Weeknotes #133

The Australian Government notified me that Rowan’s citizenship application has been approved. I haven’t received the certificate yet but hopefully that arrives in the next week or so.

Of course that would happen at the end of the week in which I’d lodged the passport applications for Emma, John and me. Now I need to make a second trip to the Australian Embassy. I have already booked that; fortunately I was able to get a spot at the end of this month.

School holidays are rough. No doubt things are made worse by the ongoing pandemic, particularly the BA.5 variant that seems so contagious. And having day after day of 35+ degree heat isn’t conducive to doing much outside either. But still, we’ve got a month or so to go and I cannot wait for the kids to be back at school.

That said, if it wasn’t school holidays, Emma and John would be at home anyway because they’re both sick. As is Rowan. I mentioned last week that John had come down with something and it spread to all the kids. Neither Eri nor I have come down with it which is something I guess. When Eri took the kids to the paediatrician, he thought it was most likely a cold.

I’m not sure the dieting is going particularly well. Or to be more correct, I don’t think I’m doing a good job of dieting. I’m not sure what to do. Well, no, that’s not true. I’m not sure if I want to do what I need to do which is really just to stop snacking.

I finally got around to giving Diablo Immortal a go on the iPad with my Xbox controller. The core mechanic of the game feels very akin to Diablo II which could be read as a criticism but I mean it as a compliment. I’m reminded of how much time Dave and I spent playing the game at netcafes at the turn of the century (a scary amount).

One of the reasons I’ve got time to play Diablo is that I finished the steps in the MAL course. I’m not sure if what I’ve got is that helpful in making my Lisp on Ruby project a reality but it did feel good to at least get to the end and see my interpreter successfully self-host the MAL implementation that comes as part of the repository.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball linked to this article about comedians and water bottles and, if you’re interested at all in stand-up comedy, it’s a delightful way to spend a few minutes.

I was trying to sing ‘Jailhouse Rock’ to Rowan at one point when I vaguely remembered a black and white version I’d seen when I was a child. I thought it was from a television broadcast but of course what I was remembering was the famous scene from the movie Jailhouse Rock (Wikipedia). I’m not sure if it’ll be restricted to certain geographies but I was able to watch a crisp, clear version on the Turner Classic Movies YouTube channel (YouTube).

That would probably do for the musical selection but I wanted instead to link to Richard Ashcroft’s Acoustic Hymns, Vol. 1 (Apple Music). If the name doesn’t ring a bell, he was the lead singer of British rock group, the Verve, and the album includes a number of the Verve’s better known numbers, including ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ (spelt ‘Bittersweet Symphony’), ‘Lucky Man’ and ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’.