First properly cold day of the year…and I’m kinda here for it all. Think I’m going to make a butternut squash chilli.

⚾️ Fakking hell do these baseball people love to chew and spit. Legit disgusting.

Toronto pride is in full swing. Everyone in the city is wearing some Blue Jays merch of some description. I’m not there yet, considering I love baseball movies, but really feel underwhelmed by baseball games, but I love the city wide sentiment — something extremely North American about this.

I get it now. Creamy keyboards. It’s not something you can express in words. You have to experience it to understand. Having weighted keys that offer a tiny soft clack is next level typing. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get into this world.

I feel a fool for not just getting Keyboard Maestro earlier in my Mac life. I’m still kicking the tires, but can’t wait to really do some cool things with this app.

🍿Finished watching: Reunion I actually really enjoyed this movie. Had enough character as a comedy and who done it to keep me engaged.

Oh no. A couple of the guys got some mechanical keyboards at work and now I’ve found myself hunting on Amazon for different kinds. The Nuphy Air 75 (with Cowberry switches) looks like the one for me…for this evening. Tomorrow might be a different story.

Of course Brian Wood would have a newsletter. What’s more interesting however is that he’s publishing stories in a serialised format right there. Fire hose, but I’m here for it.

📚 Finished reading: Starve Vol. 1 by Brian Wood. Vertigo comics might be dead (without Karen Berger), but this book would have fit right into that catalogue. Brilliant series. Art is wonderful, characters are well thought out and the story moves along nicely.

Inktober 2025/18. I am seriously enjoying the absolute freedom of drawing Corgan from any angle.

🍿Finished watching: Silo Season 1. Great show. So strong in fact as soon I finished watching this I went and read the books, which are truly incredible.

🚗 Can’t believe it’s been an entire year since we bought the car. We went for nearly 5 years without one - several of which were covid years. 6000km driven this year….not a whole lot really.

Inktober 2025/15.
Be still my beating heart, I get to draw my characters from below or above without breaking into sweats!

Inktober 2025/14. My characters in actual perspective - where I kinda know what I’m trying to do. Long way to go, but first steps and all that.

It’s not every morning your meeting gets cancelled. It’s a great day for a short walk and you stumble upon something relatively serene in the city of Toronto.

Perspective drawing has eluded me for the entire time I have been drawing. I have spent plenty on books and tried watching videos but never invested in an actual course that looks to teach me these fundamentals in a manner that I can use again and again. I’m actually really excited to be able to take my art to the next level, because I feel this is one of those skills that unlocks whole new worlds for me and finally what’s in my brain can be translated onto paper.

Definitely going to be posting things as I go along so that I can track progress.

📚 Finished reading: We Need Your Art by Amie McNee. One of the most important books I have read. I do wish that I had this book 20 years ago because it would have helped frame a lot of what I am going through better. I’m very thankful it exists and recommend it to anyone with a creative endeavour.

I recently visited Jason Santa Maria’s website. Couple of important points of note. You can download his book On Web Typography directly from the home page. It’s a timeless piece of writing if you’re interested making better websites. The other thing I wasn’t aware of was the fact that he is now creating his own typefaces. Citywide looks great.

Inktober 2025/12.
Not every day I create a new character but there is momentum with sketching something (anything!) every day.

400th post this year.

When I think back across the years where there was friction to posting to my site it makes me sad because there are so many wonderful moments that I didn’t record.

Your site is such a wonderful gift to your future self fill it with fun stuff recording your moments to relive and remember later on.

Inktober 2025/11. Creating a new character is only fun after progress has been made.

Like with my beer, I have started recording my coffee adventures. For the newcomer to anything really, finding a simple resource of recommendations is actually pretty important. Hopefully this will help others find things to their tastes.

Listening to Kings of Leon. It’s been too long. Love Kings of Leon.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian edition). I do love this time of the year and this holiday does generally come at a good time for a little reflection and a little resetting just before the brutality of winter kicks in. Going to try and get some reading, writing and drawing done.

