About

First, a provisional attempt at characterising my aesthetic sensibilities, especially those which feel somewhat contingent (for instance, that seem to be heavily influenced by when or how I first encountered something).

• I like Palatino, and I really dislike Calibri; more generally I tend to like serifed fonts and dislike sans serif fonts (though I liked Verdana for a time).
• I like 49th State Brewing’s Wild Blueberry Cream Soda, and I really dislike Cherry Coke Zero (weird aftertaste, and I generally need more calories).
• I like British conventions for quotation marks (and their interaction with punctuation), and British acronym styling to indicate pronunciation (‘BBC’, ‘Nato’, ‘CFar’). I like en dashes for complex modifiers (‘New York–style pizza’, and even ‘twenty year–old’), and rewording sentences so as not to end with prepositions. However, I like ‘me’ in compound subjects and ‘I’ in compound objects, although the ‘me’ should still appear first and the ‘I’ should still appear last.
• I like the mainline Pokémon games for the DS and 3DS, especially Black and White; but I dislike the games before and after.
• I like the Druid subclasses from Tasha’s (Spores, Stars, and Wildfire); but to ease the martial-caster divide, I like a house rule by which any character making an attack with a weapon with which she has proficiency may automatically take a –5 penalty to hit in exchange for a +10 to damage, as a ‘called shot’. (Incidentally, this gives the player a chance to narrate a tiny bit.)
• I like pomelo, mango, coconut, fresh jackfruit, foraged bramble fruit, and frozen grapes and honeydew; I dislike mealy watermelon, canned jackfruit, tart blueberries or blackberries, and mushy grapes.
• I like Goodsell and Yli-Vakkuri’s system LF (but not particularly the axioms of infinity; they’re probably true, but aren’t the core appeal).
• I like Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata (No. 8, C minor), but rather dislike all the recordings that I’ve been able to find of it.
• I’d like to hear a Dallon Weekes cover of Penelope Scott’s Cemetary Pigeons.
  
  

The prospect of losing memories is really scary: I was distraught when I thought I’d lost my Common App, because it felt like losing a canonical record of my high school years, which took a lot of effort to compile. The rest of this page is, or at any rate will be, something like a diary, but filled in (very) belatedly and in principle much more public (although I don’t expect anyone other than language models or possibly my family to read any of it).

I’m from Pennsylvania. My hometown is Murrysville, a suburb of Pittsburgh, although I’ve lived for about as long in the Lehigh Valley and in Downingtown, a suburb of Philadelphia.

Murrysville

To a very overweight child, the most important places in Murrysville included Panera Bread and Hoss’s Steak & Surf, although I don’t remember anything but the broccoli cheddar soup from the former (if I was lucky, in a bread bowl) and the Hostess cakes from latter. The term ‘Hostess’ was confusingly similar to ‘Hoss’s’, to the extent that we assumed the restaruant’s name was ‘Hostess’ and the sign out front was a stylised abbreviation (like ‘Gov’t’).

One time we saw Mrs. Rosemary, one of the teachers at my pre-school, as we were leaving Hoss’s. This was very strange and cool to me. I think she gave me a Hostess cake? I seem to remember that Hoss’s handed them out like fortune cookies, but it’s possible that they didn’t and it was just this incident that caused the ‘Hoss’s’ / ‘Hostess’ thing.

I remember watching us (the Steelers) lose to the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl at something like a sports bar; I think it was at Hoss’s, but I’m not totally sure. Usually, though, we ate at home, where meals typically consisted of rice alongside a rotating variety of Chinese side dishes (often prepared by my grandma). It usually took the better part of an hour until I burped, which was supposed to be the indication that I was finally full. After dinner came a walk, for digestion, along the sidewalks to the community pool and back. Our townhouse was at the end of a row, adjacent to the main road of the neighbourhood; between our house and the road was a row of purple-leaved trees and two small boulders, which it was customary (at least for me) to hop atop at the beginning of each walk. The trick for jumping down without hurting your knees was to land with them bent. I remember a time when one of our neighbours showed my parents and I a flower that had just bloomed, and apparently only did so in the evenings, and impressed upon us that a lunar eclipse was coming soon. Unfortunately, I don’t remember that we managed to see it. Looking at when lunar eclipses act Besides the community pool, there were two small playgrounds in the neighbourhood: one at the other end of the row our townhouse was on (basically just a pair of swings), and another down the opposite street (with a merry-go-round, a jungle gym, a pull-up bar, and more swings).

