2025-07-16
Last week I travelled to Sydney for a work party. It was fun! My accomodation
was just around the corner from our first apartment in Surry Hills, which we
moved into in early 2005, soon after getting married. The neighbourhood has
hardly changed at all. The apartment was tiny, but we loved it.
It was twenty years ago, but it seems like only yesterday. We had a flat-screen
HD television, with a Topfield PVR for time shifting (so we could pause and
record live TV). I remember I recorded the music video for Augie March’s “One
Crowded Hour” and watched it over and over.
I had a GameCube and a Playstation2. I fondly remember being by myself one
public holiday and buying Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube in the morning, along
with a six pack and a few bags of chips, and playing the game for eight hours
straight. The last time in my life that I’ve done that.
We had a Nintendo DS each and could play Mario Kart in wireless multiplayer. We
had 3G flip phones from NEC with a Three subscription and could video call each
other. I remember video calling my wife in Perth one evening while I was walking
across Pyrmont Bridge in Sydney.
I used to walk to work and would listen to new-fangled podcasts on my iPod
Shuffle, which I had to plug into my iMac G4 and sync with iTunes. It all worked
great, and was perfectly fine, and I would be happy to do the same today.
We had pretty fast ADSL in our apartment, and at work. We started using this
thing called YouTube. I was also using Flickr, but there wasn’t really much
other social media to speak of.
We ate dim sum and pho and Thai (Spice I Am was a favourite) and Korean BBQ
often. We hosted dinner parties to play board games, including Carcassonne and
Catan. We went out drinking and to parties and to brunch on weekends at Lemon on
Crown Street. We slept in late and then rushed to do our shopping at at Paddy’s
Market before it closed.
After a year or so we had a baby and moved to Glebe, which was also lovely.
But returning after such a long time made me feel like Lily Allen singing about
London. Once the haze of the rose-tinted glasses faded, I realised that inner
Sydney can really be rather dirty and depressing at times. I mean, there is
literally a layer of black dust on everything, something which you never really
notice in Perth. And there are so many people that seem… a bit off-kilter?
I saw a show at the opera house and was surprised to see such a large number of
preppy 14yo boys. There’d be a mum and dad, both looking rather intellectual,
both in their mid-fifties, and a young boy sat between them in a collared shirt
and blazer. I saw dozens of families like this. What’s the deal?
I’m a sucker for nostalgia and enjoyed revisiting the old stomping ground. But
it was never about the place. More about the people and the moment. And, I must
admit, I do kind-of miss the technology too.
2025-07-07
I have mostly finished Rhyme+Reason. Simple Analytics
reveals that we’re getting close between 50 and 100 players per day, and I’ve
generated six months worth of puzzles. So now it’ll be a case of monitoring and
tweaking and hand-crafting puzzles when I feel inspired to do so. It’s been fun!
Have mostly recovered from my third bout of COVID. A week spent sitting or lying
down most of the time and not exercising or bike riding wasn’t fun, but I made
the most of it and focused on getting some projects completed.
School holidays have just started and the weather is cold and rainy.
2025-06-28
Well times are crazy. AI is crazy. Here are my New Year’s resolutions:
- Keep an online project diary, updated weeky
- Ride the Munda Biddi
- Workout daily
- Do a second podcast season, The Movies of 1985
- Read 36 books
- Ride 2500km
- Use an AI to code something
- Release four projects:
- Vertext
- Rhyme+Reason
- Gumshoe
- Creatures of the N-Simplex
So far I’ve failed on the weekly project diary, but I’ve done everything else!
For riding I’m far ahead, having cracked 2000km already. And AI coding has
accelerated since the start of the year; both Vertext and Rhyme+Reason were both
mostly completed with AI!
2025-02-02
Well, I’ve dropped the ball already.
It was my birthday during the week I missed. It was nice. Had family over, and
went to a nice lunch with D. and the kids. Saw Bogan Shakespeare at Fringe, and
had a nice dinner with the Hos at Monsterella. And Australia Day to boot!
Second week my BIL and his family visited from HK. We holidayed down in Mandurah
and went crabbing each evening, bagging a baker’s dozen. I read most of “The
Master and Margarita”.
Still riding regularly, even though it’s been a heatwave. And getting ready for
Jack’s return to school, which will see us shifting back to a regular routine,
which will hopefully mean that I will spend more time on hobby projects.
2025-01-19
Last week of the before times (the new president is to be sworn in tomorrow).
Weird tik-tok flip-flop. I was feeling a bit off all week, but still managed 3
bike rides to hit 80km, and I made a start on the “Rhyme or Reason” project, but
was more prone to distraction than I would have liked. It’s challenging because
it’s still the holiday period so I’m not quite back into a normal routine yet.
New outdoor setting delivered from Bay Furniture in Dunsborough, and very happy
with the results. Got the backyard set up. And new washer and dryer after our
ones carked it; they were making horrible grinding noises and something had
leaked into the washing machine that stained the clothes. Easy to pop into
Winning Appliances to view and order a new set, they were on sale so saved $1400
and were delivered promptly and set up much better than the previous set were.
