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It’s Craney…

Tagged “Books”

Stuff This Week #52

Another week where I’m afraid I just….didn’t do that much besides working and coming home. Haven’t wrote that much at all… Family have been busy though. Lots going on!

The image shows a person's upper arm with a freshly done tattoo of a cat. The tattoo depicts a detailed, line-drawn cat sitting within a rectangular frame. The cat has an alert, slightly serious expression, with its tail curled around its body. The tattoo appears to be covered with a protective transparent film, which is common immediately after getting a tattoo to protect it from infection and irritation. The person is wearing a dark shirt with the sleeve rolled up to display the tattoo, and they have a white strap, possibly from a bag, over their shoulder. In the background, there is an orange chair and part of a table visible.

💉 My son has got a tattoo 😳 It’s nice! But I’ve been joshing him every time it comes up in conversation or I see it I’m doing a “😱 look at this ink on my baby boy!” Sort of way that has made him constantly roll his eyes 1. Tattoos are one thing I’ve just never done, and now I’m so old it’s not even worth considering. I’m so indecisive it’d literally take me a decade to decide what I’d even have 🤣

Continue reading…

I am enjoying the writing and rubbing up against the fantasy tropes in Abercrombie’s “The Devils” very much. It’s made me laugh a good few times so far. 

The image shows a snippet of dialogue written in white text on a black background. Various lines are underlined in red. The dialogue reads: '‘Sunny,’ she said. ‘Really? Short for something … elf-y?’ ‘Sunnithilien Darktooth.’ ‘Really?’ The elf slowly raised one thin white eyebrow. ‘Not really,’ said Alex.' The red underlines highlight each separate line of dialogue and part of a word on the left edge. The formatting suggests emphasis on the dialogue structure.

Apple Books is doing a selection of totally free classics as audiobooks you can download from here. Worth checking out if you’ve got an Apple Device.

Finished Reading: The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai 📚

A breezy delight of a book. Think of it like a series of a police procedural but instead of a crime each chapter is unlocking a recipe for a dish the clients want to remember. This book lifted my heart a little.

Stuff This Week #27

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Another week where the work/life balance is slightly out of whack but this should hopefully start to get better now some major works is out of the way. it’s been busy for the whole family in one way or another with a lot going on.

Anyway, what do we want to note down this week?

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  • ⌨️ My Keychron K2 HE survey came in and I should hopefully get it around November. Can’t wait!

  • 🚂 I had planned to go to Southampton on Saturday, but every train was replaced with a bus service that was twice as long and twice as complicated. It’s such a shame that UK trains in general are bad. But South Western Rail who manage my area are doubly as terrible. Maybe it’s time to look at a second hand car to stretch my wings a little.

  • Got my post out about bidding farewell to “Productivity Pron” and just going down my own much more simple path. 1 If you’re in the Apple ecosystem and you haven’t bothered trying the default apps for a while, I encourage you to give it a little test pilot.

  • With work/life and balance I’m still trying to practice staying in my lane and not over-extending my responsibilities. It’s hard when you’re a certified people pleaser. I have got the “Subtle art of not giving a fuck” on audiobook.

I did quite like this Sarah Knight video about how to give your fucks as well.

I’m much better now than I was years back at saying no and creating boundaries. I feel like I’m in a good place generally. But I often feel I give of myself professionally at great cost to my personal, in a way that other people don’t seem to 2. I still have a path to walk to nudge that over into my favour. If that makes…any sort of sense? 3

  • 🧑‍💻 I’ve never been much of a coder, but I absolutely will be tackling this HTML For People course to see if it helps me tweak the blog a bit.

  • 📷 Got another Every 100ths of a Second posted on schedule. Really enjoyed it again but had to rush it slightly just due to how busy I’ve been. I truly enjoy washing my amateur eye over the amazing photos I come across online. Be nice if I could get a bit more balance from Micro.Blog in the submissions, but searching photos here is tough. Unless I directly follow a person already, I’m curating an already curated feed that just doesn’t have much on it at the moment… 4

  • 🤳 Not had that much time for my own photography AGAIN! I did take some shots on a walk this morning that I’ll probably post later today or tomorrow. Got a good few articles and videos on iPhone 16 photos/features to digest as well.

🎶 Music

The Cure have released 2 tracks from their album. And they’re SO GOOD. Cannot wait for this.

Pom Pom Squad song Street Fighter is a bop.

Nero’s “Into the unknown” has been giving me energy when I need it.

🎮 Games

🧝‍♀️ Still playing through Zelda : Echos Of Wisdom and really enjoying it. Few other games in the background but this is my primary jam at the moment.

📺 Watching

  • 🕵️ Finished Slow Horses. Masterful as always. Just keeps getting better.

  • 🦾 Terminator:Zero on Netflix has caught my interest as well. 4 episodes in and I like what they’re doing with the formula.

📕 Reading

  • The Subtle Art Of Not Giving a Fuck also as an Audiobook

  1. “My dear boy. Why don’t you try just writing things down?” ↩

  2. And nor should they! this is a “Me” problem with how much of myself I give more than anything. ↩

  3. I think I just need to get better at just fucking chilling to be honest. ↩

  4. I will concede it’s gotten a bit better recently with frequency. ↩

Finished Reading: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett 📚

Enjoyed this one even more than the first book in the trilogy. Some great writing and complex characters. Great themes of duty, regret, sorrow, redemption, forgiveness and an ending that teared my eye.

Currently Reading: Consiglieri by Richard Hytner 📚

Don’t buy this book on Apple Books. The formatting leaves a huge empty strip on the right hand side that makes it extremely frustrating to read. I’ll slog through it but it’s extremely annoying…

Finished Reading: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett 📚

★★★★★

After completing the authors Founders Trilogy, I’ve now started his “Divine Cities” trilogy. Fabulous world/System building as always, but Bennett’s books always just have just such goddamn richly written characters

Just a joy.

Finished Reading: Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto 📚

★★★★☆

Really enjoyable quick breezy read. Very Japanese and very very logical in how it lays out the crime and investigation which I enjoyed a lot.

Well translated and with good characters.

A great introduction to Japanese crime novels! The ending was… abrupt but it’s a great breezy read.

Currently reading: Bells Of Old Tokyo by Anna Sherman 📚

Really hooked on this book my wife got me as a gift before our upcoming trip to Japan. About 1/4 of the way through but it’s just a beautifully written series of insightful stories of different wards and people in Tokyo. Loving it.