works of wanderlust

japanese, part five

I’m Duolingo’d out.

I have long had an affection for the idea of this app. I was one of their early users, I cranked through the French lessons for well over a year-long streak back when I was commuting to work downtown on the train and would sit in a little bench seat and churn through verb conjugations and vocabulary lessons.

And then I stopped using it for a while. I burnt out a bit, and… well… that was that. Reflecting on why I stopped back then the reasons were pretty similar to how I’ve been feeling this past month or two.

See, last March, almost exactly a year ago I was enrolled in a University program for professional upgrading and I was able to get the student discount for a subscription to Duolingo again. I had been dabbling on my own in learning the Japanese character sets, and we were planning an autumn trip so I figured it would be fun to maybe learn a few words. Duolingo to the rescue, right?

I churned away, cranked through levels, and the app kept telling me, I was making great progress, scoring 100% lessons, and boom: I am a Japanese ace, or something.

This morning I hit my 365 day streak. One year of daily Japanese lessons, some days more robust than others of course, but a solid effort on the app nonetheless.

Am I fluent?

Well, um… that’s the thing.

Duolingo gets a lot of hate online, and the last thing I want to do is pile on. It’s been a good toy. It’s a fun distraction. It definitely motivates. And… well, again. A year is no measure of fluency, but I really have very little confidence in my ability to do much with Japanese beyond the little bit that I learned taking actual in person lessons last fall from a native Japanese speaker. I don’t give the app much credit for progress. It was there, always nagging, but something about it wasn’t sticking.

So, I’m taking a break from it… again.

Learning a new language is complex, and I think if I were to sit in a room with one of the big brains working behind the scenes at Duolingo I would probably hear about a vision that combined complex conversational AI with an easy to use app and motivational pushes to help people learn. And I suppose if I was willing to dump heaps of money into that version and spend a solid thirty minutes a day conversing with a bot and, oh, overlook the shady staffing practices that people talk about online with respect to Duolingo’s corporate owners, yeah, maybe I would work closer to fluency.

But the core product, the affordable and reasonable product that I am willing to pay for, is very much a half baked game and I no longer think it is doing anything for me in terms of moving closer to fluency with any reasonable speed. And upgrading—considering the aforementioned shady business stuff and also that I’ve just spent a year mostly spinning my metaphorical tires in the duolingo mud means I’m pretty burned out on pushing forward with this approach to learning Japanese.

There are other ways. I have books. I have flashcards. I have access to media and the internet to scrape together something that can’t do any worse than what I’m doing now.

Sayonara, Duo.

March 17, 2026
weekender, five

I am certainly not entirely keeping pace with my weekender updates, but to be fair a lot of recent weekends have been us just hiding from the cold weather and watching movies or playing video games for long stretches. We’ve also spent a lot of time in the basement sorting and cleaning because the Kid has signalled an interest in moving into the downstairs bedroom but that requires a lot of reorganization, painting, and a list of other interconnected and downstream effects related to clearing out that room so she can move in. In other words, if you haven’t heard from us it’s probably because we are in the basement clearing it up.

But we did get out on a date night on Friday night. I had bought tix for Karin for Christmas to the symphony—experiences not more stuff, right?—and the show was a trio of former Broadway divas on tour and singing musical hits in accompaniment with our local orchestra. It was solid.

Saturday was busy, but not for me.

The ladies had their morning fitness routines and I chilled with the dog.

And then it was prep for the annual dance studio gala event. This is our first year technically not being dance parents, though, even though Karin still takes some adult fitness classes there. Problem is that she was president of the parents society last year, so that means she is still loosely tied in the handover of the complex jobs of both transition and making sure all the know-how of running this big event get passed along to the next generation. She was over at the hall all afternoon helping with setup, and then they both ditched me to attend the show and dinner, the Kid going along to watch some of her friends dance.

I stayed at home and ordered a pizza (for Pi Day!) and cracked a beer for myself as I hunkered down with the dog and pushed through a couple episodes of the show I’ve been watching (Fallout). And then I retreated into the basement to noodle on my music stuff until well past eleven when the gals stumbled home.

