Welcome to darreninthenet
Welcome to the “darreninthenet”, my new occasional blog of the occasional thoughts and rumblings of me, Darren, a forty something from, and now living just outside of, London in the UK.
I can feel you have some burning questions in mind so let’s get them out of the way:
What kind of things are you likely to post on here, Darren???
It could be anything really, whatever’s on my mind at the time that I feel is worth sharing with the world (even if nobody else is reading it, yet).
Given how my hobbies, interests and brain normally goes this is likely to include:
- Thoughts on current affairs, politics, the economy, news etc (disclosure: I have a left leaning bias in my political views)
- Sports – I love sports and will watch almost anything when I have time and opportunity… on a future blog post, I’ll talk about the teams I support or follow from various sports around the world
- Jokes and satire
- Some creative writing I fancied sharing with you all
- Thoughts on any of my hobbies and interests (except for a couple, see below for more on that…)
- Diaries and posts of the various adventures, holidays and mishaps my wife and I get up to
- What I’m currently reading with mini book reviews
- Mental health – a topic very important to and heavily related to:
- Coaching and performance – mainly from a personal and professional effectiveness point of view – I have done this professionally and still continue to use these skills in my life, in and out of work
- Work related stuff – if it’s particularly interesting
- Food – my wife and I are both “foodies” and she’s a great amateur cook. We also like to visit various restaurants.
- Physical health and fitness – like a lot of us, I was a lot fitter when I was of school age and used to maniacally run around playing football (soccer) with my mates. Nowadays I am definitely overweight and not as fit, but it is something I am working on. My wife has been an inspiration in this with the significant successes she’s had in this area. More on all of this in future blog posts…
- Computer gaming – I used to do this a lot. Nowadays, not so much as my hobby portfolio became more diverse but I still do occasionally
My mindset is a very scientific way of thinking (although I’m not perfect). Claims require evidence and new, proven and credible, information will likely change my opinion to a greater or lesser degree. There’s nothing shameful in finding out you were wrong about something and admitting it – doubling down on outdated or wrong points of view in the face of overwhelming credible evidence is downright stupid.
I also won’t mince my words – I’ve always said what I think, so at least you know my honest point of view.
That’s a big list of stuff you might write about! What won’t we see on here?
- Anything fascist or racist or sexist or homophobic or… etc etc – I’ll likely discuss my thoughts on these topics (see the first bullet point above) but I’ll never ever promote or glorify such disgusting views. I’m “woke” and proud of it – if you don’t like that, this is probably not the blog for you.
- Anything involving technology or scientific progress – this is a large interest of mine so I am setting up another blog, Techtranet, for that purpose (although I’ll probably sign-post on here those blog entries – there are none at the time of writing though as I’ve only just started)
- Anything involving table-top gaming (and associated activities such as LARPing) – this is a major hobby for me so like Techtranet it has it’s own blog – Meeps & Geeks (I love that name!) Again, I’ll probably sign-post on here blog entries from Meeps & Geeks but like Techtranet I’ve only just started so you won’t find any blog posts there, yet
How often can we expect to indulge and relish in your wisdom?
Umm, as often as I feel like it and am able? I would love to start out with ridiculous intentions and commit to ”Posting Daily!” or ”Every week on a Saturday!” but let’s face it, that’s unlikely to happen… I have a busy life and it’ll get done when I am able and when I want to. You might get two or three posts on the bounce and then nothing for a couple of weeks. Whatever.
The only promise I will make is that if I ever decide to stop, I’ll post that on here.
How else can we follow you?
Mastodon – @darreninthenet@dice.camp Twitter – @darreninthenet (I’m winding down my Twitter postings, follow the above Mastodon one instead) Reddit – /u/darreninthenet Github – darreninthenet