PicoBlog

I lost a battle with a clickbait-y headline last week. Really, I never stood a chance. It sucked me in the second I saw it. “I don’t track my spending and I’m not sorry,” the headline screamed. I couldn’t help but to click the link. What can I say? I was curious. At least that’s the easy explanation. Deep down, I could relate. I still don’t truly track my spending. I might look for patterns and tally what I paid.

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a relentless worker, writing over 30 books, countless articles and speeches, and leading Great Britain during WWII. His days were consumed with writing, as well as finding time to take a strict one-hour nap and two baths, with the water temperature at exactly 98 degrees. He also enjoyed nightly parties with friends full of fine wine, whisky and champagne. Churchill produced incredible work while maintaining balance in his life.

Welcome! Animation Obsessive returns with more. This is the plan today: 1️⃣ The worlds of Kazuo Oga (Studio Ghibli). 2️⃣ World news in animation. 3️⃣ [MEMBERS] The early UPA cartoon Flat Hatting (1946). Brand new here? You can sign up for free to receive our Sunday issues — weekly, right in your inbox: Sign Up With that, here we go! Studio Ghibli is famous for its worlds. Holding these worlds together are their backgrounds — the enthralling, evocative paintings that create a space for the characters.

Way way back in 2017, I made a video that essentially asked... where are all the good detective games? I mean - sure, there are plenty of fun games where you play as a detective. Like The Wolf Among Us and Sherlock Holmes. But - in terms of the game mechanics - they never actually made me feel like I was doing any real detective work. For that, I had to dig much deeper.

Hey, I’m Rusty. Welcome to our weekly newsletter, sharing the startup journey of Kamui Whisky K.K.. Each week the team will share a story as we set up a craft whisky distillery on a remote, volcanic island in the most northern part of Japan. I get a lot of questions from readers, friends, and people in general on what makes a Japanese Whisky, a Japanese Whisky? And how is that different from Scotch?

My dad visited me this past weekend, and he always likes to take my old electronics off my hand. He’s an engineering wizard and delights in refurbishing my old computers and phones - for what purpose, I do not know. But part of the process of me handing them off, is first going through whatever files remain on them, and wiping them clean. This latest computer I gave him, from 2013 (!

When it comes to being saved, there are only two groups – those who are saved and those lost in sin. Which are you? First of all, you have sinned. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) Because you have sinned, you are separated from God (Isaiah 59:1-2). Being guilty of sin means you have earned death, but you are given another choice. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It’s been a pretty hectic month with lots going on. Consequently, I haven’t had much time to do much cooking and baking, which has been especially challenging since a few of the new cookbooks (above) that have recently come out have been sitting on my kitchen table, bookmarked with recipes that I’m excited to try. So I thought maybe we could have an open forum here, and let’s discuss: What cookbooks have you been excited about lately?

With the baseball season starting in earnest on Thursday (Seoul Series notwithstanding), I thought it would be fun to revive an exercise I did last year — using Out of the Park Baseball to simulate a bunch of MLB seasons and tracking how the game tends to think each team will do in 2024. For the uninitiated, OOTP is a baseball simulation game (now in its 25th year) which puts you in charge of any team you want, both in 2024 or throughout history.