I have this old amplifier stereo system with some reasonably good shelf speakers that have been sitting in my office gathering dust. All of it is well over twenty-five years old, though it still works. I (a) have been thinking that it was broken because the volume dial on the amp is finicky and (b) its very much got some old connections that don’t sync up with anything modern like HDMI or bluetooth or USB. But then I got to thinking: my music stuff doesn’t have modern connections either: it leans into standard audio jacks and the like. I dug through my box of old cables (you know, the kind every self respecting guy has in a closet) and managed to string an audio connection over to where my synth and pedals are setup, found the remote control at the back of the shelf and dusted off the equipment. It was damn near magical, filling the whole room and half the house with rumbling bass and wah-wahs of electric synth.

The next morning I met a few of the crew for our Sunday run. Various excuses—a fun run race, mostly—meant our little group was just three strong, but we logged ten klicks and even made it down into the snowy trails for a part of it.

Later that afternoon I was back down in the basement with my audio stuff out again, and had not only played for a solid hour or so with the synth but then realized that I also had the connections to hook up my iPhone to the audio cables. I put on some Pink Floyd and turned down the lights and just chilled. It was a vibe.

Of course, the Kid turned on the Oscars after dinner. I can’t say I ever care much to watch, usually because—as with this year—I haven’t seen many or any of the films yet. But we watched the whole damn thing, me mostly explaining the little nuggets that I understood about the voting process and the seat fillers and also trying to look up everything on our phones when we were like who-is-that and what-was-she-in-again?

If the weather reports are to be believed, the temperatures are about to do a one-eighty sometime today and perhaps even usher in a spring thaw. So, maybe next weekend—fingers crossed—I’ll get outside a bit more.

March 16, 2026
book reviews: simple sci fi

All my great intentions for reading in 2026 have manifested in the way of man whose eyes are too big for his stomach. In my case, my reading appetite has bitten off a few large portions and I find myself already well into March and not having completed much of anything. It is not for lack of reading, but rather some lack of focus and what focus there is landing on some very large books. I am currently reading four very different novels, each of them massive tomes of fiction, and not one of them particularly close to being completed.

Among them are the following and I might leave you to guess the titles:

A far-future science fantasy novel spiritually-adjacent story themed around the philosophical coming of age its protagonist.

A very popular apocalyptic horror novel by a very well known author dealing with a government created disease outbreak.

A fourth part of a techno science fiction epic tangled up in poetry and science and artificial intelligence and religion.

A work of historical fiction threaded through ancient Japan about a pirate and a clash of culture and romantic adventure all around.

None of them are less than a thousand pages long.

Back on January first—it is the thirteenth of March as I write this—I hunkered in the post new years glow and finished off my first book of the year (my recap written later that day follows below) and figured I was off to a good start to fill my blog with interesting book reviews.

How did that hold up? Um. I’m pressing out a pair of reviews in this post to make up the gap. Figure that out.

Either way, enjoy, I read:

Flybot, Dennis E. Taylor with Ray Porter

Long before I was logging books here, I had long since finished listening to all the Bob-iverse novels by Taylor and narrated by Porter, so when I saw this audible exclusive pop up in my recommended titles I knew two things: (a) the algorithm knew me and (b) I was almost certainly going to listen to it. Taking a break from all the heavy, thick novels I’ve been reading—and needing an excuse to make use of my new airpods (jeeze, this starting to sound like a damn sponsored post—it’s not) I sunk into this little murder mystery science fiction story. Taylor has jumped deep into the genre of nerdy-guys-write-clever-fiction in the style of The Martian or Dungeon Crawler Carl—guy lit, where nerdy men dig into the jargon of science or geekdom while making pop culture references so thick that you sometimes get lost googling the reference just to make sure you are up to speed on all the cleverness. I fall for it every time, of course, and love these books the same way my wife tucks into Austen or Agatha or Bridgerton. Flybot tells the story of the world about thirty years anon where hardware and software are highly regulated to prevent a rogue AI from destroying the world—which is darn near just about what happens, tangling up a pair of wisecracking scientists in a terrorist plot involving their work, the computer cops and somehow linked to some missing AI hardware. Like all of Taylor’s books it is something of a beach read—or in my case, a trudging through the snow while walking the dog read—and you are only meant to get some light entertainment out of the fun story, not some deep philosophical insight or momentous understanding of the weight of the world (a definite feature of all the other heavy stuff I’ve been reading lately). Porter is on my shortlist of favourite narrators, to the point where I pretty much narrow my search to see what else he has read and listen to that. (I noted this before, but if you haven’t listened to Project Hail Mary, close this blog and go download it now. Maybe Flybot, too, but first PHM.) It is a match of geeky proportions. And I love it all and will buy every damn audiobook these two create.

