Weeknotes 12

This last couple of weeks has made me realise how accustomed I am to living in precedented times. When you’re trying to decide something it saves a lot of time and energy if you have a precedent. At the moment I’m making a lot of mundane decisions from first principles and it’s exhausting.

Picard has finished but I haven’t got around to watching the last three episodes yet. I’ll do it at some point — probably whenever the re:View comes out so I can watch that — but I don’t feel motivated by much beyond bloody-minded completism. Like Discovery, it’s just not a well-written show; unlike Discovery it has familiar faces and good performances but those aren’t enough by themselves.

Will we ever see another Star Trek series that is, you know, actually Star Trek: optimistic future, post-scarcity economy, no interpersonal conflict? I’m guessing not. Maybe that’s the best outcome for a half-century–old franchise that was a product of its time.

I’m still enjoying Animal Crossing. I don’t know what else to say about it really. It’s chill and fun which is what I need right now. Well done Nintendo.

I treated myself to a month of Apple Arcade because it seemed like an appropriate time. So I’ve been playing a lot of What the Golf, which regularly makes me laugh through gameplay rather than clever writing alone. It’s extremely varied and inventive, often spending only a few minutes on a fun mechanic that could — ahem — easily sustain an entire game by itself. Really impressive.

It has many noteworthy moments but a lot of the fun comes from being surprised so it’s better to go in knowing as little as possible. (It’s coming out on the Switch “soon”.)

I naïvely tried to find a local bookshop who would bring a book to my door like it was a takeaway meal. Turns out that’s not a thing.

HMRC posted me a letter to tell me that they’re going to post me a cheque at some unspecified future point. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to pay it in. Unprecedented!