Hello there, friends and fans! 
It’s October 21, 2025– and here are some things that happened in the meantime!
This Is The Current State Of Things:
General News:Today I received news from my supervising Professor that my research proposal has officially been accepted! This is a huge, important milestone on my pathway to earning my PhD! I will keep you appraised, as usual.
Current Writing Projects: With my time now fully occupied with research and assignments from varsity, I’m sorry to say: NONE. I’ll have no time available for writing fiction for the immediate future! At least not until I’ve handed in my PhD thesis sometime next year! (It still doesn’t sound real to me, but yes, it really is happening!) So yes, I decided to give it a rest until I’m done with that whole PhD project. In the meantime, if you like, you can catch up on books you may have missed (there are over 40 of them!) or keep up by bookmarking What’s Brewing?
There we are, all caught up! 
Other Stuff:
Culture Shock:
I’ve been watching Americans making tech videos lately… trying out Linux on “older PCs” – which they consider “ancient”, “past it”, “done” and “e-waste”. 8 years old… the system they’re talking about is just 8 years old! Poor geriatric old thing, it’s struggling to run Linux Mint, Winboat and Win 10 all at the same time, with all four it’s widdle cores…
1st world problems, right?
To provide some context, I’m using an HP laptop right now that’s now just over 7 years old – and it’s the newest PC we currently own and are actually using. It’s my mainstay – my life is basically on it. The desktop PC we watch our Youtube channels on is a 7th gen i3 HP (now older than 15 years). The rest of our PC devices, which we use for a variety of different purposes such as a NAS to keep all our stuff on, a video editor/low-end gaming PC, are all 2nd-gen and are practically prehistoric by comparison. All of them are running Win 10 – and very nicely.
All “e-waste” – that is, according to that form of “sensibility”. 😟
My, my, my. 🤔
Just goes to show the difference between how the people over there live, as opposed to how we live over here.
Americans grew up in a throw-away society, you see. They have a “consumer mindset”. When something doesn’t suit them anymore, they toss it (call it “consumed”) and move on. Meanwhile, South Africans don’t largely have that mindset – we will keep driving that 30 year old car until the wheels come off, because we can’t afford to buy a brand new one, keep that old Windows XP/7/10 laptop going because we can’t afford to buy a fancy new one – and because they will still run just fine as is – or if you put a version of Linux on them, apparently.
When it breaks, goes out of fashion, or something newer comes out, Americans easily replace it. “Just buy a new one.” Like it’s nothing.
When a South African replaces their PC, you can be sure it’s because it’s been upgraded to the max, fixed numerous times, has finally given up the ghost, and by the time it ends up on Facebook market place, it’s likely to be completely, totally, irrevocably fucked. FUBAR. 😂
Bear in mind that I’m saying this as a PC technician who has just spent a weekend trying to resuscitate a handful of old PC tech items (i.e. paper weights) bought dirt (and I do mean DIRT – holy fuck! Wait for the video!) cheap off Facebook – even going to the desperate lengths of baking them in an oven at 100 degrees Celsius to get them working again!
Did I succeed. No. Well, yes. But also no. Anyway, you’ll have to wait a while to find out.
At least I got some good video footage out of it. Bugger. 😂
Anyway, moving on – y’all have a nice day now. 🙂
As always, I’ll keep you posted about any new developments. Until then, be kind, be strong, take care of each other, and all the best!
Thanks to all of you for your support (you know who you are)! ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Remember, keep reading!
