Superficial & Deranged

Category: Uncategorized

Just a little Robot Chicken Nugget shooting bad guys out of the sky

It is no secret that I don’t like AI. AI is going to permanently screw the planet, destroy society and turn us all into mindless button pressing drones.

Our kids won’t get jobs. But that’s fine because there wont be an environment for them to live in anyway. Our grey matter will waste away, and corporations will monetise thought.

So why the hell am I starting to use it? I’m on maternity leave and currently the most fundamental change in computers since Microsoft Excel was invented is happening. When my mum was on maternity leave with me Excel actually was invented, she had to go to Unitec to upskill before she returned to the workforce.

I do not want to be outpaced while I’m on maternity leave. And thankfully with AI you don’t need a uni course so much as you just need to jump in feet first. So, know your enemy is my new watchword. I’m doing a series of projects to learn about all these AI tools. Because until I know the capabilities of this damn thing, I am not going to know where and when it can effectively be used. I think much like the internet or screentime for kids, it is how you use it that is all important.

If you were going to learn about AI with the very serious cause of advancing your career where would you start? A robot chicken nugget game? Yes, perfect.

My almost 4 year old is obsessed with calling people a robot chicken nugget. Why? No idea. You’ll have to ask him – he will get distracted and ask to sing ‘I just can’t wait to be King’ and you will never find the actual answer. In the realm of two birds and one stone, I figured I would learn AI while making my little dude a letter recognition robot chicken nugget computer game.

Do I know anything about game design? No. Can I code? No. Can I do any sort of art? Also no. Actually, that’s a lie. I can do abstract art, which is more about throwing paint on a canvas and expressing emotions than accurately representing a robot chicken nugget out of pixels.

Ironically the first place I started on my AI journey was by talking to a human, I had a chat to an incredibly helpful colleague to get the low down on what tools I should be using. Which before even starting on this adventure shows an aspect that AI will never be able to replicate – trust & respect.

The tool I started with was Claude which seems to be the favourite at the moment for cody type stuff. And the first step was both simple and effective – I told Claude I wanted a robot chicken nugget that shoots bag guy letters out of the sky…and within 15 seconds Claude had told me that it was a great idea and created it.

Side note: I desperately need someone to invent an AI that is not a sycophant, not every idea is a good idea… in fact I think the majority of ideas and questions directed at AI are objectively bad ideas. Maybe AI needs an eye roll feature?

Wow, before my tea had cooled I had a fully cooked computer game that I can play. AI is pretty impressive. But then I tried to get it to tweak the nugget character. Claude really sucked at it. I tried to get it to tweak a couple of other things. It did okay on some, not on others – the more visual the change the harder Claude found it. Then life (aka small humans) got in the way.

When I came back to Claude, I said, great, can you pull up that computer game that we were building? And Claude had no idea what I was on about. Talk about robot gas lighting, it tried to convince me we had never created a game at all. I know I am low on sleep, but I think it would be hard to hallucinate a robot chicken nugget shooting letters out of the sky. Or maybe that is easy to hallucinate if you are an AI.

So I asked Claude to create the game again from scratch. And the new one that it created? The gameplay was fine, but all of the design was very very lame. I went through 100 loops trying to get it to remember what it had done earlier, and it couldn’t remember no matter what tricks I tried.

Of the new markedly worse version I tried to get it to tweak the art design, and it tried, and it tried, and it tried, and it just was consistently terrible. So eventually I asked it, why are you sucking so hard? And with a beautiful lack of ego Claude said “because Chat GPT is better at creating art”.

Enter Chat GPT stage left. Robot nuggets created first try. So back to Claude with my new nuggets, and a whole new level of frustration as Claude could not add my new nugget in like I asked. Once again I asked ‘why are you sucking at this’? At which point Claude was like, sorry, I’m the wrong tool. You should be using Claude Code.

Now, what’s Claude Code? It’s basically like having a developer in your computer aka what you’d see a hacker use in a James Bond movie. I didn’t have the time or energy to faff round, so I asked Claude to create a game design doc based off our conversation (at least what it could remember, yes I am still salty about the forgotten game) and fed that into Claude Code.

Finally I had the right tools, the right art and a clearer direction of what I wanted in my head. The rest was pretty damn easy, Claude Code read my design doc and created the game. Then it was just tweaks and bug fixes.

We did go through a few iterations of the character selector page. My expectations were just too high for the time (or knowledge) I was willing to put in. My original concept was for a full character selector where you could choose your body, arms and hat – but AI has its limitations. It’s not, I repeat, it is not a replacement for a human who can just understand things. If I had wanted to go back to the drawing board with my character design and make it so the heads and arms all started at the same place it would have been entierly doable, but I had better things to do.

