Rhys Wynne

Whimsical Website, Grumpy Webmaster

If you visited the site on the last post, you’ll notice that the site has had a bit of a makeover. Or a makedown.

I’ve talked about Ana Rodrigues’ talk at Loopconf before, on how personal websites should make a comeback. It was inspiring. So inspiring that I spent a good 20 hours wrestling with Twenty Fifteeen to make it a bit more modern behind the scenes. I think I’ve succeeded, and it plays well with the block editor. Were nearly there. Gaps still don’t work, for example. And there’s a bug list.

The joy of web crafting

Could I have done it faster? Sure. but here’s the thing, I had fun. Every evening for a few hours I listened to BBC Radio 3 Unwind with a Bird and Blend tea and crafted. Crafting is fun. Doing pixel art with Aseprite is fun. Building and creating is fun, and this was a fun project that I dedicated my evenings to for a couple of weeks. My blood pressure dropped. I relaxed. I zoned out. And I created this.

Sure it’s a bit creaky, the same way the bathroom lock I installed wiggles a bit. It is dated, but so are my curtains. This site is my home on the internet. I want to make it homely. Sure it’s not the nicest, or the one that sells my skills the best. But the displays in Ikea are designed to sell the product, not live in. This is my home. It is mine. It is unique¹. I also wasn’t wrestling with AI prompts² and getting angry at creating something soulless.

Go Explore!

I also recently ticked off another 50 of my 50 list – I went to The Cave. One of the things that does so well is that you’re encouraged to explore, pick up, interact, read, play, and just discover things. I want a similar experience to that here. I am fighting with attention with everything else on the internet. I want to make this website a joyful experience that makes you smile. To encourage discovery of the whimsical web. My Trello board is bursting with idea. When will they get implemented? I dunno, but there’s a few here already. Go and explore! Things may appear in the upcoming weeks! Come back!

I want this website to do that as a love letter to internet culture. I also will try and blog more. I have enjoyed it. Though I’ve found myself becoming more grumpy at the state of the internet, with AI, and enshittification. I am reminded how things were. Were things perfect? No. But they were better. I want a place where I can be grumpy online. After all, I am a white middle aged man on the internet. Of course I have opinions. I want to share them with the world. So whilst the site may be whimsical, the posts may be a bit grumpy.

So this the new layout of my site, hopefully for the next wee while. Where I’m probably going to post a lot of grumpy posts. Hope you like it!

As much as a Twenty Fifteen child theme can be, obviously. ↩︎
For full disclosure I used one piece of AI on the site – I wireframed the structure of me stealing a traffic cone, because I struggle with drawing humans that look somewhat realistic. The colouring and shading was done by me – this video is a great guide to get into pixel art, by the way. ↩︎

A Full Circle Reaction

One of the highlights of my year is Play Expo – a weekend away in Blackpool that has a bunch of retro and modern video games. It’s pretty much the same every year: arcade machines as you walk in, trading hall to the left, pinball machines to the right, home consoles towards the back along with the main stage. Play Expo has a familiarity to it, which makes it a must attend every year for me. If only to see the same faces every year.

The traders hall is often a place I go for a wander. Not straight away, as it’s hectic, but towards the middle afternoon on Saturday it dies down a bit and you get to check out the trading hall, have a bit of a chat and just generally have a better buying experience. You feel less pressured as you check through the boxes on the floor (which – as somebody who has dropped 3 stone in the past year – is a lot more easier experience on the knees).

One such place is The Gaming Newsagent – a long time attendee that started as SegaMags, but branched out into all such other magazines. It was in one of these boxes and a bit of time for exploring I found this magazine. St Format issue 70, from May 1995. An immediate buy. When I said immediate, I meant immediate. I never bothered looking through the rest.

So what was so special? This small PD Game on the cover disk, Chain Reaction. A simple addictive game I played so much and stuck with me for a while. Here whas what was written about it.