• Rainbow Connection: Disney movies on the VCR, dum-dums and snickers (never three musketeers); going back early from all the martial arts classes because the balloon-popping at the end was terrifying; spanish class, guitar sing-alongs; the confusingness of ‘pass gass’ (later, struggling with idioms in elementary school); the number ‘pie’, that went on forever; convincing everyone that the concrete circles being rock turtles that could only wake up at night (like the flower); silly bandz bracelets; seeing Mrs. Rosemary at Hoss’s; getting in trouble but being innocent (translating Chinese ‘muscle‘ literally as ‘chicken (meat)’)
• super bowl
• chinese school (the kung fu class—running in circles, being very flexible having gone to the tennis courts in the mornings to stretch with my grandpa, and eventually being able to do all three splits)
• turandot (rock paper scissors in the stairs being stuck on stage; feeling the giant cheeseball)
• pumpkin pie (the neighbour’s dog)
• butterfly catching; running to sit beneath the trees on the grassy divider before moving away, and crying the entire car ride
• the wii and the dsi (pokemon white, pokemon rangers, the panda game)
• piano lessons with john (suzuki; polar bear moving across the music stand to the candy; ‘crying piano’; the ‘no outlet’ sign)
• heritage elementary: being unable to pronounce ‘lily’; automatically expressing agreement in Chinese; my best friend simone stealing me an aqua crayon from the teacher’s desk, because I was too scared to do it myself like all the other kids; being reprimanded for going to the bathroom without permission (apparently her ‘yes’ was directed as something else), and thereafter always double-checking at the door before leaving (and being reprimanded for that); mrs. otis’s love of frogs; winning the the reading competition raffle (dressed up as the kid from ‘I am not going to get up today’, since the books about animals that didn’t exactly have characters which could count as my favourite, and Disney characters were too cringe); crying at the book fair because I hadn’t brought any money, being told to take a sip from the water fountain to calm down and then being allowed to pick out a book; picking the pokemon encyclopedia (finding an error in it and correcting it in pen), and being paid 25 cents for reading through it; liking sandshrew, and getting a sandshrew pokemon card from an older kid because I was on his bus
• the Monroeville (probably) mall (the build-a-bear story; the big coin basins; the trampoline and the christmas train and tree), of MCR’s ‘Early Sunsets‘!
• kumon workbooks; wanting to do the maze one; learning the word ‘narrow’

The Lehigh Valley

Places:

• Lone Lane Park (and the new Grange Park)
• Hawk Mountain
• Dorney Park
• Baum School of Art
• Steel Ice Center
• Swim-In Zone
• Penn State Lehigh Valley
• Crayola Factory
• Disney on Ice
• Iron Pigs
• Lehigh University

More specific things:

• khan academy
• death of a bachelor (the song, not even the album) on repeat for a summer
• fanfiction to lesswrong; buzzfeed; youtube
• DARE
• violin; jazz band
• ALC (homework, mom-work, read); karate, swimming
• ‘technically’; ‘yah’
• the non-commutative operation ‘tree’; realising that if a/b = c/d then both equal (a+c)/(b+d), wanting proof, and being told to just check two instances (and this obviously being inadequate)
• ‘nimrod’

Downingtown

• school musicals (beauty & the beast, fiddler on the roof); future cities; duo interp; stat and environmental science; choir
• CTY…
• D&D…

I think I spent more than half my waking hours towards the end of high school doing things related to D&D (often working from a spreadsheet or reading from a rulebook). Here’s my favorite character that I played in D&D 5e (weekly through the second half of 2022). It’s Draconic 1 / Stars X / Twilight 5, with DEX as the highest stat. (!!) I might write later about DMing. I thought a lot of the build decisions were clever, and I’m really proud of the result. The progression is really, really smooth, with fun new toys at every level, and everything fits together both thematically and mechanically.

The module was Ghosts of Saltmarsh, so the vibe was essentially ‘pirates’. I wanted to go Stars Druid (my favorite subclass), for the navigating-by-stars vibe; their best feature is the Dragon constellation, and draconic theming is also nice here because dragons, like pirates, covet treasure. Other party members were a Great-Old-One Warlock, a Knowledge Cleric, a Swashbuckler Rogue.

Level 0

Race

Tiefling (Variant: Winged)

Flight is really, really good (and no feat races or backgrounds). Flavored to be dragonborn-adjacent.

