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It was Emma’s birthday. Eugenia’s daughter was born a few days after Emma and I felt a little sheepish seeing the photos for the party Eugenia organised. Emma turned seven and has never had a birthday with friends. Then again, she’s also never been invited to a friend’s birthday party so maybe Japan just doesn’t do kids birthday parties and, as someone who dislikes birthday parties, I’ve landed in exactly the right country. It could also be a COVID-19 thing, I guess.
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On Sunday, we woke up early to take both Emma and John to the ice skating rink that’s relatively close to us. Emma has been attending a class for a few months now but it’s on Wednesday afternoons and she’s about to ‘age out’ of her current class and need to attend the class that begins after hers. That’s not until 5 pm which means Eri isn’t likely to return with Emma until around 7. Sunday morning has an alternative class, and because it’s Sunday morning means that I can get the car and drive everyone over there (Eri otherwise has to ride her bicycle). That then means we can bring John and he can join a class as well.
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I don’t think the ‘screen grounding’ (descreening?) of Emma and John has had the rehabilitative effect I’d hoped it would. It still feels like they aren’t showing the proper degree of respect to Eri and me. In particular, we’re still having to tell them multiple times to stop doing things, often within a minute or so of the previous direction. I was talking to Mum about it and she suggested shorter punishments that could be delivered more frequently (e.g. no YouTube for the evening) rather than a massive punishment (e.g. no YouTube for the remainder of the month) that become disconnected in their mind from the original infraction. I’ll give this a try.
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As I suspected, I’ve spent the majority of my time on the Steam Deck playing Rocket League. Of course, that hasn’t stopped me from buying a couple more games (No Man’s Sky and Stardew Valley) to go with the purchase of Return to Monkey Island from earlier in February. NMS and SV I haven’t really touched but I have slowly been working my way through RTMI. I was hoping to complete it without needing any hints but I just couldn’t work out how to get past the Scorched Alaska puzzle over the weekend.
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Shot of the week goes to Freddie deBoer for the burn in this post:
Facebook makes me feel the way I feel when I’m in a hospital.
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I loved Patrick Willems’ video essay on the meaning of the Looney Tunes in 2023. As a long time fan, I’m saddened that the classic cartoons are no longer being broadcast in the U.S. I have some of those episodes in Plex and showed them to the kids on Saturday for educational purposes. One point that I was surprised Willems didn’t make was that the classic Looney Tunes cartoons seem like they’d work terrifically well on YouTube.
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Oh, speaking of video essays, if you have any love for Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, then you must watch this 23-minute masterclass from 12tone. It’s a wonderful deconstruction and analysis of the song. I am biased, of course. As someone born in 1982, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is the defining song of my childhood. I have such a vivid memory of watching the music video (YouTube) as a 9-year-old on Rage (Wikipedia) on some random Sunday morning and somehow realising that this song was significant. Even if that doesn’t describe your experience and you’re just interested in music, I’d still recommend it.
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I suppose there’s no way for that to not be the link that ends the update (Apple Music).
