While going to the doctor’s office a week or so ago, I encountered this house. It is one house over from a cemetery, which may or may not be relevant.
A giant cartoon beaver in the yard, because why not?
I am uncertain why they have a giant inflated cartoon beaver in the yard. I checked, and it is not Year of the Beaver (it’s Year of the Snake, how apropos), so I’m at a bit of a loss.
But it gets better when you zoom in, because on the front steps there is a banana duck:
A banana duck.
I don’t know what these things mean or represent, but this is my new favourite house in New Westminster.
I don’t even know how many I have. A bunch are tucked away into drawers. There are a few others elsewhere.
I’m currently using my CTRL keyboard again, after somehow botching the backlighting in my Keychron Q1. It’s OK, though, because I think I prefer the tenkeyless design to the more compact Q1 model.
But that doesn’t address my problem. Neither does the fact that I have another keyboard being delivered to me now. This one has Jupiter Banana switches. How could I say no to Jupiter Banana switches1Seriously, if I had a kid, I’d name them Jupiter Banana. Well, maybe not seriously. But it could be their nickname.? It’s also tenkeyless and can be run wirelessly, so I’ll see how that goes.
Then no more new keyboards. At least for, uh, let’s say six months. That seems reasonable. Doesn’t it? Maybe?
For reference:
CTRL
Mine is on the desk, not floating in space.
Keychron Q1 with Fancy™ Knob
This is the exact model I have, same colour and knob.
And the one I’ve ordered (a Keychron V3 Max also with Fancy™ Knob):
This only comes in one colour, and you’re looking at it.
I was six when the 70s started and 16 when it ended, so it pretty much encapsulates all of my childhood that I can still remember. Or think I can remember.
Kids, hold onto your smartphones as you hear about the primitive olden days:
Having a single phone in the house, in the hallway. It had a long coiled cord and was rotary. In the first few years it was also a party line.
One TV, in the living room. Maybe a 20 or 25-inch screen? It was colour, though! The guys watched Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday. I was not really into hockey. I was an artist! (See entry below on The Letterbox.)
The neighbours at the end of the block had seven chestnut trees in their year. We would put chestnuts on shoestrings and have chestnut fights, one of many dumb things we did as kids.
Speaking of dumb things: lawn darts! We played on the boulevard in front of the house.
A less dumb activity was bouncing on inner tubes in the same spot, using them as somewhat inefficient trampolines.
I would chop wood for our fireplace, because you were allowed fireplaces in the city back then. It was cozy in the winter.
I remember the Saucy Dragon arcade in downtown Duncan, which went on to be one of multiple arcades. In 1984, I even got my first job working at one. I eventually learned all the moves in the laser disc game Space Ace and could complete it on a single quarter. I believe all the arcades are gone now.
I’ve mentioned it before, but the stationery store, called The Letterbox, was a place I loved hanging out in. I was a writing nerd. I guess I still am. I’d buy fountain pens, refills, typewriter ribbons, art pencils and sketchpads there. And other stuff. It was my version of a candy store. It’s long gone. But there’s now a Staples.
Riding my bike without a helmet. No one wore helmets, it wasn’t even a point of discussion. I did fall a few times, but never cracked my skull open.
I got bit by every possible animal you can think of. I had probably 10x more tetanus shots than the average person.
The McDonald’s opening in August 1978 (yes, I remember) was a major event. The day before, a friend and I rode our bikes through the parking lot and counted the stalls. It was 70 or so, as I recall. A Filet-o-Fish sandwich, my favourite at the time, cost 65 cents. Previously, to eat at a McDonald’s, we had to have our parents drive us to Victoria or Nanaimo. In 1978, Duncan arrived. The McDonald’s, of course, is still there.
When I went to high school, literally just at the end of the street, I came home for lunch and got addicted to All My Children for a few years. Like the arcades, it, too, is gone.
In Canada, I hope the federal Liberals elect a competent, interesting and articulate new leader and go on to win another minority or maybe even majority government. For a long time the Conservatives have had a big lead in the polls, but it seems suddenly shaky after Trudeau announced he is stepping down. Pollievre would be a terrible prime minster, as he’s completely consumed by ideology and politics–and is out of step with most Canadians on many core issues and values. I’m not a huge Liberal fan or anything, but they would be far, far better than anything we’d get under Pollievre’s leadership.
In the U.S. it’s simpler still: That Trump and his acolytes don’t destroy democracy. It’s too early to call it yet, but early signs are not looking good.
And that’s all I have to say about politics. Now I must take a bath to cleanse my body, if not my soul.
But 2025 is the first time I’ll be spending a decent amount of time using Linux and not just tinkering or experimenting with it.
Its primary weaknesses remain the same for me:
Gaming is good, but not entirely there yet.
Graphics programs are still significantly weaker than on macOS or Windows. Some programs are reasonably powerful, like GIMP, but come hobbled with genuinely awful UIs that don’t work like any other modern program out there.
For myself, there are a few things I miss from Windows, mostly in the functionality enabled by PowerToys, like a multi-item clipboard.
But in terms of stability, speed and general use, Linux Mint 22.1, the distro I’m using, is providing a very smooth experience and I generally prefer it to Windows 11 now.
