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John’s first sports festival was held on Saturday. It looked like it might be rained out but, as unlikely as it seemed during the downpour on Friday night, the weather was almost perfect. John had a great time and it was nice to be there for it.
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I got my voucher for the fourth vaccine dose, this one being the bivalent formulation that better targets the Omicron strain. I think I’d be able to get a shot pretty easily now if I wanted one but I’m content to wait until mid-November for the inoculation that work will provide.
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I was disappointed to discover that iOS 16 breaks the to-do list app, Clear (App Store). Clear is the app I use when I need to throw together a temporary to-do list, something to organise the tasks I’m doing that day. The fact it seems to be abandoned led me to wonder if I could make my own replacement using SwiftUI and Swift Playgrounds. After two weeks of slamming my head against the wall that is SwiftUI, the short answer is not really. Or at least I can’t make it with the interface that I want. Feel free to fill the remainder of this bullet point in with as much griping about SwiftUI as you’d like.
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I finally got the identity documentation for my iPhone trade-in sorted out. The issue, as it so often is, was over the official spelling of my name. Typically when entering my name in websites in Japan, I’ll spell my name in katakana. No problem, you might think. Well, it can cause issues if I later need to verify my identity because my name in Japan is officially written in romaji. As I said to Eri, the frustration this causes on a semi-regular basis is almost enough to make me want to convert to Japanese citizenship (at which point I would have to change my name).
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Things aren’t looking promising in terms of watching basketball this season. The NBA has completely redone its apps on the iPad and the Apple TV and in both cases, the geoblocking workaround I’d jury-rigged to avoid having to use Rakuten’s Japanese apps isn’t working consistently. One option is to forego having League Pass and instead sign up for the Australian sports streaming service Kayo. I wouldn’t be able to watch every game but I’d have access to the nationally televised games and would then also be able to watch everything else Kayo has (notably the cricket). The only problem is that it’s substantially more than what I’d pay (even to Rakuten).
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My video essay watching on YouTube has been confined almost exclusively to media criticism but I did enjoy this 10-minute video breaking down the infamous ‘Hitler throws a tantrum’ scene from Downfall.
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Speaking of video essays, I of course lapped up Dan Olsen’s ‘Contrepreneurs’ essay on the scammy Mikkelsen Twins. I don’t know if I’d really recommend it to anyone who wasn’t already a fan of his work, though. This one doesn’t reach the heights of ‘Line Goes Up’ (which as I write this is at an incredible 9.3 million views).
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I suppose the theme of this week is disappointment because Björk’s new album, Fossora, was released and it’s not for me. Her first four studio albums (Debut, Post, Homogenic and Vespertine) remain some of my most loved and yet I haven’t much care for anything she’s done since. Perhaps it’s more your scene (Apple Music).
