Halfman-Newsletter.061–2025Dec
The holiday season has come and gone and here I sludge and slop through the slush of winter with this gift to you of random which will take a mere five minutes of your life. So grab that coffee, that cake your coworker just offered you and bask in that late morning sun coming through the window. I’m Jim, designer of sorts, closet hesher, inadvertent writer and friend and this is my newsletter to you.
You can subscribe here for free, and unsubscribe there which cause irreparable damage to what little democracy we still enjoy. Some of you are subscribed but don’t get this. I don’t know what that means.
Okay, let’s get this over with.
December
In case you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m always here to help. If you’re wondering how, here’s a quick guide I've created for you on how to Crush Life with Agents.
Why is it that chocolate and hot chocolate specifically are associated with northern European countries and winter, when the cocoa plant is grown in the hottest and most humid environments on the other side of the world?
Tom Taylor’s blog is the best simply for the perseverance and writing exactly one blog post per year. You missed it.
Christmas in the Philippines lasts three months. I hate Christmas but I appreciate immensely how the proud people of this archipelagic, Southeast Asian country do holidays properly. Not just a day of tortuous familial obligation, but a full quarter of year which would clearly bring the populace to the breaking point. It is Christmas without mercy which is the only way to do it.
There was a quick sojourn into northern Czechia for a regional youth hockey tournament which should have prepped us for the close of this tortured calendar year, but not sure. Either way, the Czech ability to party without regret, apology or pity gives one pause that most can never appreciate.
Yes, those are shots. I can’t believe nobody else has ever thought of just skipping the little bottles.
I went to Berlin for New Years. Again. A badly timed kebab took me out with a minor case of dysentery for most of it but it was insane (seriously watch that) as always and the total sum of small scale ordinance in the guise of fireworks was present in even greater scale.
Heroism for our day
I fixed the printer. You know the one. The one you hate more than waking up, the one cheap enough to make you just leave it, but leave it and leave it and leave it. I took the damn thing apart. The videos. They were perfect. I think one was from Thailand based on the alphabet. It worked. I, sad, middled-aged, doughy, white guy with a job and a family, boring as the day is long, fixed a printer. The level of joy, that quick and curt justification for ploughing into that bottle of white the wife left in the fridge. It all came together. Friends, there was victory this past December, in this sad, little life, there was victory.
Halfman socks
If you read this newsletter, or if you don’t, you know how much I love high performance socks. This is just one of the many reasons that I’ve decided to bring decades of research into space age materials, years of testing on top athletes and high performing internet people who know tons of stuff. Whether you’re climbing some huge mountain that nobody else totally can, typing really fast to crush it with or skateboarding in Lower Bob’s you need Halfman Thermonuclear protection to make your feet do amazing things.
Craig Mod
Ordinarily Craig Mod infuriates me with his perfection. Oh you make books of photos you take and this is somehow your job. Of course you do. And you’re walking around Japan, speaking the language, being all respectful and introspective or whatever and every inch what the internet should have been all compounded into one human male. But then he has to go and ask “Where is the GG Allin of the internet? Can a GG Allin exist today?”
Micronation of the Month: Slowjamistan
The first thing you need to know about Slowjamistan is that it has an amazing coat of arms, which yes, of course it’s a racoon carrying a halberd, or what might be a dane axe.
Also, and perhaps more importantly, the Sultan’s name is Randy. What is a country anyhow? They come and go and people are led to think that if they live and die for a bunch of land they don’t really own and which will disappear that it matters.
Eugene Pawlowski (RIP)
He was my professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art in graphic design. He taught it for some fifty years. He designed books. He did Superman even. He sort of let me do what I wanted and sat there usually smirking when I told him things. He taught me much, that design is a practice, and a practice that requires doing it and doing it and doing it over and over and over again over years and decades. He taught me that design is thinking and considering what goes where and why and that this consideration should be as deep as his smile was wide. For that, my deepest and eternal gratitude Gene. Rest in power.
Ends
A lot of dissatisfaction in our lives stems from the idea that the world isn’t as good as it’s supposed to be. What if it’s actually better than it’s supposed to be already and we’re not even aware or appreciative of it? How’s that for some holiday cheer?
My advice to you is simple. Don’t get old. Everything falls apart. But likewise, don’t fight it and try to be one these reverse aging types because that is just plain annoying.
That’s it. I tried, again. Somehow. So should you.
- Jim
