#weeknotes

[techforevil]

April 2025

ngl it's been a rough month

Work / general

This doesn't really hit when you already know the next week is gonna be even worse fwiw. 💖

A long weekend is nice but it'd be better if things did not just get squished into four days.... The post-easter was particularly tough including being told of a quite challening meeting the same day on Tues, a few people around me struggling with physical and mental health, still dealing with reporting and actions after downtime at the end of the previous week, some organisational wobbles caused by work straddling several portfolios, someone falling foul of a pretty major policy which I had to deal with and more.

I guess I mostly feel guilty instead of tired. I can recognise it's not _entirely_ rational and I still recognised when someone was trying to unjustly guilt trip me so it can't be that bad?? 🫠

I enjoyed this blogpost about stand-ups. The tendency to make them a report to manager is my number one pet peeve I think. I had a lot of fun with them during my last gig at GDS especially, I wish I could exhume that energy again...

The mortgage offer paperwork I'd have to do is stopping me from doing some really dumb stuff to the point that I'm in two minds whenever I think of chasing solicitors.

Let's not forget it was also a very big month for some really stupid and evil people. : )

I did have a fantastic swim on Easter Sunday and beat most of my best times?? The pool was nearly empty which helped a lot and the sunshine was glorious. 🙌

Caught up with a friend who finally secured a new (long!) contract after a couple of months of unemployment. We could not get into Miga at short notice but Calong was absolutely fab. 👌

Filipino food is kinda booming? Or maybe I just started paying attention. Anyway both Donia and the new Panadera branch are very fine additions to central.

Crochet etc

The fact that I SOMEHOW REPEATEDLY kept fucking up SOMETHING about the Hello Kitty gift/request I'm making did not exactly boost my mood. It's done now at least but ehhhh (handing over for someone else to embroider face and sew clothes).

Apparently I only finished Susie this month, why does it feel like it's been ages? More detailed post.

Needle felted a bunny for a friend and a cotton blanket/shawl/uhh? for their baby.

Used chenille yarn for the first time to make a mahoosive catnana.

Visited a couple new yarn shops, McCulloch & Willis (where the sheep displays below come from) is def the biggest and best stocked but I liked how cozy Wild & Wooly was (my local once I move!?). Fabrications seemed more sewing oriented, very small selection of yarn. Knit With Attitude was sadly closed when I walked past but Ultimate Fabrics and Craft near it is neat!

I am sooooo tempted by this https://javawhiskers.co.uk/crochet-with-cats/

Watched

The Residence - just a bit of murder mystery fun. Not without tedious bits but Giancarlo Esposito stuns as always and Uzo Aduba's defective detective is super fun and hot. My birding era beckons. 🐥

Hourglass Sanatorium (Has, 1973) - platonic ideal of an European art movie, fever dream-like plot, incredible sets, WWII/Holocaust undercurrents, and most crucially bare breasts every 5 minutes. 10/10 no notes.

Sinners (Coogler, 2025) - it's as good as everyone is saying but I could not stop get the phrase 'whimsical skedaddlers' from bouncing around my brain the entire runtime like so.

Star Trek: TNG - I finished the third season and still no cat? Hello??? I had to find the track above in the middle of the episode, quite stunning. Ranking general enjoyment by plots: Q >>>>> Data / Worf >> Picard > Geordi > various artists > Riker (how many of those are about him maybe leaving? pack your bags and go you basic bitch) > Troi (her mum is fun but The Price made me wanna hurl. Sorry girl but based on this abomination alone you will never recover). RIP Yar, a bicon taken away from us too soon.

Some would say Q is best in small doses but personally I'd watch 28 seasons of a thing where he just ruins someone else's day every episode. 💅

Conclave (Berger, 2024) - I missed this the first time round but thankfully it's back in cinemas cos not only I have caught the papal fever. JP Brammer said it best:

Gayming

I picked up Blue Prince which I don't vibe with and I'm trying to pacifist run Undertale and dying all the fucking time. Do not talk to me about fucking video games, which have become just another aspect of my struggle this month. 🙄

First Delta Green: Music from a Darkened Room session went well, my character is new and I'm struggling a little bit how to fit them into the setting. Can't not love a system that has in-depth genuine role for someone to play a Program Manager. 💞

Finally boardgamed, a couple of smaller things + Apiary. Very cool setting (space bees! bee-shaped mini to represent a space bee spaceship!!!!!!!) but it felt like the space exploration quadrant should be more exciting instead of so much focus on resource collection and trading...

