Week Notes 2021/41
Sun Oct 17, 2021
Introduction
Notes for the weeks of 11th through 17th of October 2021.
Not a bad week. A lot of it was quite enjoyable. There’s never enough time at the weekend to do everything I want.
The Notes
- A technician came to the house on Tuesday afternoon and fitted a new screen into my UHD monitor. Suddenly, I’m a lot happier sitting at my desk.
- On Saturday 16th, Jen & I belatedly celebrated our tenth anniversary by eating calzone and watching Only Lovers Left Alive, as is tradition.
- We also went for brunch at Bonobo.
- On Wednesday 13th, I attended the in person meet up of Aberdeen Python Users Group. The talk was on automating the boring things, but mostly about scraping web pages. It was fine, but not especially challenging. I enjoy the social aspect of the meetup, but tend to find the technical parts a little underwhelming.
- That said, I got to buy a fish supper for post-pizza dinner, which was my first for some months.
- On Saturday 16th, I bought these books from Waterstones: Understanding a Photograph by John Berger, On Photography by Susan Sontag, Dark Entries and Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman.
- Over the week I’ve done a few writing exercises. On Saturday morning, I slept in and then spent a bit to long in town with Jen before returning home to a broken thermostat, so lost that day.
- I did start taking some notes on an essay I love.
- A reasonably good week at work. I had an easy task to complete that’s part of my team’s regular routine. I also solved a long standing problem with Wordpress, which made me quite happy for the week.
- I also bought a new head torch. It’s expensive, fancy, and a massive improvement over my two other ones. I should get to test on my next Tuesday run.
Reading
- The Dying of the Light (George R. R. Martin, 1977)
- This is starting to pick up now. There’s a duel!
- Nowhere Here: Cyberspace & The Assassination of the Unreal (Kurt Schiller, 2021)
- I’m always very happy when there’s a new issue of Blood Knife out. I’m even happier when it’s a first birthday issue revisiting the topic of cyberpunk again. This essay discusses in great depth what we had on the internet and what we’ve now lost with greater accessibility and the parallel commodification of digital spaces.
Running & Adventures
An okay week volume wise with 31.3km logged. Getting four days out of seven was good. Only really having one deliberately harder session and one hungover run wasn’t the best use of my time.
- On Tuesday, October 12th, was the usual 8km out and back run. It’s dark this time of year, so I get to spent the best part of fifty minutes in a bubble of light watching the ships out at sea.
- On Thursday, October 14th, I ran a 6.8km loop that took me up the side of the valley and then down on a parallel road. Listened to In Our Time discuss The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- On Friday, October 15th, I ran a 5km loop with Jen along the sea front. It was an easy effort and part of me making up the distance to make Sunday’s long run less pressured.
- On Sunday, October 16th, I went for my long run. A driech run along the sea front. It started off cold and drizzling before almost clearing up. By the end I was too warm. 11.3km. It wasn’t that easy and the traffic lights meant I waited around getting cold for too long. Definitely didn’t perform at my best due to drinking too much wine and sleeping in.
Watched
- Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
- For reasons mentioned above.
Played
- Disco Elysium
- Kentucky Route Zero