Weeknotes #150

We put the Christmas tree up. Emma had been very concerned since we moved into the apartment that the reduced living space (in comparison to our old place) was going to mean that there’d be nowhere for the tree to go. Truth be told, I was a little worried about this too. The idea that occurred to me last week was to remove the chair at our kitchen table that I rarely sit at and place the tree there. (I typically don’t sit in my chair because Eri and I usually eat in shifts and even when we do eat at the same time, I sit across from her at the table rather than next to her in a way that would be weird.)

The weather remains unreasonably warm. It’s almost the end of November and yet we’ve had multiple days with temperatures over 20. It’s supposed to dip soon but for what feels like the fifth time I’ve said this this year, this can’t be good.

I spent far too long updating the script I use to generate RSS feeds for various publications. In particular, I added proper support for command line options by using the OptionParser class that’s part of Ruby’s standard library. Was this necessary? Even beneficial? Almost certainly not but it did at least give the illusion of getting something done.

I experienced a mini crisis of faith after the release of Dan Olson’s latest video essay. I think I hate it? Olson is easily my favourite YouTuber and one of the reasons for that is the breadth of material he covers on his channel and his way of always making it interesting. And yet I’m halfway through this 84-minute video and I don’t know if I can bring myself to finish it. While an essay about the culture of World of Warcraft is not for everyone, I played WoW back in the mid-2000s and maintain fond memories of my time with it so I don’t think that’s it. If I had to narrow it down, there are two things. First, Olson produced the video in cooperation with WoW content creator, Nathan Landel, with the two going back and forth as they read the script of the essay. I don’t know if I’d ever like this style of video but in this particular case, it’s especially bad because while it pains me to say this about a fellow Australian (and a law student no less!), I hate Nathan’s voice. Second, the video has music playing incessantly in the background. Maybe all Dan’s videos have this? I haven’t gone back to check. Between that and the alternating narration, I can’t get into the flow at all.

I finally watched Andor so I hope Dave is happy. Overall, it was good and I absolutely loved the monologue that ends episode 10 but the hyperbolic praise this show receives baffles me. It’s the best of the Star Wars TV series that Disney’s produced but that’s a pretty low bar. I’d rank it behind Westworld, Succession and Loki in terms of quality in the first season.

By my arbitrary rules, the beginning of Advent means it’s OK to start listening to Christmas music! I’ve linked to a couple of different Apple Music playlists in previous weeknotes but I think the Christmas Crooners one is new this year (Apple Music). It’s the one I’ve been playing the most.

As is evident from the title of this post, this is the 150th weekly update I’ve posted. This feels like something of an achievement, albeit in a way that is largely of significance only to me. Still, go me!