Rosalia Rambles

Tag: food

  • Redundancy Review: Day 326, “The Severn Theatre Diaries”

    Redundancy Review: Day 326, “The Severn Theatre Diaries”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning anthropologists and ornithologists, welcome to Day 326 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Upfront, I am running on god knows how little sleep right now, I was up till like gone five in the morning because of some regrettable beverage choices throughout the day, slept in until my partner returned home from his holiday, and then went out to do errands even though the correct play was to sleep some more.

    The show must go on though… well it does not have to cause I am the showrunner and I can just decide to do my own thing but I want the show to go on, especially cause there is a fair amount to cover.

    Usually when I put the word “diaries” into the title of a Redundancy Review it usually means I have gone travelling somewhere to partake in an event, like with the “Vexpo Diaries” or the “Albert Hall Diaries” from last year – side tangent, still stupid proud of of how the Vexpo piece turned out, was the longest thing I wrote last year and I still feel happy reading it back.

    It feels weird though, to be writing a “diaries” style segment on… me being in my hometown of Shrewsbury for an event. There is not really much to discuss in terms of travel or any novel aspects I encountered in a new place because I spend a good majority of my time talking about places around town anyway. The title remains though, as yesterday was a wonderful night out, even if I was all by myself.

    Context: parents had booked this show in Shrewsbury, not realising they had double booked with another show on the same date. They offered the Shrewsbury tickets to me, and I accepted, not really knowing what to expect.

    With any good excursion to the theatre, it is important to eat well before it, and given I was flying solo for the night due to my partner being away visiting his parents, I decided to go out for a meal and treat myself.

    But I had a conundrum, one that only a writer could have… in that I spent most of the day procrastinating and lazing about only to go “shit, I should write something”. This led me to seek out a place where I know I would not be judged for breaking out my laptop to have a drink and rapidly do some writing practice.

    When it comes to places like that in Shrewsbury, only one place really comes to mind: Floro Lounge. A place which acts well as a third space in that you can just keep ordering drinks and reclining into a comfy chair without needing to be moved on or rushed out cause someone else needs the table.

    And they definitely do offer a good variety of food and drink options as part of that package, with my usual drink of choice being an Elderflower Cooler that is both bright and refreshing, and my dinner that evening was a “Diablo Smash Burger”, two thin and crispy burger patties with chorizo, chilli jam, and an added fried egg for good measure.

    Fried eggs on burgers are one of my ultimate comforts, there is something so incredibly satisfying about the texture of a well-cooked egg colliding with the rich, crunchy beef of a smash burger. Add on some fries, onion rings, and mayo to bring it all together, and I had myself a worthy feast to prepare myself for the evening…

    …that said, Floro Lounge is fucking pricey sometimes, and despite how good their burgers are, they are one of the most premium items on the menu, with my Diablo Smash plus egg and onion rings running me up £21.80, alongside £4.65 for my drink bringing my total to £26.45. 

    In a word: indulgent, and something that likely will not reappear in my habits once my final pay comes from, as that is an expense I most definitely can not keep up with, even if I do love reviewing food.

    After finishing both my food and my short writing practice, I packed my gear up and took a short walk around the local park, somewhat of a mistake considering there is a music festival going on this weekend which I had somehow completely blanked on and realised a tranquil walk by the river was not in the cards, so I decided to head to the theatre instead.

    Following some issues with my tickets and two trips on the stairs, I got myself seated and took a quick cheeky picture of the stage with the cover image of the person I was going to see: Hamza Yassin

    He is a wildlife photographer, who has done work with the BBC, Channel 4, and many other smaller productions. Admittedly, I had not heard much about him before this show, and given that there was no photography or filming allowed as part of it, I was curious to see what was going to be put on show.

    What I ended up watching actually blew my mind. I was fascinated from start to finish, both how he started out in the world originally coming from Sudan, to being the black sheep of his family in that he is the only one not to pursue medicine, and all of the weird and wonderful stories he was able to tell from his tenure as a wildlife photographer, including:

    • Getting ticks the size of a grape stuck onto him from elephants in Nairobi 
    • Worrying he had habitualised an injured otter who had to stay with him for three weeks before it could go to a sanctuary
    • Being put on assignment to Antarctica last minute and having to lie about having sailed in the past
    • And many different stories about the trust that photographers put in local guides to keep them safe and inform them of opportunities

    In particular, I was impressed at how he talked about the fieldcraft and tracking elements of being a wildlife photographer. Practicing your movements and understanding how an animal behaves so that you are able to get within such a short distance that your camera is able to pick up even the smallest details of a creature up close and personal sounds incredible, with the pictures to back it up.

    I went in with no expectations, and came out having had a wonderful evening – I was even thinking to myself during the interval that my parents had missed out handing me these tickets, that this would have been an equally amazing experience for them.

    And well…

    …given that this happened to them on their night out, I think my evening was ultimately the more successful one.

    Not really a travel blog like I have done in the past, but still a wonderful time out.

    Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to take it easy and enjoy the weekend. Take in some sun, or take some time in bed – either is completely valid.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 321, “Career Uncertainty, Part 2

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning admirals and commodores, welcome to Day 321 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Off the back of getting rejected for a job role I was pretty excited for, I continue to persist in my goal to write a daily series. Heads up that this edition might read a bit more like a rant in some areas, as I am going to be talking about career stuff as I briefly alluded to yesterday.

    About eight years of my life has been spent either aspiring and studying to enter the tech industry, or working in the tech industry itself. As a twenty eight year old, this means approximately one quarter of my life has been spent in the tech space.

    This started with me going to university to study Computer Games Technology, with the hope of becoming a games programmer of some description, either working on my own independent projects or joining some large studio to be a cog in the machine. Admittedly it started well, with both my first and second year having good results in what I was attempting to do with my coursework.

    Not without struggle though. My second year in particular was plagued with a lot of struggle and tense moments as things heated up, particularly in the first semester more than anything else. 

    Third year… was the hardest. The first semester had me navigating a lot of personal issues that impacted my work in a negative way that whilst I was still fulfilling deadlines and getting on with things, I was not pushing myself on working on things that were not coursework, which is definitely one of the things that you need to succeed as a programmer by improving your skills.

    With the gift of hindsight, whilst I knew how to navigate programming, I am not built to be a full-time programmer. The idea of spending a full work day sitting in front of an IDE (or more realistic to the modern day, an agent prompt window) did not appeal to me in the slightest.

    This issue was compounded when my second semester was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing things online, disrupting the deadlines I had and disrupting the flow of the group I was working with at the time, causing things to fall behind.

    I still graduated, with a First class degree no less, specifically because the module I scored highest on, as part of a course dedicated to building me up as a programmer more than anything else, was Consultancy and IT Management, which was around building a case study to upgrade a company’s IT infrastructure… which I feel reflects the current me pretty nicely, but is still funny to look back on.

    As is evident from my many previous stories, I did not in-fact go into programming full time. Whilst someone in my life at the time tried to push me to work on personal projects so I could put together a more proper portfolio, the drive was not there, and I should have admitted that way sooner, both to myself and that person.

    So I spent six months unemployed, trying to work on writing when I can but mainly resolving a bunch of personal issues more than anything else. COVID jobs market sucked, and I did have some interviews, but not much success.

    That was until I interviewed for the position of QA Engineer at Codemasters, which I have talked about at length in my Day 118 Redundancy Review. This set the trajectory for where my career has taken me today, with a year spent in the games industry until I pivoted into working for an XR company that specialised in both bespoke VR content and an educational platform.

