Archive

🍿 I saw Ballerina this weekend. If you liked the other John Wick movies, you’ll like this one, too. I’m glad they gave Eve (the main character) an actual backstory and a distinct personality. She isn’t just a female version of John.

One must imagine Sisyphus satisfied.

Why is a bot in the chess.com app trash talking? 😭

I read Essentialism by Greg McKeown for the first time in 2020. It feels like a good time for a refresher, so I’m re-reading it. 📚

🍿 Ladyhawke (1985) Ladyhawke has been on my list of movies to watch for a while, and I have no idea why I added it. It’s a ridiculous movie, but I kind of liked it. My favorite bits: 80s synths in the soundtrack, for a medieval fantasy movie? Okay. 🙃 Matthew Broderick’s character lies constantly …

One vs. many: Content creators on social media, especially for videos, tend to be known for one thing. One kind of comedy sketch. One specific art style. Traveling around the world. Trying new recipes. Productivity hacks. Technology reviews. They are known for that one topic. That’s limiting, which can be a …

Gladden offers “paper apps.” As in, analog games in a pocket notebook format. Found via url.town

Can Directories Rise Again? from The History of the Web: Search has bent in quality towards its earliest days, difficult to navigate and often unhelpful. And the remedy may be the same as it was a quarter century ago. It may be once again time for the surfers. Only different this time. The only …

From an article in McSweeny’s, A COMPANY REMINDER FOR EVERYONE TO TALK NICELY ABOUT THE GIANT PLAGIARISM MACHINE: I’d like to remind you that our company policy is pro–Plagiarism Machine™. We’re a tech-forward, future-oriented company that doesn’t shy away from the promise of new …

Asking questions isn’t being difficult. It’s being curious. It’s trying to understand the rationale behind actions and beliefs. But for some people in power—whether that’s a boss, a self-styled authority figure, even a Partner—questions are dangerous. Questions suggest that maybe they don’t have all …

I deleted my Postroll page. Mostly I didn’t like saving links somewhere so that I could update my Postroll page at some later date. It was a clunky way to share links. The Postroll page had a few links that I thought were still worth sharing, so I queued them up as individual posts, scheduled …

Two sites for streaming non-commercial radio stations. Chilltrax SomaFM

Smoked salmon is the bacon of seafood. Change my mind. 🤪

✨Changed my sites' themes. kalikambo and Mythical Type are now on mnml. Thanks, @jimmitchell!

Finished reading: Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber 📚 Finally finished reading this. I found notes that I started reading this in 2023 (?!?). I did put the book down for several months, more than once. A lot of chapters could be condensed. Plus, overall the content is depressing considering …

Today is Free Comic Book Day! Check out your local comic book store. Some public libraries participate, too!

That action figure trend but make your own art. This idea came from patouret on Instagram.

📺 The new episode of Doctor Who is proper creepy sci-fi and it’s Very Good.

I’ve been a bit quiet online lately because 1) work has been hectic, so I don’t feel like being on a computer more than I have to and 2) I was busy prepping for zine fest. Work is still kind of hectic? (I don’t want to jinx anything.) And zine fest was a blast. So now I have open …

Recent zine mail: Check out these zines I got recently. 📬 Carrier Pigeon Quarterly - Spring 2025 by @joe.hohman is a guide to zines and comics that recently came out. Food Worker - March 2025 by @deadramoneszine Surprise zines from @seagreenzines 😃 New zine from @warglitter A few zines from @my_name_is_ryan (Pocket …

At some point in the last month or so, I read a blog post (or a newsletter?) about someone who journals both digitally and on paper. They collect screenshots and images in a document. When the page is full, they print it out and paste the images into a paper notebook. I wanted to revisit that post, …

I found out about doodle grids, just randomly, and my brain is all 🤯 youtu.be/Kb06srCqP…

Longwood Gardens in March: Last weekend I went to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. I’ve been there several times in the summer and once in the winter. But never in March. Not much to see outside at this time of year, so here are photos from the conservatories.

The benefits of POSSE and newsletters: I’ve been using Substack to send my monthly newsletter for the past 3 years. I wanted to change to a different platform, and I wanted to remove my posts from Substack. I reviewed my past issues on Substack to see if there was any content I wanted to keep. I wasn’t interested in …

Robin Sloan opened a shop to sell his zines. 😍

I added a few new links to my Resources page. New additions are marked with a ✨.

