Life - fLaMEd fury Tastes of life. Family outings, travel, and cracking cold ones. 2026-08-05T00:00:00Z https://flamedfury.com/categories/life/ fLaMEd hello@flamedfury.com Winter is here 2026-08-05T11:32:36Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/winter-is-here/ What I've been up to in July. What’s going on, Internet? Winter is here, properly here, and July was mostly about staying warm and keeping the kids entertained through the school holidays.

From the last update we got back from Waiheke in the middle of the kids school holidays. The next holiday outing was Dinosaur Discovery at Auckland Zoo, back again this year with a batch of new dinosaurs on the loose. We did the track after dark, all the dinosaurs lit up against the night sky. The kids loved it.

I had the kids out with me one Saturday morning where we headed to Ellerslie to check out the Auckland Lego Users Group Lego show. The kids enjoyed walking around and checking out the displays. They then had a blast for forty minutes in the build your own room. My eldest now wants to show off his Lego at the next show, we’ll see. We then headed to Newmarket for a Gin Wigmore signing of her new album, Beautiful Mess.

I’ve had Rowdy (BLAOW!) stuck in my head thanks to Les Mills SPRINT. This is now one of the kids favourite tunes so is constantly on repeat during school drop offs.

I wrote a reply to Olly’s physical-digital music idea, buying digital music through your local record store. The book world already has this figured out.

My episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out. Episode 11, me and James chatting about the web, me waxing nostalgia. Go give it a listen.

Reading-wise I finished Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, and just as the month ticked over I wrapped up Whatever You Say I Am, Anthony Bozza’s Eminem book, and went straight into his follow-up, Not Afraid: The Evolution of Eminem. I’ve also got Empire of AI by Karen Hao on the go.

Five new arrivals on the record shelf. PRINS’s Heaven or Hell on clear glitter, Olivia Rodrigo’s Drop Dead single on chewing gum pink because apparently the Olivia situation from last update is ongoing, lol. Hilary Duff’s Luck … Or Something, the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack on sodalite splatter, and Gin Wigmore’s Beautiful Mess on the Bleeding Heart pressing.

Watching a lot of shows. I finished off Outer Banks season four not long after the last update went out. I knocked out all six episodes of Head Girl, a local drama, it gets pretty dark. Started Lucky and watching as they drop. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed was another that I picked up and almost finished. Plus the weekly episodes of House of the Dragon season three, X-Men '97 season two, and Power Book III: Raising Kanan season five. Kanan’s character is definitely onto his path of darkness where we saw him in the original Ghost series.

Lots of movies too, three of them at the theatre. Toy Story 5 with my eldest. I’m so glad I managed to convince him to watch this rather than the Minions movie again. I don’t think I could handle that. The Odyssey, enjoyed, and it didn’t feel like I sat there for three hours. And Spider-Man: Brand New Day, what a movie, damn. Loved it, it was so good.

At home, Bugonia which was a weird one. Finding Emily, which I loved. I Love Boosters, I don’t think I was in the right frame of mind for this one. Scary Movie, worst movie of the year? The Mandalorian and Grogu, I don’t care what people say, I love a Star Wars movie. The kids and I also watched Zootopia while over on Waiheke.

The bookmarks kept stacking up. I dumped my open tabs from July, and there’s plenty more on the bookmarks page.

Website wise it was quiet on the surface while the redesign work continues in the background. I joined The Paused Web(ring).

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]]> Dinosaur Discovery Returns 2026-07-15T08:00:00Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/dinosaur-discovery-returns/ Back to Auckland Zoo for this year's Dinosaur Discovery Track, with a batch of new dinosaurs on the loose. What’s going on, Internet? Last year we discovered the dinosaurs at Auckland Zoo, and this year we went back for round two. They’ve added some new dinosaurs to the track this year, so it was well worth the revisit.

We made the trip with my brother and his kids again, and this year my parents were up for the week so it was a great family night out. The kids are all a year older, we stayed out later and they had a great time. My youngest who is two years old now was a bit scared, but was able to put on a brave face walking around with daddy.

I expect many more visits to the dinosaurs during the day as we visit the zoo during the upcoming weekends. I might never ever get to the NZ birds section (I have been trying with each zoo visit, lol).