Artificial Condition – The Murderbot Diaries (Book 2), Martha Wells

Well, crap. I was doing oh so well logging all my fresh reads in 2025 and then, let’s see. I think it was a cross between laziness and traveling and then generally all the way back thru December, which was mostly just a different kind of laziness. Anyhow. Didn’t log a bunch of reads after, I think, about September. So. Whatever. Onward and upward, right? I was determined to start this new year off a little more focused (aren’t we always, tho?) and both (a) read a lot more and (b) keep better track of what I am reading. To that end, I kicked off a lazy, snowy January first by completing a whole damn novel. (Well, ok, a novella. It was a mere one hundred and twenty one pages long.) Artificial Condition is the sequel (and second in what turns out to be a substantially long list of titles) to the Murderbot Diaries, a clever and quirky science fiction series from the last ten years or so. After reading book one back in October we went on vacation and then I came back and watched the Apple TV adaptation of that first book which somehow caught quite a lot of the magic and vibe of the book and I found myself actually quite enjoying it. The eponymous Murderbot is the protagonist of the stories, a rogue human-form Security Unit who has a shady backstory and has been sneakily avoiding getting caught with his hacked control module (which unhacked would otherwise compel him to obey humans) but who spends the bulk of his time just trying not to be forced to have awkward conversations with humans preferring instead to watch (what is implied to be) mediocre soap opera space dramas that he downloads off “the feed.” Humans, from his perspective, are always making dumb decisions that are about to get them killed. Fortunately Murderbot is there to step in and slow down some of their progress: is he deep down a nice guy or just a bot who hates the distraction of it all? I bought the whole set as a Humble Bundle of ebooks mid-last year, so I guess I’ll have lots more evidence to figure that out.

March 13, 2026
keyboard life, three

Barely a few hours later and you are getting a second keyboard post today.

It seems as though my life is revolving around input devices on this quiet winter Thursday.

Sigh.

Why is that?

Two reasons, one a tangent I didn’t include in the last post but which I thought was worth writing about and two, an update to my comment at the end of my last post.

I’ll start with the update: I spent an hour cleaning my keyboard after I got home from my cafe excursion and felt a little icky about having shared that gruesome picture of my filthy keyboard:

The reality of most off the shelf keyboards is that you just deal with the grime. Sure, you wipe them down or blow them out on occasion, but in general you are kinda stuck with the fact that daily use leads to dirty keys.

When I bought this Nuphy Halo it was in the feature list that it could be easily disassembled for cleaning—which for the first while after you get it is the last thing on your mind. But then time passes and one day for no good reason you take a close up pic of the grime and you remember that, hey, I have a tool to take it all apart and make it less dirty.

That’s exactly what I did.

I pried off all the keys and arrayed them out in order on the table.

I got a bowl of soapy water.

I washed and dried each key.

And I used an air blower to clean out the dust and crumbs and hairs that had accumulated on the board underneath the keys (since I had all the keys off anyways.)

And then I reassembled the whole thing and left it out to completely bone dry before I powered it on again—and started typing this.

So my keyboard is now epically clean, and almost feeling back to brand new fresh, and one of my items is checked off my list.

But as I was doing this I was reminded of another keyboard that I bought a few weeks ago. That’s right—but it’s not quite what you are thinking.

I bought a MIDI controller.

…which is a keyboard in the same sense that my writing keyboard is a keyboard but rather than keys denoting the alphabet and numbers and the like, the MIDI controller has 25 white and black piano-style keys.

