Ever had those books that you loved but when you came back to re-read them the spell had faded and the magic's gone? Here's my list of books that didn't stand up to a re-read:

- Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
- Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Any more suggestions?

All that child-raising and then one day they get to the point where they say "Dad, can I make pad thai for dinner tonight?" and they make it and it's good.

Next: cleaning up too!

Many years ago I used to work on a Cobol-based application that ran over an 80x25 green screen terminal. People running 30 or 40 users on a 486 PC running SCO Unix hooked up to a multi-port serial card.

We'd never have tolerated the amount of waiting between actions or screens that is now considered absolutely normal on web-based cloud-hosted applications.

Weird how things change.

People talking about Japanese tech stagnating and came up with this wonderful line: "Japan has been living in 2000 since 1980."

A few years ago it really felt that vegan food was on the march - new products, better support in restaurants, life was just getting easier and more delicious.

Now that's all evaporated with products disappearing completely or just no longer being stocked by supermarkets, and once reliable restaurants dropping vegan options. It's a bit of a pity really. #Vegan #VeganFood

It's weird how "One law for all New Zealanders" doesn't equate to giving people back their property when it's stolen from them. Very curious.

You can "I don't want smart appliances" all you like but I appreciate that my new Bosch dishwasher notifies my phone when it's finished.

Apparently Kim's old phone (Moto Edge 30 Neo) supports Sailfish OS and I absolutely need a way to waste more time on pointless tinkering.

Last night I remembered that we didn't have classes or periods at high school - we had spells. First spell, second spell, etc.

Apparently this is uncommon.

Also, it's hard to search for without getting many links to blood magic.

Installing my new dishwasher involved more hole saws than I am happy about. The water connector on the Bosch is huge!

So, where does one actually order Dirty Work by Nicky Hager from?

It was launched at Unity Books but you can't buy it from their website. It's published by Potton & Burton but you can't buy it from them either!

Ooooh, heard that #eqnz coming in Carterton!