    This is where I have spent the majority of my career, building myself up as a QA initially before my mentor Gabi took me under her wing and started to build me up as a producer as well… I should reach out to her again, especially now with shit hitting the fan again. She is one of the reasons I have as much resilience as I do today, and I still try to internalise one of the last things she told me when the company went to shit:

    “You are a person worth knowing.”

    I gave a lot of myself to that XR company, pushing myself beyond my limits and learning as much as I could with each project. I definitely pushed a little too hard in some instances, as I had to have at least two periods of leave that were due to the stress catching up to me… well, the latter one was purely stress, the former was due to me catching COVID and severely underestimating how long it took to recover – I kept coming back to work only to have myself punched back down by how sluggish my body felt, something I still struggle with today as I most definitely have some variety of Long COVID after catching it twice.

    My aim was to make myself indispensable, if a little neurotic in how I approached things. Stubbornness is a genetic trait I fight against every day, and it definitely affected how I communicated with my colleagues at times, both in positive and negative ways. Regardless, I made my mark, and navigated responsibilities I would have never considered in the year prior. 

    But now we get to the hard details, and that is what it is like to work within startup/scaleup culture. I will try to frame this with the positive aspect first followed by why it can cause psychological strain in certain scenarios.

    First off, team size. After coming from Codemasters where a single platform QA team would be around fifteen to twenty people at peak times with the greater QA team easily being one-hundred people and above, going to a company which never went above fifty people at the peak was certainly a cultural difference.

    The primary perk of this was knowing who you worked with well, especially after my part of the company got reorganised into a proper studio team where we would have a general standup and retro alongside project specific meetings. This meant I got to know people on a personal level, learning about their hobbies, how they prefer to work, and who I could ask certain questions of. A lot of my old colleagues were incredibly chill people, and very supportive of me as a trans person – one distinct memory I have is absolutely bawling on the shoulder of one of them after I had to dip from a company dinner because of a murder mystery actor making a rather crass transphobic joke, which I spent a fair bit of time not wanting to ruin his very nice jacket with my snot or tears.

    The main downside of working this way is that responsibilities had to be shared almost all of the time, often leading to moments where my plate would be filled with all different tasks that needed to be balanced or differing deadlines, requiring precision prioritisation in order to get things done, which I managed to do most days, but the stress definitely felt intense on some days, especially while I was working towards being a producer, often having to balance QA responsibilities along with my production responsibilities.

    To bring things back to the positive, this does mean I can prepare, practice, and perform a presentation in a relatively short timescale, something I utilised in a recent interview to do the above in around half an hour. AI might be able to do a similar thing, but I can do it much cheaper with fewer resources, like caffeine and painkillers as opposed to context and tokens.

    Second main perk is being treated like an adult in regards to working patterns. Codemasters offered me flexitime but this was a measured arrangement, where if I signed out early on any given day, I would need to make up that time later on in the week, or vice versa where staying late one night meant I could sign out earlier. Work is hard and intense within startup culture, but so long as the work is being completed by the deadline, I was free to work however I wanted, which is an absolute relief to an ADHDer like myself, as forcing myself to work on a pattern that is not mine does my head in.

    Downside of this all? Overtime was very rarely compensated, partially due to the fact my compensation was already pretty generous, but this meant any time I needed to stay late or start early often resulted in nothing but a congratulations, which was actually less than what I got in the games industry, as I got time-and-a-half for any weekend work and double time for any bank holiday. Flexing my life for the needs of the business was also a requirement, which became particularly annoying on the day after my partner moved in with me, where I was supposed to cook our first proper meal together but ended up needing to stay multiple hours past my usual finishing time to help get something out the door, which ended with no result anyway.

    (small aside: I do not believe in the discussion of wages being taboo. Possibly a Gen Z thing, possibly a leftist thing.)

    And finally, the thing that I cannot highlight any positive for, or even try to talk about in a positive way: layoffs, and funding.

    There is no way for me to discuss this part of working in a startup or scaleup without going overly negative, because this shit absolutely destroys lives, morale, and direction of a company. In my five year career, I have survived three rounds of layoffs, and being laid off twice. Two rounds of those layoffs have been in the XR industry, where I had to watch friends and senior colleagues disappear whilst I was still around, leading to some serious survivor guilt developing which got worse during the second round.

    No one can dodge mortar shells forever, though it seems appropriate that for someone who survived layoffs three times, it would obviously take the nuke of administration/insolvency for me to finally get hit, leading to where we are today with the Redundancy Review and the “season 2” we are currently within due to the second layoff.

    So, what is the moral of me running through this all?

    Because whilst I can continue on in the tech industry, and there is definitely a real possibility I stick around if a good opportunity arises, everything I have run through has worn me down bit by fucking bit, and I am done. The games industry is undergoing constant shifts with layoffs, closures, and cancellations, the tech industry is going all in on AI which leads to fewer opportunities being created, and pretty much all of my friends have told me to move away from startup culture for the sake of my own health.

    That leaves me contemplating going down the path of the starving artist, which has its own set of pitfalls and would lead to even more career uncertainty than I am facing right now….

    …but when has that ever stopped me?

    The world needs more LGBTQ+ artists making works public, especially trans artists to try show those falling victim to culture war topics that not only are we real people, we are also nothing like what the media portrays – I literally do not like going to the toilet in public at the best of times I am certainly not going to be doing heinous shit in a women’s toilet.

    I did not intend for this to become such a long piece, but the words kept flowing as I kept typing, but now we need to do a review topic. Something shorter than usual, and I have something just for that.

    This is a can of Poppi, a brand of soda that was launched in the US in 2018 as a “gut healthy” soda with it recently launching in the UK in Pret A Manger and Tesco locations. I saw it multiple times in my local Tesco express, but considering it is £2 for an individual can or £4.50 Clubcard Price for a four-pack, I never really had the impetus to try it until today, where I went to grab a meal deal lunch for my partner and decided to include it as the drink as repayment to myself for running this errand.

    And I am very glad it came as the meal deal drink because holy shit I do not consider this worth £2 for a can and I would be at a stretch to pay £1.12~ per can in the four-pack.

    Comparing Poppi to a standard fizzy orange drink in the UK, Tango and/or Fanta, it barely has any orange flavour to it, or even much fizz to it, kind of tasting like a squash made with an extremely flat sparkling water. I am someone who does not even like Fanta, but if I had to take the pick between Fanta or Poppi I would take Fanta every time.

    But it is a healthy soda, so obviously it would not taste as good as a processed and high-sugar drink.

    I will concede that point, but counter with the comparison I made. A glass of orange squash has more orange flavour, but would also have more health benefits in term of hydration and be substantially cheaper than paying £1.12-£2 for a can of supposedly “healthy” soda.

    Note to self, Robinson’s Squash for a future Redundancy Review topic.

    Just about 2300 words for today, the longest I have written in a damn while.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to relax and that the Monday blues are not hitting you too hard.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 320, “Calmer than Usual”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning salarymen and manufacturers, welcome to Day 320 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Sunday is usually a day I prefer to keep quiet with minimal engagements, partially out of an existential dread that comes from knowing I have to go to work the next day and wondering what the hell is going to come across my desk when I do.

    But now with the bizarre calm I find myself in from knowing my employment with my current company is coming to an end, today has been a mixture of relaxation and letting myself exist rather than worrying about what comes tomorrow.

    It has however been plagued by a pretty annoying headache, so I have not been able to push myself to do the amount of things I have wanted to today. Specifically was wanting to make a roast dinner for myself and my partner but ended up changing plans to a much simpler leftovers meal.

    Despite my pledge to wanting to keep this a daily series again, I find myself struggling to figure out what to write about for the “personal” segment of the review. Partially because whilst there is a lot I want to say about I feel in my current situation, I cannot properly express myself without getting sorely unprofessional in my conduct, and because it feels like very early days in these next steps.

