dog – Trickartt Notes

Two things have happened in my life over the past eighteen months-or-so that I didn’t think were related, but I think have proven to be. The first is that I got a dog, and the second is that I have dramatically reduced my use of social media. And I think the net benefit is that I’ve been happier for it.

I was never particularly big on social media, and my drivers for leaving it behind were I think more down to decisions being made by the platforms themselves. Nobody needs another blog post nobody will read about the downfall of Twitter or how much Meta absuses Instagram notifications, but what I will say is that one of my favourite technological discoveries of the past year is that you can post to Instagram straight from the iPhone’s Photos app, without ever having to open the Instagram app itself. It’s been a joy – I’m still showing the world that wants to see that I’m still thinking creatively every single day, but I don’t have to get sucked in to whatever its algorithm wants to show me when I post my daily drawings.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided that having a puppy is a bit like a victorian TV set. It has been surprisingly hard work training a puppy, but boy is it entertaining. Our border terrier is a very funny dog and she provides so much amusement it’s become clear to me that dogs were probably a very good way of keeping people amused in an era before mass media. And boy does she get fed up with me when I pick up my phone!

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that I would recommend a puppy as a good distraction for breaking the social media habit.

The middle of the calendar year on the edges of June and July is always a strange time of year in the world of Ricky Trickartt. I spend the entire year listening to music and staring blankly at people enthusing about sports, then along comes summer and all I want to do is listen to Wimbledon and hear nothing about Glastonbury. It’s a bit topsy-turvy. Accordingly, several of this month’s dailies have been at least tangentially related to tennis.

My personal favourite of this month was the Dog Dip (not tennis-related). It took me a few goes to get it right, but I look at it and think it’s pretty perfect now. It’s a picture of a big fluffy dog who had been wading in the river, and didn’t look nearly as bulky once the water had wetted down his fur.

By far the biggest hit this month was Kim Jong-Kardashian. It was a bit of an obvious idea I had rattling around in my head for a while, and it took me a while to figure it out. Once I did, I found it a bit disturbing, and fully expected it to tank accordingly, but it got way more likes and comments than I would’ve ever expected.

People tell me that one day something I come up with is going to go truly viral. I guess it could, but I don’t think I’m good enough at the ‘social’ part of social networking. Or the ‘networking’ part of social networking.

After the fold are all the old direct links, for posterity’s sake. Continue reading “The Sports-Music Flip-flop” →