So, I simplified it to just being able to pick between 4 characters, which I put together in PhotoPea using the ChatGPTs designs.

And there we have it, a working Robot Chicken Nugget game. Designed while front packing a baby by someone with no history of code. In some ways amazing, in many ways not – but those thoughts will have to wait for another post.

February 20, 2026
I only have three pins

A simple need, a blanket for my baby to wriggle around on. When I looked online the cheapest was $25 from Kmart, not a huge amount of money by any means, but a lot of money for something that we would only really use for a couple of months and given it was Kmart it is highly unlikely that the words ethical or sustainable had been anywhere near it.

The baby blanket we used for my oldest was a hand-me-down from my sister. When we unearthed it just before we moved house it was covered in mould. I tried cleaning it, but I don’t fuck around with mould so a new one was the go.

But never fear I had some fabric that would be perfect, kind of like a quilted puffer jacket material. I had used it in our old house where the windows were full of ‘character’ (single glazed, wooden framed that didn’t fit right so the wind blew right in). I had used the quilted fabric as a blanket for the windows, we suction cupped it to the glass each night to stop the breeze coming in – highly recommended if you to live in a house full of character.

So I had this puffy fabric, and a stash of bright colourful fabric… with their powers combined they would make a baby blanket.

But remember, we are Parenting from a messy desk… this is the season of life for done not perfect, because whatever I was making would be made during naps or while a child was screaming at me. I used a roll of wrapping paper to loosely measure out a square, I grabbed a picture frame off the wall to mark out the lines that I wanted to quilt – and of course I used masking tape to draw them on.

When it came to the first lines of sewing – I could only find three pins. Now, I absolutely have pins… somewhere. My options are to use my precious minutes to hunt for pins, or I could just make do.

My theory is with this kind of project, that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Once you stitch, cut, iron and throw in some contrasting fabrics, no one will notice any imperfections. And more than that, somewhere along the line we became afraid to try and fail. Failure is awesome, failure teaches us. If I fail at this blanket made with three pins, all I have lost is some fabric that I already had.

So I persevered with my three pins, and then it was time to do the edging. My issue being that I had never used bias binding before, and even if I wanted to use it the cheapest binding (that was wide enough) I could find was at spotlight for $18 – and the aim was to spend nothing and to not have to put a baby in the car.

Powered with the confidence of three different YouTube shorts, and using a Farmers Card to measure … I made my own bias binding. It was fun, I learned a new skill which scratched an itch in my brain. The only fabric in my stash that I thought would be the right weight was vintage olive oil packaging… the verdict is out as to if that works with the neon leopard print I used for the rest of the blanket. I am hoping it is the sort of clashing that would work if a cool girl wore it.

The final stretch of attaching the bias binding tells a tale of focus. The parts that look right is when the kids were quiet, the parts where you can see the under stitching, or where the corners are not perfectly mitred are when the little ones wanted to file official complaints. The first child wanted to file a complaint about Lego that was ‘broken’ (jury is out as to which mysterious force broke it) and the tiny one wanted to complain that she was biting her own hand and that was not fair.

With a drastically imperfect process, the blanket looks amazing. And as if to prove that not worrying about perfection was the right approach, my baby vomited on the blanket within 30 seconds of lying down on it.

And to prove that it was a worthwhile endeavour, that courting failure was the right choice, about an hour after the vomit the baby rolled over for the first time. The best review I could have hoped for.

February 13, 2026
My current favourite low effort parenting activity that takes up a lot of time

The years may be short but boy oh boy are those days long. With a baby and a senior-toddler (when do they stop being toddlers and start being kids?) I am kind of against messy activities at the moment. I need to be able to hit pause at any moment to feed, change or settle the baby, and a three year old is not exactly the most reliable in terms of leaving them alone with paint or food colouring or anything that might cause permanent damage. But never fear, I have a new favourite, no-mess, pausable activity that takes up a decent amount of time.

Step 1 is watching some sort of classic Disney movie – and by classic I just mean something that I watched as a kid. Now attention span wise this might mean its on the TV while the kid is playing with toys on the floor, or it might mean watching it it multiple parts.

Step 2 is getting the kid to tell you the story while you type it into the computer. Of course depending on the kid they can type (or just find some of the letters), but crucial as part of this is to write exactly what they say, poor grammar, incorrect story and calling the main character ‘that guy’ included. This activity is not about perfection, its about capturing them exactly as they are in this moment, and finding out how they think and what information they retain. Set the page up as landscape, and two columns and split the story across 4-6 pages. Make sure the text is at the top of the page to leave space for step 4.

Step 3 make it into a book! Please keep in mind you are a sleep deprived parent who is balancing a baby and probably swearing at your printer because those things never work as intended – done is better than perfect. I think ideally you would be able to find a stapler and could staple the pages together, I sadly could not and just selotaped the pages together. If you have a piece of coloured paper, whack that on the front to use as the cover.