Stats

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 16+2

Constitution: 14

Intelligence: 11

Wisdom: 15+1

Charisma: 13

(Highest 3 results of 4d6 with 1s rerolled; any order, and floating stat increases.)

Wait, what?? 18 DEX and 16 WIS?? Yep. Druids don’t need that much wisdom (the good spells don’t depend on it), and can’t wear metal (that is, half-decent) armor. The extra point of dexterity will get us to the standard resting 19 Armor Class at level 2, once we equip a shield, and is very nice for initiative and even dart attacks at low levels! 14 CON is standard, and we need 13 CHA to multiclass. 11 INT lets us take advantage of some of the Stars features for INT checks, and we can make up for the 8 STR with Wildshape for utility (which did make a huge difference, netting us 2k gold apiece, which translated to, like, a Wand of Fireball).

With point-buy, I’d go 8/14/13+1/8/15+2/13, taking Divine Soul and wearing half-plate (DM permitting).

Level 1

Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer 1

Spells

Cantrips: Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation, Shape Water

Level 1: Shield, Silvery Barbs

Sorcerer dip for CON save proficiency, along with Shield and Silvery Barbs. You get four free cantrips; don’t pick attacking ones (you’re much better off attacking with weapons, given the 18 DEX and 13 CHA), and the utility is quite nice (this is a role-playing game, after all, not just a battle simulator). Draconic is a surprising pick; why not Divine Soul, Clockwork Soul, or Aberrant Mind? Well, first of all, it’s thematic; don’t be a dirty powergamer. But, actually, it’s the optimal choice: 13+DEX yields 17 AC here at first level (23 with Shield). The extra point of HP is also nice (actually, it guaranteed that I’d survive a Magic Missile at 2nd level, letting me choose not to Shield, which I remember won us the fight against a wizard guy, I think because it saved a slot for Thunderwave, as with his own Shield his AC was too high for us to hit reliably? Taking Thunderwave is fun but generally suboptimal, so I don’t recommend it below.)

Right now, it’s optimal for you, an unarmored sorcerer, to go into melee to sponge for the actual martials (you’re tankier than they are, with 17 AC and the two premier defensive reactions; martials lol). With daggers, you have +6 to-hit for 1d4+4 piercing (action) and +6 for 1d4 piercing (bonus action, two weapon fighting); that’s pretty respectable, if not better than some of your martial friends (martials lol).

Level 2

Draconic 1 / Druid 1

Spells

Cantrips: Guidance, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Entangle, Goodberry, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Thunderwave

Our first level in druid! Guidance is incredibly useful for ability checks (including initiative!); we’ll get it duplicated next level, but can switch it out with Cantrip Versatility in a bit. Having Guidance at level 2 is worth more than having Magic Stone at levels 2-4, because +5 to-hit for 1d6+3 bludgeoning is worse than what we’re doing with daggers. But Thorn Whip is nice, because we can fly: that’s +5 to-hit for 1d6 piercing, and (assuming we’re above the target) an extra 1d6 bludgeoning as they fall prone (which is the main thing we’re after). Also, you could in principle pull someone off a ship, which is quite funny. Goodberry and Healing Word are auto-picks; they’re nice for out-of-combat healing and in-combat reviving, respectively. Entangle is a nice control spell, and Thunderwave is fun. It’s too early for Absorb Elements to be relevant, but we’ll grab it later.

You’re a caster now! Pilot like Level 1 by default, but break out the control spells or healing when necessary. Use Guidance liberally, and make Goodberries for the next day with unused spell slots.

Level 3

Draconic 1 / Circle of Stars Druid 2

Spells

Cantrips: Guidance, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Entangle, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Thunderwave

We get our subclass and Wildshape! The Cow is the most useful form; with charge, you’ve got +6 to hit for 1d6+4 piercing, with an extra 2d6 piercing if you charge. Notably, it also has +4 STR, which allowed us to retrieve an extremely lucrative heavy treasure chest from a sinking ship, which translated to some overpowered magical items. Spending Wildshape for an owl familiar is also a very nice default usage. Circle of Stars gives us Guidance (which we already have), along with Proficiency Bonus (currently 2) free uses of Guiding Bolt per day (and we can also cast it with slots). We can also use Wildshape to activate a starry form; currently, Archer’s bonus action attack is the most useful, since we’re not concentrating on anything important yet.

