Blog

The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

A Yoshi Game That Wasn’t for Me

Categories Gaming, Rants

I was tempted to title this post "A Not-Great Yoshi Game" or "A Yoshi Game I Didn't Like", but both of those would be inserting my own preferences into what is, objectively, a decent game (it does have an 80 on Metacritic).

But Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is the first Yoshi game (probably since Yoshi's Story on the N64) that I didn't really enjoy.

In this case, I think I've become that kind of person that knows what he wants from a Yoshi game, and this didn't live up to that. Or at least, the type of games that … Read more →

DonateLife Features My Transplant Story

Categories Life

A little while ago, Des and I were approached by DonateLife (the federal government organisation that promotes the organ and tissue donation system in Australia) to see if we would be interested in sharing our story to promote organ donation.

This week the story went live on Facebook and Instagram.

One of the photos we gave for them to feature is the morning of my transplant, with a very yellow me sharing a nap with baby Zoe on the hospital bed.

See the full story on the DonateLife website.

If you're in Australia and haven't signed up to … Read more →

2026 World Cup, US/FIFA Farces

Categories Football, Rants

It's been a solid minute since I last blogged about a football World Cup. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but the magic just isn't there as much for me anymore.

Or, it could be that FIFA, and it's spineless, sycophantic, and [likely] corrupt leadership are doing everything they can to damage the game because of money 💰. The football itself has produced some amazing moments, but the stuff around it has taken the gloss of what we all come together to watch and celebrate; what makes the football itself magical.

There were many things that distracted from the … Read more →

Gutted: Arsenal Lose the Champions League Final

Categories Football

It's now a very bittersweet ending to the Arsenal season, as Arsenal lost the Champions League final this morning, going down in a penalty shoot-out.

Although I'm gutted, it doesn't feel as bad as the last final 20 years ago. Maybe it's because they won the EPL a few days ago for the first time in 22 years, and after a tight game it was only because of the lottery of penalties (not to mention a financially doped PSG team that played half as much football as Arsenal this season), but there's still a lot to be positive about … Read more →

The Mandalorian and Grogu (spoilers!)

Categories Movies, Rants

It's been a while since I've had a Star Wars film to review! After having one every year or two, it's now been almost 7 years (!) since The Rise of Skywalker.

On Friday, we saw The Mandalorian and Grogu, the film spin-off from The Mandalorian TV series.

Apparently, this movie was born out of a season 4 that never happened, and to be honest, the movie does feel like 4-5 episodes of the show condensed into a movie.

I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not, but watching the movie, you could almost draw imaginary … Read more →

Arsenal are Premier League Champions!!!

Categories Football, Life

It's finally over!! This torturous season of the Premier League is finally done with one game remaining, and in the best way: Arsenal are the champions!!

It's hard to put into words what this means to me, and to Arsenal fans in general.

When Arsenal last won the Premier League 22 years ago, I almost took for granted that they were going to win it every couple of years. During my adolescent years, they won it in 1998, 2002, and 2004. This blog was in its first year of existence back in 2004, and it barely rated a mention (even … Read more →

A Bluesky Feed Appears

Categories Internet, Rants

After properly giving Bluesky a go in late 2024, I permanently moved off Twitter in early 2025. That followed an Elon-induced deterioration of the platform in the preceding years, where it generally became a worse place to be, including comments being riddled with clickbait (and for a while, hardcore porn!) after comments were incentivised for money.

In 2023, I even had to remove the longstanding feed of my 'Tweets' on this website, because Twitter started charging money to access its API.

So, for the better part of the last few years, I have largely enjoyed Bluesky as a … Read more →

Using an Even Cheaper Android Thing as a Digital Photo Frame

Categories Geekery, Technology

For the past 4 years we've been using a cheap Android tablet as a digital photo frame. It was going great, but over the years, it became apparent it wasn't an ideal solution:

  • The app would pull many gigabytes over the network each day, because it scanned all of our photo files directly from our photos' network share, and displayed the original full-resolution photos (despite its own low-res screen).
  • The automatic night shutdown and morning boot of the tablet started being very unreliable.
  • And most worryingly, having the tablet plugged in 24/7 meant that the battery had started slightly
… Read more →

2025: Year in Review

Categories Life

Just like last year, I only wrote 5 blog posts this year. I'm kinda happy with that, but it's been a mixed year overall. Continuing with the same format from the past couple of years:

Health stuff

Unfortunately, last year's hospital-admission-free streak came to an end in March. My Drs wanted to make some changes to my medications (which were very successful but maybe not great long-term), and my body didn't respond that well.

I spent about a week in hospital getting things back on track, and after reverting to my previous medication regime, things settled down again for … Read more →

New Mobile: Google Pixel 10

Categories Geekery, Technology
Google Pixel 10 front/back

Unfortunately, I'm no longer with a workplace that subsidises new phones every two years, so it's meant that I've waited over three years for a new phone.

If I'm being honest, I haven't really needed to upgrade. Once you get to the upper-mid-range phones, upgrades these days are very iterative. There's not much that gets me excited about new phones these days.

The main thing that was really prompting me to replace my now-previous Pixel 7 was the below-par optical under-screen fingerprint sensor (which never worked well in full sunlight), combined with Google's policy change a year into the … Read more →