Enjoy the photos.

A long-necked sauropod with a ridged sail back stands bathed in deep blue light with hot red accents, roped off among ferns under a night sky.
1 / 18
A Pachycephalosaurus with a spiked dome head glows vivid green among ferns and bushes, its snout catching a wash of blue light.
2 / 18
An armoured Ankylosaurus lit red from the front and green along its spiked back, standing on bark mulch in front of a wooden picket fence.
3 / 18
A Styracosaurus with long frill spikes and a nose horn, painted in green and red light, standing beside a boulder amid glowing foliage.
4 / 18
Two towering long-necked sauropods against the night sky, one lit purple and blue, the other bright lime green, with mist drifting between them.
5 / 18
A large horned theropod stalks past a wall casting a dramatic shadow, lit warm orange with green underlight against the deep blue evening.
6 / 18
A pair of red-crested Dilophosaurus mid-stride among palms and grasses, the closest with its toothy jaw open and water dribbling from its mouth.
7 / 18
A striped tyrannosaur lit hot pink and red faces the camera through tussock grass, a blue-lit log pointing skyward behind it.
8 / 18
A Carnotaurus with horns above its eyes glows green in the mist beside a palm, mouth open in the darkness.
9 / 18
Two baby raptors peek out from a den of dried palm fronds and grasses, all bathed in warm amber light.
10 / 18
A baby tyrannosaur pokes its head from a thicket of ferns and palms saturated in magenta and purple light, with a second hatchling below and a skeleton model behind.
11 / 18
A huge T. rex in profile, its head and jaws lit fiery red while its body glows teal green, framed by dark trees and tussock.
12 / 18
A bright green striped theropod prowls past a glowing rock, surrounded by purple-lit mulch and grasses with a violet lamp shining at right.
13 / 18
An ostrich-like Gallimimus perched on blue and pink lit rocks, with mist, a red-lit marquee, and another dinosaur snout in the background.
14 / 18
A feathered raptor with winged arms and a shaggy coat, lit lime green and hot purple, mid-stride over grasses against dark trees.
15 / 18
A Parasaurolophus and its baby glow orange and pink inside a rope-fenced enclosure beneath overhanging branches.
16 / 18
A velociraptor drenched in red light rears between tree trunks, claws out, with a second raptor lunging at a tree behind, all against blue-lit foliage.
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Two raptors face off between tree trunks in intense red light, one snarling with claws raised, teal ferns and leaves cutting through the dark.
18 / 18

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]]> There And Back Again 2026-07-13T08:00:00Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/there-and-back-again/ What I've been up to over autumn and into winter. What’s going on, Internet? This was meant to be the April wrap-up. It’s now the middle of July, so let’s call it the autumn-into-winter wrap-up and pretend that was the plan all along, lol.

Autumn kicked off with Easter down in Martinborough and a batch of hot cross buns. I managed to get to three gigs in three months: MGK at Spark Arena, Split Enz at Spark Arena, and a solo night out for Home Brew performing Last Week at the Auckland Town Hall. I’m so happy I got to see Home Brew perform live, finally after all these years. Auckland has been really good for me being able to get out to gigs more frequently.

More recently, this month we escaped a rainy afternoon at Kelly Tarlton’s. The following weekend we headed south to Butterfly Creek and spent the afternoon there. My first time visiting and really enjoyed it. It’s part butterfly sanctuary, part farm, part zoo, part adventure playground, and part dinosaur kingdom, lol. There’s a lot going on. We spent around 30 minutes in the butterfly house while my son stood super still in an attempt to have a butterfly land on him. So cute, but didn’t work out for him this time.

Then finally the weekend just been we spent a long weekend on Waiheke for Matariki. We spent Friday on the beach, hot chocolate and fluffies at the beach cafe, late lunch at The HEKE, and a bus trip to Oneroa for ice cream. Saturday we spent the morning at the Ostend Markets, back to the beach, then back to the beach cafe for an early dinner and to watch the All Blacks Italy game.