I updated my Now page. ✨

📺 Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (streaming on Disney+) I really like the animation style! The colors and character designs are very inline with classic comic book art. No spoilers, but it seems like this Peter Parker is in a different universe from Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. It’s …

My February newsletter is out. In this issue: Astronaut Food zine Lancaster Zine Fest More zine things What I’ve been watching

Canva added automatic page numbering in October, but I just found out about it yesterday. 🫨

Finished reading: Crossover Vol. 1: Kids Love Chains by Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw 📚 I liked the premise, but I’m not sure I’ll read more of this series.

Updated my Now page. ✨

Friendly reminders: This has been a tough week, especially in the U.S., especially if you’re not a straight white male. Here are some friendly reminders from me. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I hope it helps. You’re the only person who decides who you are. No one gets to define your gender. The way …

Make a little something: I saw lots of posts this week with recommendations to make something as a way to help with feelings of sadness, frustration, disappointment, anger…but I didn’t set aside time to make something until today. I made a collage on an index card. I used outer-space related imagery that was …

Recent zine mail: Why Short People are Awesome by Karen Goldsum. Check out her work on Instagram and Etsy. Zines and stickers by Charlie T tea. See their work on Instagram and Etsy.

My January newsletter is out. In this issue: Spaced Out zine Annual lists: books, movies, and zines Some thoughts on mainstream social media and having your own place on the web

A lot of my friends on Instagram are moving to Bluesky. I’m debating starting a Bluesky account vs. not starting an account but following friends through Micro.blog. 🤔 Even if I started a Bluesky account, I would be mostly cross-posting from Micro.blog. Same as I do with Mastodon now.

🍿 I watched First Man today. Making a movie about real events can be difficult because the audience likely knows the outcome of the story. The movie felt boring to me most of the time. But despite that, I recognize the cast was great, and the filmmakers included a lot of details to make the movie …

Finished reading: How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future! by Danny Caine 📚 Good overview of Amazon’s workplace conditions, unions (and union busting), data collection, and effects on the …

Movies I watched in 2024: Here’s the list of movies I watched in 2024. Titles with an asterisk after them (*) are ones I recommend. My top 5, in no particular order Predestination * Deadpool & Wolverine * Spy Game * America’s Sweethearts * tick, tick…BOOM! * Superheroes Deadpool (re-watch) * Madame Web Glass …

Books I read in 2024: I had a slow year for reading books in 2024. Here are my favorite 2 from the year: Moonbound by Robin Sloan (sci-fi and fantasy) Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar (non-fiction) And the other 3 I read: Principles for Newsletters by CJ Chilvers (non-fiction) Things are what you make of them by Adam J. …

Perks of living in the snack belt. Potentially unnecessary flavors, but fun to try. 🤭

📺 Doctor Who Christmas special - “Joy to the World” The acting was great, and the concepts were interesting. Plot was a bit messy, and the last few minutes got really sappy. That made the episode feel flat to me. 3/5 ⭐️

Cutting out some magazine images for collaging. No plan. Just gathering stuff.

My December newsletter is out. A little zine preview, some links to share, and what I’ve been watching.

Does anyone have strong opinions about moving a company/business site from WordPress to Webflow? (Specifically from a marketing perspective, because I would not be doing the development or design work.)

📺 I finished watching Black Doves (streaming on Netflix). They left an opening for a season 2 but I would be fine if this were the only season. It’s a complete story. 4/5 ⭐️ overall but 5/5 ⭐️ for casting.

📺 Currently watching Black Doves (streaming on Netflix). It has some awkward moments, but overall I like it so far.

I mistyped my email address on an online order (at a pretty major retail site), and customer service cannot correct the email address on their end. But their site is clearly tracking me with cookies and sending customer survey emails…to my correct email address. We’re living in the …

Flip Chess Pocket chess game where each piece gets promoted after you move. So your pawn becomes a knight, and then a bishop…up to king. It looks fun but also chaotic. 😆

I updated my phone to iOS 18, and I don’t hate the new Photos app. To be fair, I didn’t like the previous version of the Photos app either. I just put up with it. 🤣

Sometimes when people read my zines, they say, “This is so clever! How did you come up with this?” Or another version, “I would never think of making a zine about this topic. It’s so cool that you did.” Those comments are always meant as compliments, and I say thank you for the nice words. But …

Where do your ideas come from?: This post is for WeblogPoMo AMA, a challenge to write AMA-style (“Ask me anything”) blog posts during November. Read about the challenge. I’m answering my own question today. If you decide to answer this question in a post on your site, please let me know. The question Where do your ideas come from? …

It’s officially fall weather, but I drink iced coffee all year round. 😋

My November newsletter is out!

