Short notes

I was longing for rain all summer, but now that it’s here, I’m not that keen, tbh ☔️

I saw the phrase “September is the real new year” somewhere and realised that’s genuinely how I feel.

September is when things really restart. It’s time to refocus after the summer, get back into the habits that have been slipping, or start new ones. And you get to wear your sweaters again!

In comparison, 1 Jan is just a random day in the middle of winter.

So, Happy New Year! 🎉

The next Apple event is on Wednesday and I will be watching, as always, even if I found them much more enjoyable when they were live, rather than just a 1-hour polished commercial.

This time, though, I’m not so much looking at what they are releasing as what they are not. I’m looking to buy an iPad very soon (the basic one), and am just waiting for the event to pass to make sure they don’t release a new one the day after I buy mine.

This blog now has a search page 🔎

It’s a new month, so I have updated my now page.

The husband said he won’t eat sugar in September, and having put on a bit of weight lately, I decided to join him.

That means last night was the last ice cream in a while 😬

Wake me up when September ends.

For mortgage reasons, I’ve had to return to my old bank after many years with newer banks, and I’d forgotten quite how crap they are.

How can banks still be incapable of paying standing orders on the weekend or, as in the case of today, on a bank holiday? 💩

As I hinted when I posted the throwback photo the other day, I am a bit tempted to get a non-phone camera again 📷

I tell myself it would make perfect sense, since I could go for the standard iPhone next time if I no longer need the Pro for the best camera. But honestly, it’s probably more about the feeling of having a camera 😅 That, and avoiding some of the phone’s automatic photo processing.

After using DuckDuckGo for a while, I’ve decided to take Kagi for a spin instead.

As opposed to DuckDuckGo, Kagi is completely free from ads, and there’s no AI summary unless you ask for it. If it works, I’ll happily pay the $5/month they charge.

Georg Baselitz at White Cube Gallery

I thought I was nostalgic for ZX81 graphics but looking into it, they were even more simplistic than I remembered. This may not have been when computers peaked, after all.

I’ve been finding Grammarly extremely useful for keeping an eye on my grammar when I write. However, once my half-price offer ended, it’s just way too expensive for what it is.

For that reason, I’m now trying LanguageTool instead. I’ll let you know how it goes.

London Graphic Centre suddenly have a lot of Japanese stationery in store, including my favourite sticky dots from Stalogy.

It was hard not to buy anything, but I had to stay strong as I’ll be going to Tokyo in the autumn.

🔜 🇯🇵

One downside of having my life packed in boxes at the moment is straining my back from moving the boxes around to get something out! 😖

One sad thing about the state of the internet in 2026 is how SEO means that it’s genuinely rare to find anything useful on the first page of search results when googling a problem 🤬

If anyone launches a search engine that punishes so-called good SEO practices, I’ll be the first in line to sign up for the waiting list!

It’s good fun updating the script that generates my blog pages, adding or changing features. It’s fair to say I spend a lot more time doing that than creating the content! 😅

Note to Google: I, the owner of this blog called “MXGNS”, am not an artist and music producer. I am a UK-based guy who blogs. More than one person can have the same name. Plus, as far as I know, I used the name MXGNS before they did.

🙃

Notion — The AI workspace that works for you

Miro — AI Innovation Workspace

Slack — AI Work Platform & Productivity Tools

Why does it feel as if every single company has lost track of why we use their products in the first place?

🤮

My biggest frustration with how AI is eating the world is perhaps the hijacking of the sparkle emoji.

✨ used to mean a bit of sparkle. Now it means literally the opposite.

My holiday is over and it’s time to get back to work! 💪🏻

When you’ve finished work for the week, but it’s so hot outside that you stay in the office eating ice cream instead of heading out ☀️🥵

Our next flat is progressing very slowly, but today has an important gate to pass, so fingers crossed 🤞

The fact that we have 24 moving boxes we haven’t unpacked yet suggests that even in the tiny flat we had before, we had a lot more stuff than necessary!

Saturday night means pick & mix sweets 😋

On the radio, they said the best part of a world cup is just before a single ball has been kicked and anything is still possible. Hopefully including Belgium winning, as I got them in the office sweepstake!

🇧🇪⚽️🏆🥇

It’s amusing/annoying how the Apple devices at home respond whenever anyone says “Hey Siri” in the video stream during the WWDC keynote.

Aside from that, I’d say it was a bit of a yawn this year 😴

I just realised I’ve moved to a different hemisphere! I’ve gone all the way from 0.05° W to 0.001° E, about 60 metres across the Prime Meridian!

I’d forgotten quite how old old-style banks are. A standing order can’t go out on the weekend? Does a clerk need to print it out, take it to the accounts department, and hand it to another clerk? 🤨

Why are the doors inside UK flats self-closing, so you need to bend down and remove a doorstop whenever you actually want to close the door? 🤔

Note to self: Remember to go to the new flat, not the old one, after work tonight.