When I last wrote about books, it was all about reading eBooks again. Since then I’ve got through nine books, with only A Darkness Returns being an eBook. Highlights of these books were The New Girl and Leave Before You Go by Emily Perkins, Platform Decay by Martha Wells and the return to James S. A. Corey’s new universe The Faith of Beasts.

I also read The Lean Startup, Blood Ties, Famesick, Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today but mostly didn’t finish these.

The record shelf did some damage this quarter, 20 new arrivals. June was basically an Olivia Rodrigo situation, and each gig sent me home with its record: MGK’s Lost Americana, True Colours after Split Enz, and Last Week on pink vinyl after the Home Brew show.

I guess the other thing with three months to cover is that I got through a lot of media. Highlights being Outer Banks. I wrote up seasons one and two and have since torn through season three and halfway through season four as I write this. Such a fun show. I realised as I started season three that this reminds me of the recent Tomb Raider games or the older Uncharted games which I loved playing.

The other big binge was Hacks, all five seasons, 47 episodes. I had an absolute blast with this show. It was sitting there waiting to be watched for literal years and I finally sat down and blasted through it.

Another standout was Tulsa King, got through the last two seasons quickly. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this show so much!

The Boys wrapped up with season five. I think I was satisfied with how it ended? Yeah, I think so. I also got through Fallout season two quickly, can’t wait for the next. And also wrapping up was Euphoria which messily wrapped up with season three. This season was kinda bat shit, not sure whether I enjoyed it or not, but happy I don’t have to think about it any more.

Keeping up with the weeklies and new seasons: House of the Dragon season three, X-Men '97 season two, and Power Book III: Raising Kanan season five. This season we’re really seeing Kanan turning into how we saw him in Ghost.

I’m also slowly working through Only Murders in the Building season five with my wife and in-laws when we are able to sit down together and watch an episode.

Eighteen movies since March. The highlights though. I caught Project Hail Mary at the theatre with my brother-in-law before it stopped showing. Finally caught up with The Fantastic 4: First Steps to make sure I’m up to speed with the road to Avengers: Doomsday. I was excited to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 as the first always had a special nostalgic place in my heart.

Anniversary was an unexpected sleeper, I was not expecting what this movie ended up being after watching the trailer.

Don’t Ever Stop, a fantastic documentary on Tony De Vit. This was especially good as a hardhouse fan and hearing legends of the scene talk about their interactions with Tony and memories of the origins of what became the hardhouse scene in the UK.

The Drama was an interesting one, and to be honest I thought the other woman’s secret she shared was way worse than Zendaya’s. Locking a kid in a fridge in the forest and not telling anyone is wild. Get out of here.

And the rest… Office Romance, Mile End Kicks, A Real Pain, Eenie Meanie, Carolina Caroline, Stone Cold Fox. I don’t think I watched any I didn’t like.

The bookmarks kept flowing while the blog was quiet. The best of them are already rounded up in the May and June link dumps, so I won’t repeat them here. Check out the bookmarks page for even more.

Around the web? I can’t remember if I shared this already, but I participated with issue 24 of the Ctrl-ZINE. Go give that a read! I also finally sat down with Manu to answer his People And Blogs questions. Manu has also hung up his hat since founding and running the series for the last few years and Zachary Kai has picked up the reins. You can find the archive here.

James has recently started a new podcast, Wonders of Web Weaving which is 9 episodes deep as of writing. Catch up on all of them if you haven’t already, and if you keep listening you might hear yours truely in a week or two 😉

Website wise, there’s plenty going on under the hood while I prepare for the 2027 redesign. Really looking forward to sharing this with you all soon. There’ve been a few improvements around the site, but you’ll see most of the changes when I roll out the new design.

I did sit down and refresh my 11ty and Neocities guide. I’m really pleased with all the great feedback I’ve received from this one, especially with all the people who have successfully managed to build a website using 11ty with it.

Sweeet, laters 🤙

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]]> Mānawatia a Matariki 2026-07-10T08:48:51Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/manawatia-a-matariki/ Happy Māori New Year! What’s going on, Internet? Mānawatia a Matariki, Happy Māori New Year! Today is a time for remembrance, celebrating the present, and looking to the future.

In Māori culture, Matariki is the Pleiades star cluster and a celebration of its first rising in late June or early July. The rising marks the beginning of the new year in the Māori lunar calendar. See Matariki.

