The Pudding explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays. We’re not chasing current events or clickbait. We choose topics where visuals inform and entertain. The Pudding is such a brilliant website. I spent hours yesterday going through different essays. Unique/curious topics. Wonderful, creative presentation.
📚 Finished reading: A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I enjoyed the book—it never got boring. But is it a great mystery? I can’t say that. The plot is too thin and hence needed two different ones, connected eventually, albeit. That means none of the central characters in either is fleshed out. It almost felt like two independent murder mysteries, stitched conveniently to fit into…
Podcasts are the pickle ball of journalism. Wow! From Vir Das .
Finished reading: The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman 📚 I liked the book for the most part. Humour was nice. But there are too many characters – no longer a close-knit club. Plus, the plot, especially the mystery, is too thin. The last sixth of the book is just mid. A lot is revealed, but nothing happens. Not disappointed. But I expected better. I will continue the series after a pause.
On a recent trip with my colleagues, I realised how bad I am at the emoji game. I just can’t make sense of the conversations that take place. So I added another tool emojidict to my pocket-tools list. This should come in handy now. And here’s the emoji that triggered this .
I pushed a minor upgrade to the post stats plugin today to fix the build issues with Hugo v0.158. It should now work for all the Hugo versions supported by Micro.blog. Reinstall or look out for an upgrade. The v2 upgrade also introduced a few customisation options. Plugin Settings Two settings are available directly in the plugin configuration on Micro.blog: Remove Year Recap section from the…
Watched: Project Hail Mary 🍿 Oh, I haven’t had this much fun in the theatre for a while now. Went with family, with a few folks not generally interested in scifi. They enjoyed it as well. Ryan Gosling played the lead perfectly – he made the whole theatre laugh out loud at multiple moments.
Of all the dev projects I have created, the post stats plugin for Micro.blog has been close to me. It gave me insights about my writing that I loved. Since I published the first version of this plugin in December 2021, I have wanted to revamp the stats page. I had accumulated a list of insights that were not present, but needed to be. With v2, they do — a complete rebuild, not a minor update.…
A pleasant drive to the outsirkts. And I see the life that matters. Pune is blessed that way!
Spent an hour today writing a post that eventually felt inauthentic. I only realised after writing it that I had no opinion on the topic. Why did I think I needed to have one? It happens a lot when I read meta posts on writing. I tend to get swayed and believe that I ought to contribute. I don’t.
A peaceful corner at a hospital that I had to visit recently - much needed calm for people going through a lot within.
I generally do not enjoy rock or rap songs. But I am enjoying the soundtracks from Dhurandhar. Good vibe.
While stuck at a traffic signal, I captured the mode of travel I’d prefer.
Watched: Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning ★★🍿 The weakest MI movie. The story is weak. The antagonist is weak. Even action only works in parts. The submarine part felt stretched. Just no tension, and that’s the biggest fault.
I have been away from the Arc browser for a while now—basically, the sidebar interface. I tried going back to it with the Zen browser, and it’s frustratingly ineffective. It’s not the best view for the tabs. Kinda limits me.
Where Do the Children Play? ⚓︎ But that doesn’t change the fact that kids need their independent peer cultures. If we can’t provide physical spaces for them to form, then we must accept that they will often form in digital spaces instead. So if we’re unhappy with the digital spaces on offer — if we think there are too many figurative leopards in those forests — then we should make something…
We had a nice unplanned walk around the neighbourhood last night. Some charm in the usualities at night.
Movie night with family - Zootopia 2 at IMAX 🍿
It’s long past midnight and I am still unable to go to sleep. There’s a lot of noise outside and within . I have got nice sleep music playing in my ears, but when has that helped to cut the noise within? This is rare, but I hate when this happens.
Last week, I was on a work trip to Chennai. I have been to this town before, but never spent any meaningful time here. It was either during a packed schedule or during a layover en route to places like Pondicherry. The schedule this time was different – I had a free workday, which I wanted to make full use of. So I decided to take an auto to Elliot’s Beach and walk down Elliot’s…
Speed watched: Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai for n’th time🍿 I like to remind myself how cheesy Bollywoodish the 2000s were. And how crazy in love I was with the phase.
Sometimes the test posts are not to test the post, but to test the poster. Here’s that post.
When the skies peek from the canopy of the greens, sometimes that’s the best part of the walks! Yesterday was one such day - a walk through the old city of Pune. My daughter fell in love with the city that she never knew she was living in.
I have enabled the crossposting to all places again. Why? No reason. I have anyway been crossposting to Mastodon, which is the only social network I have been active on. But that need not be the case. I am tired of overthinking stuff around my blogging. It’s okay if things aren’t perfect. I won’t worry about what reaches which audience. I am happy as long as I write. Wherever I…
Just had one of the worst Cafe Mocha that I have ever had. And the only reason I even came here was that I had to pass an hour and this is the only place that had good parking spot. I know now that shouldn’t be a parameter ever in choosing a cafe ☕