We now have some more offensive tools: Guiding Bolt into Archer is a fine burst, giving +5 to-hit for 3d6 radiant (action) and +5 to-hit for 1d8+3 radiant (bonus action). The latter is at advantage if our Guiding Bolt hits; but we could also swap the order if the party rogue is going after us, to give them advantage. Of course, if we spend both Wildshapes, Archer into a Cow’s charge is going to do more.

Level 4

Draconic 1 / Stars 3

Spells

Cantrips: Guidance, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Entangle, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Thunderwave

Level 2: Pass without Trace, Spike Growth

We get 2nd-level spells! In particular, Pass without Trace essentially guarantees surprise by granting +10 stealth, which is effectively a free round of combat before enemies can react. Spike Growth is fantastic (maybe my favorite spell): enemies take 2d4 piercing for every 5 feet they move (or get moved) through its massive 20-foot-radius area. Notable, Thorn Whip allows us to drag enemies through the Spike Growth, yielding an extra 4d4 piercing on a hit. This also works well with the party warlock’s Repelling Blast, and our own Thunderwave.

Instead of concentrating on Guidance outside of combat by default, we now concentrate on Pass without Trace. This is big! We also have Spike Growth, which outputs an insane amount of control and damage (well, maybe Dead is just the best condition you can impose, so it’s all just control). From now on, the Dragon Starry Form is much more valuable than the Archer whenever we’ve cast a big spell: it guarantees at least a 10 + CON + PB (currently 14) on concentration checks, so we’re in pretty much no danger of dropping concentration (especially since we’re so hard to hit).

Level 5

Draconic 1 / Stars 4

Spells

Cantrips: Guidance, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Magic Stone, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Absorb Elements, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, Gift of Alacrity, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Thunderwave

Level 2: Misty Step, Pass without Trace, Spike Growth,

We get a few things this level, most importantly a Feat. We pick Fey Touched, which raises our Wisdom to 17, gives us a free daily Misty Step and Gift of Alacrity (which we can also cast with slots). The last one is what we were really after: it gives us an extra 1d8 to initiative. Note that Lucky would be more thematic for Stars (consider the 6th-level feature); it’s probably a side-grade. Our PB (and so our to-hit on everything, and our free Guiding Bolt supply) goes up from 2 to 3. Our Thorn Whip damage also goes from 1d6 to 2d6. We also get a 3rd-level slot; Pass without Trace and Spike Growth are worth a 3rd-level slot, but we could also upcast Thunderwave through a spike growth for 28 average damage on a failed save (9 on a success). We also get access to Wildshape creatures up to Challenge Rating 1/2 (notably the Warhorse) or with swim speeds (notably the Giant Poisonous Snake, who we’ll see more of next level…). At this point in the campaign, we’ve gotten enough gold to get some very nice items (Sentinal Shield for advantage on initiative, Wand of Fireballs for, well, Fireballs).

If you’re keeping track at home, our initiative if we cast Guidance (we can’t always afford Pass without Trace) is now 2d20kh1 + 4 + 1d8 + 1d4, yielding at least 20 more than 80% of the time. Go first. Lay down control. Hit things harder than the martials (lol), with Fireball if needed. Heal when necessary.

Level 6

Draconic 1 / Stars 5

Spells

Cantrips: Guidance, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Magic Stone, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Absorb Elements, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, Gift of Alacrity, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Thunderwave

Level 2: Misty Step, Pass without Trace, Spike Growth

Level 3: Conjure Animals, Sleet Storm

Whereas last level we got a bunch of small things (well, and the Wand of Fireballs), this level we get a single fantastic feature: Conjure Animals, the keystone of this build. We also pick up Sleet Storm for extra control, which is also thematic. (No favorable reading for Plant Growth.) We also pick up a Wand of Web, for some extra control (we have a ton of resources now). We unprepare Thunderwave, as its damage is now relatively low, and our low-level slots are more valuable for spending on Shield, Silvery Barbs, and Healing Word.

With Conjure Animals, we can summon eight Giant Poisonous Snakes. These things are monsters: 18 DEX (so +4 initiative, 14 AC, and +6 to-hit), a ten-foot reach and Blindsight range, and on a hit they do 1d4+4 piercing along with 3d6 poison (CON save DC 11 for half). That is, against a monster with AC 15 and a +4 CON save, we should expect to do 65 damage. That’s like hitting three enemies with Fireball, but it’s single-target, and we can do it again on the next turn (depending on how many snakes survive until then). It’s certainly much more than your martial friends are doing. Conjure Animals also doubles as a great control spell (Wall of Flesh?), since you control eight squares with your snakes. Of course, opportunity attacks are again a massive boost to damage output.