I’ve spent the day on Waiheke, down on Onetangi with my amazing wife and family. We spent the morning on the beach. The early afternoon at The HEKE for a long lunch and then cuddled up with the kids watching Bluey this evening. I hope you’ve had a relaxing day too.

If you want to get into some great homegrown kiwi music, RNZ put on ‘Waiata 100: New Zealand’s most beloved homegrown songs’ today, counting down the most loved kiwi songs as voted by 65,000 kiwis. Lots of great music in there, my only complaint is that a lot of bangers from the last decade have been overlooked I guess based on the voter generation. I’ll follow up a post of great music from the last five years another day.

Anyway, happy Matariki.

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]]> Kelly Tarlton's 2026-06-06T09:38:17Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/kelly-tarltons/ A rainy afternoon at the aquarium with the kids What’s going on, Internet? This weekend was rainy and wet in Auckland so we packed up the kids in the car and headed to Kelly Tarlton’s, Auckland’s local aquarium. I hadn’t been myself since I was a kid, so I was excited to go with the kids. They’ve both been multiple times in their short little lives, and luckily they love revisiting places as often as they can.

Buying tickets online is the way to go. Once we arrived we went straight through after scanning our tickets. The first thing you walk through is old recreations of Scott Hutt and Scott Base from Antarctica, which I would have loved to stick around and read all the info cards for, but the kids “don’t like this part”. Fair enough. The penguins weren’t too far away.

But before you get to see the penguins you have to walk through this ice cave with a violently moving bridge, simulating something to do in Antarctica I guess. My daughter DOES NOT like this part, lol.

Braving the bridge, we got to see the penguins, which the kids love. Kelly Tarlton’s have King Penguins and Gentoo Penguins, and there are so many of them. Auckland Zoo only has half a dozen Little Blue Penguins, so this was fun, looking through the glass at them waddling around on the ice or swimming in their pool.

Past the penguins was an interactive room set up with tablet stations and a huge projector wall. On the tablets you get to colour in sea creatures. Your choices are turtle, fish, and manta ray. Once you’re done you tap “bring to life”, and about ten seconds later your creation appears on the projector screen and swims around with all the other colourful creatures. The kids absolutely loved this, and we spent a good forty minutes here.

Through a tunnel and we’re at the café and indoor playground. I was happy to sit down with a hot chocolate and watch the kids enjoy their snacks before spending thirty minutes on the playground.

Once they’d had enough, it was time to go through the aquarium. You stand on a travellator (you know, a flat escalator) and all the fish, rays, and sharks swim around and above you. We did this twice before carrying on to the rest of the exhibits in the little tanks. Crayfish, kina, eel, seahorses, tropical fish, starfish. We had fun checking them all out before heading to the dreaded gift shop before the exit. Meltdowns ensued, and after a bit of calming down we were able to escape.

The rain had stopped, and we had a nice drive home and pizza for dinner. Yum.

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]]> Hot Cross Buns 2026-05-06T14:58:18Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/hot-cross-buns/ God damn I love hot cross buns What’s going on, Internet? I’ve been eating hot cross buns since January. Can you believe it? Growing up I remember that seasonal treats would come out a week or two before the associated holiday. As you might have noticed yourself, these days the bakeries, and supermarkets are pushing them out months before the event. For hot cross buns though, I’m not complaining.

I’m not a big fan of raisins, or orange spice, and whatever else they use to make hot cross buns. But when they’re combined and baked and the end result is a fresh hot cross bun, I’m right there for all of it.

While Easter is over now and my stash of hot cross buns has dried up, I’m both saddened and relieved. Since January I’ve been having at least one hot cross bun every morning with my hot chocolate (I gave up caffeine, and coffee with it, years ago). My favourite method of heating these delicious buns these days is in the air fryer. Cut in half and 170°C on the bake function for 4 minutes does the trick. Then a layer of butter. I’m not talking about a measly spread of butter. Nope. I’m talking about a slice of butter as thick as a slice of cheese. Then the goal is to eat it as quickly, but not too quickly before the butter melts and drips everywhere.

Damn they’re so good.

