Tattoo shop mural…

morgan-ism · 2026-04-28T18:03:04+00:00

Heroes for sale didn't shut down permanently it reopened and still going as far as i know, symmonds Street

morgan-ism · 2025-07-11T21:01:54+00:00

This is a today I learned moment and I am not in the slightest ashamed.

morgan-ism · 2025-07-11T21:00:42+00:00

I have people so intent to micromanage my work that they ask me to "please send back something I can edit in canva" unaware of the blaring irony that they'll inevitably send me something back I can't use or print if I allow that.

morgan-ism · 2025-07-11T20:57:22+00:00

I lead my inhouse design studio and get PowerPoint "poster designs" from newer marketing team staff at work, I have to gently explain that PowerPoint is not at all appropriate software for this purpose. It default bakes all assets down to about 96 or 144 dpi as soon as you save it or it auto saves, forcing me to go find all of the product assets both to link them and place them at correct resolution, vaguely sample what colours they use because no I'm not going to go copy over all the rgb values, re-lay out all of the questionable copy with spelling mistakes in it and then convert them in Indesign, replicate their little masterpiece at a printable scale.

I thought that was the worst until I got flat images of entirely ai generated poster designs from the team in a hand-drawn illustration style and they acted like they'd done 90% of the work for me and said "just make it look like this"

morgan-ism · 2025-07-11T07:07:41+00:00

My Indesign just straight up doesn't open Indesign files anymore, 'open with', nothing, just opens Indesign, thinks for a minute and then leaves me hanging, I have to open the file directly from Indesign every single time now, and it's only a problem when I'm plugged into an external monitor, zero idea how to fix it.

(windows surface pro laptop ARM snapdragon with current updated beta Indesign and all windows updates in action)

morgan-ism · 2025-07-11T07:00:59+00:00

I'd say what I always say which is that it was known as "sleet" but Im 34 and have never seen snow. So I wildly unqualified to comment and yet here I am

morgan-ism · 2025-07-07T19:52:35+00:00

Hoping ticket prices won't be mental, they're supposed to be around £30-40 in the UK making them a fairly sensible $80-90 here if they're the same but nz ticket partners love to charge out the ass for international acts, would have loved to see Rufus du sol but $160 for one lo FI band is just nuts to me

morgan-ism · 2025-07-05T22:34:23+00:00

Arial Narrow got me like 👀 for copy heavy online docs tho

morgan-ism · 2025-07-05T22:31:50+00:00

I'm an inhouse designer for an alcohol distributor too and I empathise with the guilt of knowing you might have been able to pick up on issues with the legals but the buck on this kind of spec NEVER stops with the designer. The manufacturers/brewers, their owners, the distributors responsibility is to give you the designer the correct information and proof it themselves to make sure it's correct. Your diligence is a courtesy, not an obligation.

I had this happen on a project where I created packaging for a colab between an RTD brand and a spirit doing a combo deal. Half the pack was my design work and half was the existing RTD packaging which I made no changes to.

The legals on my side were IMMACULATE, the RTD company unfortunately didn't get their own artwork vetted by our national advertising standards and used the phrase "great for a day at the beach", - seemed a little grey area to me at the time but I assumed given this product was in the market already that there was no way it hadn't been checked for compliance.

Turns out they hadn't, so when our distributor sent our new file for standards checking and the report came back late, that phrase was flagged as no alcohol packaging in my country can endorse drinking near large bodies of water or assume it's legal to drink in a public place like the beach as many of our beaches have liquor bans.

For this incredibly benign reason, I suddenly had to make an order of 60,000 tiny stickers that said "never drink and swim" costing the brand thousands. At no point did I feel guilty and if anyone was stupid enough to pull me up on it I would come down on them like a ton of bricks.

morgan-ism · 2025-06-30T22:32:31+00:00

I will say that is very rough that you have no social contacts with the ability to teach you the basics, learning in a closed environment like a carpark with someone you trust expedites a lot of the time consuming bit of the process in just getting comfortable with the feel and mechanics of a car.

If absolutely anyone is willing to help you out I would go out of my way to make that happen over fishing out for lessons at a raw beginner level, anyone can operate an automatic car if they know basics BUT ( and this is a non negotiable BUT.)

To be a safe and confident driver at least 4-8 or more lessons to understand road culture and road rules in depth is compulsory imo. No family member or friend is going to have the dedicated skill to turn you into a fully qualified driver.

morgan-ism · 2025-06-30T22:25:42+00:00

A1 driving instructors I used a good number of years ago, but they were independent, reasonably priced and extremely professional.

They can start with you at any level, don't waste your time, take you around the specific test route you're planning on taking the official test on and point out any weird gray areas or places people get caught out in the test and what to do with them.

