Notes

2026-04-21 18:43

A chunk of one of my molars broke away whilst eating dinner. 🦷 Zero pain, fortunately. But now the tooth has a very sharp edge that my tongue keep brushing up against.

What's weird is that I wasn't even eating anything that would have been tough on my teeth, just some potato and veg.

I actually have a dentist appointment in 5 days time, so if ever there was a good time for this to happen then it was now. Fingers crossed it hasn't weakened the tooth.

2026-04-17 22:26

On the 6th April, I placed an order online for a new ottoman bed base (honestly, life as a 40 year old is crazy!). The next day, an email landed titled, "Your order is now in production". Sweet!

However, by the 16th, I hadn't heard anything else, so I did what anyone in my situation would do and (politely) emailed the company's support address asking for an update on my order.

A day later (today), I got a response:

Good evening Ben, I hope you're well.

Our delivery partner will contact you once the order has been dispatched.

Kind regards,
<Company Name>*

What in the dismissive, unhelpful world of how not to reply to a customer is that? No acknowledgement or apology that the order is taking longer than expected (for reference, the website says delivery is 3-7 working days, and it's now been 9).

*I've left out the company name for now. Let's see how this plays out first. If it doesn't go well, I'll be back to spill the tea. 🍵

2026-04-16 17:49

I used InDesign today. I've no idea how long its been since I last used it. I hope a long time passes before I need to use it again.

2026-04-14 08:30

Glad to report that I've fully recovered from yesterday's food poisoning. I'm almost a full kilogram lighter today than I was yesterday, but I would not recommend food poisoning as a weight loss tactic 😅

2026-04-13 15:10

Chatting with Claude is such a breath of fresh air compared to Gemini.

I was having some issues with my Ghost template files and I was using Claude to help me debug it. I attached my routes.yaml file and asked Claude if it could be causing the problem. A second later, Claude responded:

The routes file looks fine, that's not the issue.

The blunt response took me by surprise and made me laugh. It was straight to the point and just like talking to a dev - I loved it!

My biggest issue with Gemini is how much it pads out its answers with stuff that isn't useful. I can instruct Gemini to write brief responses for the current chat, but it looks like I setting that permanently for all future chats currently isn't available to UK, EEA, or Switzerland.

2026-04-13 09:42

TFW you slip into some bad habits during a week off. Maybe your sleep pattern goes out the window, or you eat too much Easter chocolate and the scales are now going in the wrong direction.

So, you tell yourself that when you go back to work you're going to hit things hard again. Back to the gym, playing football, getting in 10,000 steps every day, and eating cleaner.

Then, on the first day back at work, you get hit with a bout of food poisoning. Guess I'll start tomorrow, then... 🤮

2026-04-11 22:50

Bit of site housekeeping this evening, improving styling for some of the older components on the site. Always satisfying to use modern CSS to achieve the same outcome as before but with fewer lines.

2026-02-04 12:22

Another gym sesh this morning. After a couple months plagued by bugs and colds, it finally feels like I'm building consistency again.

Also started a new workout program, put together with help from Gemini. I'll write a proper post about that soon.

2026-01-17 11:12

We did it. We finally bought a new mattress.

We were fed up with our Nectar memory foam mattress. Well, I was. A few years ago, it developed a dip on my side of the bed - insert weight-related comment here. It was still in warranty, so Nectar sent out an independent company to check it. The guy who came out acknowledged there was a dip, but it wasn't a big enough dip for Nectar to send out a replacement. Thanks Nectar.

I don't know why I continued to put up with it. But, after a couple weeks of sustained bad sleep and waking up achy and sore over Christmas, enough was enough. This time, we've ditched memory foam completely and gone for a medium-firm pocket sprung mattress. My back cannot wait.

2025-12-04 12:26

Booked a flu jab. Work have offered to pay for it, so seems silly not to.

Now if I could just stop getting colds...

2025-12-04 12:21

It's that time of year again. Family are asking me for ideas about what to get me for Christmas and I have no idea. I'm struggling to think of one thing, let alone multiple things to give people options.

2025-11-11 20:01

Time waits for no man. It also passes more quickly as Christmas approaches. Don't ask me the science behind that, it just does, ok?

This evening, I drove past a house that had Christmas lights already up. I'm no Scrooge, but that's officially too early. Ellie's birthday is at the end of November, so we wait until that's been and gone before we turn our attention to Christmas. Plus, the weather in November has so far been pretty mild and it doesn't feel cold enough to be thinking about Christmas yet.