Daily Bread were the standout, but at the price I only sprung for them once. They use an Italian sourdough starter, multiple awards every year, you can taste why. Daily Bread also bakes a collab bun for Farro Fresh, sold right alongside the originals — slightly bigger, half the price, probably not the same starter but still super good. Bakers Delight ran a little drier than those two, though the size meant I could load them up with even more butter.

During our road trip down to Martinborough I got to try a few. The Stables in Greytown had a hot cross doughnutm the dough was good but the sugar coating wasn’t really my thing. I would have preferred a standard bun than the doughnut hybrid. The French Baker, also in Greytown, delivered the real deal. But the surprise was Jean’s, a small bakery in Upper Hutt that my wife loves to visit. Crazy delicious like all of their baked goods. Next year I’m getting a box shipped up to Auckland the moment they’re available. I was a bit gutted when I demolished the last one the other day.

I’m relieved I get a break until next year. If they were around all year I’d be in real trouble. But who am I kidding? I’m already counting down to next year’s batch. 🤙

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]]> Happy Easter 2026 2026-04-13T20:17:01Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/happy-easter-2026/ Reading ebooks, collecting vinyl, Linkding and dumb movies. What’s going on, Internet? I’m writing this from Martinborough in the pockets of time I have between activities with the family.

I’ve found myself reading more eBooks rather than audiobooks this year. Turns out my brain still works without someone narrating to it.

I need to take note of where I hear about interesting podcasts from, because by the time I get done listening to them, like MF DOOM: Long Island to Leeds, I totally forget! Maybe this would be a great use of the notebook I carry around but never write in?

Over at the Cafe, yequari got an instance of Linkding setup and made available to all community members via our SSO service. I know a bunch of people in this corner of the web use it, so I got myself some focus time and moved my Bookmarks to Linkding. It’s improved my bookmarking workflow and hoping that makes me more inclined to actually saving them as I read them and I get more regular sharing them again, which lead me to trying out a Link Dump in their own post rather than hiding them away at the bottom of these posts each month.

And finally, the musical highlight this month was seeing Bic Runga At Te Paepae Theatre, Dinner and a concert. Going into new music blind, a fantastic evening out with my wife. We don’t get too many times together like this these days between everything else going on in life.

I haven’t picked up an audiobook again yet, but I’ve finished the Vega Jane stories with the last two books, Vega Jane and the Rebels’ Revolt and Vega Jane and the End of Time by David Baldacci. I really enjoyed this series, and like I mentioned previously I don’t even know how the first one wound up on my Kobo!

Picked up English Teacher after a trailer came up on YouTube and after the first episode I was right into it. A group of 30-something teachers at an American high school navigating their own friendship dramas while dealing with hilariously difficult students. Two seasons were available so I blasted through all of them.

Crackhead is a new local dramady and I got to attend a special screening of the first two episodes with the cast and crew. Created by Holly Shervey and based on her own early experiences, the show takes place within a rehab facility somewhere in New Zealand. Watching it episode by episode on Three Now as they come out.

Continued watching Shrinking S3 as well, it feels like it’s wrapping up, does this have another season in it?

I’m a sucker for dumb teen movies and Summer of 69 fit the description. A young twitch streamer gets to the point in life where they want to get it on with their childhood crush. They recruit a stripper and then it all goes down. Regretting You was an interesting one, turns out to be about a mother and daughter dealing with the fallout of a fatal accident that reveals a betrayal in the family. Such a wild plot, my wife only said wtf when I described it to her. I had Roofman playing in the background while playing Warcraft. It was okay, didn’t really care for it, I don’t think I really enjoy Channing Tatum.

Four new records added to the collection. Frou Frou and Lisa Loeb from the Interscope Vinyl Collective (IVC). I wasn’t familiar with either record, they’re fine and have made me aware to exercise the cancel subscription button for releases that I’m not totally keen on. They’re gorgeous releases, I love them and have listened to them but yeah, could be spending that money on records I actually want. The other two were both Bic Runga records. Her latest release (first in 15 years), Red Sunset (signed) and then her original from 1997, Drive which I picked up at her show and got it signed in person 😃

What else have I been listening to? Been on a hard house kick recently so I dug up an old favourite from the early 2000s Wellington clubbing scene - Dynotuned by DJ Shakka, and went back through the Hard House Euphoria albums. After listening to the MF DOOM podcast I dived into the albums of his I have in my collection. Operation: Doomsday and Madvillainy.