    I am relaxed, which I consider the important thing. I know there is going to come a point where panic will set in once more and I very much will need a source of employment to keep the lights on, but, for now, there is a certain peace in having space to breathe again and not worry about things on Sunday.

    There is a joke to be made here about not worrying on Sunday because all I have now is time to worry about being unemployed, though I am going to remain on the optimistic side whilst focusing on writing, recovery, and slowly tuning up both the tech and the writing portfolio.

    Though if I am honest… I have doubts if I want to carry on in the tech industry after all this.

    If we include my time in university (bit of a stretch but stay with me), the year I worked in the games industry and the four years I have worked in the XR industry, I have an eight year career in tech.

    And outside of the money, which admittedly is very good, there is not much that draws me in anymore, and plenty that is pushing me out.

    I think I will talk more on that tomorrow – not exactly like I have much to do on a work day now.

    Gonna reach into the backlogs for something to review today, which came from the local market about a month back… which means, I can finally do one of these again…

    Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!

    God, I missed doing that one.

    Anyway, at Shrewsbury Market there is a stall simply called “Eat In”. It offers a decent variety of Italian ingredients for making pizza, pasta, or antipasto alongside offering Roman-style sourdough pizza by the slice, topped with your choice of oil or hot honey.

    My usual order is a simple pepperoni slice, but on this day in the past, one pizza caught my eye and I could not resist trying it.

    This is an XL piece of pizza topped with Shropshire ham and mushroom, which was then topped off with Kashmiri chilli oil, also made by a local trader. This cost me £6.80, which is slightly higher than what I would usually pay for my pepperoni sliced topped in a similar way, £4.50, but is also way bigger than that slice.

    Pizza by the slice is something I wish more independent places in the UK would offer. There are not many options outside of Greggs, which is… passable but not really what I would be looking for in terms of a pizza lunch, and I do not exactly want to purchase a pizza from somewhere like Domino’s or otherwise as it is both a bit overkill and would spoil my appetite for dinner.

    Eat In serves my needs exactly, and it helps that each slice of pizza is made with absolute love, having amazingly fluffy dough, a crisp crust on the bottom, and a spicy oil on top to bring out the best of the local ingredients.

    Now I have made myself hungry damnit. 

    Ahh well, I can just go to the market on Tuesday and indulge.

    That will do it for today, I am going to spend the rest of my evening relaxing and maybe jamming some Umamusume in before bed.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to rest easy knowing what approaches tomorrow. I hope that work is easy on you and nothing massively brings you down.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 318, “Season 2”

    Redundancy Review: Day 318, “Season 2”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning slingers and flingers, welcome to Day 318 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Two quick points of order before we get into the swing of things.

    First, after a friend in a Discord server pointed it out, yeah, this is essentially Season 2 of the Redundancy Review. Hopefully now that we have been renewed for a new season we develop certain plotlines further and introduce yet more intrigue to the story.

    Second, another friend of mine pointed out there was an amazing gif to use instead of the “what now?” one I used yesterday:

    I think this one helps sum up how I am feeling with the spectre of unemployment this time around. During the initial period of redundancy there were some aspects of gallows humour in how I handled things but I was primarily navigating the difficult aspects with a heavy heart.

    Now?

    The idea of being unemployed still does not appeal to me, but if I have to be real, there is a certain sense of relief that comes this time around, leading to more gallows humour – I even pulled the sarcastic “What are you gonna do? Fire me?” on my boss when we were talking about my last few light duties until my time is up.

    It feels weird to call this being “laid off” as well, cause I was a contractor, meaning my time could have been up at any moment due to the nature of the role – though I was under the impression that the ball could have kept rolling just a little bit longer.

    But, the weekend is upon us, and I intend to spend it in the company of good people, enjoying good times, and eating good food.

    Speaking of good food, it seems appropriate to christen the new season of the Redundancy Review with a food review, although not from my adoptive home of Shrewsbury this time so I do not get to do my usual intro.

    Instead this review comes from Telford, a short hop on the train, taking us to a wide array of eating establishments including the subject of today’s review: Wingers.

    Wingers is a chain of fast food chicken restaurants in the UK, and this was my first time trying it out, having caught both mine and my partner’s eye multiple times whenever we chose to go out shopping around Telford.

    Now, even though the UK has a good chicken shop culture, I unfortunately did not have the blessings to grow up in an area with many of them, meaning all I really had to make do with growing up was KFC on the off chance I got to go to one. This influenced my outlook going into this as I assumed it was going to be quite similar to KFC.

    It was not.

    And I mean that in the best way possible.

    My choice of meal was a four-piece chicken tender meal, which comes with fries and a drink, which I paid £2.50 to upgrade that to a ridiculously thicc Biscoff milkshake, topping things off with a dip pot of garlic parmesan sauce for £1. In total, combining my add-ons with the base meal’s price of £9.75, this came to £12.25. My usual KFC order of either a Zinger Stacker or a Boneless Banquet would come to around the £10-11 mark, making this just a hair above what I would pay there.

    This was worth the small price increase.

    First off, the chicken, which came drenched in Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo sauce. These tenders were absolutely massive compared to the mini-fillets you would get at KFC, they were incredibly juicy on the inside, with a deliciously crisp crust on the outside, even as the spicy sauce seeped in. Four of these tenders were more than enough to start filling me up on what was a somewhat indulgent lunch.

    And then came the skin-on fries. I am used to KFC giving you a middling amount of fries as an accompaniment to a meal, hence why I was fully unprepared for the surprisingly large portion size that Wingers provided. I even commented as I worked my way through them that I felt it was almost too many fries to go with a lunch meal, but I persevered as they were absolutely delicious, if just a very bog standard fry.

    The garlic parmesan sauce was… alright. It definitely tasted both like garlic and like parmesan but it did not feel particularly special, at £1 though it is hard not to complain, and it definitely added some complexity to the standard fries.

    However, the true star of the show was my milkshake. I am somewhat of a milkshake connoisseur, self-described obviously, but I have tried multiple different shakes across many different fast-food establishments.

    This was, hands down, one of the best I have ever tasted.

    The Biscoff flavour was extremely pronounced, the shake itself was straw-standingly thick requiring several gulps of air to even get it to come up the straw, and considering I had picked the spicy sauce to go on my tenders, it was the perfect accompaniment to cool my mouth down.

    Definitely want to return to Wingers if given the chance, especially considering with the portion sizes on the fries and how well four tenders filled me up, I feel it could make a surprisingly economical treat lunch for my partner and myself if we split a £13.75 eight tender meal between ourselves with only needing to add an additional drink.

    This is… the first time since January that I have actually managed to post a Redundancy Review back-to-back. That is something to be proud of given the circumstances.

    But that does it for today. Thank you for reading this edition of Redundancy Review Season 2. Wherever you are, I hope you have satisfying weekend plans put together. If not, and you are simply using the time to recover from whatever the week brought upon you, I wish you a restful time to forget the burdens of the world.


  • Redundancy Review: Day 259-286, “Building Things”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning constructors and builders, welcome to Day 259 to 286 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    On the plus side, it was only a twenty-eight(ish) day gap between posts this time!

    On the down side, still a long ass time not to be writing anything.

    Past me would have said “long time not to be doing anything productive”, but honestly, the reason I have been away so long is because I have been finding my own ways of productivity outside of my work that has kept me away from writing, alongside a holiday taken a few weeks back that served as a major reset to my system that has basically reshifted my current outlook on things substantially.

    There was a lot of stress at my day job, which took priority during the day and I was working on other small projects at the same time, but after that holiday and having an extended period of time to just zen out not doing much put my brain into this current state where all stress and anxiety are basically on the back burner… which has led to me joking that I actually just burnt out the part of my brain that feels stressed causing me to be incapable of feeling it anymore.

