-
So somehow holes in the soles of one of my pairs of sneakers led me to purchasing three (!) pairs of new sneakers. Millennial going to Millennial, I suppose.
-
There was a Hallowe’en event in the local shōtengai (Wikipedia) on Sunday. Emma wore a pumpkin costume she’d requested while John and Rowan reprised their Harry Potter and Jack Sparrow outfits from previous years. Which is a classier way of saying that I didn’t bother to buy them new costumes since the old ones fit well enough. The event itself was all right. It was basically a series of stalls set up along part of the road that had been blocked off from vehicular traffic. The stalls sold various products and many were giving away sweets to children. Quite a few people dressed up and there was a lively atmosphere. Unfortunately, the number of people (at least when we went) seemed to grossly exceed expectations, making it difficult to move at times. Perhaps next year they’ll commandeer more of the strip so that there’s a bit more space.
-
A fortnight ago Emma and John took a trial programming class. They seemed to enjoy it well enough and so, much to my wallet’s dismay (it’s ¥18,700 a month each), I enrolled them in weekly classes. They had their first class later in the day on Sunday afternoon and it seemed to go fine. The school takes a while to build up to programming in the sense of typing source code into an editor so it’s really more of a problem-solving class at the moment. I’m not totally sold on whether to keep going with it but will give it a couple of months and see.
-
I finished a book! I’ve been reading Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library (my miniature review) on and off for more than a year, I think, and finally powered through to the end of it. Does this presage more long-form reading? We’ll see, I guess.
-
I also finished the first season of Ludwig (I realise the nomenclature adopted by British TV is to call seasons ‘series’ but I think that’s confusing so I’ll stick with ‘season’). I had been watching the episodes weekly as they came out but I broke down after watching episode five and immediately put on episode six (all six episodes were available on BBC iPlayer). Overall, a fun show and I’m looking forward to season two.
-
Pseudonymous YouTuber 12Tone has a video essay about Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’ that is pretty tops. It’s 20 minutes in length.
-
One of the things I miss about the way I listened to music in my late teens and early 20s was the degree to which it was tied to place. Before podcasts, I’d only ever listen to music while I was on the move (be that foot, bus, train or car) and that would often cause a song to be associated with the location I was in when I’d heard it. Not necessarily for the first time, maybe there was just something special about the moment that made the music the perfect accompaniment. That doesn’t happen so often any more which makes me sad. One of the more recent instances I can remember was listening to Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Charity Case’ as I drove down Pittwater Road one summer (Apple Music).
-
250 of these!