On the local music front I got really into The Panthers from Diggy Dupé, choicevaughan, and P. Smith (aka Troy Kingi). “The Villain” was on repeat, such a tune. Another new find was RNZŌ SZN from RNZŌ. Released January 2025, this one’s going to be in regular rotation for a while.

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]]> I'll Name This Post Later 2026-03-13T15:34:00Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/ill-name-this-post-later/ What I've been up to this month. Reading, watching, listening, collecting, and exploring interesting links across the web. What’s going on, Internet? February came and went fast, late summer in full swing, which I’m not mad about. The main highlight of the month was Carl Cox on Waiheke, a Saturday afternoon ferry ride, cold beers, and a few hundred people cutting loose on the dance floor under an overcast sky to a couple of world class DJs. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

On the site front it was a productive month. I built a glow-up Eleventy transform that automatically wraps every instance of fLaMEd fury across the site in the flame gradient. No manual markup needed anymore, which means there will be consistency across the site, rather than just times where I remembered. I’ve also brought the guestbook back, which has been on the to-do list forever, and knocked out a fresh set of 88x31 buttons using Ritual’s Button Creator.

My phone has been having trouble recently, but a $90 battery replacement means the iPhone 13 Pro gets another couple of years out of it. Feels good to not have to drop $2500 on a new phone. I still have to do the clean install. Maybe tomorrow?

Weekends have been full of kids activities as usual. The kids are now doing dance classes on Friday after school and Saturday mornings alongside swimming on Sunday mornings. Mr 4 is doing Athletics after school on Wednesdays but that’s about to wrap up for the winter season.

Speaking of Mr 5, it’s almost his birthday so we’ll be getting ready for the party, smaller than previous years as we haven’t got the same sized community up here yet but it will be a fun afternoon regardless. After his birthday we’re planning a trip back down to Martinborough for Easter and then it will be a week or two before he starts primary school.

I still can’t believe we’re getting to this stage of his life. Exciting and emotional times.

Reading

Three books done this month. Still working through the Vega Jane series on the Kobo. Baldacci writes these things to be read fast, which suits me. They’re an easy read and have been great during kids bed times. I picked up a hard copy of 1985 by Dominic Hoey, a local author, mid-last year from our local book store and have been putting off reading it. It finally popped up at my library on Libby as an audiobook so I demolished it over a couple of days. Such a good read. I love local stories like this.

The interesting thing here is that since December I’ve dusted off my Kobo Libra and have been reading ebooks again. After three years of almost exclusive audiobook listening I’m back into it. I’ll post about this soon.

On The Shelf

I didn’t pick up any new records this month. I had the latest Interscope Vinyl Club release in the post, but it didn’t arrive until March. We’ll check back at the end of the month for all the new record additions.

In Rotation

February was a bit of a genre shuffle. 5 Seconds of Summer somehow ended up as my most played artist of the month with 95 listens across three albums — EVERYONE’S A STAR!, 5SOS5, and Youngblood. Did a bit of a deep dive after reading a post about them and how their music changed from their first release. Youngblood remains a favourite track.

Alongside that, a heavy rotation of NZ drum & bass — Concord Dawn, Shapeshifter, and Sub Focus all got solid play — mixed in with ScHoolboy Q’s Oxymoron, MF DOOM’s Operation: Doomsday, and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony’s BTNHResurrection. J. Cole dropped a new album, The Fall-Off so I gave that a couple listens.

Most played track of Feb (thanks kids) was jxdn’s cover of “drivers license”. I really want to take singing lessons so I can nail this song.

On Screen

TV Shows

Finished Robin Hood — wrote up some thoughts on it. Also wrapped up A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms which delivered a solid ending to a short season. I Love LA was a pleasant surprise — watched all of S01 without meaning to.

Carried on with Industry and Shrinking. Industry is still a bit wtf, and I’m still loving Shrinking. Also dipped into a few new things: English Teacher, and The Girlfriend, and am watching episodes of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage when I need something on in the background.

