Matthew

The Four Doors – Design Diary — Matt Leacock Games Matt Leacock: The design of The Four Doors followed a long, meandering route. It was the result of four different designers working alongside four different publishers to produce no fewer than five...

I love a good design diary, particularly one that shows how many hands and iterations and years can go into this kind of work: www.leacock.com/blog/2026/2/...

Reasons to Mask in 2026 — Gillian Levine

Be safe out there, friends, for the sake of others and yourselves.

gillianlevine.com/reasons-to-m...

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

#1582; Limit Your Scream Time

I too love goofs and spoofs: wondermark.com/c/1582/

I know taking a survey can sometimes feel meaningless, but civic participation comes in all shapes and sizes. ♥️

Seattle friends who are renting: Katie Wilson's office just released a survey (in multiple languages) to help guide policy making around renting within the city.

You could probably fill it out during a break in the owl viewing this afternoon. 👍🏻🦉

wilson.seattle.gov/2026/02/06/m...

YouTube video by boulife The grand budapest hotel take your hands off my lobby boy scene

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) has been added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry this year, which is timely considering how it speaks to fascism, immigrant rights, class, corruption, and the power of kindness in the face of oppression.

youtu.be/jZR5ebXUMXM?...

Picture of a crossword in the shape of a ring. From the Puzzmo website with the name "Put A Ring On It."

If you are looking for a crossword to do in your downtime today, my buddy and frequent collaborator @jonagill.itch.io has a delightful one for you on Puzzmo: www.puzzmo.com/today

ironmaus in 2025 - YouTube

If you want to pass a tolerable hour reviewing the year with me, I've got playlists. Not a lot released in 2025; there are some newer tracks, but my music journey is almost never a straight line. 🤘

- YouTube: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
- Apple Music: music.apple.com/us/playlist/...

My top 2025 artists from LastFM: 1. Boom Forest, 2. School of Seven Bells, 3. XOC, 4. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, 5. David Baerwald, 6. WMD, 7. AC/DC, 8. Kiln, 9. MC Paul Barman, 10. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

My top 2025 albums from LastFM: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Dusker, the Almost Famous 20th anniversary soundtrack, Post Knight Errant, David Baerwald Live at McCabe's Guitar Shopw, If you Don't Listen To My Music I'll Kill This Dog, The Sky Is Not The Limit, Final Fantasy VI soundtrack pixel remaster, Popscene: From Baggy to Britpop, Entelecheia

My top 2025 tracks from LastFM: bullet time by Lubalin, Blessings by MC Paul Barman, Road by Bombay Bicycle Club, Jessica WJ by Cayucas, Aviaticus by I Built The Sky, Been by Boom Forest, Come What May by David Baerwald, Simmer Down by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Kiss and Goodbye by WMD, War by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

It's that time again! Looking back, I think the first time I shared one of these annual LastFM listening reports was in 2019 (though I've scrobbled since 2004), which feels like a lifetime ago. This year was marked by change, but also some lovely moments tied to music.

Click on for playlists 👇📻

When a postmark no longer tracks mailing | Brookings Changes to U.S. Postal Service operations could lead to delayed postmarking, impacting elections, tax filings, and more.

If you still use the mail for legal correspondence (voting, taxes, etc.), buckle up for an exciting new change to postmarks: www.brookings.edu/articles/whe...

You can love Egon and still recognize a broken system. ♥️🍄👨🏻‍🔬

Fantastic thread about a discipline-specific challenge in game dev: temp audio. 👀

It’s basically Deep Space Nine.

Telling on myself here, but my honest reaction when I first heard his name was "Junior? No? I thought Mookie Betts played in the 70s."

You coulda also told me he was a kid in Backyard Baseball and I wouldn't have blinked.

Retailers Dealing With Increasing Levels of Theft and Violence Report emphasizes importance of preventive measures, coordination with law enforcement

can't believe outlets are running moral-panic headlines again based on flimsy anecdata from the *same* trade group (the national retailer federation) and sponsored by the *same* anti-theft company (sensormatic) that had to retract this *same* "study" just two years ago for being bogus.

congratulations to the winner of Game 7: Emergent Narrative

That said, this is a VERY entertaining game, and my primal fear of Max Scherzer remains strong.

I'm interested in whichever World Series outcome makes Blue Jays fans tolerable when attending Mariners games.

Genuinely happy for people to be enthusiastic for a sporting event, but it's tiring when it turns unnecessarily into a national rivalry. 🙄

Relatedly: Canada, please get more MLB teams.

Nobel Peace Prize 2025 The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to Maria Corina Machado "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transi...

"Democracy – understood as the right to freely express one’s opinion, to cast one’s vote and to be represented in elective government – is the foundation of peace both within countries and between countries."

www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace...

100% this. 💯 I've been using the lens of "freedom from vs. freedom to" when analyzing situations recently, and I gotta tell you that "freedom from" is winning the vast majority of those internal debates.

I've started taking pictures of the tasks I've done. Then at the end of the day, I put them into a collage with the word "Nice." When my brain tells me I'm not doing anything, I can show it the nice folder. We'll see if I either tire of this or retrain my brain.

For magic and card trick fans, I can strongly recommend attending Harry Milas's The Unfair Advantage. The performance is equal parts autobiography, skill demonstration, magic trick, and discourse on attention. The intimacy of it (~30 in the audience) is really something.

www.unfairadvantage.show

Once, when traveling in Scotland, M and I were crossing to the Isle of Skye at Kylerhea and seeing signs both advising "look out for seals" and "visit the otter hide" AKA a place to watch otters. M suddenly broke into the voice: "Seal day, seal day, seal day! Watch the seals assault the otter hide!"

As a train convert and someone who parodies monster truck ads in private conversation, this speaks to me.

This is a charming offer. Before I take you up on it, let me assess if I actually don't have a mousepad. 👀

I wrote this post as a way of expressing surprise that I don't have seven mousepads in easy reach, which would have been the case in 2001. 😁

There's a moment in life, when a period where something is beyond abundant—like given away free in annoying quantities—is followed by a period where that doesn't happen anymore, and your out-of-the-blue need for that thing is confounded by...just not having one. 😤

In other news, I need a mousepad.

Val Kilmer as Chris Knight in Real Genius points at the door in Dr. Hathaway's house, and the subtitle reads "I'm gone. I'm history. I'm Casper."

😢

Attorney General Bonta Urgently Issues Consumer Alert for 23andMe Customers Californians have the right to direct the company to delete their genetic data OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a consumer alert to customers of 23andMe, a genetic testing ...

23andMe users: It's time to bail. Download your reports and then delete your data.

oag.ca.gov/news/press-r...

We are proud to announce the formation of United Videogame Workers-CWA, a direct-join organization made of, by, and for workers of the video game industry!

Learn more and get involved: uvw-cwa.org