    Outside of the jokes, there is a certain paranoia that has come with this relaxed state: why am I not stressed?

    It could be entirely down to the fact that I have spent the last couple of months dealing with stress meaning now that my body has been given the absence of stress it does not actually fully know what to feel. Or perhaps that these feelings of relaxation in the past have often been omens of impending doom on the horizon relating to job news so I am constantly thinking about what might be coming.

    Whatever comes, I feel I am adequately prepared for it, especially when looking back to a year ago. A year ago I thought I was in a relatively secure position, some amount of savings, and things starting to settle right after a big move forward in my life – right before everything became suddenly unsettled with the collapse of the last company I worked at.

    Sitting here now, writing a piece that was meant to start as something else and has now evolved into a reflective piece, I look over my situation seeing a much improved position. I would still be fucked six ways from Sunday if I were to lose my job again, but in terms of financials I would at least be able to take time for soul-searching in order to properly find out what I want to do next.

    There is one thing I know I will always want to do in life though: build things.

    What do I mean by that?

    Well, it can mean almost anything in a way. When someone says they are building something, it can be a piece of software, a physical item, or the vague concept of a “brand”. Humans are creatures that enjoy building things, and there is joy to be found through the process of creation.

    For me, I have several things I can build, and I have always found a fascination with being able to build things.

    Writing on this site is me building my “brand”, one focused around human creativity, honesty in the face of adversity, and talking about my hobbies in a roundabout way.

    But the hobbies I have are also about building. I am back into the flow of building Warhammer 40k models, something which I hope to finally talk about now that I have found my writing spark again. I play a lot of video games that involve building mechanics of some kind, more so now that my partner has tempted me to the dark side with playing Satisfactory. And I build complex flavours into the food I make on a daily basis when the passion and creativity hits me in the kitchen.

    I will always want to build things, and I will always want to take the time to build those things because the journey of creation is what makes the final results satisfying.

    And now, for the first time in… seventy six days fucking hell, it is time for the Redundancy Review to actually feature a review about something… though not about something I built, in fact the review topic for today was picked on impulse based on the route I had to take on my lunch walk today.

    In the past, I was someone that went to KFC fairly often. The allure of a Zinger Stacker topped with a hash brown brought me in a number of times over the years, but as time went on, I found myself going less and less, with the times I did go back in often yielding disappointment as the quality dropped further down in comparison to the prices going up. It was only cause of a recent promotion I found completely by chance when checking the website to see what offers they might have that I decided to go in today, specifically because, as a self-respecting trans woman, I cannot pass up the opportunity for pickle-based foods.

    “Pickle Mania”, as KFC is calling it, is a series of special menu items revolving around the humble pickled cucumber. A staple addition to most fast food burgers now brought to the forefront through a series of pickle-themed offerings, including a chicken burger with two types of pickle paired with a “creamy pickle ranch”, and pickle loaded fries featuring the crispy pickle pieces, popcorn chicken, and the creamy pickle ranch again.

    But the one that caught my eye, both for being one of my favourite items of fried food in existence alongside the fact a mainstream fast food has put them on the menu were the frickles. Sliced pickle that are coated in batter and then deep-fried for a crunchy & briney bite that is hard to beat.

    So naturally, I decided to try all three offerings. Loaded fries on the left pickle burger in the middle, and the frickles on the right.

    Small aside, “loaded fries” is definitely a food trend right now, as I have seen several places do their own variations on the dish. I am not entirely sure where it has come from but considering the infinite possibilities for loaded fries and the fact it has been a concept long before this current trend makes me tolerate it a lot more than whatever the hell was going on with matcha or Dubai chocolate.

    Anyway, I will go in order from left-to-right across the items, starting with the pickle loaded fries. These are standard KFC fries topped with the creamy pickle ranch, crispy pickle pieces, and standard popcorn chicken.

    These were… alright. The crispy pickle pieces are an interesting take on pickled cucumber but I felt they lost a lot of what appeals to me in a pickle, they were not briney, they were not salty, they just kind of tasted like dehydrated cucumber more than anything else.

    What stood out to me though was the creamy pickle ranch. Ranch is not a sauce you find often in the UK due to cultural differences but this tasted absolutely divine… provided you like briney/vinegary flavours as it was strong in the sauce, to an almost overpowering degree. Good for my tastes, but might not be to someone else’s.

    Next up was the pickle burger, which kind of gave me the vibe of what a standard American “chicken sandwich” is like compared to the chicken burgers you often find over here. No cheese, just chicken, sauce, and two kinds of pickles: the crispy pieces plus your standard gherkins. This was also just alright, outside of the creamy pickle ranch it tasted like a standard chicken burger, which would be great if the price reflected as such, whereas this was priced at £1 more than other burgers on the menu.

    Finally, we came to what I had come to try, the frickles. These were slices of pickle coated in a black pepper infused batter, which bizarrely did not come with a side of the creamy pickle ranch for dipping. Some places do their frickles as spears rather than slices, but I have a soft spot for slices, little discs of perfection.

    Whilst these were the highlight of the spread for me, I do also sadly have to give them another rating of “alright” with an added “but” afterwards. As far as frickles go, these were not the best I have had, not the worst I have had either, just simply “alright”. That said, for the price of £2.49 for a small portion of frickles in KFC of all places, you could do a lot worse, especially when compared to the price of £8.99 for the pickle burger meal with a £1.99 charge on top of that to add the loaded pickle fries – on their own the pickle fries would cost an almost disgraceful £3.99 which I do not think is worth it on their own at all for what you get.

    It is an interesting little experiment KFC has tried out with these ones, but sadly, it is not really enough to draw me back in regularly compared to the other places I can find lunch where I live. A shame, but we carry on.

    First time in a while writing a proper review, hopefully I managed to get my points across without much rambling. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are, I hope you are able to relax with whatever brings you comfort in this weird, fucked up world that we live in sometimes.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 207, “Re-establishing Discipline”

    Redundancy Review: Day 207, “Re-establishing Discipline”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning tyrants and despots, welcome to Day 207 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review…

    …given the events of this morning the greeting seems very much on point with world events rather than the topic of discussion at hand… three days, all it took was three days for the world to start going to shit again.

    Ah well, hopefully this is the year that various tyrants around the world finally start to choke it through various means, we just have to pray that whatever takes their place leads to a more fair world – and whilst I would love to include Starmer under the title of tyrant, he is more just a tosser than anything else, and I dread to think what a Reform government would look like.

    Anyway, that got extremely political early on and whilst I could easily continue down this path, I want to try stay on topic.

    It is the first Saturday of the year, and I found myself starting way later than I had wanted to initially. The plan was to go shopping at Asda early on in the day to do a proper food shop to restock the fridge followed by a good session of gaming, early in this case meaning around nine in the morning.

    This did not go ahead as intended, as by the time my alarm went off I did not feel as if I had slept well enough, combining this with my partner telling me to go back to sleep it ended up being close to half ten before we started doing anything for the day.

    I feel conflicted on how this morning went. On one hand, it is the weekend, and as someone who currently works a weekday job with regular hours, the weekend is my time to relax so I should not be putting pressure on myself to be insanely productive at all times, especially as someone who can, will, and has worked themselves into a state of severe burnout several times before.

    On the other hand, I have essentially had two weeks off of work and my discipline is mostly definitely lacking right now. This had started to happen before my break as well, as I found myself starting later than my usual time in the morning due to needing a bit more extra sleep or finding it hard to clamber out of bed.