Summon snakes. Profit. Note that your best action may very well be to Dodge, to impose disadvantage on incoming attacks to help protect your concentration… except that Dragon Starry Form makes your concentration pretty much unbreakable, and you may have several Fireballs to throw.

Level 7

Draconic 1 / Stars 5 / Twilight Domain Cleric 1

Spells

Cantrips: Light, Guidance, Mage Hand, Mending, Minor Illusion, Magic Stone, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thaumaturgy, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Absorb Elements, Ceremony, Command, Detect Magic, Faerie Fire, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, Gift of Alacrity, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Sleep

Level 2: Misty Step, Pass without Trace, Spike Growth

Level 3: Conjure Animals, Plant Growth, Sleet Storm

We deepen our relationship with the night by becoming a Twilight Domain Cleric. Remember how opportunity attacks being a massive boost to damage output? Command: Flee generates those on command demand. Ceremony and Detect Magic are generally useful; we pick up Healing Word via Cleric, to free up a prep slot for Plant Growth via Druid. We also have a 4th-level slot now, but again it doesn’t do much extra for us. (I guess we could put around 50 hit points worth of enemies to Sleep, which we get for free along with Faerie Fire? But that’s worse than just summoning eight snakes.) We pick up some general utility cantrips, too. Twilight Domain also gives us advantage on initiative (so give the Sentinal Shield to the party cleric, and pick up a +1 shield instead). Note that, since we’re putting down big control or area-of-effect damage spells, it’s most valuable to focus on our own initiative. We can also give our now 300-foot Darkvision to the rest of the party daily for an hour (or more, at the cost of a spell slot).

Have fun with Command.

Level 8

Draconic 1 / Stars 5 / Twilight 2

Spells

Cantrips: Light, Guidance, Mage Hand, Mending, Minor Illusion, Magic Stone, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thaumaturgy, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Absorb Elements, Bless, Ceremony, Command, Detect Magic, Faerie Fire, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, Gift of Alacrity, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Sleep

Level 2: Misty Step, Pass without Trace, Spike Growth

Level 3: Conjure Animals, Plant Growth, Sleet Storm

So the initiative bump was nice and all, but what we were really after from the Twilight Cleric was the feature we get now: Twilight Sanctuary. Every short rest, we can activate a fountain of temporary hit points for ourselves and our allies, including the rather fragile snakes. It’s only 1d6+2 for now (it’ll go up by 1 with every additional level), but since it refreshes every turn, we end up adding a lot of effective hit points. This feature is so broken that 1d6+2 is good even at level 8 (whereas a straight-classed Twilight Cleric would be delivering 1d6+8, or about twice as much, at this level).

Make your snakes much harder to kill.

Level 9

Draconic 1 / Stars 5 / Twilight 3

Spells

Cantrips: Light, Guidance, Mage Hand, Mending, Minor Illusion, Magic Stone, Prestidigitation, Shape Water, Thaumaturgy, Thorn Whip

Level 1: Absorb Elements, Bless, Ceremony, Command, Detect Magic, Faerie Fire, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, Gift of Alacrity, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield, Silvery Barbs, Sleep

Level 2: Aid, Misty Step, Moonbeam, Pass without Trace, See Invisibility, Spike Growth

Level 3: Conjure Animals, Plant Growth, Sleet Storm

We pick up Aid, for more hit-point boosting. (We’ll use this on our party members, rather than on the snakes.) We also get a 5th-level slot, with which we can upcast Conjure Animals and summon twice as many snakes. This scaling is great; even though we’ve spent almost half our levels on multiclassing, our most powerful option is exactly that of a straight-classed Druid’s. Our PB goes up to 4, and our Twilight Sanctuary scales by a point.

By this point, you know how to pilot the build.

Level 10+

Draconic 1 / Stars X / Twilight 5

From here on, the campaign’s pretty much over. The main draw of this build is the incredible progression during all the levels of typical play. However, for completion’s sake, two more levels of Twilight Cleric yield a feat (pick Telekinetic or Lucky or something) and then 3rd-level cleric spells, notably Spirit Guardians, which also upcasts fantastically (and might be somewhat more reliable, once we start running into more enemies at this tier who are resistant or immune to our snakes). From then on, push more Stars Druid levels to get:

Level 12: Cosmic Omen

Level 13: 4th-level spells (Polymorph, Wall of Fire, …), 7th-level slots

Level 14: Feat (the other one of Lucky or Telekinetic)

Level 15: 5th-level spells (Wall of Stone, Planar Binding, …), 8th-level slots

Level 16: Twinkling Constellations

Level 17: 6th-level spells (Conjure Fey, Hero’s Feast, …), 9th-level slots

Level 18: Feat

Level 19: 7th-level spells (Mirage Arcane, Plane Shift, …)

Level 20: Full of Stars

So, we hit level 20 with a capstone from our main subclass. Unfortunately, we do miss out on 8th- and 9th-level spells. But 32 snakes will make you feel better.

