Weeknotes #122

in weeknotes

  • By the time of the next update, the results of the upcoming Australian federal election (Wikipedia) will be known. I’ve had some interesting conversations with Eugenia about how the campaign has gone so far. On paper, it seems like an election Scott Morrison should win easily and yet everything I read suggests he’s so loathed personally that Anthony Albanese is all but a shoe-in.

  • Apple announced the iPod Touch is being discontinued and with it the only current product using the iPod brand. The Apple News announcement has a nice photo gallery, including photos of the 2006 iPod Nano which was the first Apple product I owned.

  • We decided to buy a double bed for the bedroom. Unfortunately, it won’t fit without pushing it right into the corner of the room. That’s not the end of the world but it’s a shame there wasn’t some arrangement that would have allowed access from either side.

  • Dad tested positive for COVID-19. He’s self-isolating from Mum and is in good spirits. He’d already received his second booster a couple of weeks ago so fingers crossed that he doesn’t suffer any particularly serious symptoms. After not knowing anyone who’s been infected, I’ve now had four or five people I know in Australian come down with it.

  • On Tuesday, I took John to visit a local preschool. It provides most instruction in English which isn’t actually what I want (it’s John’s Japanese that needs improvement) but it does make it easier for me to handle most of the tasks related to his schooling which then frees up Eri to be focus on all the things Emma needs.

  • I somehow missed a day of Wordle over the weekend. I blame Waffle. It’s the best Wordle ‘clone’ I’ve come across to date. Rather than finding a single five-letter word, you instead begin with six interlocking five-letter words where all the used letters are mixed up. To solve the puzzle, you need to swap the letters. The catch is you only have 15 swaps available. It’s easily the prettiest Wordle-inspired puzzle game I’ve come across and by virtue of all the used letters being present, you can have more esoteric words that Wordle eschews.

  • Maybe I should blame all the basketball I’ve been squeezing in rather than Waffle for the Wordle miss. Ive enjoyed a lot of the games but Game 5 between the Bucks and the Celtics in Boston was definitely highlight. Even though the Bucks eventually lost the series, watching Giannis & Co claw their way back from such a deficit and then to have Holiday pull off an incredible defensive play to win the game was something special. It’s a real shame Middleton was injured.

  • Or maybe I should blame TV. This week I watched episodes of Motokare no Yuigonjo (元彼の遺言状), Law & Order, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and even an episode of Star Trek: Discovery (as I glacially work my way through season 4). SNW was my favourite; not a perfect episode by any stretch of the imagination but much closer to what I was hoping for when this series was announced.

  • Peter Gabriel’s ‘My Body is a Cage’ (Apple Music) randomly came on one of the HomePod Minis and I was trying to remember how I’d first listened to it. I thought it must have been because of Westworld but I looked and it’s not in any of the episodes. Fortunately, Wikipedia had the answer: the teaser trailer for John Carter (YouTube).

Michael Camilleri inqk.net