    That lack of discipline can be attributed to seasonal depression though, something I am hoping to see the other side of within the coming months, alongside the usual end-of-year exhaustion that comes from working near flat out in the twilight months.

    Hopefully I am able to get back into my usual routine given I have had plenty of time to rest, which has helped to clear my cough and stomach issues up extremely well… there is something to read into there around stress making illness worse.

    Pacing myself as I ease back into work should help with rebuilding my discipline as well, there is a lot of stuff to do in the first month or so of the year with what the company I am working for intends to do but hopefully I do not need to go full tilt until two weeks or so in the future.

    Watch as I have now jinxed myself.

    Similarly, keeping a routine to my writing would help as well, not only to help reach my goal of 180 Redundancy Review posts, but also just for the satisfaction that writing brings, giving me a moment’s peace to reflect on things and put my words onto the screen.

    I have a vague idea of what I want to be writing about for the next week or so, which should hopefully give me plenty of posts for the foreseeable future, but as we all know, my schedule is anything but consistent.

    The good news is that some of these topics are from a backlog of sorts, and within this backlog we have yet another exciting episode of…

    Rosa Eats Her Way Around Shrewsbury!

    In the week just gone my partner and I took an excursion to a local venue called “Ribeye Shrewsbury”, a steakhouse which recently opened. We took advantage of a very generous gift from my partner’s mother to pay for the majority of this, so thank you very much for that!

    For starters, my selection was the twice fried chicken, served with what was described as “chicken skin mayonnaise” which seemed like a spiced mayo with batter bits sprinkled on top, whilst my partner had truffle potato croquettes, served with parmesan sprinkles around the base. 

    Both of these were absolutely phenomenal. The chicken was extraordinarily crisp whilst being extremely juicy on the inside, the lightly spiced mayo only complimenting the flavour further with each delicious bite. Three very decently sized strips for £9 served as an amazing starter.

    Though if I have to be honest, I think my partner won out overall. Something about the way the potato croquettes were prepared made their insides extremely smooth and velvety whilst the outside was delightfully crispy, the little parmesan shavings adding a much needed boost of salty tang to make the flavours of the potato pop. Three well-sized croquettes for £8 made for another good starter.

    But whilst the starters were delicious, and something I could very much see myself munching on casually, they are not the reason one goes to a steakhouse. You go for the excess that comes with consuming a pure slab of beef, and these were our selections:

    My choice was a 250g/8.8oz ribeye, cooked to my preferred doneness of rare, which might upset some readers to see, but to me there is no more perfect way of enjoying red meat than to eat it almost still alive and dripping with delicious juices. My partner’s choice of meat was a 300g/10.5oz sirloin cooked to a more sensible medium rare. Both were served with an upgraded side of beef dripping chips, roasted flat mushroom, and roasted cherry tomatoes on the vine.

    Additionally, there was a side of six beer-battered onion rings and on my plate there was an added pot of bearnaise sauce, my preferred steak sauce of choice for rare meat.

    When it came to starters my partner and I shared so we were able to try a little of each other’s, but sadly this did not happen for our steaks as we were fully engrossed in the sheer amount of flavour they contained for each of us. The meat was cooked perfectly for my taste, the chips were crispy with the perfect amount of finishing salt added to them, the mushroom was surprisingly flavour packed, and whilst I did not indulge in a tomato myself due to a dislike of whole tomatoes, my partner told me even they had a big amount of flavour to them.

    The onion rings were perfect as well, they are sort of my side of choice when it comes to trying out a new place, with these being perfectly crispy, not soggy on the inside as some onion rings can be, and serving as the perfect extra touch to the meal, and whilst it was nice, the bearnaise sauce did not add a massive amount to my enjoyment of the meal, and especially considering the price of £4 for the small pot, it will not feature again if we manage to return.

    Now, for the full price, which came to an admittedly eyewatering £109.55, which breaks down as follows:

    • Twice fried chicken: £9
    • Truffle potato croquettes: £8
    • 250g ribeye: £28
    • 300g sirloin: £35
    • Upgrading both of those to have beef dripping chips
    • Onion rings: £4.80
    • Bearnaise sauce: £4
    • “Golden Static”, which was a lemon and elderflower drink: £5.95
    • Small sparkling water: £2.80
    • Two glasses of Coke: £7.20

    But, this price comes with two disclaimers, the first being that this was mostly paid for by the generous gift from my partner’s mother, who covered £100 of this cost. The second disclaimer is that we actually paid more than the bill price, paying an even £120 once the card machine was brought over.

    The service was fantastic, and the initial amount did not include a discretionary service charge as many places around town do, so we figured we would add approximately 10% onto our final amount both for the sake of roundings, and because the staff were genuinely amazing to provide us with such a fantastic meal.

    Will I go back to Ribeye? If the stars align to get another generous gift that would enable such a fantastic meal or if a moment to celebrate in excess comes up, but it will not enter into the regular visits such as Floro Lounge or Wimpy… two massive polar opposites in that statement.

    But that covers everything for today, thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and enjoy yourself in the first weekend of the new year, taking things easy before work once more comes for us all.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 205-206, “New Year, New Bingo”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning starters and appetisers, welcome to Day 205 and 206 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    So starting my year off with period cramps was fun, and led to me using the first day of a year to just rest, relax, and partake in recreation. Sleeping in, followed by a shit tonne of gaming, capped off with a takeaway pizza and even more gaming – what is not to like?

    But now, things are slowly starting to return to some kind of routine. My partner has received a new work schedule so we have a clearer idea of what kind of days off/holidays we can take in the near future, and I return to work in three days time to see out whatever might be left of my current contract.

    I could spend more time relaxing, but I feel getting myself back into a writing rhythm is the best idea, especially considering one of my new bingo card goals.

    Did one of these last year with my friends, and considering how well it went we have decided to do another round. I feel my card this year is a bit more toned down compared to the goals I set last year, there are some new ones entirely, some based around travel, and a couple of returning goals that I would definitely love to see.

    So, I figured for the first post of the year it would be a fun idea to go through all of the goals, explain the logic behind them a little bit, and explore any challenges/obstacles I think I will encounter with them.

    Starting from the top left, we have:

    Set up spare room properly for friends who want to stay: Pretty self-explanatory, my partner’s gaming room currently contains a very nice bed frame we need to get a mattress for. Once that is sorted we can host friends travelling from abroad who need a place to rest or for anyone to stay over if they need space away from their current situation for a night or two.

    VExpo 2026: Mentioned in my year-end ramble as one of my main highlights of last year, this year I definitely want to attend VExpo again and make it another weekend to remember. Financials and job situation might influence how it takes shape later on in the year, but I know I want to make it

    Write semi-fictional story about being transgender: My mentor Gabi always told me to “write the bloody book already” whenever we talked about writing, and I definitely have the idea in mind for one. My goal is to write a story that can help those transitioning later on in life, creating something that helps those who start their transition past their mid-twenties or even later on than that, something that says “you do not have to have your shit together to make a change for your own happiness”. It is a story idea that has stayed in my mind, and it would be great to bring it to life this year.

    100% Ace Combat 8: Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve comes out this year at some point, and given how much I absolutely love the franchise along with my goal to generally 100% more games this year, it would mean a lot to me to push for 100%ing the latest entry soon after it comes out… provided it does not get delayed for any reason.

    Get VTuber reference sheet drawn up (Phox, Hina, Axolotl): It should come as no surprise that I have aspirations to be a VTuber myself, though I recognise it is a long journey to get to that point, hence why the goal for this year is set at a more reasonable level of just getting the reference sheet together. Additionally, I have not yet settled on what concept I would want to pursue properly, having the options of my phoenix-fox (phox) fursona, a character I lovingly title “Hina Relucta”, or some nebulous concept involving one of my other favourite creatures, the axolotl. Hopefully I can develop any of these out over the course of the year.

