I may have spent some bucks on a new toy this week. I’ve been feeling a little restricted by the small keybed on my #synth etc and so I kinda sorta maybe sprung for some extra keyboard real estate. Nothing fancy, but probably don’t come looking for me for a few days.

Amateur Appeal  <p>I recently wrote a piece on this <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="&lt;div class=glossaryItemTitle&gt;blog&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=glossaryItemBody&gt;&amp;lt;!-- wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;I am old. And I started posting formatted words and photos online before the word blog had entered the common lexicon. Most people work in the medium of social platforms these days, but being both a product of my time and a stickler for content ownership and control, I still lean into and promote the idea that the blog (a content managed general purpose personal website) is the beating heart of the internet I once knew and loved.&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;!-- /wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;" href="https://8clicks.8r4d.com/glossary/blog/" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>blog</a> about breaking from the conformity of rules when we create, suggesting in my two-hundred word blog-conforming limit that stepping outside of the guardrails presented by this idea of your art needing to be so-called &ldquo;commercial viable&rdquo; might be a means to escape from a constraint imposed on [&hellip;]</p>

Amateur Appeal 

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/03/amateur-appeal/

Ever Greened <p>April 2026, this month, marks the twenty-fifth year of my blogging adventures. A quarter of a century has been spent by me posting whimsical insights and routine thoughts into the internet for strangers&mdash;perhaps just like you&mdash;to read and ponder. To be fair, I&rsquo;ve long since archived most of the things I wrote over the years. [&hellip;]</p>

Ever Greened

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/04/ever-greened/

Cannibal Legalization I feel like I may need to explain this one a bit. In 2018 the Canadian government legalized cannabis for private use. It was in the news constantly and then when the law went live there was a couple weeks there when it seemed like every other person was dabbling. To each their own, but [&hellip;]

Thanks for checking out some of my old #webcomic series. I spent a lot of time making these a few years back.

Here's another one from my revived archives...
Cannibal Legalization - https://piday.8r4d.com/cannibal-legalization/

Thanks for checking out some of my old #webcomic series. I spent a lot of time making these a few years back.

Here's another one from my revived archives...
Miss-placed Congeniality - https://piday.8r4d.com/miss-placed-congeniality/

Amateur Appeal  <p>I recently wrote a piece on this <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="&lt;div class=glossaryItemTitle&gt;blog&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=glossaryItemBody&gt;&amp;lt;!-- wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;I am old. And I started posting formatted words and photos online before the word blog had entered the common lexicon. Most people work in the medium of social platforms these days, but being both a product of my time and a stickler for content ownership and control, I still lean into and promote the idea that the blog (a content managed general purpose personal website) is the beating heart of the internet I once knew and loved.&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;!-- /wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;" href="https://8clicks.8r4d.com/glossary/blog/" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>blog</a> about breaking from the conformity of rules when we create, suggesting in my two-hundred word blog-conforming limit that stepping outside of the guardrails presented by this idea of your art needing to be so-called &ldquo;commercial viable&rdquo; might be a means to escape from a constraint imposed on [&hellip;]</p>

Amateur Appeal 

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/03/amateur-appeal/

Podcast Guy <p>I need to inform you that by the time you read this I will be a podcast guy. Ugh. One of those, huh? My excuse is such: in early February I embraced a few big ideas that manifested as a spoken audio project, which very much looks and acts like a podcast at the moment. [&hellip;]</p>

Podcast Guy

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/03/podcast-guy/

I haven’t written much about my #gamedev efforts recently because I was doing some “real” work, but I’ve been coding again this week and have rebuilt the graphics approach and migrated a bit of the code into a 3d environment.

Costume Party <p>Does everyone need to <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="&lt;div class=glossaryItemTitle&gt;brand&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=glossaryItemBody&gt;&amp;lt;!-- wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;Even seasoned advertising and marketing folks sometimes struggle to pin this definition to the ground, but in essence it implies more than a logo or a tag line. A brand is the entirety of how one is perceived by the public, and it can be inclusive of, yes, logos, colours and names, but also values, vibe, and style. Corporate brands are common, but personal brands are an idea that has gained particular prominence in the internet era when people put on a public persona that represents their effort to influence others or promote their ideas, politics, or work.&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;!-- /wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;" href="https://8clicks.8r4d.com/glossary/brand/" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>brand</a> themselves?&nbsp; A personal brand goes well beyond a clever URL and a logo made up of your initials.&nbsp; In an online world we are presented with this ideas of an avatar, a kind of costume that we don when we share our work, our thoughts, or our best selves in [&hellip;]</p>

