Yep, I’ve stopped pretending that these will ever be weekly on a consistent basis. I simply do not have Andreas time management skills. He never misses a week. I’m going with Ryan’s approach.

If 2026 came with a 14-day warranty, I’d be asking for money back right now. What a shitty start to a year. It’s fucking embarrassing to be an American. It’s also exhausting.

I worked about 7-10 hours in each of the last two weeks of the year. So that was a nice little break. It’d have been better to completely disconnect from work, but I’m not that established in self-employment yet that I can afford to just take two weeks off. Maybe next year.

Right before the end of the year, MSNOW (MSNBC) reached out and conducted a 15-minute on-camera interview with me about healthcare in the US. They used about 20 seconds of it in the story. The reporter sent me the video, but I’ve never found it on their website, and they never said my name, so it’s not searchable. I’m anxiously waiting for Fox News to contact me so that I can tell them to go fuck themselves.

In other news, I’ve been running Waterfox as my daily driver since Dec 26, and it is fine. No issues at all.

Blog

I wrote a few blog posts in my downtime at the end of the year.

The Happy New Year Post

I reflected on 2025, and 30 years of blogging

A silly thing that I do every year. 2025 in selfies

Best Books of 2025

Reading

I’ve already completed two books this year. The Society of Unknowable Objects by Garreth Brown is a worthy follow up to The Book of Doors. The Comic Book Story of Beer relates beer’s impact on history from the dark ages to the modern craft beer revolution. It’s a lot of fun, and you will learn some stuff too.

Watching

We watched The Four Seasons on Netflix this week. It’s the most GenX show imaginable. But we are from the older end of GenX, so we enjoyed it. We also watched the Reading Rainbow documentary on Netflix. It is wonderful. LeVar Burton is a national treasure. My wife and I realized that somehow, our kids never watched Reading Rainbow growing up. They watched Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues, so I’m not sure how we missed it. They both grew up to be enthusiastic readers, so no harm, no foul, I guess.

We tried to watch the movie Wine Country but bailed after 20 minutes. I’m not sure how they got all those talented comedians in a room and made such an unfunny movie. We also tried to watch Derry Girls. It’s fine, but we really have to concentrate to understand the accents, and I’m not sure if it is worth the effort. We are also slowly working our way through Star Trek TNG. I bought the box set so we can take our time.

Listening

I discovered Tuck Smith and the Restless Hearts via a blog post, and I’ve had them on repeat play for the last week. I’ve bought the new EP and the 2024 album, and I’ve going to buy some more of their back catalog. It’s a throwback sound, kind of a mix of Cheap Trick and The Replacements.

Troubled Paradise

Take the Long Way

Ballad of a Misspent Youth

Future updates as events warrant.

And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.

Posted on January 9, 2026   #Weekend_Update