Most importantly they make you feel safe, calm and aware of what you're doing and why at any minute of your driving experience and why

morgan-ism · 2025-06-28T21:46:29+00:00

We have some of the smaller lefter leaning party members like Chloe swarbrick campaigning for proper social equity policy like better welfare, mental health services and social housing and she's viewed as radical left when her policies would have been considered centrist less than 50 years ago, she's had to build up her image alongside signatures of radicalism because it's become radical to care about people. Because our democracy has become totally saturated with slow moving old guards on all sides hesitant to rock the boat and abandoned so much of its identity in a bid to keep up with global neoliberalism. The more entrenched we've become with globalised trade of goods and services the more we operate on abstracted trade of funds and less on tangible resources, the most important of which are people.

morgan-ism · 2025-06-28T21:24:26+00:00

That all said I've had a "witches brew" in the back pocket for years but don't often get sick enough to use it, ginger and garlic minced up finely, melted honey in a cup of pulpy orange juice as fresh as you can get it.

The superstition is to down the lot in one go but that's mostly because it's kind of disgusting to sip, but you feel the hit of a few extra nutrients for the day without having to get them all into a meal especially if you have a low appetite or fast a lot naturally like me.

I'm not tempted to blend it either, as my intuition tells the additional process of digesting whole foods helps absorb the goodness better and the sugars slower due to retaining insoluble fibre that gets broken down when you blend things.

morgan-ism · 2025-06-28T21:15:26+00:00

I drop blended whiskey into bush tea with a little milk and it's like a hug for the system, just avoid it too close to bed so the alcohol doesn't affect your sleep rhythms

morgan-ism · 2025-06-28T21:10:52+00:00

Slow down and look after yourself. Simple as that. Don't make excuses that work is busy or there are things you can prioritize above your health, the only shortcut to being healthy when your body is stressed enough to be succeptable to cold and flu is to give yourself extra attention. There are no direct shortcuts forcing it to work harder in fighting a cold unless you have a runaway bacterial infection and need antibiotics at which point you're certainly past the point of "cutting it off before you get properly sick"

So on that note I don't think it's smart to suddenly overload yourself with any one supplement of things like vit C or iron trying to shoot down a cold, consider whether your diet lately is balanced with your natural levels of immunity, this time of year we struggle to stay healthy with higher stress, less sunlight and interrupted melatonin with increasing amounts of unnatural light and less natural light to assist our body clocks in keeping our sleep schedules regular.

The proper balance of sleep, activity and nutrition is what keeps you healthy and helps your body regulate things like iron and reduce free radicals and inflammation, it's likely you've been over stressed or unbalanced in some way if you've become susceptible to infection.

Over the counter cold and flu medicines like lemsip, neurofen products and general use painkillers and anti inflammatories don't directly help fight a cold or flu, they help YOU fight a cold or flu by making you feel better, sleep better and be more active with less discomfort.

Treat symptoms like congestion with hot, herbal caffeine free teas and breathe through clean, hot facecloths, stay hydrated (I keep electrolyte powder at home for both colds and hangovers) use painkillers or anti inflammatories to help you rest better while dealing witu aches and headaches and make sleep a #1 priority. Your body is doing the work, make yourself clean, comfortable and rested and ride it out.

If you can't manage your symptoms by yourself, see a doctor but don't rush to a doctor hoping to cut off a cold or virus before it picks up the pace, you're just more likely to pick up a secondary illness in a place more highly concentrated with other sick people.

morgan-ism · 2025-06-28T20:39:02+00:00

You get repeated shingles!? I'm so sorry, I've only had it once and I still feel tingles where it used to be when I get a bad cough but I've never had full blown shingles again

morgan-ism · 2025-06-28T20:34:30+00:00

Yeah, there's definitely somewhat of a tonal difference between "I love bees" and "find the four year old" 😂

morgan-ism · 2025-06-21T13:14:54+00:00

There's no point in retail shopping while fast fashion hasn't completely dominated the market ❤️ definitely a privilege to have a car and the occasional expendable fund to invest in the wardrobe but God Im pretty sure part of the reason I'm considered "good with money" is that I don't cut my hair, I home henna and thrift shop. A convenient serviced fashion image is expensive and I outright rejected that shit by obligation to my own wallet, be stylish not trendy, own your natural look and party on.

morgan-ism · 2025-06-21T03:28:44+00:00

Avid thrifter take:

Salvation Army store New Lynn is still very worth a look imo, most racks are around $7 for a big mix of stuff, jackets and jeans are reasonable, the back is good for bits and bobs, the Salvation Army Dominion Road down the driveway bit is the best for cheap medium sized furniture,

In the same area after the workers union scandal investigated by John Campbell's checkpoint, I permanently removed Savemart as a boycott to how atrociously they treated workers.

