My week of Monday 15 to Sunday 21 December 2025 was exhausting. I think I started it with a slight throat infection. Oh well, at least pushed out a podcast and planned a bunch of things. And one of the local king parrots kept me company.
Podcasts
- The 9pm Slop Bowl of Discourse with Snarky Platypus, recorded last Saturday and posted this Thursday night. Yes, it’s mostly about food. We have opinions.
- It has become clear that podcast hosting provider PodcastDb is gone, so I can’t upload any new episodes of Another Untitled Music Podcast until I’ve found a new one. My target is to sort that out before the new year, but if I’m lucky it’ll happen sooner. As I’ve explained before, I need to limit listenership to Australia and New Zealand because music licensing. Thank you for your patience.
The 9pm Edict and Another Untitled Music Podcast are supported by the generosity of you, their listeners. Please consider supporting them. You can to throw a few coins into the tip jar directly or subscribe for special benefits. There’s also some specific benefits for supporting AUMP.
Articles
- The Weekly Cybers #98. Bondi Beach mass shooting prompts new speech restrictions, X wins appeal against video takedowns, ASIS lifts its skirts, and much more. This is the final The Weekly Cybers for 2025. The first edition for 2026 will be on 23 January, unless something truly remarkable happens.
You can read my previous writing at Authory, where you can also subscribe to an email compilation of any new stories each Sunday morning.
Videos, Media Appearances
- My photo of Centrepoint Arcade in Orange was used for a listicle, 9 Prettiest Small Towns In New South Wales. The population of Orange is about 44,000, so is it really a “small town”? Perhaps by American standards.
Photos, Corporate Largesse
None of these. You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to be notified when new videos appear and when livestreams are scheduled.
Some Interesting Links
Yes, here’s the big burst of links that I’ve been trying to get around to.
- You may have noticed that lately I have been posting music by Korean collective Balming Tiger. One of the members, Mudd the student, has just done an album, LAGEON. Nostalgia-vibed videos for each track — here’s the full playlist — and just now a harder livestream of the whole thing. I note that his normally jet-black hair is not so black. I also contrast the vibe of this performance, with the vibe of the videos, and the vibe of his 2021 fashion shoot for Dazed Korea, where he frocked up rather well.
- Apparently humans have magnetoreception, which means we can perceive the Earth’s magnetic field.
- From Aeon, “The discovery of organisms that have been alive for many thousands of years requires a revolution in how we understand life“. Author Bruce Sterling reckons “They’re not ‘waiting to return to the surface’, they’re waiting for the planet to be blasted into pebbles to that they can reach another star-system #panspermia #intraterrestrials #aeonophiles.”.
- With the Thai general election schedule for 8 February 2026, you might want to follow Ken Lohatepanont.
- Oh yeah, Panspermia, Baby!
- For various reasons I stumbled across something that I wrote for ABC News some 15 years ago: Is it time to close your Facebook account?
- Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): an incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy.
- From Dan Toomey, Can money buy happiness?
- And from Minnesota, two wise young men. Watch all the way through for the punchline.
The Week Ahead
On Monday I’ll record a solo episode of The 9pm Edict podcast to kick off the summer series — although it won’t count toward the seven episodes that have been funded.
On Tuesday I’m heading to Sydney for a couple of routine medical appointments and a haircut, among other things. I’ll also be recording the very first personalised video message that someone has bought via one of my crowdfunders. Whether this becomes public will be up to them.
Wednesday is Christmas Eve. I’ll be heading back down to Sydney in the morning for a stay through to around 4 January. Some of this time will involved being hissed at by a cat, but most not.
At this stage I’m planning to have a quiet Christmas Day on Thursday, and a quiet Boxing Day on Friday.
On Saturday I’m catching the train up to Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury River for lunch and drinks and a look at the estuary with a co-conspirator. Yes, that one.
I’ve pencilled in a recording of Another Untitled Music Podcast for Sunday, because I hope to have sorted out the hosting by then. Snarky Platypus and I will also record a couple of Sunday Single episodes for posting in the first half of January.
Further Ahead
- The 9pm Edict recording with Snarky Platypus, 29 December 2025, in which we’ll review our bingo card for 2025. This episode will be posted on New Year’s Eve, and our 2026 bingo card will be posted the following day.
[Photo: A male Australian king parrot (Alisterus scapularis) insists on being fed separately on 18 December 2025 He’s a wild bird, but he and his mate have known me for a few years. And now their son visits too.]