Step 4 Get a cup of tea or coffee and set the kid up with their own book and some coloured pens. They can then illustrate each page while you contemplate life and stare into the void for ten minutes.

Step 5 Facetime a grandparent and get the kid to read them their story

And there we have it, an activity that takes up half a day, no mess, a ‘considered’ use of screen time, and a hella fun momento to look at as they grow. The best part being that if it clicks for you and your kid, it is super repeatable with different movies.

If you end up with enough of the books you can host a pub quiz at the end of the year where all your parent friends try to guess the movie based on the retelling.

January 25, 2026
Parenting from a messy desk

Anyone creative knows the dream; a clean desk to inspire writing, an empty kitchen to bake, quiet blank canvases to discover the true you. And then you have kids. Which somewhat ruins the dream.

Not only do clean surfaces disappear like asbestos laced sand through your fingers, but your free time does to. You end up faced with bizarre non-comparable choices; do I shower or write, do I clean the kitchen or prepare a Miss Rachel level craft.

Before children there was a logic to events, you got yourself ready, did your chores, made an ideal aesthetic space, and then creativity blossomed (or not). But now, you ignore the desk and write a blog post. You choose to make the mess in the kitchen worse to enable lunch, knowing the pile of dishes you hid in the sink will haunt you at the end of the day.

It’s the old LinkedIn trope of normally a middle aged CEO talking about his success, which generally involves getting up early, either running or meditation and then working without distractions – and only later do we discover that they have a wife and/or a staff at home taking care of anything resembling domesticity. If only we all had a secret helper in the background taking care of all the mundanity of life. The endless washing, the food, the cleaning, the admin and the tiny humans who make and break our hearts on an hourly basis.

On a serious note, I don’t think there is a single time I have washed clothes without contemplating becoming a nudist. It must cut down on the chores significantly.

But I do have to wonder, what is more effective … focus or breath of human experience and space to inspire. There is no doubt that Steve Jobs and Michael Jordan, kings of focus, have achieved absolute perfection in their respective careers. But who knows, if they had space to grow, change and be challenged in other ways, less controlled ways, what they would have achieved. As we know from almost every dance movie from the early 2000’s, its when you add in different previously undiscovered styles that you win the competition/man.

So here I am, writing from a messy desk, taking inspiration from imperfection. I don’t think I am any more productive than I used to be when I was in a wolf pack of one. But I guess my waffle and procrastination has been replaced with toddler crafts, cleaning white chairs (not my choice of furniture with small children), cooking and once in a while remembering to shower.

Maybe I should pick up that book that I half wrote a million years ago, the messy desk might be the perfect accomplice to written nonsense.

January 13, 2026
In my bones

I am tired, bone tired. The kind of tired where sleep doesn’t touch the sides and energy can only be gathered in 4 minute bursts. After which, the waves of tired in my bones lap at the shore once more.

Broken sleep is for sure to blame. Although this baby is to be honest an absolute dream, most often going 4-5 hour stretches at night. Which compared to my first who rocked the ‘every hour’ wakeup schedule is life changing. But still, disrupted sleep is not used as a torture technique for nothing.

Or maybe it’s my recovering body and flowing hormones that are to blame. 9 months of growing a human and now somewhat inexplicably feeding said human from my body. If I was to write a story where we converted blood into food for babies it would be seen at a step too far. But somehow that is what I am casually doing multiple times a day, without even knowing how. Fun fact, apparently Alien (the movie) is an allegory for birth. My C-section was slightly more chill than that, but I do see where they are coming from.

How about the relentlessness of parenting? Even in the most delightful, wholesome day where the birds are singing and the parents look at each other so grateful for their polite and funny offspring – is filled with 1,000 negotiations and the sort of manic energy that you see in a cruise director as you swap from activity to activity all the while trying to remember to feed everyone. No matter how much you try to ‘put on your mask’ first, there is no way that the energy put in can touch the sides of the energy expended.

Things can be magical, life enhancing and everything you always wanted while still being fucking tiring and just a bit too much.

And all of that is without looking outside my front door, at the society that is seemingly crumbling to the ground. I always thought I would read the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, apparently I can just live it instead. Humans never did do well at being decent, but it has genuinely blown my mind how we can turn killing children into a debatable topic.

To feel at odds with the world, with my own family just because I think that caring is a good thing – exhausting.

To be so happy with life, to be living the dream, while tiredness holds your bones to the ground. Hoping that coffee or a 20 minute doom scroll will somehow fix everything – only to be surprised yet again that it did nothing.