If you followed me online for a while, you’d know that this sounds a lot like a game I made. Gone Fission! was inspired by Chain Reaction (and a thousand other PD games, I’ve got an article in my drafts where I talk about all different versions of the game and everything cool that has happened post launch. This is another of those things to add to that post, in a fun coincidence.

Anyway, weird kind of full circle on a side project that dominated this year.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

I see that AOL has ended it’s dial-up service after 30 years with barely a whimper. I think the first times I explored the internet was on AOL sometimes in the early 2000s, usually playing Slingo or downloading Quake Maps off a friends internet connection.

It was also the first time I experienced some form of gatekeeping. With AOL being ubiquitous with early internet with it’s easy setup, and the fact it was incompatible with Netscape Navigator, meant that it was always for those who weren’t the most technically literate. Something I – sadly – participated in.

This gatekeeping was reinforced when, during University in 2002, the “Social and Technical Internet” module I studied in my degree included a fascinating few lessons on early internet culture, and things like Eternal September. Further studies meant I really wanted to go back to that time.

Anyway, it’s kind of ironic that the cause of Eternal September died on 1st October.

God speed, AOL Dial-up Internet.

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That’s what the YouTubers say isn’t it?

I miss folks commenting on blog posts really. At my peak I’d post a blog post at home, walk the half a mile from my student digs to university, and then be greeted with 4 or 5 comments. Now? I think I’ve had one comment in the past year. I still don’t stubbornly take the comments off here nor Dwi’n Rhys though, in a vain hope they come back. They won’t. But they may.

But seemingly like half the attendees at LoopConf last week in London (read Tim Nash’s post about his ridiculous schedule from Yorkshire > London > Poland to be at events), I too was inspired by Ana Rodrigues’ talk “Building, Sharing, and Owning Your Online Presence”, who had a number of inspiring slides, including the one I’ve used as the header image (albeit with a terrible photo :-

Personal websites are the perfect playground for experimentation. They afford a space to explore new technologies that might not yet be suitable for professional projects and a safe space to fail.
Ana Rodrigues – “In defence of unpolished personal websites“

So consider me inspired, and me testing more things that may fail. I’ve switched on Webmentions using this plugin, and also using Autoblue as well to try and foster some more comments from BlueSky (this post should automatically post there and also automatically pull in replies as comments). It may work. It may be utter rubbish. But we try.

It’s the first strand of things to do. I want to promote this blog to all the things. I want to take this blog back to the 00’s. I want to put 88×31 buttons on. I was bored on Sunday made a few because James Huff on the Post Status Slack wanted a retro button and the ones on the Web Archive were terrible. I want under-construction GIFs. I want to use my new found Aseprite skills to make this blog look a little less like the blog of a 41 year old business owner who renewed his home insurance today, and more of the bloke in his early 20’s who spend his evenings drawing little graphics, installing ridiculously unsafe PHP scripts, and generally having a good life online. Granted less of the PHP scripts, but more moving purposefully and breaking things.

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50 before I’m 50 – Eat in a Michelin Starred Restaurant

Last weekend I completed another of my 50 before I am 50. I ate in a Michelin Starred Restaurant. The restaurant in question was Wilson’s in Bristol, and I went there with my partner to celebrate one of her friend’s birthday.

Sadly, I’m not Jay Rayner, and I do not have the vocabulary to accurately explain the food, except to say it was delicious. The six course tasting menu was using freshly grown herbs and vegetables from it’s own two acre farm. Really, they were the stars of the show – whilst there were fish and meat that were the main element of the dish, in reality the flavourful herbs were what made it a bit special.

I think the thing for me was I was expecting to be disappointed. I don’t know why. Naturally pessimistic – like you wait your life to see a band only to be terrible. In reality it was excellent. 6 decent portions of food, full of flavour, and also some great non alcoholic mocktails that – whilst not paired with the dishes – were great.

I did the wanky thing and take photos of all the food which are below.