    Write 180 Redundancy Review posts: Had to include my rambles as a goal this year, and considering I managed 120 posts last year, figured I would up the milestone a bit to make it 180, just under half the year worth of posts or averaging about one every two days. Of course it seems a bit silly to say “I will write a daily post about every two days”, but I want to be realistic and consider that the schedule will almost certainly slip throughout the course of the year due to any number of external stimuli.

    Get a Switch 2: Simple and to the point, I would not be opposed to upgrading my Switch hardware to enable myself to not only play new releases that catch my eye, but to also enjoy previous entries in the Switch catalogue without dealing with the persistent performance problems that plagued the original hardware… looking squarely at you Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

    Visit Swansea again: Near to the end of last year my partner and I took a trip to Swansea for a Hololive Card Game tournament where we were the only two participants. This was a fun time not only for engaging in the event but also for exploring the town and spending time with my partner’s family, a fun weekend trip I would definitely like to repeat at some point this year.

    Get back into miniature painting: The title is vague but make no mistake, this is me relapsing into Warhammer. I would like to actually make this relapse productive though rather than just chasing the need to build something with my hands again, hence why I have been building up a modest collection of old rulebooks from my glory days of playing the tabletop and would be looking to paint my armies properly as well. Fourteen year old me may have been onto something back in the day, so may as well see if she really did have the right idea.

    Acquire clothing made out of exotic materials: What exotic materials you may ask? I am afraid that is for me to know and for you to guess fruitlessly… but considering I am already engaging in innuendo you can probably guess it is something that would not be leaving the house. 

    Start to declutter the flat/find homes for things on the walls: An extension to a goal last year to get more picture frames and hang cool stuff around the flat, this is to reduce the amount of general clutter around the flat by placing things in dedicated homes or by getting more wall mounted hooks to display things properly – specifically foam dart blasters, and potentially looking at downsizing the collection if space starts to become limited.

    Host three board game/cheese board/cheese game/board board parties: Having a stroke near to the end aside, I mentioned that I wanted to spend more time with friends this year, and having made myself a modest cheeseboard at the start of the week has inspired me to host friends to play board games, eat cheese, or do both at the same time. For additional clarification: playing MTG Commander with my usual group does not count toward this goal, it has to be non-MTG games played for it to count towards the party goals.

    Free Space: You have a free space in your bingo board that you do not know what to fill with? Why not Wynaut Zoidberg?

    Go to Glasgow twice to see family: In the wake of my redundancy last year I resolved that I would spend a bit of time up north in Scotland with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. It was an extremely fun time, and, finances permitting, I would love to spend more time up there with them, especially as my nephew is growing up extremely fast and it would be nice to be around more with him.

    Go back to a full blonde dye job: Another returning goal, and one that is more personal to my look. Ever since dying my hair fully blonde mid-way through 2023 and feeling how much euphoria it gave me, I want to go back to it. This can be done at home or in salon, but given how much hair I have and how much of a nightmare it is to take care of on its own, I would rather leave this one to professionals even though the price increases dramatically for that.

    Do my full write up on Expedition 33: Even when the dust settles after the new update, even when the conflict that the Game Awards inevitably brought is forgotten, and even when discussion of the game has likely petered out entirely, tomorrow comes. Expedition 33 was a major part of my gaming journey towards the end of 2025, and I still want to share my experience with it as part of my blog.

    100% Nier Replicant and Nier Automata: Hideo Kojima is not the only Japanese game director I have a fascination with, as I also hold a considerable amount of fondness for the works of Yoko Taro, the creative mind behind the Drakengard and Nier franchises. 100%ing both Nier titles on PC is definitely an interesting undertaking, especially given the man’s fondness for insisting on collecting all weapons and playing the game multiple times to see everything in the story, but I want to push myself to experience both games – pain of poor game design choices included.

    Acquire more houseplants: Green is good. Houseplants are good. I want to fill more of my living space with green plants and continue to let new life grow within the boundaries of this flat.

    Find a new full time, permanent job: A goal that is at odds with one another, as fulfilling this sometime within the next six months would almost certainly kill the goal of writing 180 Redundancy Review posts this year, but getting myself back into full time and permanent work would do wonders for both my self-esteem and general situational stability that would enable me to continue living the life I want to.

    Get down to a sub 100cm waistline: Yet another returning goal, but one I hold a fair bit of pessimism for. I definitely want to get my figure down to where it has been in the past, where I was able to fit into a large-size off the shelf cosplay back in my early university days. Simultaneously though, I know my love of food and treats will get in the way of that one massively without major life changes in terms of activity, but we will see how things go.

    Visit Bristol: Bristol was a city I absolutely loved getting the opportunity to visit growing up, either going to a gig for one of my favourite bands growing up or passing through on the way home from a family holiday. Being able to return to the city as an adult and exploring the surrounding area with the resources I currently find at my disposal would be a fun weekend away, and one I know my partner would appreciate for other reasons as well.

    Don’t be so hard on myself when things go awry: Nebulous? Yes. Difficult to measure? Yes. Something I want to try improve on nonetheless? Yes. When things go wrong my lack of self-esteem can and will punch me down severely if given the chance, and this year I would like to try hold myself higher when plans go off the rails or I need to adjust my approach based on changing circumstances.

    Custom cosplay (Hololive? Umamsume? Rosalina?): The penultimate returning goal from last year, now with a bit of added flavour text. Previously I attempted to get a custom cosplay of Shiori Novella from Hololive English Advent which did not end well, but it has not disheartened me. I would still love to get a custom cosplay, though my options have expanded. Hololive is still included, but given my current addiction problem hyperfixation of Umamusme: Pretty Derby, there are definitely options I can take from horse girls. And of course, there is always the goal that would make my childhood self happy, cosplaying as Rosalina from Mario Galaxy – an oddly thematic one given the release of the Mario Galaxy movie coming this year.

    Go to a furmeet: The final returning goal, and a simple one. For someone who is part of the furry community, I do not engage in as many IRL events as I would like to, which is something I definitely want to change in the coming year.

    100% Armoured Core 6: And now the true final goal, a gaming related one to 100% Armoured Core 6: Fires of Rubicon. A series I have not engaged in before but has caught my eye solely for it being a mecha game and me having an absolute love of anything mecha, mechanical, or heavy weapons related.

    That covers every goal, and that covers everything for the first Redundancy Review of 2026. Thank you for reading this edition, wherever you are I hope you have had a relaxing start to the year and that you have set yourself goals that are reasonable, achievable, and help to make you the person you want to become.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 202-204, “The Patent Pending Year End Ramble”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning closers and finishers, welcome to Day 202, 203, and 204 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    I’m waiting in my cold flat when the bell begins to chime
    Reflecting on this past year as it doesn’t have much time
    ‘Cause at twelve o’clock, they take me to the New Year’s Dawn
    The sands of time for me are running low…

    Bit of an Iron Maiden reference to end the year off. Was sitting here trying to think how to write an opening to the year end ramble and Hallowed Be Thy Name just got right into my head.

    2025 is almost over, and for a lot of us it has been one right stinker of a year. There have been plenty of high points throughout the year where the light of hope shined brightly to break through the darkness, but true to the sequence of days this year started with, it really was a “WThF” kind of year.

    Not sure what a “ThFS” year looks like, but I am ninety-percent convinced it cannot be worse than what this year was.

