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I was disgusted at the revelations that the former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, had secretly appointed himself to five ministries in the final years of his government (ABC). This is the kind of thing one might expect from ‘managed democracies’. I seem to be in a minority on this point but I think the Governor-General should resign as well. I understand the argument that he didn’t have the authority to refuse but he presumably could have quit.
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Rowan’s citizenship certificate came. It’s a different design to the ones Emma and John received.
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I came across MusicHarbor via Brandon’s weekly update and wow, what an embarrassingly better job this does informing you of new music than Apple does. And as best I can tell, it does it all with no real ‘intelligence’. It merely looks at your music library and presumes you’ll be interested in new music from artists you’ve got in there. Genius! My favourite feature—and what made me instantly pay to unlock all its features—was the ability to show only albums. The interface leaves something to be desired but am still very happy to have this.
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My dieting has fizzled out again. I’m now up to around 73kg when I’m trying to get down to 68 or so. I’m not sure what to do. Exercise greater will power, I suppose.
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Our main air conditioner started leaking. This is a perennial problem we have in all the places we’ve lived in Tokyo. The building management company sent a general handyman to take a look at it but it kept leaking and we now have a visit from someone from Hitachi scheduled for next weekend. I’m incredibly pessimistic. The air conditioner is about seven years old and based on the previous experiences, the only permanent solution is to replace the entire air conditioner. I don’t expect the owner to want to do this and so I’m girding myself for a drawn-out fight as we go through the rigmarole of having numerous maintenance visits. Fortunately, the leak hasn’t been that bad (and we are near the end of summer).
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We decided to take the kids to Hikarigaoka Park on Saturday. It’s a little difficult to get there from our place so I booked a car and drove us all over there. Shortly upon entering, we encountered a truck selling kakigōri (shaved ice) and got one each for Emma and John. They looked enormous at first, although much of it was air. I think this was the first time they’d had the dessert and watching them enjoy it was delightful. I didn’t remember to take a photo until they were almost all gone.
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The final episode of the fourth season of Westworld aired. As much as I thought this season was a welcome return to form, the ending really left me disappointed. Partly the issue seems to be the reduced number of episodes. Both seasons 1 and 2 had ten episodes but that was reduced to eight for both seasons 3 and 4 and I think it showed. While the writers mercifully eschewed delaying the twist, there was still so much to cover. Worst of all, most of the interesting questions went mostly unasked, let alone unanswered. At the time of writing, it’s not known whether the show will return for a fifth season (which would apparently be its last).
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My musical selection this week is the soundtrack album for Westworld‘s season 4 (Apple Music). Like the show itself, the first season’s soundtrack is its pinnacle but I liked this more than season 3.
