Is perhaps a fire name for a Jazz-Metal band and also my first reflection about shaving with a razor instead of an electric shaver.

My father did not teach me how to shave as a teenager. A very sad story. He probably took one look at my chubby, pink seventeen year old cheeks and realised he’d need to wait for me to graduate from Uni before the need was actually there. Nevertheless, one of my parents handed me down an electric shaver from some other kid. I kept it in a drawer and used it once or twice a week to vibrate my chin. And I used it to make toothbrush related soap opera phocumentaries inspired by whatever I’d seen on Passions that week… That isn’t related to why I couldn’t grow a beard, or at least not related directly.

At some point I must have needed to shave, not because I didn’t want to have a beard but because my sparse stubble would get itchy. A glance in my life archives indicates that by age twenty I was at the point where I didn’t shave for a week before going camping so that I could come back looking rugged - which didn’t work.

I remained loyal to my electric shavers since 2002. I think partly because at least twenty years ago they started selling shavers with cleaning stations that did the cleaning of the foil for you and that felt pretty futuristic and the marketing got me.

A few years ago and a few shavers later I made an investment into a Braun Series 9 electric shaver with cleaning station. It was pretty expensive but I was convinced it was going to reduce the amount of time I waste shaving by cutting closer and not missing as many hairs. I had the foil for a long time, and then I convinced myself that replacing it would give me a more effective shave again. For some reason that foil broke after only eight months. That was annoying, so I bought another replacement for another $100 and after eight months of only shaving two times a week that one broke too.

I was so infuriated by this that I decided to switch to razor shaving, and I bought a razor and some shaving cream. I didn’t bother my father to teach me to shave. At this point there are good Youtube tutorials which I’m guessing most dads are referring their sons to these days anyway.

I watched the Youtube video and then I shaved my face and it was pretty easy. I had given myself like 10% odds that I was going to slit my throat and bleed out just because of how bad at physical labour I am. But I think like Youtube, razors have also reached a point of flawless helpfulness.

Anyway while I didn’t pierce my skin, I clearly did move that razor the wrong way at certain parts of my skin and under my lip was a patch of bleeding pores that triggered the reaction that inspired this entry.

My verdict on razor shaving - I don’t think it’s much different to a Braun Series 9. I still missed a bunch of hairs and it doesn’t feel any closer. The replacement heads are a lot cheaper than a new foil, but on the other hand the razor doesn’t clean itself in a little robot box.

I spent over an hour lifting up a corner of my grass tonight so I could replace a sprinkler head. Youtube made it look very easy, but I think my garden shovel was the wrong tool compared to the pointer spades I saw online.

I eventually did uncover enough to unscrew the top and put a new head on. Luckily when I mowed over it last week I just clipped it, and the barrel was intact. I probably wouldn’t have mowed over it if I had a better lawn mower, but I don’t. What am I supposed to do? Buy a garden spade and a new lawnmower and a new shaver head every few months?

On Monday we had a blackout for a few hours. When the power came back on, the alarm system control by the back door was flashing. I have enough LEDs in my life so I pressed some buttons to try and stop the flashing. This armed the alarm system. I did not receive the code to the alarm system from the original owners. A few seconds later the alarm went off.

The house alarm was very loud. Luckily I knew where the box was - in the roof cavity. I also had experience from the old house which also had an alarm system. At that house I unplugged the alarm system, but later it went off and I learned that there was a battery connected for backup. So, I went into the roof cavity and there I learned that the alarm was hardwired in this house AND the battery connection was corroded on. Fortunately, I was in there with a Philips head screwdriver that I’d needed to get into the alarm box in the first place. And I realised that I could use this to unscrew and pull all the wires from their connections. This took a few minutes, and it was quite satisfying hearing each siren and alarm go silent as I pulled out wire after wire. It was like defusing a bomb in a movie.

I am not sure I have done anything to actually improve the house recently, despite many attempts. I can’t just blame my tools. I think I am the tool. I did buy an inflatable basketball hoop slash ring toss for the pool. Let’s count that as a win.

Did I see the aurora tonight? No. But my camera did!

It's 2026 and I have officially spent $8.60 on a single coffee. It was jumbo sized at least. And served by the seaside.

Shortly afterwards I was donating some blood and I suppose some caffeine at the blood donation place. As can be expected, everyone at the blood donation clinic is very interested to take your blood. "Would you like to make a future appointment?", "You have such good veins."

I got a keyring and a cookie although I handed back the cookie. The keyring will help me remember my blood type.

The blood people also recommended something salty to help recovery. Probably because they want to take more blood. So for dinner we got take away fish and chips with lots of salt and then we walked in the shallows along the beach which is also salty.

I have owned my baseball cap for six seven different years now, so it felt like it was time to wear it somewhere appropriate like an actual baseball game.

Adelaide won a very long game against the Sydney Blue Sox thanks to a 5 run seventh innings. It allowed plenty of time to catch up with friends.

I also experienced the most connection to Australia that I have felt for quite some time, standing to listen to an instrumental of the national anthem with a thousand other people, not one of us singing.

If tonight’s baseball game was a metaphor for 2026, it will start slowly, pick up quite drastically in Spring, and then drag out to a successful but slow conclusion. The last part of the year might get skipped.

I don’t think 2026 will be a microcosm of a baseball game. At least I hope it won't.

It's the days between Christmas and New Year's. There could be no better time to reflect on the year that has passed. And also to study for a tech certification to add to my portfolio / meet my KPI during customer downtime.

If we felt like it, we could unify data across multiple, disparate Brad source systems and harmonise them into a common data model. Surely this would be a way to discover insights.
Could that data be normalised? Of course. Would it be normal?

Let's say we used some of the many connectors available out of the box - or from packages - to ingest this data. Perhaps for certain sources we'd need to vibe-code our own integration and push data via the ingestion API.

What Data Lake Objects would those streams provide?

Norway bookings for rooms by lakes.
Health data recording steps walked around lakes.
Purchase history and ATV at the supermarkets at West Lakes.

We could pull Spotify plays, Hevy workout logs, physio case notes, backup physio case notes, Cursor tab completions, licorice deposits, investment profits and losses, X-ray reports, Scandinavian geolocations, dog hairs swallowed, JaVale McGee dunks witnessed. Quiz night questions answered—and botched. Calf raises. Kombucha consumed (free and paid). Solar kilowatts generated. pH and chlorine measurements. Journal entries posted. Board games played (against others, between Brads).

With enough data, we would be getting a comprehensive view of our customers. Music Brad, Gym Brad, Family Brad, Work Brad, House Brad. And then we could unify them. Match them all by fuzzy name and email address, plus a custom rule on an identifier or two. We could get 100% consolidation, but I suspect that would be an overgrouping.

From there, we could create a segment with a filter, limiting our audience to engagements where YEAR(date) = 2025. We could include some calculated insights, though we'd probably need our data-aware specialist for that, and I'd need to check Profile Explorer tomorrow to work out *which* Brad he got consolidated into.

With our segment complete, we can activate it and send it to an activation target. I suppose that target should be "2026".

What 2026 is going to do with all those Brads is hard to say.

And that's why it's important to invest time in the design phase and understand your use cases before you start clicking and ingesting. It takes less time to avoid problems than it does to fix them. In theory.