But maybe that is the ultimate lie of adulthood, there is no real winner in the tiredness Olympics. You don’t have to have kids to be tired. You don’t have to work 24/7 to be tired. Tiredness is just a marker to show that life was lived. Only children escape it, and not because they don’t feel it, but because it explodes out of them in tantrums and screams – they are not yet wise enough to know that the grumpy itch in their head and the concrete in their bones is what we like to call ‘a bit tired’.

January 3, 2026
IKEA: the holy grail or the Rabbit of Caerbannog

IKEA opened in New Zealand for the first time at the start of December. For all our American or European friends this means that until December 4th 2025, New Zealand was in a furniture desert. Pretty much all the furniture we had access to was pricy and anything that was cheap was terrible terrible quality. I know there is a lot of murmuring about IKEA ‘cardboard’ furniture, so take my word for it that the quality was worse than that.

Weirdly, even though we come from a land of trees and green any actual quality wood furniture was obscenely expensive. Which combined with the ‘living in the arse end of the world so can’t ship in from overseas without selling a kidney’ meant that the options for filling a house were somewhat limited.

Something funny has happened since IKEA arrived however, people have collectively lost their damn minds. Or maybe there just isn’t much going on in New Zealand to fill a news cycle… but every man and his Reddit account seem to have an opinion on IKEA. You are either a sycophantic devotee or you have your pitchfork at the ready, with the truth as always being smack bang in the middle. Fact: A furniture store has opened. But facts have been voted as unexciting in 2025.

The difference is that while NZ in recent years has finally started to see some overseas brands creep in (looking at you H&M and Zara), no one has done it on the marketing scale of IKEA. The activations have been impeccable in terms of driving excitement and being at the forefront of social media/news. Of course this meant that people kept talking about the opening and then judging the offering in a way that has not been seen before.

I mean, I am most excited about it as a destination to walk around for three hours before impulse buying a new garlic crusher – but of course you can buy a couch as well.

Anyway what I was actually interested in is the simple square bookcase, mostly because there are many identical (on the surface at least, I assume the quality varies) options on the market. Because I am fascinated by how IKEA is going to impact the other retailers in NZ, if they will have the budget and bravery to compete, pivot or for some of them I think the harsh reality is that IKEA spells death.

It is already happening, the three stores which were the closest competitor to IKEA (i.e. flat packed furniture) are Nood, Mocka and Urban Sales (who used to be an IKEA reseller) seem to be rapidly moving to higher price but more niche/fashionable/quality design. All of which can only be good for the NZ market, all of a sudden our options are expanding and we might finally be able to get the TikTok worthy homes that the rest of the world has. Or even just be able to afford a couch when we move out of home for the first time.

Win win.

Personally I freakin love IKEA, something about walking around the showroom and seeing all the possibilities set up scratches an itch in my brain. And the garlic crusher frankly crushes.

Although from a business process point of view I would LOVE to know why they opened on the 4th of December. Couriers/post around Christmas is always a nightmare (I don’t think that is unique to New Zealand), and IKEA felt the pinch as well. There were so many issues with their online orders that within two weeks of opening they had to close their call centre for two days just to catch up. And they halted all their online orders and are only now just slowly starting to open them again.

I really feel for the team members who jumped into a new set of logistics at the worst time of year while the eyes of 5 million were on them. Fingers crossed that in 2026, once things have calmed down, kiwis can visit IKEA themselves and find their own opinion on the mega-brand. If I know this country at all, I think the grumbly opinions will continue because there is not much else to talk about – all the while our homes become stocked with the IKEA catalogue.

January 1, 2026
Superficial & Deranged

Weird name for a blog right? Superficial & Deranged. Two words that you don’t normally want associated with you, and two words that I never would have used to describe myself.

But a funny thing happens when you get older, and in particular if you go down the avenue of deciding to procreate – you end up interacting with the medical profession. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I went to the GP before having kids, and now its multiple times a month.

So superficial, where did that one come from? When I was in labour with my second baby the obstetrician came in to insert my cannula. I was well hydrated and I am pale as a ghost, so my veins were like a colour-blind google maps. But the doctor struggled, moving the needle round under my skin like a water diviner before announcing ‘superficial’. Which, to be honest confused me a lot.

It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting to be called in between contractions. When she saw my face she explained that my veins were superficial (no idea if this is an actual diagnosis, or just covering up her embarrassment at a poor cannula insertion), which I assume means something along the lines of ‘looks good from the outside but are shallow under the surface’. She ended up trying the other hand which also failed, before going into my forearm (which later on also failed and the anaesthetist had to fix it).

And deranged, that was a doosy. I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror and was completely yellow. Deranged liver. Weirdly no treatment for it needed aside from avoiding alcohol, fatty foods and contact sports for 6 months. But something about the word always tickled my fancy.

So superficial and deranged. Two words used to accurately describe me that don’t describe me at all. Perfect for a blog.

December 30, 2025