - no. 🫣

there are few things i hate more than hybrid meetings esp when i'm in the 'minority' - and two happened within the week when i was one of 3 people in a room with a dozen dialled in, and vice versa (4 people dialled in inc me, bunch in a room). horrid experience tech-wise (hearing, being heard, having actual conversation, seeing what the reactions are, who is even participating!) and just super uncomfortable.

speaking of meetings, I am firmly in the 'meetings ARE work' camp but people whose first reaction to everything is getting a 5+ person meeting in drive my batty. cease and desist. 🥲

Crafting

most of my time was spent finishing off a mitten and an infinity cowl. It is honestly pretty remarkable how far I've gotten in both knitting and life overall because it's become pretty clear to me that I can't count to 10. Next thing I do will be less colourwork (so flashy, so fun) and more increasing/decreasing and cables etc (so tedious, so pragmatic). But I do have a bunch of crocheting in the meantime.

Postman Pigeon. He's been appreciated by the new owner but also identified as a penguin leaving me with mixed emotions. 😅

Woobles Corgi

Started on a baby Phoenix for a competition but I want to make the cat doorstop I think I mentioned before for my friend first.

Signed up for a fuckload of workshops and courses in the autumn/winter from knitting improvers to sweater making. How am I gonna squeeze my pottery studio membership hours in?? (The answer is less sleep of course)

Watching

This month had a bit of a theme going - how fun, right?!

It was vehicular disasters. 🫣

I've been meaning to watch s2 of The Rehearsal for a while and it SO delivered. The first shot of Nathan looking through the window of a plane among a fiery blaze sets up to be a masterpiece and it all pays off in both the Sully episode (I waas crying out of laughter and because I was overcome with emotion *at the same time* at one point) and Nathan vehemently denying the autism allegations. Just incredible television.

I rewatched s1 as well which was still emotionally devastating. I wonder if that little boy is doing ok now.

For fans of the accident recreation/root cause genre, some recs:

Disaster Breakdown https://www.youtube.com/@DisasterBreakdown (most directly related as it focuses on air accidents. Chloe is such a good narrator, always humanises everyone involved, and I increasingly look forward to seeing her dresses too.)

Plainly Difficult https://www.youtube.com/@PlainlyDifficult (I particularly enjoy the train and nuclear-related ones here)

Fascinating Horror https://www.youtube.com/@FascinatingHorror (my personal OG, everything from fires and parking lot collapses to theme park accidents)

While I was at it I watched Departure (s1-3) on Netflix, where every season is about one accident (plane, train, ferry), shlocky af. And Crash in cinema as couple of places seemed to be running Cronenberg retrospectives.

Other stuff I saw:

half of Severance season 2 before I got fed up with the glacial pacing and stakes seemingly being mostly Mark / Helly (sorry but idgaf). good luck to everyone who will keep watching this for 7+ seasons that keep getting progressively worse and avoid answering any questions.

M3GAN 2.0 (more Terminator for the girlies than horror vibe of the previous one but very fun, get a feeling it was majorly fucked by the distributor :( )

Friendship (fine film but the audience laughing hysterically at every. single. line. was so weird, i am so sorry)

Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown (not one of my favourite Almodovars but well worth seeing at cinema. Sold out three times so maybe we'll get a fuller retrospective 👀)

Videodrome (long live the new flesh)

Weapons (slows down in the middle - 2 or 3 characters are not exactly crucial so focusing on them was a bit meh - but the ending is just incredible. maybe my 2nd fav horror of the year after The Monkey 🤔

I stopped with Star Trek for a bit (I still find DS9 characters to be quite.. dull? uncharismatic? I don't particularly crave to see more of them either way). But I just watched the ep with Trill toxic yuri earlier today so consider my interest renewed.

Next

Moving. 🤞

Booked to see Eddington as soon as it releases, I am very hype - Beau is Afraid is one of the movies of all tme.

Star Treks

TNG:

Was Wesley Crusher’s main arc about getting groomed and abducted into another dimension via being told he’s a very special boy three or four times… Speechless....

Seson 7 fell off but in general I enjoyed this series a lot, it had a lot of memorable episodes and the cast was fun. Q, Lwaxana, Barclay were the highlights whenever they appeared, obviously, and I'm glad some of them reappear in DS9. 🌟

Data was such a Mary Sue [complimentary]

DS9:

I'm nearly at the end of season 2 and TBH I find the new cast difficult to warm up to. The Bajoran religious struggle plots are quite hard going. The Bajorans are obviously Polish (I will not elaborate).

Anything to do with the Ferengi is pretty engaging (Pel! Bring her back 🥺). I can see how Garak will probably be fun in later seasons (and how The Wire ep must have launched a million fanfics). It’s interesting to see in what new ways O’Brien will suffer.