Today finally felt like fall in Lancaser, PA. ☺️🍁 Zoom in on this last photo to see ducks napping. 🥹

🍿 Somewhere in Time (1980) - Streaming for free on Tubi. It’s a well-made movie with a great cast. I feel like it was probably well-received when it came out, but I don’t think it aged well.

I made index pages for my slash pages on kalikambo and Mythical Type.

Online community: This post is for WeblogPoMo AMA, a challenge to write AMA-style (“Ask me anything”) blog posts during November. Read about the challenge The question Lou Plummer sent me this question: Can you describe the online community you have treasured the most in your life online? My answer Being part of …

Out is through: I’m disappointed in the U.S. election results this week, but I’m not totally surprised that Republicans won the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. So many people vote from a place of fear and hate. Republican campaigns lean into that, and here we are. (It’s more complicated …

My superpower is thinking ahead: This is my first post for WeblogPoMo AMA, a challenge to write AMA-style (“Ask me anything”) blog posts during November. Read about the challenge The question Anne wrote this question: What is a skill or acquired ability that you use all the time that you think other people take for granted or …

I’m going to participate in #WeblogPoMoAMA, at least for a few posts this month. Feel free to ask me a question, and I’ll answer in a post on my blog. I’m also browsing what other people are asking and answering, so I might write replies that way, too. Info about this challenge

I forgot mundane Halloween costumes are a thing in Japan. 😆 The tradition was started in 2014 by a group of adults at Daily Portal Z who kind of wanted to participate in the festivities of Halloween, but were too embarrassed to go all out in witch or zombie costumes. So instead of the flashy and …

Paved Paradise (or, cars ruin everything): I finished reading Paved Paradise by Henry Grabar. 📚 Overall, I liked the book. A lot of it is about how parking space requirements determine where and what size buildings can be built. (AKA we can’t have nice things because we need space to store cars.) Grabar talks a lot about reducing parking …

Ice cream truck appearances are circumscribed by unwritten curb-control maps established by custom, negotiated by handshake, and enforced with violence. The history of ice cream truck rivalries is bloody. In 1969, armed rivals held up two Mister Softee garages in Brooklyn and the Bronx, taking …

Email privacy and customer communications: I use HEY as my email client. It blocks privacy trackers, so the sender can’t see when I open an email, where I’m located, or what device I use. Those privacy featurse are great, and I know other email clients have them, too. But I wonder how many companies have figured out how losing that email …

Why I moved my blog off WordPress: I had a self-hosted WordPress site for my personal blog from 2015 until last weekend, when I migrated Mythical Type to Micro.blog. The recent drama between WordPress and WP Engine didn’t factor into my decision. For the last few years, I didn’t feel like WordPress was the right fit for …

My October newsletter is out. Urban Legends info, resource round-up, and super brief reviews of what I’ve been watching.

Spooky season, spooky zine! 🎃 This is “Wandering Through Wonders” by Vlasinda Stormdrain. Copies are available through their shop. I’m excited to read it!

I accidentally found out about discofox and went down a little rabbit hole. 😃 I’m low-key obsessed with how it’s freeform but also there are certain expected moves. (Yeah this is true for other dances, too. But at least here it looks like if you can stay on beat and not tangle up arms, you can do …

Intelligent but ignorant: Lots of writing advice goes along the lines of “write for your reader” or “know your audience.” That’s the guideline for how to frame your writing, what voice to use, and what level of detail to include. But what happens if you’re writing for a general audience–not a specific group? Then how do you …

Mythical Type (my site for zines and creative projects) has a new home. Now it’s hosted on Micro.blog! I migrated my posts from WordPress, and that went smoothly. Thank you to @manton for building an easy way to transition from WordPress to Micro.blog. 🙂 I have some formatting to clean up and …

‘Lanterns’: Kyle Chandler Set To Star As Hal Jordan In DC Series For HBO 100% yes to this 😃

Constellation prize: When I was in elementary school, we had carnivals twice a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. The carnivals were family fun nights, where we went to school for a few hours and played games, ate hot dogs and cotton candy, and entered raffles. One year, the prizes were themed after the solar …

What’s your favorite markdown editor on macOS?

