I don't have any real retro games I want to play enough to say get a hold of an emulator; I fully admit most games I played 10 hours a day in my youth (the 1980s) were shit. The oldest games might actually fancy to play still functions on Steam.
Of course there were good ones like Arkanoid, Uridium, Balder Dash, Tetris and a bit later Defender of the Crown and a few others, but most were played because they were the only game in town.
I've seen them for sale in a Z station, and hell, I buy vegan pies there. But if there's a more ethical supplier, I'd much rather give them my business and have someone other than Z to send people if they want one too (same with the pies if anyone knows of any good vegan baking retailers in Waikato).
A friend asked me if I was voting by post in the UK election. Nearly 7 years in to living in NZ, and it kinda feels wrong. It’s where I’m from, but it’ll never be ‘home’ again.
It's been more than 18 months since I ditched Twitter and I still can't decide if Mastodon or BlueSky is the best replacement. Each has pluses and minuses. Each has a different vibe and a (largely) different set of users. I guess I'll be using both in parallel for some time yet.
@billbennett I see it as a race between community schism/exhaustion (Mastodon) and enshittification (Blue Sky) and I can't face another around of the second, so I'm sticking here.
Our lawnmower's battery charger stopped working over the weekend. $200 for a new one, which is like 1/3 of a lawnmower. Ugh.
I ordered the weird screwdriver to open the case for $7, watched a 20 min YouTube with someone debugging a similar model. I was able to take it apart and solder back together a component that had come loose. 💅 It's been up and working for 20 minutes with no explosions or even bad smells.
Being willing to attempt to repair stuff is such a superpower. YouTube is amazing. ✌🏻
@PadraigOCinneide Let's not forget how great it is to be able to order parts!
I repaired my digital SLR with a part from Ebay (I was as surprised as anyone when it worked after I put it back together) and my dishwasher with a part from some random parts website.
In the pre-internet days I'd never have known what part I wanted, let alone been able to order them.
My local Kōtare/Kingfisher just surprised me. Flew at the window and heard it “hit” but then it went and landed on a post and had a praying mantis in its beak. And now it just flew through the top of a rose bush and came out with another bug. This is fun. Front row seat.
@sumisu3 I remember seeing a kōtare arrowing down into the long grass, flying back to its perch with a mouse in its beak, brutally beating the mouse against a branch to stun/kill it, and then swallowing it down. Efficient little predators!