📚 Finished reading: Goliath by Tom Gauld. I love Gauld’s aesthetics and the story was…an interesting flip.

It’s that time of the year and colours they are popping. I wonder if one’s life mirrors that of a tree and you get moments of brilliance after middle age.

🥶 First cold day of the year. It dropped seemingly overnight.

I may have overdone the coffee selection this month.

🍳 Pastitisio. I’ve not made this in years. It all came together really well. Reminded me of home in Greece. Did a light cucumber, tomato, onion and basil salad. Chef’s kiss.

Looking to start my Stet newsletter up again, but with a pretty different type of writing about the built environment. When I started I was using Buttondown but then moved to Substack hoping that would be a better fit (this was pre-Nazis on that platform). Had a look at Buttondown again and it’s looking better now with some cool new features. Also at $7/month that’s good value.

One of my first Japanese beers that isn’t a Sapporo Super Dry.

Been listening to Mariah Carey’s Someone’s Ugly Daughter album (not officially released, but 3 seconds of internet search and you can easily download it). Completely of it’s time. Would easily sit next to a Hole album or 4 Non Blondes. Love it.

I’ve been collecting watches for 7 years now (I buy one watch a year). My latest purchase fits my current lifestyle a lot. It’s a JPM Seiko with a solar movement, aligned to the atomic clock. Don’t really have the energy (inclination) to constantly tweak the time or date. This thing just stays correct on its own. My favourite is if I’ve put it away for a weekend (because it’s a more dressy watch) it all magically realigns itself, date and all.

Feeling a little restless at the moment. Lots going on in life.

The internet and social media is hopefully meant to enrich you in ways you might have been completely oblivious to. @manton’s sent me down the Richard Williams rabbit hole. Interestingly his book The Animator’s Survival Kit is available on the Internet Archive. Not sure if that’s a legit thing.

America At Its Breaking Point. I love Trevor Noah, but much more from this podcast than when he was on The Daily Show. The episode with Ezra Klein was fascinating and the perfect thing for a Sunday afternoon.

One of my favourite international beers has a new ‘livery’.

It’s not every day you see a bat flying around in the park. I’ve drawn these things countless time in my childhood but never seen one before - at least not that I can remember. Previously I would have been in awe, now I’m thinking get away from me diseased thing :).

Finances are a dirty business to get into. I will make sure I give the boys sound financial advice that they understand and can implement easily because it’s a massive mental overhead when you make the wrong decision.

The trains exits the tunnel and rides the bridge crossing the Don Valley. Out in the distance, like a painting I see rows of trees, layered behind each other slowly fading away, thick from the morning rain. It feels like autumn.

I’m putting this in here to remind Yasmine that the summer (or hot and sunny weather) does extends well into September. It’s not guaranteed but it happens. Still in shorts and t-shirts.

New book. New pocket notebook. Been a while since I used a Moleskine. Love the fact I customise the cover to whatever I want.

New park in Toronto. Chilling with other parents (Carl, Amar and Christine) in glorious sunshine - not many more of these days left before Winter starts to kick in.

Signboard is a kanban app that writes Markdown files by Colin Devroe. I can confirm that this thing loads up quickly. For a good while I did use the Obsidian plugin (and loved it). Maybe I’m just not into this style of productivity any more?

I have been slowly building my drawing muscle again. Drawing a character from every angle for a few months until I can draw them with my eyes closed.

Shutter Declutter. I need to save some space on my machine, clearly 250GB is no longer what it used to be (which is nuts to me). Photos are an easy target and this looks like a small strokes fell big oaks kinda app.

I’ve not been keeping track (15 years ago I linked to Dominic ’s Biolab Disaster) but a few years ago it seems that some of the original source code for WipeOut was leaked and he’s rewritten it into a web based game….and it is faithful to the original. Easily one of my favourite racing games ever.

reMarkable Paper Pro Move. Great overview/infomercial for the new remarkable tablet. But at $800 (Canadian) for the exact same setup as the video, that is a very pricey device. You can shave a little with a simpler stylus, but a case is essential.