    I am going to get all the negatives out of the way first, because there is:

    1. A lot of them
    2. I do not want the positives being buried by the negatives
    3. Holy shit this year went so wrong in so many ways

    Going to start with the elephant in the room: redundancy. The whole reason I am sitting here writing a series with that word in the title. Working in the tech industry often means that you await news of your next funding round or new business arriving in with bated breath, desperately yearning for a job where you work on a ThinkPad instead, but when the reality hits that you really do not have a job anymore, it hits like a truck.

    For me, I was anticipating it, and had begun job searching anyway… though I was not anticipating it so soon in the year, I was at least expecting to see 2025 in my previous role, so getting sideswiped in May was not fun in the slightest.

    In the wake of being laid off, the lingering resentment I hold towards the UK government came right to the forefront as I navigated the Insolvency Service, Universal Credit/Jobseekers Allowance, and then setting up as a sole trader with HMRC, fighting through bureaucracy at every moment in the short month I was unemployed. 

    Which, yeah, I was only actually unemployed for a month after officially being made redundant. I cannot imagine how some of my former colleagues feel struggling to find work several months after the fact, because that month felt simultaneously long and slow to me.

    Even with the future still uncertain, I do feel I have developed a fair bit due to doing this contract role. Has it been challenging in its own way? Of course it has, I still struggle to reconcile who I want to be with who I currently am, which has been the source of several mental challenges over the course of the end of the year, not helped by seasonal depression being an absolute monster this time around due to how grey and wet the end of the year has been.

    I do feel hardened by everything I have gone through, and not necessarily in the cold & cynical way I was initially on the path of earlier in the year. I still put too much of myself into things that will likely not return the same love and care, leading to me overusing my energy during the day leaving very little in the tank for the evenings and making it so my weekends are more focused on recovery than actually enjoying myself. 

    But I feel myself slowly gaining an acceptance of the future holding whatever it has for me, as much as I feel a latent desire to be in control of my fate. There is very little I can do to change things other than stay the path I am on and wait for opportunities to arise, which this year has definitely had a lot of good ones.

    That is enough about job stuff, time to move on to some minor negative things.

    First off: a custom cosplay going awry two weeks before my big convention holiday to VExpo. That really sucked, even though the resolution to it was an overall positive due to me getting a full refund for shoddy work. It has at least taught me to be extremely anally retentive and specific when it comes time to define the specifications for a new custom cosplay in the new year, a goal I definitely want to try again with, though maybe not entirely with Hololive this time around.

    Secondly, and I mentioned this in the last Redundancy Review: having to fight an online fashion community for besmirching my partner’s honour, another event that came with a lot of negatives, but has some positive linings.

    Was it a traumatic ordeal for the both of us to navigate false and inflated accusations from a bunch of elitist randoms online? Yes

    Did it take away three precious days of our life navigating the ever changing goalposts those upjumped Discord mods enforced upon us? Yes

    Was our privacy violated by the amount of guilty until proven innocent assumptions a group of sad, lonely, and bored timewasters inflicted upon us? Yes

    Did I get a fucking thrill from taking their arguments apart piece-by-piece in an extensive Google Dockey and having a grudge to hold on to in order to live a beautiful life for both me and my partner out of sheer spite? You bet your arse I do.

    And again, if anyone from that fashion community is reading this post because you still feel the need to cyberstalk us, read my words carefully. I am more than capable of holding this grudge until the two year waiting period is up, and then holding it beyond that point to fuel the spite even further.

    God that feels good to get out of my system.

    And finally: not spending enough time with friends, something I have been working on fixing in the last months of the year and want to work on more in the early months of 2026. From pulling out of social engagements at the last minute, having clashing plans that prevent me from making the most of my time with people, or just simply having my mental demons catch up with me at the worst times, there has been less time I have spent with the people I care about most in my life.

    Think that covers every major bit of negativity this year, time to move onto the way more positive aspects of the year.

    Starting with another elephant in the room: VExpo, the absolute highlight of my year, and focus of the best & biggest piece of writing I did this year what do you mean this was almost four months ago now what the fuck it was day 90 I wrote that and we’re on day 204 now.

    VExpo gave me a taste of a life I did not actually think I would have again. One of going out to conventions, meeting like-minded individuals who enjoy the same hobbies that I do, spending time engaging in all my silly hobbies and coming back feeling both the lows of post-con depression and the absolute high of experiencing such a wonderful event with so many memories made.

    It is my goal to return for VExpo 2026, and I want to make next year’s trip even better than the one this year, with hopefully the convention itself stepping up their game to put on an even better show.

    Next up, it has actually been a great year for me in terms of gaming and pushing myself to 100% complete various games, the proudest of which I definitely think is either Monster Hunter Wilds for the surprising reward of the size grind in that game due to how investigations work and how my friends and I were able to share investigations with one another, or Death Stranding Director’s Cut, for the fairly straightforward nature of all its achievements and the fact it is a Kojima game, so I was absolutely enthralled the entire time.

    It is something I would like to bring forward into 2026, picking up previous projects to finally finish off like Mass Effect Legendary Collection and finding new ones like Space Marine 2. Achievements are always special to me, and pushing myself to 100% games is something I seriously enjoy.

    One part of this year that has ended up surprisingly well for me is actually my financial situation. Without going into too much detail and oversharing sensitive information, for someone who lost their job in the middle of the year I actually end this year off with a stronger savings position than what I started in, almost doubling what I had at the beginning. Of course I still have to worry about taxes in a couple months time which will take a decent chunk back out of that savings cushion, but the fact I can be in a position to not be overly worried about that time is incredibly reassuring.

    And finally, I want to end this post off with what I think is definitely one of the biggest positives of this year.

    This.

    The Redundancy Review.

    A series born out of an unfortunate event, turning into my biggest writing project of my life, with several ups and downs and a lot of missed days, I still end this year off with:

    • 120 posts covering 204 days
    • Approximately 120,000 words across those posts, averaging about 1000 words per post and 584 words per day
    • 54 total food and drink reviews
    • 16 posts about VTubers and VTuber related content
    • 1044 views since kicking off the Redundancy Review

    All of which are insane milestones to consider when 2024 was one of my worst years for writing, and 2025, through a shit circumstance, ended up being one of my best.

    The year ends with a certain amount of uncertainty over my future still, but even in the face of adversity, I made the most of this year with amazing goals achieved nonetheless. For the thumbnail, I am going to post the bingo card I made at the start of the year alongside a group of friends in lieu of standard “resolutions”, which turned into a much more fun way to track the year gone by.

    And that does it for the Year End Ramble, and for the year. Thank you for reading this edition of the Redundancy Review, wherever you are, be it in the past or in the future, I hope you are doing well, and that life is on a steady path for you.

    2025 is ending, let us hope 2026 is a year of far simpler times.

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 148-151, “Finally Slowing Down”

    Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 148-151, “Finally Slowing Down”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning tortoises and hares, welcome to one big ass catch up post for Day 148 to 151 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Work has been utter chaos this week, preparing for a big launch requiring all hands on deck for all manner of tasks, which had the net result of me ultimately having very little time for writing between managing period symptoms, managing sinus infection symptoms, and engaging in what small self-care activities my remaining time & energy would allow.

    Not entirely out of the woods yet either with work, but at the very least I have the weekend now to enact some basic recovery plan and actually engage with my hobbies once more: gaming, cooking, and of course, writing.

    Admittedly it has been a while since I have had something like this at work. My entire career has been marked by various points where a massive effort was needed to get something out the door on a Friday, usually leaving me exhausted by the time everything wrapped up and just wanting nothing more than to sleep for fourteen hours.

    The fact that I am awake, aware, and engaging in something mentally stimulating after nine hours of sleep shows that I have built a resilience to this kind of thing… when you ignore the fact that my dual-afflictions this week meant I had to take Wednesday morning off because I felt like I was going to die if I put on a VR headset and every day outside of that it was a challenge to drag myself to my desk each day…

    …but I kept going, even in the face of adversity, and that is what I am going to be proud of. Through anxiety, pain, and exhaustion, I always choose to keep moving so I am able to see the better days on the horizon.

