Hello and welcome back. This is Issue 11 of “a bit of bird words” and I have a confession for you.

You see, I didn’t really finish all that much in June. And it got me pondering about these goals, these numbers that I aim to reach yearly, and I’ve decided for now that I’m over them.

So what does that mean for this newsletter? Mostly it just means I’m going to talk about other stuff, but I’ll still talk about things I’m playing and reading, when relevant.

If you liked the old format, let me know. Or let me know if you like the new one! Or, you know, we can just chat. That’s fine too.

What did I do this month?

Probably the biggest “online” thing I did was migrate my blog off of Obsidian Publish and onto Bear. I wasn’t really getting any benefit from the easy publishing Obsidian offers, and the styling for Bear was much easier; the result looks a lot more like my main site, which I like! The only thing missing is the JavaScript stars (but only for now).

I wrapped up The Art of Haiku at the end of the month and had a lovely time exploring the history of Japanese poetry. There’s a lot more than just haiku, and there are many more incredible poets out there. Reading this book inspired me to write a bunch more haiku of my own!

I’m inching toward the end of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. I feel like this one is a bit less focused in its story than the first game, but it’s still enjoyable. The puzzles, as usual, are generally good, but there’s always a couple stinkers in the mix (for my personal puzzle tastes anyway). There’s also just SO, so many little mini-games.

Also in games, I tried out the very beginning of vivid/stasis, an intriguing rhythm game, and we finished Mario’s Picross at the very beginning of the month.

A long time ago, I tried to teach myself how to play acoustic guitar. I didn’t get terribly far before stopping, so now I’m effectively learning again from scratch. So far it’s going pretty well! I only know three chords and that’s all you need! (Probably!)

What else?

Honestly it’s kind of been another tough month. I think the highlight might be helping one of our neighbors catch their escaped cat; I don’t imagine the cat will ever forgive me for trying to catch him, but at least his owner is very nice!

Oh, we’ve also been watching tons of Dropout.tv shows. Just an absolute mountain of comedy. Even on the worst days, an episode of Game Changer or Make Some Noise or Dirty Laundry can make me smile.

I don’t really see the months getting easier going forward, but I am just crossing my fingers and hoping everything remains stable long enough for me to keep my residency.

My recommendation this month is to check out Dropout if you haven’t, and if you’re in an area currently suffering from extreme heat, learn the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. It’s probably something we’ll all need to know, and much sooner than we’d like.