Weeknotes 354

Actual rain on Friday. Cool breeze, blue skies and sunshine this weekend. Invigoratingly autumnal.

Three gyms. I’d simply stopped weighing myself for a couple of weeks. I did it again this week and the news isn’t good but at least it’s focused the mind.

Good god my arm was sore after my COVID vaccination! That part is not fun. I’ll be getting the flu (jab) this week, after which I’ll be invincible.

I made it to LRUG on Monday for the first time since… my weeknotes suggest April 2024, which sounds about right. In an inspired manoeuvre I met up with Chris & Matt for a drink in the pub beforehand. We bumped into Murray as we walked to the venue, then enjoyed (vegan) pizza and (AF) beer together at the meeting itself. Afterwards we returned to the pub for another before I cycled home. Good to see some friendly faces; certainly a more committed performance from me than last time.

Chris generously gave me a stack of jwz cards as requested, and now I‘m walking around with a couple in my pocket as a protective talisman. They do cheer me up — job done, I reckon — although only time will tell whether I ever have simultaneously the opportunity and the gumption to actually use them.

I plodded through another cosy-silly episode of Ludwig, this time featuring an implausible murder in a sushi restaurant. Inconsequential.

I’m chipping away at Order of the Sinking Star in fits and starts. I’m enjoying most of the individual puzzles but can already tell it’s not likely I’ll make it to the end because the unbroken stream of them is so relentless and the writing is so embarrassing.

Sokoban puzzles are also just not as interesting or fun as the mazes in The Witness so I feel less intrinsic motivation to persist with them. The state space is too large, which makes it much less feasible to learn-by-doing. Instead I regularly get stuck & frustrated and only find the solution through the mindless tedium of exhaustive search. It feels like work, not play.

Oh well, I’ll see how far I can get. There might be an interesting meta-puzzle once I get through the introduction (?) and that possibility provides a crumb of incentive to continue.

I tried to play the beautiful-looking Cairn demo but couldn’t even get through the tutorial, so that’s the end of that. I think the intentionally unenjoyable Baby Steps has permanently spoiled that style of game for me.

I finished my tax return and learned, to my relief, that I’ve already paid approximately the right amount. I owe a little bit extra but nothing like last year’s disaster. That’s a load off my mind.