Category: Journal

Longer-form writing. Things I’ve maybe been mulling over for a while. There is no pre-determined topic — I could end up writing about anything really.

The Walking Dead : The Ones who live

The Ones who live has immediately gone up as one of my favourite series in The Walking Dead universe.

Top spot of course is Negan’s introduction. Holy Christ that was intense.

But I gotta say that after finishing the six-episode series of this Rick and Michone spin-off, it has catapulted up to near the top.

And it was a single moment that solidified it for me.

Now I always enjoyed watching Rick grow increasingly capable and deadly as the series moved forward.

I was lucky to start watching The Walking Dead when series three was just coming out, so I didn’t have too much catching up to do.

And it also meant that I’ve been able to see the characters grow steadily over the years, including Rick’s son, Carl.

So when the scene in episode four “What We” came on, where Rick opens up about Carl and the effect that his few years imprisonment has done to his memory of Carl, it destroyed me.

I’ve always been easily triggered by these sorts of emotional scenes. However, since having children of my own recently, it’s basically changed how I see pretty much every thing.

Everything has an additional dimension to it now, it seems.

And the fact that in that scene’s flashback, Carl is shown as being of toddler age — the same as my son — honestly it couldn’t have cut any deeper for me in the world of The Walking Dead.

Pockets of time

When you’re young, free and single you don’t realise how much free time you have.

“Don’t have time for that” shouldn’t have even been in my vocabulary.

When you meet someone and start getting serious, you will probably start seeing them most evenings and / or weekends.

Despite enjoying the time spent with your new partner, you will remember just how much extra time you had for those pursuits.

Then you move in together and perhaps get married.

You may then start to reminisce about those evenings every other day when your time was all your own to do with as you wished.

Staying up till 3 am to play video games? No problem!

And then you may have a child together.

Now yours and your partner’s every waking moment is there to make sure that your child is happy, healthy and loved.

They have no past memories.

They are a clean slate.

Their time for pursuits and discovery is in front of them.

When you are woken at random times in the middle of the night, which then makes you too tired in the day, you will remember how much time your partner and you had before your bundle of joy arrived.

And then the second one arrives.

You will start to reminisce over how much time you actually had during nap times. And at night when your first one started sleeping through the night finally.

Now it’s just small pockets of time.

Concentrated moments for you to really focus in on the things that you want to pursue for yourself.

I’m lucky.

I found the person I’m happy and grateful to be spending the rest of my life with.

And we’ve been blessed to have brought two perfect children into the world.

I love my life now.

This is a post for my children to read when they are old enough.

I want them to consider the path they choose to walk — with whoever they hope to walk it with.

I want them to know that if they find the right person as I did, then the sacrifices are merely exchanges; upgrades to an even better, more fulfilling life.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us

Gandalf — The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Flies are re-grouping

It’s warm.

Really fecking warm.

The kind of warm that when you take your t-shirt off, you get that really uncomfortable heat surrounding your head as you take the t-shirt off over your head.

It’s also the kind of warmth that throws up the signs outside of every open window — “Flies, inside this way”.

I managed to destroy the previous wave with one of those electrified tennis rackets that shock and kill the flies.

Then the weather cooled.

But now the heat has returned. And with it, the second battalion of airborne pests.

So now I wander the halls* of my home like Negan, looking for fly skulls to bash in.

So if you hear the sound of electric shocks and/or cupboards being hit with cheap plastic, don’t worry. It’s just me working the perimeter.

Enjoy the weather.

*header image generated with Gemini AI

For a Few Dollars More

As I said the other day, I was about 30 minutes into For a Few Dollars More.

Well now I’ve finished it.

Wow.

I loved it even more than A Fistful of Dollars.

It had a bigger scale, and featured the excellent Lee Van Cleef.

The man with no name and Van Cleef are both competing Bounty Hunters, both in search of a villainous gang leader with a big price on his head.

After an excellent display of skill between the two of them in the dead of night, they decide to join forces to get their hands on the gang leader and the other members — all with varying prices on their heads.

Clint Eastwood
Lee Van Cleef

What follows is an unfolding story that keeps its secret right till the end — right before one of the best film endings I’ve ever experienced.

The ending isn’t huge and flashy. But the way it reveals its secret, followed by the music cue as a showdown begins, is just incredible.