A MIDI controller is not a piano. It no more has the capacity to independently make music than does the keyboard I’m writing this on have the ability to act as a word-processor: in other words, none. Both of them need to be connected to a computer to work their magic. This keyboard connects and sends ASCII signals to denote typing and characters to appear on the screen. The MIDI controller sends, well, MIDI signals which denote music notes, the pressure pressed upon the key and the duration that I pressed it.

The MIDI controller lets me play music on my laptop using a piece of software that acts like a digital synthesizer, an effort I am trying to improve upon by practicing piano multiple times per week, independently.

It’s simple and about the smallest mid-level quality controller I could buy, but for now it’s about all I need.

So…

I cleaned one keyboard today and did a bunch of typing, then I plugged in the other keyboard and played some scales, chords and musical exercises.

And now…

I’m tapping away on this keyboard again to make a note about this crazy hardware peripheral existence which I seem to live… which may sound utterly dull to you, but is very much a creative outlet for me, and damn near pretty much the only thing keeping me sane in this crazy world lately.

That’s life. A keyboard life.

March 12, 2026
keyboard life, two

Along with the hundreds of thousands of aging finger prints atop the keys, I’ve let a bit of dust accumulate on my keyboard lately.

It was not for lack of writing. Mostly.

See. Late last year I found myself in need of a new computer. It was a mostly obvious choice. I’ve largely ditched Windows and was flipping between the family MacBook Air and an Ubuntu Linux install on my desktop for when I needed to do real work. It is a testament to the bloat in Microsoft products these days that Windows 11 barely runs on my desktop, chugging along and jittering and freezing despite my efforts in maintenance, while Ubuntu sings and dances on the exact same machine. I have it dual boot, still, because the Kid has games on the Windows boot side and… well, yeah.

Long story short, I found myself buying a new MacBook Pro in late 2025 for use as work machine: doing contract coding, graphic design, and any writing that I needed to do. It’s a little more than four months old now, and it has settled in as my primary computer which I use for all my serious stuff.

…but man, am I struggling to write on that thing.

Part of me blames the fact that on a full computer I have a hundred distractions. Notifications are forever popping up. The web and youtube are barely a click away. It’s too easy to flip and flop between apps and tasks and distraction after distraction after distraction.

Another part of me blames the keyboard. It’s far from a bad keyboard, but it is just a typical chiclet keyboard with no real character. It’s good, good enough and kinda boring.

Until the laptop my primary writing setup for over two years has been an aging iPad with Scrivener and a keyboard. And a little over a year ago, readers might recall, I got a really good keyboard: a Nuphy Halo mechanical keyboard with backlit keys. It weighs three times as much as the iPad, is alive with color and character, and is tactile as heck. It is my baby, dusty as beats all right now, but the tool of my inspiration and more.

It connects to the laptop, yeah, but it then the laptop is an extra thirty centimetres further from me and there is not always enough space at a cafe where I often write to accommodate. (I’m writing this on the Nuphy and the iPad in such a cafe and it just fits on the window ledge table.) Also, carrying around everything just in case defeats the purpose.

In short, I’ve been trying to write on the laptop and being met with middling success.

So in the last day or so I’ve come to a couple conclusions.

First, I need to use my pared down, simple iPad setup to do my creative writing more. I need to ditch the pretension of a fancy laptop and embrace the writing machine as The Way.

Second, I realize that all this might be leading into a bigger evaluation of my writing self, and a shake up of my daily routine, and generally auditioning a couple new places and times to get work done.

And third, I should probably clean my keyboard.

March 12, 2026

about

Welcome. I’m one of those weirdos who still writes a personal blog. In fact, I’ve been writing meandering drivel online for decades, and here you’ll find all my recent posts on writing, technology, art, food, adventure, running, travel, and overthinking just about anything and everything …since early 2021.

I write regularly from here in the Canadian Prairies about just about anything that interest me. Enjoy!

There are currently 448,385 words in 588 posts.

other sites

A Blog From Nowhere

8r4d Consulting Ltd.

Plecks Mart Game Blog

collections

archives

topics

tags