Seasons of Your Life

This is a rationalisation about people and their personalities. It is about how their personalities are tied to seasons of their lives. First, an explanation of Seasons as it relates to a person.

When a person is born they are in the Spring of their lives. They have youthful energy. Everything that surrounds them is burns brightly. They have an explosive energy that is infectious. They grow quickly and without much care of consequences.

As they enter the Summer of their lives they have grown to full bloom. They will never be as strong physically. They are at their peak beauty.

As they enter into the Autumn of their lives there is a clear understanding of who they are as a person. While they still have energy, it is not the same vibrant energy that they had perviously. Typically there is a bright and sadly final flash of energy demonstrating everything that they can be .

Finally when they enter the Winter of their lives, things begin to slow down. The world and their horizon become infinitely shorter. They must make way for the next generation after them.

Oftentimes however, more often than you think, people tend to skip or stay in one of their seasons indefinitely. This tends to explain why some people are forever youthful even in their old age and why some kids might seem to be wiser beyond their years.

The Unlikely Way. Absolutely love this ad. Love it so much. It’s got that same quirky energy of a 90s Levis add that we would honestly wait to watch again and again.

🍳 Made some chicken souvlakis - Ryan’s absolute favourite. Yasmine was on oven fries duty. Quick marinade although I think this thing would have been next level if it had been marinated overnight. Next time.

Finally got around to watching Superman with the family. Great 70s vibe to it. Great portrait of Israel as the evil government (along with IDF style troopers). Krypto was amazing. Jimmy Olsen was a standout character.

I haven’t taken a tumble in a really long time. Decades. But tripped while rushing to get the kids back to school today over some pavement works, scraped myself in four different locations. I’m getting too old for this shit.

I don’t tend to link back to my own stuff, but this post from 20 years ago made a real impression. I don’t know who Housy is. I don’t have any recollection of this trip in any way whatsoever.

The magic of having your own site which all your thoughts across a lifetime is unearthing gems like this. Best thing I’ve read today.

Big cooking morning! Bolognaise. Pizza dough. Coconut chickpea curry. And made a quick salad for myself for lunch. Family meals done for 6 days in one morning. I want to make it into a habit to cook for the week on a Sunday and get it all ready to go whenever.

Damn, you loose it so quickly. 1 month of doing my 5 Tibetans every day allowed me to get to 21 reps easy. 10 days on holiday and I’m struggling to get to 17 reps.

🍳 Greek Lamb Shanks. Auto pilot. Great meal to come back home to after a second from final trip to the pool.

Last day of August. Just getting the house in order before the start of the new school year for the kids. Bit nervous for them as it’s a new school. Hopefully it will be a good one for them.

🐝 Yellowjacket season in Ontario is soo annoying. These things are out in force and really aggressive. Sitting outside is a roulette for getting stung

Spent the last few days unsubscribing from a million newsletters (mostly from companies I bought something of once). Now my inbox is much quieter.

While I do lament the end of summer, we’re coming up to my absolute favourite month of the year, September. Where it’s not too hot and not too cold, it’s the goldilocks of weather and the start of a ‘new school year’ brings opportunity in a way the fabricated New Year’s eve does not.

Just got my first Starbucks in Canada (ran out of coffee beans). Totally not worth $8 for a cappuccino. I won’t be partaking ever again

Trying something a little different.

My main site is all about my life and what I am up to. A cross between a journal and a record.

I do like the act of posting about cool stuff and my general interests in the world. A distillation I guess of my tastes in website form.

Enter Collections (working title for now). Plan is simple. A sentence (or two), a link and an image. Will be messing around with the design at some point (if it sticks).

Summer KAA Site

This year, it’s all been about the yellow. Started off with my Kobo cover, but extended to my iPhone cover and the site.

Last real sunny day of our holiday. It’s been a little hit and miss these last 10 days which has been pretty annoying. When it’s been sunny it’s been amazing. Tomorrow bring another rainy day and then annoyingly 1 week of bright sunshine, after we’ve bloody left. I guess you can’t control the weather (ever). If we come back here it will be earlier in the season.