It elevated the already enjoyable film into one that instantly became one of my favourites.

Now at the time of writing I am 30 minutes into The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I have more memories of this one than the previous two, but I’m looking forward to the rest of it with my new-found appreciation for the western genre.

An American, a Mexican and an Irishman…

I’ve started watching films again.

Robert DeNiro as The Irishman
Clint Eastwood as The Man with no name

The Irishman

Firstly, I started with Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.

Loved it.

The main cast have been great in everything I’ve seen them in. And this film was no different.

A masterclass.

For me it had those Jackie Brown vibes, in that a lot of it felt like I was just chilling out with these characters for most of it. Characters I quickly became fond of, despite their dubious business dealings.

And until I saw the conversation between Martin Scorsese and Pacino, De Niro and Pesci afterwards, I had no idea it was all based on a true story.

It took me three sittings to watch it as it was done between sleeps (raising a 2 month old)

Despite it being such a long film, I actually wished it was longer.

A Fistfull of Dollars

The first spaghetti western, and the film that launched Clint Eastwood’s film career.

A Fistfull of Dollars is cool as hell.

The man with no name wanders into a western town where two families are at war with each other.

So he decides to cleverly pit them against one another for his own gains.

I had seen this many years ago, but for some reason westerns didn’t do much for me. That was until I experienced the Red Dead Redemption games, especially the story of Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2

Since then I have been eager to explore more of the genre.

To be honest I think I’m trying to re-experience what I got with Red Dead Redemption 2, but with other stories.

But Arthur Morgan is always there at the back of my mind.

Sobs.

I loved this film.

Trivia: this features the scene featured in Back to the Future part 2, and the emulation that Marty performs in Back to the Future part 3.

At the time of writing I am 30 minutes into “For a Few Dollars More”.

Only taking breaks as I only get chance to see them at night when I have baby duties and of course at that point I’m knackered.

But I’ll get there eventually.

And at least my little girl is getting a good film education early.

The ever-growing sleep debt

I have a compounding sleep debt.

We have a 2 year old and a 6 week old. To say my wife and I are tired is an understatement to say the least.

Our children are definitely worth it all but I am looking forward to a full night’s sleep again.

It’s like being in a constant foggy haze — a fugue state.

The weird thing, is that I know I will miss these times. When they are all grown up, or even a little bit grown; when they no longer need us for basic survival; when I’ll no longer be woken at 3:30am to feed her a bottle, followed by an hour of playing Silent Hill 2 remake whilst she rests on me as her milk settles before she sleeps.

Also those decaf cups of tea in the middle of the night. Delish. And the opening of the fridge door to get the milk, only to be greeted by an ocean of melted ice below the fridge door.

These times will be but a memory sooner than I think — I should enjoy the insomnia while it lasts.

The Tsunami in the fridge

This morning I opened the fridge door to be greeted by a slight splash of water.

Okay — not quite a tsunami — but that’s clickbait for you.

Underneath the veg drawer of our modest 500mm wide fridge freezer lies a small pool of water in the recesses of its base.

First thought of course is “Ah great. Amazing. The fridge is buggered. One of the stalwarts of the modern home… packed in.”

But no.

The fridge is fine.

Upon lifting the vegetable drawer out I notice a block of ice on the back edge of the fridge base.

What I’m assuming is that the temperature drops to freezing to create this block over time, then as the fridge goes through some kind of cycle where it’s not quite freezing, it melts a bit.

I should do something about the temperature but I’m yet to find the dial.

If I should find it surely I should fix the issue with a simple nudge in the direction of non-freezing.

If I was loaded I could trash the old fridge and get a brand spanking new one.

But then… That would be cold…

Overtaking — a wake up call

Yesterday I gave a family member a lift somewhere.

On the way there, entering a country road I began overtaking the car in front as I was struggling to get the person to their appointment on time.

The road ahead was clear and overtaking was permitted in this particular part of the stretch.

When all of a sudden a white Tesla — of all cars — came around a corner at the far end of the road I was overtaking on.

So i put my foot down as far as I could to finish the manoeuvre.

As I passed the car I was overtaking, the car In front was getting ever closer — not sure if they were speeding but being a Tesla I wouldn’t be too surprised.