    Trying to write things down after a period of not writing for a bit always feels difficult, as if somehow I need to shake the rust and cobwebs out of my system even though I have been practicing for several months now, although my usual stumbling block is finding areas to elaborate on in a positive way rather than harping on the negative aspects of what I have been experiencing.

    I believe it is important to let yourself experience negative feelings, but not to let them consume you – a balancing act that is most definitely easier said than done. Suppressing negative feelings can result in them escaping out at the worst of times, lashing out at those around you when everything becomes too hard to bear, a painful experience I know all too well. But constantly dwelling on whatever is bringing negativity to your life ultimately lowers your resting mood which can make it harder to appreciate what few positive moments come your way.

    For all my struggles, there is still a lot I have going for me in this life, and I want to try focus on that more than what is not exactly going my way right now.

    Think that will cover everything for today, a bit of a shorter post but given my exhaustion and minor addiction to Clair Obscur right now, it does the job of hopefully starting a new streak.

    Need a thumbnail though, so I will use some pictures of the burgers I made tonight. My first proper bit of cooking this entire week.

    Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to have a relaxing weekend and that you are able to recover from whatever might have happened during your week.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 147, “Dreams”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia Rambles)

    Good morning dreamers and nappers, welcome to Day 147 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Something I miss a lot from my recent experiences with stress is that I have not been having any dreams lately, which makes me a bit sad honestly – not that I can really remember most of what happens in my dreams anyway due to not keeping a dream journal, but the ability to go inside of my mind for a sensory experience before my alarm goes off to rouse me out of sleep is something I oddly enjoy.

    Still capable of having nightmares though, though admittedly they are as infrequent as my dreams right now which is relieving. Specifically when it comes to having nightmares I can struggle to differentiate between what happened in the dream and what happened in real life, something that has actually led me to believing what happened in the nightmare before I snap myself out of it.

    My fascination with dreaming most likely comes from my love of stories, the idea that I can go to sleep with the ability to experience an almost nonsensical story produced by the random thoughts my sleeping brain comes up with has a strange appeal to it.

    But, as usual with me being a writer, the title has a double meaning, as I want to ramble about what my dreams are in an aspirational sense, and why despite the fact they feel so far away right now, I want to keep working towards them. This is partially inspired by a conversation I had with a friend over lunch about my current situation in relation to job searching, personal pursuits, and life in general.

    Let me start with the obvious one: writing. I would love to be able to make it as a writer somehow, either as a freelancer with reliably stable regular gigs with clients who love what I do or as an in-house dedicated copywriter for some kind of digital agency, though I know in this current economy that is one hell of an ask, especially given my minimal experience as a formal copywriter. Plenty of examples and instances throughout my career, just harder to sell than someone who has been doing it a lot longer than I.

    It would also be nice if I could monetise Rambles in some way, which I sort of already do with commissions (contact me for commission rates, I would be happy to work on anything you like (yes anything)), but that is also a similarly tall task to make it support all of my expenses.

    For now though, Rambles is my creative outlet, something to keep my mind active and my skills honed against the tide of AI-generated content. Hopefully when my life calms down a bit I will be able to write more fiction and get to some of the more in-depth pieces I always promised myself I would create.

    My dreams are not limited to writing though, some of them are logical, some of them are… a little more esoteric.

    I would love to make my own card game one day. I have grown up playing all sorts of tabletop games, from starting out with Warhammer 40k in my local library, to being introduced to the GOATed deckbuilder that is Star Realms, before I was finally brought down to the gutter when I got into Magic: the Gathering back in 2017. Like most people who spent their time playing those sorts of games, I have ideas and concepts I would love to bring to life one day, from translating the concept of a fighting game to cardboard to making my own deckbuilder themed around aerial combat.

    There is also the concept of “dream cosplays” I would love to do. Obviously Shiori Novella from Hololive English is still right up there, especially given the events of this year where a commissioner severely let me down, but there is also Princess Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy, the character who (sort of) gave me my name and acted as one of my first egg-cracking moments. So many amazing outfits I would love to wear and goof around in, making both my current self and my inner child extremely happy.

    And finally, the more esoteric one, well, at least it feels esoteric to me.

    I would love to learn how to dance.

    Not just any style of dance – I would love to learn how to dance like my idols in Hololive.

    Whenever a concert comes around, whenever one of the Holomems has a chance to perform live on stage, I watch their dances with fascination and glee, hoping one day I could learn to dance like that myself. Admittedly this did not start with Hololive, as this fascination dates all the way back to when I listened to Luka Luka Night Fever for the first time, but the interest in idol dances definitely ramped up with discovering Hololive.

    Which perfectly leads into what I want to discuss for today’s VTuesday, the first ever full cross-generation Hololive song: Shiny Smily Story, specifically the “call & response practice” version the main channel posted before 4th fes.

    The description does not lie. This is the idol song that represents Hololive, and even as new anthems for different fes and events come along, there will always be something incredibly special about what this song represents, either it be the highs of talents coming together to spread the joy of Hololive, or the inevitable lows that come alongside a graduation where a music box version of this song is used as backing over clips of significant moments.

    Reason I chose this version specifically as this is the most recent posting of the full version with subtitled lyrics, there is a version from when the song was first released back in 2020 but I have always felt a greater resonance with the translated lyrics in this version, so it is the interpretation I want to use for analysis.

    One of the first thing that catches me attention with these lyrics is the use of digital terminology as part of some of the verses, really playing with the fact that Hololive is an agency of virtual idols, examples including:

    “I tweaked the settings of my quivering heart

    So that I wouldn’t feel scared”

    “As I go, I’ll hit delete

    On any thoughts of giving up”

    I always love when Hololive, and hell VTubers in general, really lean into the digital space they occupy, utilising the unique nature of the medium to do interesting things, and small, cute little references to their own digital medium are very sweet.

    The next part I want to talk about is the bridge before the final chorus, and the other main inspiration behind the subject of today’s article. When I first read these lyrics all the way back in 2023, I felt myself tear up a little bit at their meaning, and honestly even two years later I still get misty eyed reading them:

    “I wanna take the stage I’ve dreamed of at last

    Shine with colors no one else has

    Cry my eyes out once in a while

    Get back up again with a smile

    Share the futures that we can see

    Make our dreams a reality

    It’s make or break

    Come on and take a leap of faith”

    There is so much meaning to me in these lyrics, both for what I see in my oshi Holomems and what I can see in myself. 

    For the former meaning, being able to perform on stage can be the realisation of a long-standing dream, with the bright & bold colours of their idol outfit on full display. It can be a long journey, one that will be marked with sadness and hardship, but should never be given up on, because there is a future where that journey pays off, and all the previous hard times show that you have made it, whatever leaps of faith taken paid off in the end.

    And as for the latter meaning?

    Well, I think I ended up summarising what it means for me when I talked about the idol journey above, with just a few context tweaks it becomes more personal to me.

    I know my long-term future is good, because I have the drive and work ethic to deliver what my future needs. There will be hurdles, roadblocks, and stumbles galore, but so long as I can roll with the punches and trust where my feet will land with each step, I am certain I will make it.

    There is not actually much else I want to say about SSS, that bridge covers practically everything else I could say about the song. Through highs, lows, positives, negatives, the dream will always be there.

    Do need a thumbnail though…

    Yeah, best fox friend will work.

    That will cover everything for today, and good timing cause it is almost 10pm here – damn work schedule. Thank you for reading today’s edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax and look forward to the rest of your week.