Now

💻 Professionally

I’m currently between contracts (you should hire me!), so I’m spending some time with my website, doing some writing, thinking about how to write better about myself, selling myself, and so on, aka. the least fun parts of freelance I only do when I have to. 😅 This very first iteration of the /now page is me procrastinating from that. Being reminded of Jessica Hische’s Procrastiworking for no reason whatsoever.

👱🏻 Personally

I’m DMing a D&D campaign with my best friends and my girlfriend, who are playing as a halfling cleric, a half-elf druid, an elf warlock, a goliath barbarian/bard, and an elf rogue. I’m having a lot of fun being the DM, which I wasn’t expecting – I mostly accepted it because it was my turn, two others having already given DMing a go.

I adore seeing how people taking the story I’ve set out and running with it in weird and wonderful ways. It’s less fun when the dipshit barbarian/bard uses thunderclap while exploring an unknown fortress, making his presence known to every single enemy in it, narrowly escapes from the onslaught, and after he’s recovered and gathered some more allies, does the exact same thing again, with gusto, but you take the bad with the good.

🎧 Listening to

• Allie X’s fifth album, Girl with No Face - delightfully synthy, fiendishly catchy goth pop. Favourite tracks: Girl With No Face, Off With Her Tits, Galina.
• Dead Pony’s second EP, RAINBOWS — a band I’m thoroughly delighted missed the memo that guitar rock is dead. Powerful post-punk, occasionally grungy, always powerful. They’re great live, too, as an added bonus. Favourite tracks: MK Nothing, MANA.
• Alex Lahey’s third album, The Answer Is Always Yes — anthemic, catharctic, and uplifting indie rock. This first came out when I was on a solo roadtrip on Vancouver Island last year, which was the perfect soundtrack to, and it’s still on heavy repeat almost a year later. Favourite tracks: Good Time, The Sky Is Melting, and The Answer Is Always Yes.

🎮 Playing

• Switch: Slowly working my way through Tears of the Kingdom, having completed the wind, water, and fire dungeons. My girlfriend likes to watch me play Zelda in the background while she’s crafting, so I’m quite happily taking this one slowly and saving the interesting story bits for when she’s around.
• PS5: 100%-ing the base game of Cyberpunk 2076; which I picked up a couple of years after its initial release, after they ironed out most of the game-breaking bugs. I adore it: it’s visually stunning, the core gameplay loop is enjoyable, the main story is interesting and there are many well-thought through side quests. I am a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic neon future, since our current apocalyptic present has nowhere near enough neon in it. Plus, Keanu, obvs.
• PC: Solo, I’m currently managing a German team in Football Manager 2024, having somehow managed to take my team from the 3. Bundesliga to the Bundesliga in three seasons, having by the skin of my teeth just snatched a Europa Conference League spot on the last day of the season, on account of three of my league neighbours bottling it in their final match. That’s what dreams are made of. I always play FM by investing heavily in my scouting network early on, signing promising young players with good personalities and mental attributes, which is healthier for my wage budget and is a good income stream in the medium term as you offload players that aren’t quite right for five times what you paid for them.
  With my friends, I have two campaigns of Baldur’s Gate 3 on the go. If we’re not in an RPG mood, we go for either Overwatch 2, Terraria, Satisfactory, or Endless Space 2.

📺 Watching

• Shogun. I’m notoriously bad at keeping track of political machinations and subplots, but even if some of it goes over my head it’s very well executed, and of course, stunningly gorgeous.
• Reruns of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown to inspire wanderlust for some travelling my girlfriend and I are going on later this year. Times I’ve cried about the tragic loss of this beautiful, wonderful man: at least 3. 😭

📚 Reading

• Picked up the first book in Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle, The Name of the Wind not too long ago and was instantly hooked. Have finished that, the sequel The Wise Man’s Fear, and the first novella The Slow Regard of Silent Things. Next in my queue is the second novella, The Narrow Road Between Desires.
• Once that’s done, I look forward to Jasper Fforde’s Red Side Story, the sequel to the fiendishly clever Shades of Grey, set in a post-apocalyptic future where society’s classes were organised into stratas based on what colours of the colour spectrum you are able to see.