Oxford

8 December 2025

Made steaks (‘beef-maxxing’, because British meat cattle probably have positive-welfare lives), Brussels sprouts (note the capital ‘B’ and the ‘s’ on the end), and mashed potato for lunch with Cadence; went on a quick run (5k along the river: around Christ Church meadow and then down the towpath from Folly Bridge to Donnington Bridge) while listening to James’s draft and the Legg-Hutter universal intelligence paper, then made pear, ginger, and rosemary ice cream in the blender for dessert. Watched some YouTube and math lectures, and cleaned the room (cleared the floor and vacuumed). Ordered Magdalen Ball tickets and a nice frying pan that for some reason this one site sold for much cheaper than was available anywhere else (and, in particular, the 24cm one was cheaper than the 20cm one—maybe a typo?).

9 December 2025

Explored the Angel & Greyhound meadow on today’s run. They’re cut off by a stream from the Bat Willow meadow and Addison’s walk (both inside Magdalen). It would be very easy to climb up the lower Bat Willow meadow onto Magdalen Bridge—it’s effectively a big ladder. Cadence and I had Amos over for dinner—vegan burgers / fries / salad, and some cupcakes that he made.

10 December 2025

Cadence and I split the 2-person steak platter at the Chester Arms (no bacon in the cabbage, which with salt was very good). The lamb kofta was amazing, the lentil soup was okay. Had a virgin mary, but they have tequila for their bloody marys (‘maries’?), which I’d like to try at some point. Also made the festive-looking nectarine and thyme ice cream again. Thyme is probably my favorite herb—it tastes really nice, is very fun to prepare, and I have some positive associations with it because I liked the thyme & rosemary chips from the Pret at 30th Street Station in Philly. I have no idea what’s in the Cosmic Rainbow C4 energy drink, but it’s delicious (though of course I only had a few small sips).

11 December 2025

Went up the hill in South Park to try and get a view of the city—you can indeed see the ‘dreaming spires’ from the top, especially if you climb a tree (particularly visible are Magdalen tower, Merton tower, the Radcliffe Camera, and the St. Mary’s church spire). Made grape ice cream—very nice, the sweetness and tartness of the grape hits at the end while the richness of the Kelly’s Cornish clotted cream hits at the beginning. I wonder how you can control the order in which flavours hit—making a simple salad dressing at the second Second Order in Ipswich, one problem was that the vinegar would hit first and then the olive oil would hit second, which was rather unpleasant. A chatbot suggested what ended up working to combine the two: just whisking vigorously with a fork! Got the Walker’s roasted chicken and thyme chips (which are vegetarian!), which were delicious (adding to the savoury snack rotation, along with the sweet and salty popcorn and the cheese platters—thanks Maxime!).

12 December 2025

Went with Cadence to Chipping Norton, had a great steak sandwich at The Rustic Bean and then a burger at McDonald’s back in Oxford—the current marketing theme is the Grinch, and the associated dill (‘Grinched McShaker’) fries are wonderful. Had a preliminary call about the cooperative intelligence project, pushing a bit on the proposed definition to get a feel for the underlying idea. An interesting case where some of the odd-seeming results from a naive formal implementation end up being reasonable—even obvious—upon more careful scrutiny. Made pomegranate, honeycomb, and rainbow peppercorn ice cream. Slightly chunky, unfortunately…

20 December 2025

Scaled, deboned, and seared a trout fillet from the East Oxford farmer’s market; dry-brined two chicken thighs, also from there. Both animals that plausibly had positive-welfare lives. The carbon steel is coming along nicely; eggs (the last two! the first eggs I’ve cooked for a long time) didn’t stick at all. Made a mounted butter sauce, though my technique is slowly getting better, for the trout, which we had with vegetables (peas, kale, tenderstem broccoli) and mashed potatoes. Ran a just sub-25 5k (I think; I need something better with which to track my runs than life360) up through Christ Church and then back along the tow path.