May

So far I've been eating tonnes of noodles between Yori Banjum, Murger Han and Biang Biang?? Gotta diversify my carb intake. :Y

It's my birtday month so everything better turn out well and everyone be nice to me or I'm gonna scream and explode. That is all. 🙇

[alxfsl]

Sketchy Notes 2024: Digital Sketchbook #2 'Grandma memories: the black dress' I haven't been publishing my weeknotes yet because I am changing and restructuring my blog, but as I do it in my limited spare time (yes, the PhD is to blame), it still need some work. Today, however, it's a special day for me, and I really wanted to share it. A sketchy note to my grandma, who taught me the love for craft and learning, and would have turned 100 today:

https:://alxfsl.com/sketchy-notes/crafty-memories-and-birthday-wishes Software: Affinity Photo Device: Surface Laptop

[andypiper]

Maintaining a rhythm

A short post to summarise the end of the week. #Blaugust2024 #100DaysToOffload

A bit short and unstructured today, but posting to keep things moving along. End-of-weeknotes, if you will. Fabrik (which I only wrote about a couple of weeks ago!) is changing their London offering and closing the physical space, so I’ve been trying to track what’s going on with that, but not able to get to any of the meetings about it all. I’m sad about it. We recorded episode 476 of Games at…

[bdarfler]

I have had a weeknotes practice for a few years, starting in my upward 1:1 doc, and more recently expanding to public slack posts. It is always worth the time for my own reflection, for future reference, and for radiating intent.

[thegoodevil]

🎄What a journey!

Only 12 months have passed since the last holidays and new years break. An exciting year has passed and we can't wait until 2024 to show you all the games we worked on in 2023. But until then, we take some time to recharge and feast on nuts and chocolate, like Squirrel.

If you celebrate Christmas and feel the need for a last minute present, get a gift card for the Nintendo eShop. Always useful, low impact on the environment and our little badger "Rascal" might visit soon. Until then, Happy holidays and a nuttastic start into 2024 from all of the Evils! ✨ (We will be back in office on January 8th).

[dakegra]

weeknotes

Trying something a bit new on the ol’ blog. Let’s see how long this lasts. LunaCat is naturally unimpressed. Though thrilled with her new @Alpkit brown envelope. She really loves those things. Reading Book 20 of the year was Dan Richards’ excellent Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark. If you’ve ever listened to Jarvis Cocker’s Wireless Nights, you’ll love this book.…

[scriboniuscurio]

The regular weeknotes and an acy goes to the zoo on the blog

[lloyddavis]

Weeknote 23/49

Ah me, it’s week 49. # I usually write *something* at the end of the week, but rarely (if ever) manage to publish it. For me, writing is thinking more than it is anything else and giving my thoughts on the week an extra polish in order to share them is usually too much effort. But I’m remembering the benefits of sharing this rough stuff in public and every now and then the internal battle turns…

[techforevil]

January 2025 | monthnote

Is it even a new year if I don't make some doomed attempt at weeknotes?

Random notes inc work stuff

Vicky dying still does not feel real. I feel privileged I got to spend some siginifcant time with her when she came along to Conferencia Agile Spain (like most people I primarily knew her from her writing and online presence, altho we met briefly a few times when we overlapped at GDS) and was hoping to follow up on a few things we talked about at GovCamp but equally it means I can't just indulge in my full-on denial mode...

Worked through xmas-ny break like usual. It's usually a chill time unless I am in this department, where apart from the ongoing time-sensitive work lots of random emergencies happened. So glad I'm off for a couple of weeks now, I've not had a proper break since Japan in March/April and I'm shattered.

Overall so much random and weird shit was going down at the end of Dec / start of Jan (including both me and my flatmate having very strange dreams) I was beginning to suspect a gas leak... 🙃

Got extended till Feb 2026 in my current contract. 🎉 It should make getting a mortgage easier, now just fingers crossed that the property does not get down valued like the last one and my sellers find something they want to purchase soon.

Quite a lot of change at work, lots of it quite neatly coinciding with my leave. The migration from GOV.UK PaaS my team was prepping for for the last year got delayed last minute and now I'll be missing it but I'm sure it will all go fine.

Booked in with Keemee for a tatoo just after the holiday. 🌺

Govcamp happened and I was mostly helping our rather than going to sessions. :o Good times as usual, felt particularly busy this year for a 'normal edition'. I really like that we finally have a bit of a Teacamp return with TransformGov Talks and also sort of DataBites! \o/

Spanish classes are back. I've not signed up for Korean yet, there's probably a fair bit I can do to brush up close to my former level by myself if I just find the motivation. :s

Watched

Lots of Taskmaster, the perfect crocheting accompaniment (see below)

Nosferatu - the scene in castle 100% played like something from What We Do in the Shadows, I'm not even sorry for giggling throughout. 😔 Needed more Dafoe hamming it up. I was shocked the cat was not named in the credits - breaking a sacred tradition of cinema. 4 stars.

Presence - not a horror, not my kinda thing otherwise (family drama). The central gimmick could be fun in an actual horror movie tho. Another one they kind of employ ('not being bound by time') is sort of redundant because the progression is linear (I suppose otherwise the twist would be ruined). The marketing vs movie kind of fell in place for me when I realised it's the same distributor as Longlegs which was also underwhelming.