I like my notebooks messy: If you spend any time on Instagram or Reddit looking at people’s notebooks–how they lay out pages, what materials they use–you’ll see there are essentially two groups of people. For one group, aesthetics are very important. They use elaborate layouts, lots of color, and mixed …

My new Now page, yay! (Powered by omg.lol)

New zines I picked up from Antiquated Future. 🙂

I’m officially on omg.lol and Mastodon. 🙂

I just signed up for Mastodon because my curiosity outweighs my attempts to spend less time on social media. 🤭 Any recommendations for iOS apps to use for Mastodon? I know there are options and I did some quick reading. But let me know if there’s one you like.

I spent a lot of time this weekend saving local copies of blog posts from Mythical Type. Partly because it’s been a while since I saved backup copies of posts and partly because I’m thinking about moving my blog off WordPress, so I’m tidying up. I’m going to keep Micro.blog …

FediDB - Users and software statistics on the Fediverse.

New month, new log in my bullet journal. I make a page like this every month to list events and appointments. The “CO” column is for “creative output.” I put an X in that column for any day I’m working on a creative project (outside of my day job). Creative practice counts, too.

On WordPress, I would love something like a “simple view.” Just show me the essential buttons and menus to make a blog post, and hide everything else. And then when I want to tinker with the site design or build out pages, I can choose to see the full view.

I made similar posts earlier across WordPress, Tumblr, Pika, Ko-fi, and here on Micro.blog. WordPress felt like the most effort to publish the post. I didn’t actually count number of steps on each platform but WordPress had the most friction.

Contributor zine: Urban Legends: “Urban Legends” is a quarter-page zine that collects art and writing about urban legends, myths, and folklore. Eighteen people contributed stories, poetry, illustrations, and collages. Work was submitted from the U.S., Canada, Scotland, Belgium, and Germany. The finished zine is 36 pages …

I made some simple Halloween stickers to tuck into zine orders. 👻 ✨ 🎨 Designed in Canva. Printed on a thermal printer.

I’m thinking (again) about moving my personal site off of WordPress. I keep going back to, WordPress is more bloated and complicated than what I need for a simple personal site. I need the ability to have a blog and standalone pages. Categories or tags would be nice but not required. I …

I organized a contributor zine about urban legends, myths, and folklore. Yesterday I printed out a bunch of copies. Now I’m cutting and folding pages. 🎨

🍿 Uglies (streaming on Netflix) - Same genre as Hunger Games and Divergent (and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing). I read the book years ago and liked it, so I watched the movie. Uglies is not super amazing, gonna blow your mind. But not every movie has to be. This is fine for what it …

Friendly reminder that art doesn’t usually come out the way you want it on the first try…or the third, or the fourth. 🙃 🎨

Yesterday I led a zine-making station at a public library fundraiser. I had a table full of young zine makers in the afternoon. Hopefully they’re inspired to make more zines! 🎨

My September newsletter is out. :)

📺 Kaos (mini-series streaming on Netflix) I like that this is a modern telling of Greek gods. Cars, concerts, and cell phones, and everyone knows the gods exist. At first glance, Jeff Goldblum seemed like an odd choice to play Zeus, but he does a really good job portraying someone so powerful and so …

🎵 New music from Linkin Park - “The Emptiness Machine” I’ve seen a lot of comments on Instagram with, she’s great! And also comments like, ugh this is bad. But I like how the new vocalist sounds and mostly, it’s great to have new music from Linkin Park.

I love fall but this is fully unnecessary. 😄

You should make a /chipotle page so when a friend is picking up Chipotle for you, you can send them a link instead of having to redescribe/retype your Chipotle order – Slash Pages via Robb Knight This is genius. I would make a page like this for acai bowls. 😃

Balancing stock and flow: This is from a blog post that’s 14 years old, and it’s still relevant today: Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that reminds people you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in …

I made these mini zines earlier this year as freebies to hand out at events. Here’s a freshly folded batch for a public library fundraiser I’m going to in a couple weeks. 🙂 🎨

September page is ready in my bullet journal. I use this page to note appointments and events during the month. The “CO” column is “creative output.” A checkbox for each day I’m working on something creative (outside of the day job).

Here’s my About page, all proper-like. ☺️

📺 Currently watching Terminator Zero on Netflix. I like that they aren’t rehashing stories from the movies. It’s the same universe with new characters.

Millennial lunch 🤭

🍿 I watched the movie Predestination last weekend. It’s based on a short story, called “All You Zombies” by Robert A. Heinlein. The movie is confusing in that you learn info out of order. But if you’re okay with that, I recommend watching it.

🎵 New music from Dom Fera - “More You Know”

My first post! Hello micro.blog world! I’m excited to use this space as my digital notebook. 🙂