Author: eric Date: Tuesday August 18th, 2026
I'm going on a road trip in September with my father. The destination? The Arctic Ocean. I've got all hotels/B&Bs booked (do note that is B&B like Bed & Breakfast, not the disgusting Airbnb), and all the major preparations are, if not completed, at least prepared for. Heh. I'm down to looking up ideas for places to stop and see along the drive. If I were driving myself, I'd be buying topo maps and getting old prospector claims from the library and tracking down abandoned mines throughout the mountains for exploration, but that's probably beyond the physical capacity of dad nowadays. If I'm honest, it's probably getting past mine too. At least safely.
I love this part of the vacation preparation. All of the "for sures" are taken care of, now it's compiling lists of potentials. It's nice having something sort of in your back pocket and the decision to stop and visit just happens on the fly. Something a little more planned than just completely winging it, but not regimented.
Author: eric Date: Saturday August 08th, 2026
I just found out that my aunt, my sister, and one of my cousins have a group chat dedicated to their knitting projects and they've named their chat Knitting Knotty. This makes me indescribably happy.
Author: eric Date: Monday July 27th, 2026
Well I finally found a solution to wanting to dump Wordpress but also not wanting to write HTML from scratch or wanting to use a complex static site generator. The answer is kiki! It's just wonderful. A super lightweight php page generator and a simple to use and easy to remember markup language called bug. Now I'm just going back and transcribing the posts from my Wordpress installation over to here. Once I have that done, I'm going to delete the Wordpress install and move this entire directory over to eric.iseasyto.ca.
Here's a photo I shot with a Canon AT-1 on Kodak Gold 200 film. It's from the first roll of film I shot since... 1997 maybe?
Author: eric Date: Tuesday July 21st, 2026
I received this dickover when I visited a Canadian magazine's website the other day:
One thousand seven hundred and twenty five. That's how many different companies this once-respected institution is selling my existence to. Absolutely disgusting. Imagine having the nerve to then proudly proclaim that they respect my privacy.
Shame on you, Macleans.
Author: eric Date: Monday July 20th, 2026
I made a throwaway minimum bid at a local auction house for a Canon AT-1 35mm camera and a box of lenses. The website had a single, low resolution and out-of-focus photo so I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I placed the bid.
Turns out, what I got was:
- An f2.8 50mm lens - An f1.8 28mm wide angle lens - A 100mm-200mm telephoto lens - A macro lens of some sort - A near-mint camera body that just needed a good cleaning and dusting
I can't believe my luck! I bought a roll of 200 ISO Kodak Gold film and I'll see how it turns out. I am loving the deliberate and purposeful decision making that happens when there’s a finite and number of photos that can be taken (not to mention the fact there’s a distinct dollar value attached to each one). I also really like that there is no immediate satisfaction. I have no idea if the 8 photos I took this morning are any good, and I probably won’t know for a while until I shoot 28 more and get the roll developed.
Author: eric Date: Saturday April 25th, 2026
I saw a random post somewhere on Mastodon that mentioned the 1985 DOS game Striker and the included screen shot yanked something deep in the childhood nostalgia region of my brain. I hadn’t thought of it in decades but I remembered playing it as a kid and had to track it down.
Dang that CGA cyan/magenta colour palette gets me every single time.
The game itself is actually pretty fun, especially considering it’s from 1985. You fly your helicopter through a horizontal landscape, either shooting or bombing tanks, rockets, or alien ships. The more you maneuver your chopper, the faster your fuel reserves deplete, but destroying ground-based fuel tanks replenish a small amount in your tank.
The end of each level has a small challenge; center your helicopter on a landing pad to pick up spies and then the next level you do the same to drop them off. Another is to pick up cargo, etc.
The game isn’t overly challenging and it felt really good to play it again. According to the readme included, it was created by a Derek Williams. Derek, if you’re still out there, know that childhood me and adult me had a lot of fun with this.
Author: eric Date: Monday March 02nd, 2026
Every now and then I have the urge to dip my toes into tabletop RPGs. Unfortunately, nobody else in my circle of friends has ever expressed any interest in it (or, like me, they keep it well hidden). So, instead of a traditional D & D game, I usually make my way through a Fighting Fantasy book while my wife puzzles. It makes for a cozy evening in. Plus, they are filled with this incredible 70s/80s fantasy artwork:
I’ve made a Fighting Fantasy scoring spreadsheet that I use whenever I play and maybe some others will find it useful. I’ll include the pdf output for easy printing and the Libreoffice Calc file in case anyone wants to make it their own. It uses the Dalelands Uncial font which should be pretty easy to track down, if you want it.
Author: eric Date: Saturday November 30th, 2024
Honestly I registered this domain mostly for the custom bluesky handle but maybe I can also use this just for fun???
This is a picture of one of our cats. His name is Odin but we call him Mr. Sir and also sometimes Dr. Fart. He is a good and sweet boy but he is also very dumb.