Late Feb / March seems staked with releases I want to see: The Monkey, The Last Showgirl, Mickey 17, Death of Unicorn... probably more. Those are just the trailers I saw before Presence lol.

Played

This is probably between Dec-Jan rather than strictly Jan.

Fledgling Manor - Stefan's route only, basically not sure how the other ones can top it so I lost interest but it seems all need to be played to resolve some plot points so maybe in the future...

Sorry We're Closed - I thought this would be a VN but it's a survival horror and I find the shooting stressful haha. You can say I hould have read the description before buying but I was blinded by the art. -_-

bits of Arco (love the mechanics and the story is good but I got stuck at an encounter I can't pass but I'm too stubborn to back out and return at higher level), Animal Well, Stanley Parable (at very long last - yes, it's as good as I thought it would be), I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (tbh the mechanics were more interesting to me in a more down to earth setting of Growing Up), Cryptmaster (Steamdeck does not work well for this).

Waiting for Yakuza in Hawaii, more Hades 2 patches, next Deltarune chapters, and Ghost of Tsushima sequel + Assassins Creed Japan (open world map marker slop > therapy, don't @ me).

Makes

Decima is still closed so no pottery. I've probably forgotten 100% of what little I could do. I'll probably do a course at Mudgang when I'm back to return to some working level and then get either a studio space subscription from them or Turning Earth near Haggerston, depending on how the flat buying is coming along.

In the meantime I have finally sort of learned how to crochet. I got a kit from TOFT to make a black and white cat, resembling Bella a bit. I tried crocheting before a few times (I learned very basic knitting during lockdown and have half a pride blanket from Wool & the Gang somewhere) but it always ended up with me crying, once in public. 🥲 The kit said it's level 2 so I got another level 1 one (labrador)

TBF they are not that different, cat requires changing colours which is actually not hard if you get over the initial barrier to entry of crocheting anything at all. 😬 The cat is also bigger which makes the process much less fiddly.

TOFT instructions are quite barebones and don't have any interim 'this is what it should look like by now' pics which as a complete beginner is quite rough, but I think I managed to make decent approximations of the cover images. I made some changes to the cat on purpose.

Belly disagrees.

The biggest issue I have with TOFT kits so far is that the amount of yarn provided leaves no room for errors or even leaving longer tails. With both patterns I made mistakes (crocheting with dark yarn is particularly hard going if you don't know wtf you're doing) and the yarn started fraying real bad so I had to chop it. I actually had to buy more yarn (which doesn't exactly match...) to finish the cat at all. :(

I got yarn and patterns for two sheep (Seth and Tobias) from them to keep busy on the upcoming flights so we'll see how consistent this minimalism is. 😬

Anyway then I went crazy at John Lewis sales so I have lots of materials now, just need patterns and ideas. The first one is not going particularly well and I'm losing my patience sligtly, might swap to something else.

またね! ✌️😗

[alxfsl]

Sketchy Notes 2024: Digital Sketchbook #1 'Interviews'

Software: Affinity Photo Device: Surface Laptop

[oluonline]

friday is the new sunday when it comes to my weeknotes

[thejaymo]

THAT Debate | Weeknotes

It's been a week of major storms here, both literal and metaphorical. But Summer is still clinging on, and so am I.

[biohazardousgeodez]

i think im going to die next weeknot suicide

[themegahope]

Weeknotes (1743/4175) blot.blog/2025/03/0…

[hughlh]

Weeknotes

It is a truism that we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a week, and underestimate what we can account in a year.

I think we also discount what we have already done. I can, at any given time, feel like I have accomplished absolutely nothing over the last year, despite that obviously not being true.

So I have recently begun the practice of what are called in tech circles, weeknotes. They take various forms, depending on who is doing them, but at a minimum, they are notes about your week. (Duh, as we said when we were kids).

What it looks like for me is an Evernote window I keep open all week, where I jot things I want to remember that happened that week - business, personal - it all goes into the same document. All week it looks like a long list of bullets.

Then Saturday, I clean it up, maybe drag in some photos, and save it, and open another one for next week.

If i just did this, it would be valuable. Like a low-key, low commitment diary.

But because I believe in the value of working in public, I pull out the items fit for public consumption and that I think my readers would be interested in, and share them on my website. They go out every Sunday morning.

I find them to be a pretty useful record of changes I made (When did I change domain providers? Where is hughlh.com hosted?) or vacations I took (what hotel did we stay in when we went to DC?) or even as a way of learning how long it’s been since I went home and saw my mother (the answer is always, according to her, “too long”).

Because people often have logistics questions: In Evernote, I have a notebook stack called Logbooks, then an individual Notebook called 2025 and each week is a note, titled by the date of the last day of the week. For example, this week’s note is 25-1-18. I use this title format so it sorts automatically in numerical order in the notebook.