Out to see Adam Hall on Saturday night. Started at Edward and Ida’s for great
cocktails and food, then sauntered down to the State Theatre for the show in the
outdoor courtyard area, where we met up with some friends, and then ended the
night at Shadow Wine Bar. I had probably one drink too many so didn’t feel the
best the next morning.
Ended the weekend with the family over to try out the new outdoor setting. It
was a pretty warm night so I didn’t think we’d sit outside but everyone seemed
happy to do so. Dzung made a nice chacuterie board and I gradually brought out
other food (barbequeued scallops, sausages, potatoes dauphinoise, beef and
chicken kebabs, salads) as everyone chatted. Ended with a lemon and raspberry
birthday cake in the cool indoors. Simple and cruisy, just the way I like it.
2025-01-12
Spent the week down in Dunsborough with my parents; we rented an AirBNB right
opposite the beach at Dunn Bay. Really relaxing and cruisy; my morning routine
was to wake up at 7:30, go for a long bike ride (either towards Busselton, when
I’d turn back after 16km or so, or up to the top of the MTB Park, where I’d
follow the various green runs back down again). After that I’d change into my
bathers and head to the beach for a dip in the water to cool off before
returning to the house to make a strong coffee and read in the sunshine while
watching the blue fairy wrens hop around the garden.
Finished a couple of books (“Snapshot” and “Tales from the Cafe”) while down
there, and made a start on “Bliss”, which serendipity found for me when I
entered the small bookstore in town; it was made into a movie in 1985 so I know
I’ll be watching it some time this year.
The place was pet friendly, so Bailey got to go on his first family holiday,
which he loved. Much of the beach was dog friendly, and he even paddled out a
little bit. Jack and I had fun skimming stones.
Nice meal at “Blue Manna” in town, and lunch at “Amelia Park”. Played games and
listened to music. Cooked a couple of nice steak dinners, making a delicious
Diane sauce. Was surprised at the extend of mum’s memory loss; she had a few
senior moments such as losing her toothbrush and using mine instead.
Bruce and Mel joined us for our final day, as my folks needed to leave early.
Happy hour at a bar in town was nice, as was brunch the following morning before
the drive back after making sure the Ioniq 5s were fully charged.
Dzung and I bought some new outdoor furniture while down there. Free shipping
and we’ll have it on Wednesday. We’re also considering a new lounge, just need
to confirm the measurements of the rug that it will sit on.
Straight to Rob’s birthday pizza party after arriving back home on Saturday. Met
lots of Agworld folk that only knew me from my git commits (I left the company
almost ten years ago, resigning on Monday the 16th of February 2015, and have
been working remotely ever since).
Had a long chat with Andrew, whom I hadn’t seen since leaving Agworld. Jack,
Krystal, Andrew and I entered Nanowrimo in 2015, and I wrote “Insoluble” then.
You can
read it on Medium
if you’re so inclined,
get it on Kindle
or even order the paperback! Anyway, I digress. We had a long chat, Andrew
talking about his older son who is now training as a fighter pilot in Germany,
and his younger son who is going into year 11. I spoke about my interests during
which it dawned on me that I really like exploring how technology can help with
three things that are often not given the attention they deserve: discovery
(i.e. how to find unknown unknowns), creativity (i.e. how to have an idea and
build something new) and community (i.e. how to foster trusted relationships
amongst a group of strangers). More on those things later this year perhaps, for
now I don’t want to set the weeknotes bar too high so I’ll end things there.
2025-01-06
My first weeknotes!
Have just finished recording and publishing the first episode of “The Movies of
1985”. It was NYE this week so work was interrupted; still during the shutdown
period so I knocked off some lower-priority tasks that wouldn’t get done
otherwise. Usual New Year’s with Hoff, Elaine and family. We did a French theme;
Dzung made onion soup, I did potatoes daphenoise, Eliza made hors douvres and
Hoff made a beef bourgonoin with wagyu chuck, and please forgive my spelling. We
slept over after staying up past 1:30am drinking whisky. Hoff shared a 1998
Grange at dinner which was amazing. We brought a white wine to go with the soup
and a bottle of bolly (i.e Bollinger). We all went to Viet Hoa for lunch the
next day where I had the worst indigestion ever. An inauspicious start to the
year but hopefully that set the low water mark and it’ll be all uphill from
there. Fireworks on the Shelley foreshore with the family that night, then back
to work for a few days. Drinks, a swim and games (hues and clues) at Elaine’s on
Friday and recorded the last “The Movies of 1999” podcast with Craig on Saturday
morning. Had a great catch-up with the Uni crowd at Neera and Richard’s on
Saturday night where more games were played (codenames). Rode over 80km in three
separate bike rides this week; my goal is a modest 2500km this year, along with
reading 36 books, as well as less drinking and more exercise in general. Usual
family brunch on Sunday. Looking forward to a week’s break down in Dunsborough
starting tomorrow!
I will really try to write in paragraphs, or use bullet points next time. And I
want this to be about personal projects, so I’ll make a start on that once
holiday mode is over.