Weeknotes 302

Back to work, because this is how we’ve collectively decided to best spend the impossible gift of life, apparently.

It’s been a stressful week so I’ve comfort-eaten a lot of junk to make myself feel better, which makes me feel worse. I went to the gym four times to try to offset it but it doesn’t really work that way. I’ll try getting a grip instead.

The headphones are working out really well. I think my ears have become accustomed to the sweat. I feel disappointed when a sound from the external world occasionally leaks through, but then I turn off noise cancelling and it’s unbelievable how much louder the gym gets.

I tried to keep up the momentum of skipping the Thirty Minutes Hate to give myself an unbroken hour of audiobook listening per workout, which let me finally finish Bee Speaker. It’s a good yarn and I’d recommend the Dogs of War trilogy to anyone who likes pulpy, social science fiction.

I found it a bit distracting that this one was narrated by the author in addition to two professional voice actors, partly because of his mild rhotacism (which is perfectly fine, just an obvious contrast to the professionals) and partly because I kept thinking “you wrote this! how do you feel about this bit?” as he read it. In future I’ll be careful to only choose books narrated by people with eerily perfect voices and zero emotional investment in the words they’re speaking.

My audiobook backlog is lengthening. For my own reasons I chose to start Project Hail Mary next. As I expected, it’s making for a nice unchallenging listen so far.

I think the wrist pain’s improving. It’s still sore but I can no longer get it to produce the sharp pain I was feeling before, so I suspect it’s slowly healing. I’m sick of dealing with the splint and wearing my watch on the wrong wrist so I’d really like to go back to normal soon.

I’m twenty episodes into Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s long since become a tedious slog but I’m so near the end now that I’m determined to finish it.

Ghost of Yōtei: I beat Takezo the Unrivalled before any of the remaining Yōtei Six, which was difficult but satisfying. I’m surprised I managed to wring enjoyment out of some challenging combat, but the Celeste-like instant retries really helped; if the game had put a runback in the way I’d have given up immediately.

I’ve tried the Sainsbos and M&S flavours of unbranded bran stick. Both are better than the reformulated official variety, but M&S’s is clearly superior and not too far from the original, so maybe I can survive on that for the rest of my life. I haven’t been to Tesco yet; let me know if you spot any other store brands I should try.

I really enjoyed Phil’s post about his first months in cyberspace, the technical specifics of which largely mirror my own experiences at around the same time. I had that Adam Engst book too (and got my copy of MacTCP from it!) which I’d never have remembered without seeing it, but it’s all coming back to me now. What a thrill that was. Good job we didn’t know.

I note that English subtitles have been added to Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, if that’s what was holding you back from watching it. But what should be holding you back is that it’s rubbish.

This terrifying SNL sketch is relatable.