Movies

I watched Nobody and Nobody 2 back to back, which is exactly the right way to watch them and then carry on with life. The Housemaid was tense and worth it. Rounded things out with a run of easier watches — Which Brings Me to You, The Threesome, Splitsville, and People We Meet on Vacation. Easy to watch and didn’t require me to think.

Bookmarks

A solid link dump this month. Lots of thinking about personal websites, the open web, and what we’re all doing here in 2026.

Check out the bookmarks page for even more.

This Website

Sweeet, laters 🤙

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]]> The Summer Took Hold 2026-02-09T20:43:17Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/the-summer-took-hold/ A December and January catch up. Summer road trip, records, bookmarks, and tinkering with the site. What’s going on, Internet? I was going to have this post as the December wrap up post but the summer took hold of me and here we are at the end of January and a week into Feb, lol.

December kicked off with a Tuesday night gig, Lewis Capaldi At The Spark Arena, a fantastic show. I finished off a post about what music ownership means to me, I was happy to get that one out of drafts and published. Then we were straight into finishing up work for the year and I took some time to reflect on the beers I drunk, the books I read, and the music I enjoyed throughout the year.

Christmas was an exciting time. With a four year old and a two year old we were in full hype mode. I also got into the hype and had a blast. We had a pre-Christmas lunch at my brother’s place with his family and my parents, two days of work and then straight into Christmas Eve prep which we had at my parent-in-law’s place with the kids, their aunties and all their grandparents. They actually managed to go to sleep and woke up super excited and we got to do it all over again on Christmas Day.

I braved the mall on Boxing Day and managed to pick up the last copy of the 2025 Indie Store exclusive re-issue of Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ pressed on red vinyl. The mall itself wasn’t too bad, but the traffic into the mall was horrific. Worth it though.

With Christmas out of the way we had a couple days down time before we started our road trip down south. This was so much fun. Our end destination was the Marlborough Sounds, and we broke the trip up into stages so we could explore some of the country and also make sure that the kids weren’t stuck in a car non-stop for days on end. On day one we headed to the Hawke’s Bay via Orakei Korako Cave & Geothermal Park. We stayed one night in Havelock North and visited the national aquarium in Napier before continuing on to Martinborough where we spent two nights. The kids got some grandparent time and my wife and I managed to head over the hill to Wellington to catch up with some friends.

On New Year’s Eve we packed up the car again and made our way with the kids to the ferry terminal in Wellington to cross the Cook Strait and make the drive to a remote part of the Marlborough Sounds. After four nights down there enjoying the remote tranquility of the top of the South Island, we headed back to the ferry terminal in Picton to catch the boat back to Wellington and drove straight back to Martinborough for a week of working remote rather than cutting the road trip short.

We then packed the car up for a final time and made our way back up north, back to Havelock North again for one more night. Before heading north again the next morning we took the kids to Splash Planet and had a fun time in the water and playing mini golf. We stopped off in Hastings for some ice cream before heading back to Taupō where we stopped off at the Hooker Falls and Cobb & Co for dinner. My wife and I have great memories of family dinners and birthday parties at the Cobb and were hoping the kids would have a blast, but I think they were over it and were just tired. Luckily it was only three more hours back to Tāmaki Makaurau so I made the drive home while the family slept.

Then it was back home to unpack and get back to the reality of the weekly grind of school and work. What an epic road trip though. I look forward to more of them, and they’ll only get better as the kids get older.

On Screen

TV Shows

I’ve been watching a lot of great shows recently, old and new. I saw Tulsa King on Cory’s website, gave it a go and ended up watching the entirety of season one over a couple days. I’m going to get right onto season two as soon as I can. The second season of The Vince Staples Show was like a fever dream. Short episodes, easy to watch.

My favourite universe, the Power Universe had season three of Power Book IV: Force on the screen and I loved it. It’s so over the top and the premise is wild. Great end to the series and looking forward to Power Book Legacy! I watched all four episodes of Sean Combs: The Reckoning - it really shows what a psycho that guy is.