I then pulled across as the on coming car flashed it’s lights twice at me “I’m here”. I flashed once back “sorry”.

Of course signalling with your lights is not encouraged and possibly illegal except under very specific circumstances.

Nevertheless we exchanged our vague highway morse code.

At the time it was obvious we weren’t going to impact.

But since then I’ve been stressing about the “What ifs”.

It’s even been running around my head about “What if the other driver reports me with dash camera footage, and I get prosecuted for dangerous driving”.

My mind automatically goes to the worst-case scenario.

Apparently if a letter isn’t received before 14 days has passed since an incident, then no action will be taken.

Thirteen days to go.

Hopefully I can look back on this post in a couple of weeks and laugh at myself.

Either way it gave me a wake up call to be extra mindful. And to not risk it all to save a potential few minutes. Because the trade off could be the rest of mine, and any passengers, days.

Stay safe out there.

Black Mirror: Common People

Dark as fuck. And so brilliantly doing a send-up of the modern “subscription culture”.

Both leads were great.

This is the second thing I’ve seen Chris Dowd act in after The I.T. Crowd. So it was a complete departure for me.

And he is incredible in it.

Similarly with Rashida I’ve only seen her in The Office and Parks and Recreation.

She too was great.

They missed a trick in one scene though.

When they thought that his wife’s implant was malfunctioning and they headed to the Rivermind building. They didn’t have Chris Dowd ask “Have you tried turning it off and on again”.

This is the first time in recent memory I’ve needed to watch something light-hearted after seeing an episode of something.

A bleak, subscription-based nightmare.

And I loved it.

Hospitals and Supermarkets

What do hospitals and supermarkets have in common?

Go on – take a moment to think about it.

Got it?

No? Well, I’ll tell you.

Both are places where absolute fucking plebs congregate right outside the front doors, smoking.

Smoking is an individual choice, regardless of how completely dumb it is, but Christ if I don’t wish they would bugger off 100 metres away.

And the complete hypocrisy of a hospital placing one of their smoking areas directly outside their cancer wards. *smh*

Walking through a cloud of nicotine fog is not something I want to be doing.

Go away smokers.

Go away.

The Last of Us series 2 episode 1

On the whole it was great to see the series back.

I’ve played through part 2, the game on which this series is based, five or six times through. So seeing certain scenes happen in this episode that were towards the end of the game was very strange for me.

But I get it from a storytelling perspective. Games are just completely different beasts to TV shows. Certain reveals and motivations need to be shown earlier.

Dina and Ellie at the Jackson New Years Dance

I just have to mention though. The Jackson dance scene was just incredible. I’m not 100% sure, but it seemed to be a shot for shot remake of the same scene from the game. And it hit just as well.

In fact, dare I say it hit slightly harder — mainly due to Joel seeming to have slightly more of a temper against Seth.

The shots, the dialogue, the chemistry between Dina and Ellie, and the music just fell right into place here.

Beautiful.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

My prediction is that the series will end at the closing of the third day at the pinnacle theatre. It just seems like the most logical place for me for it to cliffhanger.

But who knows what changes they will make.

What the hell was I thinking

“What the hell was I thinking?”; “Huh?”; “Who’s the fucking idiot who did this?.. oh. It was me…”.

Three questions every developer / coder / programmer / whatever-er asks themselves from time to time.

And I am definitely no different.

I built an initial version of a web-based tool for work some time ago. I built it with some speed to get it done as quickly as possible. But I should have taken longer and focused in more on the ongoing code quality.

I wrote tests from the get-go, but I let it slip a little when I would dip back into the project for little updates and tweaks across the last twelve months.

The other day I ran a static analysis tool over the project for the first time.

Christ on a bike.

So for the past day or so I’ve been battling hard to climb up the 9 rung ladder to the highly sought after status of level 9 all green. (Larastan/phpstan this is).

I’m currently on level 7 with about 15 errors to fix.

I have found that from implementing the fixes — many of which have been type hinting and generics-related — I am understanding the code — and the underlying framework Laravel — much better.

I’ve even found a very odd design decision in Laravel. The `auth()->id()` method can return either of the following:

  • int
  • string
  • null

Why not just “int” and “null”?

Anyway.

It’s been fun and I’m looking forward to fighting through level 8 before defeating the final boss — level 9 All Green. 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