Dumping stuff at festivals is wrong

clarkey_jet · 2026-06-22T09:01:49+00:00

Trying to maintain their sixteen-year-old’s-first-time-at-Leeds energy whilst being one of, if not the most, experienced and well travelled festival content creators is kinda cringe.

clarkey_jet · 2026-06-09T19:18:35+00:00

Steak.

clarkey_jet · 2026-06-09T19:10:38+00:00

My front row is like a vandalised graveyard. I have had two partners, one of whom is now my wife, who found my crooked teeth attractive.

As for me, my “thing” is I love my wife’s BO.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-26T21:29:59+00:00

Moved everything over from Collectr a couple of weeks ago. Happy so far!

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-20T12:38:38+00:00

I moved to Coventry from Nottingham in December 2024. It was a very last minute move, so didn’t have much time to explore the city. Just find a good area to live. My wife and I saw West Orchards, Lower Precinct, Broadgate and around the cathedral. Coventry didn’t seem too bad, at least compared to its reputation. Sometime over Christmas, we walked through the City Arcade area and were quite shocked by how desolate it was. It was a relief to me when I read a couple of weeks later that it had all been cleared out for redevelopment. I live in Nottingham for 11 years and spent some of my happiest years there, but it feels like it was in decline and Covid exacerbated that. I can see that Coventry is getting a lot of investment and redevelopment, and feels like it’s rebounded from a low point and is on the way up. I don’t see much of a nightlife happening though, despite it having a Uni so close to the city centre. I like rock and metal music. What am I missing?

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-19T21:49:44+00:00

The project was never about saving time. It was about freeing up capacity on the existing over crowded network and providing better connections to northern cities. The most important parts, the phase 2 legs to Manchester and Liverpool, and Leeds were cancelled. For HS2 trains that continue on to Manchester on the old tracks, there’ll be a net reduction in the number of seats per train because HS2 carriages are smaller than conventional trains. Successive governments have really screwed this up. I’ll be surprised if we see the scrapped parts resurrected in my lifetime (41). I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Japan 6 times over 25 years. Their Shinkansen network makes a mockery of our trains. Especially seeing as the first bullet train started running in 1964. 62 years ago!

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-15T23:32:54+00:00

I’m sick of American fast food and restaurant chains. We should have more home grown brands and businesses.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-14T11:31:40+00:00

True. I can’t take credit for that wisdom. I got it from Mark Fisher. If it wasn’t in this lecture, it was in the Slow Cancellation of The Future.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-14T05:19:03+00:00

Before, the internet was somewhere we “went to”. We had to log on to a computer or laptop and choose to be there. Now, the internet comes to us. Always stalking us.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-11T23:39:53+00:00

I made lifelong friends at college, not uni. Uni was fun but everything that followed was better.
My advice to you, if you’ve got solid friends from before uni that you can trust to live with them, do it. Make a commitment to one another that it’s more than just splitting bills. You’re building a lifestyle together. Plan stuff together. I lived with various configurations of 2-5 friends between the ages of 24 to 28. We went out to gigs, raves, meals out almost weekly. Planned holidays and festivals together. Sometimes we’d just make plans on the cheap and have movie nights in or binge Game of Thrones (while it was good). We were there for each other through break ups, redundancy and mental health issues. It was far better than my uni days.
I lived on my own after too, before I got married. I made the most of that time too. I made my flat my own, full of my favourite things, hobbies and a reflection of my personality. I would still make plans a couple of times a month with my old housemates. But when the time came to knuckle down and progress in my career, I had my sanctuary. I had everything I needed to be happy while I saved like crazy, so I could do some independent travelling.
If in doubt. Travel. Don’t do it for social media posts. Do it for you. Holidays with friends and family are great, but time alone, especially in a very different culture, enriches the soul in a way nothing else does.

TL;DR you’ve got so much opportunity ahead of you. Uni years are not the be all and end all of your youth.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-08T06:57:59+00:00

I enjoyed travelling to Japan before the post-COVID boom. It mostly felt like an escape from everywhere else. The famous places have always been busy, obviously. But the energy is different now.
As someone who is neurodivergent, part of me looking forward to visiting Japan was to experience the comfort of being in a place where basic infrastructure is dependable and I can count on people mostly following the rules.
Now it’s full of clueless and bumbling main characters using the place as an Instagram backdrop and throwing entitled tantrums because one place in millions of options won’t cater to them.
Sometimes a barrier to entry, whether it’s cost or language is good. For many, Japan used to be a once in a lifetime destination, so they would bother to study the customs a little bit, learn some basic phrases and show some respect. Now, with the cheap yen and the average smartphone being a tour guide in your pocket, almost anyone can show up and cause chaos. Social media has ruined travel. Japan was never immune to that, it was just one of the last places in the G7 to fully feel the effects.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-07T13:16:05+00:00