I’m glad they rescued the Trill host body gender situation after the pretty abysmal ending of the TNG episode, and I am slowly getting used to the way they decided to overlay Arabic pronunciation over the polish spelling of Jadzia’s name, but it was definitely quite the shock to hear it for the first time. x_x 

Other stuff I watched

Department Q - very silly copaganda, torture is obviously fandom approved when done by an underdog immigrant with mysterious past

Indie Horror Showcase - the projector struggled big time and the organisers seemed pretty stressed but personally I did not care. Nice of `Genesis cinema to give us free tickets for something else tho.

The most memorable shorts were IMO:

Bath Bomb

first few minutes of Make Me a Pizza (then it just turns into a porno, she doesn't even make him into a pizza :( sorry 4 spoilerz)

Other entertainments (mostly gaming....)

I swung by Okinawa Day to remind myself of my visit last year. I’ll be back! Hokkaido first tho. 🙂‍↕️

Got the green yuri vol1-2 in Spanish. It's technically learning and therefore an excellent use of money.

I enjoyed a talk preview from one famous blogger, partly because once again it called our 'radical candour' for the gateway to bullying that it is.

9 Lives - cute simple game that was surprisingly engaging (getting too many points can be worse than not getting enough). Idk what to call this 'overshooting' / need for balance mechanic but Apiary (where bees get old and die) + Morsels (where upgrading your abilities too much leads to them going bust afaik) seem to share it and I quite enjoy it... might investigate more.

Speaking of game trends, did Papers Please just now start resut 'spot the imposter' mini genree or has it been going on for a while? I've watched No I'm Not a Human demo playthrough some time ago but That's Not My Neighbor came up on my feeds as well, and maybe another one...

Arcs a couple of times. I even got a playmat and I think the campaign expansions is a possibility. 👀

Spots push your luck with cute dogs, what could be better? it could be better if pushing your luck did not result in mass dog extermination when you lose I guess. T_T

Deep Sea Adventure - we did our best to make sure someone always died one step away from the submarine. 🤝

Hades II for innumerable hours cos the update came out.

Deltarune ch3+4 - this plus the Undertale concert re-awakened the Undyne / Alphyne part of my brain. Anyway, mood for the month:

Crafts

I failed to get the spots right on a prototype of my friend’s cat. It was a good try and I think I know what I’m doing with version 2! 

I have learned the basics of knitting and have been trying to put them into practice, however for three times so far I have fucked up in the exact same way and frogged the whole thing. 30 rows of 2x2 rib in the round is just a bit monotonous and I’m itching to do the colourwork tbh so maybe I will just temporarily switch to something that is…. Flat colourwork?! 

Jigglypuff 

Kangaroo + baby 

I need to properly write up those: 

It’s been turtles all the way down: 

TOFT conservationists pattern (WIP)

Same pattern turtle but in greens

Stegosaurus cozy for a friend’s turt

All this made me think if I should just make Gerson and it turns out Bogusia’s next pattern will be a turtle, if that ain’t a sign… 

A nice purple ziggy zaggy snood

6 day star blanket 

Work

We finally released the thing that’s been haunting me for months. And the bridging call only took 13 hours! I still feel like I’m in a bit of a purgatory as we’re not allowed to ‘announce’ the thing + I have teams working on two major features so I’m not moving to anything fresh for a while…. Looking forward to it eventually happening, and the firebreak tho.

The change of pace immediately after has been quite brutal, I've learned before that getting to a deadline can feel like going through a brick wall into molasses for me in the days immediately after but while I'm conscious of it I am not sure if I'll ever find a coping mechanism for it.

We're having an interesting mix of interpersonal issues, transitional period for work and teams period issues, ambiguous direction issues, and people who are needed for decisions are on leave issues... Gotta love summer in public sector.

I'm not the biggest fan of so-called 'artificial intelligence' and would gladly give way to someone who really wants to work on it (there doesn't seem to be a shortage) but it definitely opened my eyes (and my calendar) to a whole new world of governance, risks, sign-offs, cost considerations, technical requirements etc. Mayhaps it's time to stop doing things that will look great on my CV in the future tho.

I think I really need some holiday but I'm still waiting for the flat to come through (which I'd need both time off and as much money as poss for). orz

Next

I preorded The Alters!

Going to see Videodrome in cinema! Hopefully gonna catch M3GAN 2.0 as well but Picturehouse decided not to put her on in either Central or Hackney. :|  Eddington is not out till August in the UK, flop.

Seems like everything I booked is ages away? Might be a quiet July.

22 Sept - knitting socks

11-12 Oct - knitting and stitching show (two tunisian crochet workshops and one about different knitting colourwork)