The fourth season of Industry has started and I’m watching my way through that, I have no idea if I actually like this show anymore - it’s kinda fever dream like itself, but I’ll keep watching it. Shrinking is back for its third season. And finally A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms started, I loved the books and I’m loving this show. Set a hundred years before the events of A Song Of Ice And Fire, it’s a bit more lighthearted and funny than Game Of Thrones was.

Movies

Been a good run of movie watching over here recently. Partly due to Mr 4 taking more of an interest in them. He’d been coming home from preschool talking about KPop Demon Hunters, and we’d been listening to the music and so we sat down and watched the movie together one afternoon. I really enjoyed it. He did too. He’s also been into Paw Patrol recently so as a treat he’s been able to watch some of the Paw Patrol movies starting with PAW Patrol: The Movie, which I also ended up really enjoying. Surprising at the big names doing the voices. Totally different to the budget voices on the Tonies 🤣 So yeah, the movie was really good, although he got quite upset when Chase lost his confidence. It was cute.

Christmas was also a bigger than usual thing in our household this year and so on Christmas Eve we all sat down together and watched Home Alone with him. A fun movie which he enjoyed, and maybe laughed a bit too hard at parts. When the kids did eventually go to bed I enjoyed the annual screening of The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

During the roadtrip we stayed at a motel on the way down south and we took advantage of the yearly screening of Grease - one of my all time favourite movies. After the kids sleeping for hours in the car we knew they weren’t going to bed easily so we had a family movie night. Grease isn’t a kids movie, but it’s also quite tame compared to movies today. I enjoyed it, they enjoyed it and we all had a good time, and they eventually went to sleep.

The other movies I enjoyed were Woodstock 99 which dove into the absolute state of the 99 Woodstock festival and how it eventually turned into what it was. What a shit time that would have been. On the lighter side I enjoyed Good Fortune and then Shithouse, which has a shit name, but explored the isolating side of social interaction.

On The Shelf

Eleven records added to the collection across December and January. A lot of anniversary editions and special pressings landed on the shelf.

Bookmarks

Here’s all the posts I enjoyed recently. You can check out more over on the Bookmarks archive.

Around the Web

Shellsharks is back and publishing Scrolls again so go check that out.

Hyde is still publishing his Over/Under series and has just published issue #50 with Bobby Hiltz. I really love the way Hyde personalises each Over/Under interview with his guest - it makes for an interesting read and shows that he does go out of his way to read their websites.

xandra has also just dropped the Autumn/Winter 2026 issue of Good Internet magazine. I can’t wait to get stuck in and read all the new articles while I wait for my physical edition to arrive.

This Website

Plenty of hacking on the website over the break. I’ve been messing with the homepage layout. I’m still not entirely happy with the bento, but it’s fine for now. I’ve added a “Stuck In My Head” section that highlights the six most played songs from last.fm. I’ve also moved the webrings into the bento and revived my buttons collection - I’ve got more to add here later.

I’ve started adding garden indicators for living posts that I intend to keep working on over time. I will eventually create a /garden/ page to list these pages for easy browsing. I guess that tag page serves that purpose at the moment. Along with that I think I’ve improved the post metadata on each post that helps tell the story better with category, tags, and dates. Let me know what you think.

I spent some (a lot) of time unifying the look and feel across Beer Fridge, Recordshelf, Bookshelf, and Comics pages with cleaned up CSS and introducing a common layout for the stat cards. That damn comics page needs a lot of work.

This update was brought to you by Girl in Stilettos by Annah Mac

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]]> Working Remotely From Martinborough 2026-01-09T11:34:11Z https://flamedfury.com/posts/working-remotely-from-martinborough/ A week of working remotely from Martinborough What’s going on, Internet? One of the perks of my job is a work-from-anywhere policy. It meant we didn’t have to cut the road trip short and could spend another five nights in Martinborough before heading home.

That first week back at work was a video calls with my teams, family time, and popping over to see friends in Wellington.

The weather was fantastic. Singlets all week. We cooked outside most nights, and my wife and I even managed to go out for dinner one evening, at an actual restaurant.

Finishing afternoon calls and jumping straight into the plunge pool with the kids turned out to be a pretty good way to switch off work and ease back into family mode.

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