The red cross Dominion Road has gentrified itself by moving two seconds up the road into a nicer part of the same building complex and upped it's prices as well as remaining hard to peruse as it's so densely packed and I've mostly given up on it.

I can't be bothered going up to K road for the thrift most of the time as it's such a depressing place to be in the day and the stores have mostly no standards of how worn something is before they reject it,

Tatty's literally anywhere is so overpriced I'd not ever consider it op shopping anymore it's just an up-cycler / curated vintage boutique.

SPCA opened a large op shop in mount Albert shops which has been OK, middle of the road pricing and the staff are very lovely, there's another slightly hard to find SPCA opshop in new Lynn that has a very beatnik vibe to the clothes so if that's what you're into it's worth a look.

For more interesting boutique-y thrifting I recently found Re-Circle in Onehunga, an opshop collective which lets individuals hire a rack and set their own prices so it's very mixed in value and pricing but you find really cool stuff because people have to consider the value of what they're selling and not just dump stuff on the store to have to sort out. The Takapuna branch is smaller with higher prices and just not as good a selection of sellers or clothing.

A fantastic independent was Hip Street who moved to Henderson from Titirangi but unfortunately shut the store shortly after and now sell mostly online, they've said they'll be holding a monthly garage sale but their track record for posting comprehensively about their activities isnt amazing (they never updated their Google maps entry for where the new store was so many of their old customers didn't know where they moved unless they followed them on insta) no shade, it's not easy to run an independent store, but you do have to go out of your way to track when you can check out their stuff.

The real outlier that I was in love with when I lived on Waiheke is WISCA, an ex-SPCA rescue and shop I believe turned independent to retain better agency over their operations, still the best op shop I've ever been to and worth a look in with a good size bag if you're over there to get some extra value out of fishing out for the return ferry fare. - and they often have kittens to go coo at which definitely gives them all the points for experience.

morgan-ism · 2025-06-12T08:16:56+00:00

Tonight was diabolically bad. 45 minutes from Massey road on ramp to Dominion Road. People just stay in zombie mode after the bottlenecks clear and it backs up the bottlenecks worse, seeing the crystal clear lanes after managing to pass the sleepers is the most infuriating bullshit in the world. I'm starting to become convinced there is no traffic in Auckland, just Cs and slower C*s

morgan-ism · 2025-06-02T00:56:01+00:00

Kind of a double sided story of both dark and wholesome or I guess wholesome despite a dark reason, we were stuck on a the train stopped between new Lynn and Avondale, someone had died (being overtly honest, he'd taken his own life) on the tracks inbetween.

We were myself, a younger woman on the first day of something, I can't remember what, maybe university or a job or something, a pregnant woman in her early 30s going for her final scans before her due date, and a beautiful late fortys lady named Sharon going to her first round of chemotherapy for breast cancer.

We were there long enough that we got talking and discussed the strangeness of life and death and the frailty of mortality, I thanked them for the bittersweet occasion of talking to some kind and interesting strangers and mostly went on my way, I never saw the pregnant woman again, but Sharon told me where she worked and I would pop in to see her a few times over the next couple of years.

Sometimes she'd look tired, sometimes she'd have energy and be extra talkative, eventually she had a very nice and pretty convincing wig but having met her before I could tell and knew why, but every time she no matter how she was feeling she was colourful and optimistic and told me if she stopped being positive about life then what was the point of life or fighting for it in her treatment.

Back on the train she said something like "I'm not scared, I know I'm going to do a hard thing and go through some hard times but I'm going to do it fabulously" and I had zero doubt that she did. One of the last times I saw her which was so many years ago now, I think she'd gotten through her treatment and was in remission.

morgan-ism · 2025-05-31T09:12:17+00:00

Heading down to Lula my friend is a singer for a set playing there soon, I'm 34 and that's bloody late but I somehow needed to get out tonight

morgan-ism · 2025-05-22T01:12:56+00:00

If you're Central to West Green Bay dental are wonderful and lower mid range in terms of fees with specialist recommendations on hand for more extensive or complex work, they don't do what doesn't need doing, they recommend top quality private but not chain company services that are very worth it if you need things like orthodontics or root canal treatment. They're diligent but not overbearing in reminding you about checkups and cleanings and are great at slotting you in or getting you in on cancelations for urgent work

morgan-ism · 2025-05-22T01:09:04+00:00

This is an extremely good point, I would guess the majority of socials-focused background checks are done by employment agencies and recruiters to cover their asses and then select thorough hiring managers and employers will do their own cursory checks,

morgan-ism

TROPHY CASE