Fake edit: I found CopyQ on Linux, described thusly:
CopyQ monitors system clipboard and saves its content in customized tabs. Saved clipboard can be later copied and pasted directly into any application.
So far, it seems to be working fine.
Here’s to the Year of Linux Frequently on the Desktop.
With the recent revelation of DeepSeek, an AI thinger that apparently does what OpenAI and other big tech AI thingers do, but using cheaper hardware, less energy and via open source, the whole mad rush to AI for all and forever seems to have hit its first bump. This is one of those “will be interesting to see where things stand in five years” stories, but from the consumer perspective, it seems like:
There is interest in AI in a very general, Google search sort of way (the DeepSeek app is currently #1 and ChatGPT’s LLM app is a perennial top download)
Beyond the above, there seems to be as much interest in avoiding AI, with people trying to disable AI summaries in Google search, or turn off Microsoft’s Copilot, for example.
I’m in the latter camp. I dabbled in AI art for a bit over the last year (mostly for the lulz, as the kids used to say) or as a way to generate prompts for drawing or writing. It’s been pretty mediocre at both. I don’t have a compelling case for it, and a lot of what it does (especially with implementations like “Apple Intelligence” with its notification summaries and offers to rewrite your words) are things I specifically don’t want. And, in a rare case, it seems I am actually part of the crowd instead of standing outside of it.
I’m not anti-AI or anything, but it feels like too many people are relentlessly pushing it without having any reason to, other than a desperate need to have something be The Next Big Thing in tech that makes the lines keep going up. And to that, I say: Bah. Try making File Explorer crash less in Windows 11. That’l improve my life more than error-filled notification summaries will.
Here’s a look back at my gaming in 2024. Yeah, I’m a month late, it’s my style.
First, the non-PC platforms:
Nintendo Switch: I think I turned this on once or twice, but did not play any games on it.
Mac Studio: Played some Torchlight II on it. It ran fine. Also played a bit of Grindstone, an Apple Arcade title. It did not hold my interest.
Xbox Series X: Did not play anything on this, used it as a media/streaming device.
iPhone 12: I do not have any games installed on my phone.
iPad Pro: I played crosswords and some Mahjong until I got back into the habit of reading before going to bed.
The PC is where I do most of my gaming and in order, here’s what I played the most:
PowerWash Simulator. Way too much. But it’s very chill, so it’s probably been therapeutic.
Diablo 3. I got back into this and it’s kind of like PWS–soothing and mindless, but also horribly violent, but in a way that is cartoony and over the top. I have over 8 billion gold now and nothing to spend it on.
Diablo 4. I started this with a druid, then a wizard and it hasn’t been compelling. I’ll get back to it eventually.
No Man’s Sky. One attempt at multiplayer. It was not compelling enough to warrant another go. Maybe it works better in single player?
Morrowind (using the OpenMW patch and launcher and running it on Linux). I’ve only dabbled in this. It runs very well. I’m not sure if I can commit to a deep and bonkers RPG again. But we’ll see.
Pools (also on Linux). A weird walking simulator that plays heavily on mood and atmosphere as you walk through a series of tiled rooms filled with water, slides, odd sounds and things. If I’m in the mood for it, it works really well.
Stardew Valley (Linux). Dabbling in this again to see if it sticks.
Centipede Recharged (Epic). Frantic, and games are short. Scratches a particular itch, but not something I invest a lot of time into.
Train Station Renovation. Gifted by an internet pal, it shares some qualities from PWS, but the UI seems a bit clunkier. I’ll get back to it, though.
Enshrouded. A survival first person thing that I didn’t understand and badly injured my guy first time out. I’ll try it again in the future, if only to prove I can be less dumb.
There were other games, but nothing that would have amounted to more than a few minutes (some Atari 2600 titles, etc.)
For 2025, it’s been mostly more PWS and D3 so far, but I’m looking to get into something else soon™.
I think nostalgia can be healthy, as it provides an anchor to a past that is presumably pleasant and nice to reference back to. It can be a big warm fuzzy to embrace on a dull, rainy day, or when you’re feeling down and want a little mental boost.
It becomes bad or even dangerous when you ignore the things that were not so great in the past, or when you embrace those things instead.
For me, nostalgia is childhood memories of family activities like travelling, hanging out at picnics, going to movies and playing in the backyard, or bouncing tennis balls off the back of the high school gym (and occasionally hitting a ball at a bad angle, causing it to skyrocket up and disappear somewhere on the roof. I wonder how many balls ended up there?)
Sometimes my nostalgia goes retro and I think about what technology was like in the early 1990s, how I added a 2X CD-ROM drive to my first PC in 1994 so I could play Myst, or wrote a batch file to present a screen on boot-up that let me launch different DOS games, or boot into Windows 3.1 if I wanted to get my GUI on.
But in all of these warm, fuzzy memories, there is always some darkness. The fights with friends, the ignorance or mean-spirited behaviour of others, or little things like growing up under the existential threat of nuclear annihilation!
Mostly, though, my dives into nostalgia are like easing myself into the cool waters of a lazy river on a warm summer day. I’ll stop here before I start mixing metaphors.
