Posts

Rad Dolphin in the Loft: My First Gaming Memory Alright, let’s set the scene. It’s around 1986’ish. I’m five or six years old. And like every curious cave-kid, I stumble across something mysterious stashed away in the loft. No, not a fossilized mammoth tusk, even better… a video game console. In my little walnut brain at the time, I was convinced this incredible machine was called the Rad Dolphin. I mean, come on, tell me that doesn’t sound like the most awesome, gnarly sea beast ever? Sadly, grown-up me eventually discovered the real name was the Radofin Tele-Sport IV. So close, yet tragically off by one syllable and a full mental image of a flippered friend. ...

From .png to .webp without breaking a sweat (or my site) So here’s the scoop: I’ve been quietly at war with the bloat of modern websites. Too many blogs these days are 98% auto-playing videos, 1.5% cookie banners, and 0.5% actual content. Not on my prehistoric patch of the internet. I recently went full caveman-dev-mode and implemented jsDelivr into my blog. Why? Because Cloudflare Pages-where my blog currently lives doesn’t give me a lot of storage space. But GitHub, on the other hand, is practically throwing storage at me. Combine that with jsDelivr’s ability to serve content from GitHub at lightning speed? We’ve got ourselves a recipe for streamlined, modern cave-blogging. ...

From 10p Triumphs to Blanka Brawls and Broken Dreams Warning: This blog post may contain nostalgia, grief over fruit machine tokens, and at least one reference to Street Fighter. You’ve been warned. My Earliest Arcade Memories: 10p at a Time Before I had a mortgage, responsibilities, or any understanding of how gravity works - I had Pac-Man. And an older brother who gleefully fed my addiction to glowing cabinets full of pixelated doom. ...

How I installed a comment system on my Hugo blog without losing my mind (entirely) So, there I was. Minding my own business, tending to my third (yes, third) iteration of this blog like a proud digital caveman, when my mate from work, Tony - says: “Hey, you should add a comment system.” Cue the dramatic music. Cue the mild panic. Cue me staring at my Hugo build like it’s a ticking time bomb with no labels. ...

Spoiler: Harder Than I Thought - Thanks, Hugo! It all started with a gentle idea, maybe I’ll start a blog. Well, sort of. You’re reading it now, so clearly something worked. But oh boy… let’s not pretend this was smooth sailing. Just a little place to write. Maybe share some stories. Possibly wax nostalgic about arcades and terrible 90s tech. A personal outlet. How hard could that be? Well… cue three full site rebuilds, minor meltdowns, Git acrobatics, and a Markdown moments that very nearly ended me. ...

Maybe it’s a cliché, but… I earned it. Well hello there! Yes, I know. “Hello World” is the ultimate cliché when it comes to kicking off a blog, a new dev project, or basically anything remotely nerdy. But hear me out… this one earned its place. This “Hello World” isn’t just a string, it’s a battle cry. A victory lap. A caffeine-fueled scream into the void of YAML errors and failed Git commits. ...