Costume Party

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/03/costume-party/

Running chilly hills in #yeg another snowy evening…

Unfrozen Fools <p>It is the first day of April and, no fooling, the start of the fourth month of this <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="&lt;div class=glossaryItemTitle&gt;blog&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=glossaryItemBody&gt;&amp;lt;!-- wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;I am old. And I started posting formatted words and photos online before the word blog had entered the common lexicon. Most people work in the medium of social platforms these days, but being both a product of my time and a stickler for content ownership and control, I still lean into and promote the idea that the blog (a content managed general purpose personal website) is the beating heart of the internet I once knew and loved.&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;!-- /wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;" href="https://8clicks.8r4d.com/glossary/blog/" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>blog</a>. When I started this blog I came up with clever names for each of the months and I called this one Artsy April, because as the snow around my home finally melts and the world thaws [&hellip;]</p>

Unfrozen Fools

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/04/unfrozen-fools/

Dear Amazon. Sure I’ll review that product I bought for free… but then my services will be $9.99 per month or $19.99 per month without ads. But you can cancel at any time.

Thawed Inspiration <p>Spring is nigh. And I don&rsquo;t know what the world looks like where you live, but where I spend my days <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="&lt;div class=glossaryItemTitle&gt;winter&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=glossaryItemBody&gt;&amp;lt;!-- wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;Where I come from this season isn&amp;#039;t just a metaphor for something, nor is it an abstraction linked to a romantic holiday snowfall. Rather it is a deep months-long freeze that restricts travel and keeps us hiding in our homes for nearly half the year. Many of us embrace it, but the reality is that cold is cold is cold and it is limiting as much as it inspires.&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;!-- /wp:paragraph --&amp;gt;&lt;/div&gt;" href="https://8clicks.8r4d.com/glossary/winter/" data-gt-translate-attributes='[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]' tabindex='0' role='link'>winter</a> is a bleak, snowy realm that hides the world under a chill blanket whence we await spring and the warmth and the inevitable thaw that comes, too. With thaw comes melt, plentiful puddles, [&hellip;]</p>

Thawed Inspiration

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/03/thawed-inspiration/

My short photo expedition thru Whitemud Creek…

Raced Out Late in my drawing journey I experimented with different formats, like the three panel full colour comic strip. I had been leaning keeping the smaller strips as black and white, but dabbled in adding more depth as the comic matured. For as much as I tried to be a good dad, I was selfish about [&hellip;]

Thanks for checking out some of my old #webcomic series. I spent a lot of time making these a few years back.

Here's another one from my revived archives...
Raced Out - https://piday.8r4d.com/raced-out/

I started rewatching Westworld.

AI was a science fiction trope ten years ago, but the writers of that show knew darn well that when we create cool things we usually just end up using them to hurt each other.

The Kid started her new job yesterday and then crashed on the couch at home later. "Dad, I'm gonna be so tired from this."

Yes. Yes you are.

Working on: Wordpress Plugin
Drinking: Chamomile Tea
Listening: Deadmau5

Critical Commodity <p>Minding the gate are too many unworthy of the task. If you are a creative, and anything like me, you too often go online to see the unfiltered criticism of so many gatekeeping Shadowtrolls. Performative dismissal of the work of others has become something of a cottage industry online, an entire genre unto itself filled [&hellip;]</p>

Critical Commodity

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/03/critical-commodity/

It’s 2026 and I spent my morning repairing a vcr… for reasons.

Thawed Inspiration <p>Spring is nigh. And I don&rsquo;t know what the world looks like where you live, but where I spend my days winter is a bleak, snowy realm that hides the world under a chill blanket whence we await spring and the warmth and the inevitable thaw that comes, too. With thaw comes melt, plentiful puddles, [&hellip;]</p>

Thawed Inspiration

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/03/thawed-inspiration/

We went for a walk in the snow and the poor dog had to contend with me stopping to take snowy photos. She was not impressed.

a spring snowfall series.

Some spectacular city views out running this morning!

Loop and Loop <p>Perhaps if you have been reading along, sensing that something is building here in my labs and behind the scenes, you will be wondering wherein all this creative energy is distilling. I am far from a breakthrough, but after two full evenings of creative musical play following the so-called completion of my musical set up, [&hellip;]</p>

Loop and Loop

https://8clicks.8r4d.com/2026/01/loop-and-loop/

Fair. My expectations are modest. I got one with a kind of reverse string config, the turners all metal and down where the fine tuners would normally be. maybe one less point of failure. And yeah, the bow will likely be a backup for my backup.

so much potential. I was just playing i have a dream by abba with a shimmer reverb and it was haunting

That’s to say I now have a 3d printed violin body without the important bits to put in it.

Some of you have been following and reading the weekday blog i’ve been posting links to here. Cool. And thanks!

I took the next step this weekend of organizing myself a little better and coming up with essentially a toc for a book on these topics, so i’m going to write against the toc as posts.

The plan here was that since I’ve been (a) playing the violin for 10 years now and (b) have been acquiring a small collection of guitar pedals to run my synth thru, the next obvious step was run a violin thru the pedals.

But i was not keen on not defacing my 98 year old violin with a piezo mic so…