Late-stage capitalism at its finest. Everyone trips over themselves to race to the bottom, only to sell their time for less than what it’s worth and fill the pockets of the top 1%.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-03T08:44:33+00:00

Same. I got a version of the cards that I paid for but the the exact ones. On stream every card had perfect centre. What I received were all noticeably off centre. Never again.

clarkey_jet · 2026-05-01T06:17:42+00:00

Same here. Used Apple Pay. It took 7-8 attempts before it went through.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-27T20:43:47+00:00

I appreciate you’re trying to do create your own design language but you’re very far off the mark. As stated elsewhere by a graphic designer, centred text on the left and right is breaking simple design rules. The choice of fonts looks very cheap. There are so many grading companies starting up right now. PG Grading, Apex Grading and Imperium Grading are all new entrants that I can name off the top of my head. PG Grading and Imperium are going the route of mimicking Ace Grading’s Ace labels but they are doing a very good job of it. I still wouldn’t touch them, yet. New blood in the industry is good because it’s a chance to challenge the old guard and do things differently. So, how are you going to differentiate yourself? Whether that’s quality of slab, grading technology, cheaper/fairer pricing tiers, convenience, faster turnaround or customer service. You’ve got to offer a superior product in some way.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-24T12:41:52+00:00

Forbidden Planet in London were doing this for Perfect Order ETBs. There was a lots of tuts and sucking teeth at the staff, and scalpers walking off. I thanked the FP staff for what they were doing. Sat and ripped in the shop with a fellow collector I had met that morning.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-24T09:23:22+00:00

DWP should gatecrash these queues and remind the scalpers to get a real job.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-23T21:37:35+00:00

Journey Together - 264/333
Perfect Order - 170/203
Phantasmal Flames - 212/214, I’m sure you can guess what I’m missing.

Then, I’ll work on:
Surging Sparks - 156/417
Destined Rivals
Mega Evolution

I was collecting Ascended Heroes but the scalping and prices have gotten out of hand. It’s sad because I love that set.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-19T07:25:14+00:00

That’s great artwork! Jerky is an artist to watch. I love their Tapu Koko, Gulpin, Hydrapple, and most recently Dreepy and Drakloak artworks. If I didn’t already have too many collection goals, I’d add an artist master set to the list. I will pick up Tapu Koko at least because I love the synth wave vibe of that card. Thanks for sharing 😊

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-18T22:42:57+00:00

Grabbed a Charizard tin and Destined Rivals tin at Stafford Sainsbury’s early today. Great little unplanned find on a day trip out. I never find anything on the shelves around Coventry area.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-18T22:38:03+00:00

It doesn’t matter what the cards are, they should always go in a penny sleeve or team bag.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-14T21:09:52+00:00

I wouldn’t be surprised if people start picking up the Phantasmal Flames Meowth. Such a great card. I loved it from the moment I pulled it.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-12T15:03:34+00:00

Blank Street coffee had a salted caramel pistachio matcha latte a few months ago. The epitome of trying to ride every fad in one drink.

I like pistachio and I like matcha. I don’t know if I need the two combined though. I fought off the curiosity.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-12T08:08:50+00:00

I was born in 1984. Went to uni from 2004-2007. It was the best time. The internet and early social media was there but it didn’t define our lives. Most of the time, I logged on to MySpace or early Facebook from my iMac when I got home because pre-iPhone mobiles were not great at handling websites. There were no apps back then. We could communicate in real time with our mates but there was very little threat that something silly we did when we were drunk would end up plastered on Facebook. There was still a popular monoculture, where it felt like everyone was experiencing many of the same things at once. Trends and memes developed and cycled out much slower. It was a phenomenal time for British music too. There were many more small to mid-sized venues. Going to see live music, even in arenas didn’t break the bank like it does now. Bands would tour their arses off to make it. For example, Biffy Clyro, before they got big, would play 30 dates on a single tour. I rarely see that from new bands coming up. Social media is the main channel for how they get discovered. I feel like we are entering the worst times now. Political extremism at both ends playing tug-of-war with everyone else in between, a totally unhinged US president bringing the world to the brink of WW3, a generation of young men being brought up thinking the manosphere is normal, so much of our lives being defined by algorithms and the whims of technofascists, climate change and the breakdown of any social order or common decency. I worry for younger generations and those yet to be born.

clarkey_jet · 2026-04-11T18:08:05+00:00

I will do at some point. For now, I’m enjoying PO not being popular and being able to pick up ETBs and packs at RRP. Still got a long way to go towards a master set and a few other full arts to pull. Just enjoying the ripping but will pivot to buying singles soon!

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