A day late and a dollar short but here we are. My week off work has come to an end and I was thrown back into the working maw once again. Ah well I had a good run. It was an enjoyable and productive week even if I didn’t have the weather.
☀️Sunshine! Shhh don’t startle it! You might scare it away! We had a beautifully sunny day on Saturday. Myself and my wife had some errands to run around Weymouth and afterwards just parked up near the beach and had a walk down the front. It felt so good to walk in the sunshine annd recharge a bit.
Actually got to take some photos as well! 📷
Never has a Shōnen anime given me such feels! I think I’ve shed tears about 10 times this season alone when it comes to emotions, duty, respect, friendship and other such feelings. It’s a great anime with a wonderful cast of characters.
Also, just listen to this absolute banger from AURORA for the S2 intro tune 🤘
A busy week at work and at home, a the UK continues to be battered with stormy weather. We have a yellow ice warning tonight that goes right into a yellow rain warning tomorrow. Oh joy!
🇹🇭🎒 Eldest has been on his backpack through Asia for a week already. He’s been in touch every day sending lots of updates and photos which has been really nice to see. Looks like they’re having a wonderful time. We FaceTimed for the first time today. I used FaceTime with the Apple TV for the first time and it worked really well! Made it feel much more natural.
Well, a big one this week as my eldest and his girlfriend set off backpacking Asia as part of their gap year for six months. I’ll miss them very much whilst they’re away, but I’m very proud of them and delighted they're off on such an amazing adventure.
I’ve never read any Anne Rice. I should get around to that some day. I’ve only really been exposed to Rice’s work via 1994’s Interview With The Vampire movie. But I do love some vampire’s and modern fantasy.
A wonderful week off work with the family, spending some lovely time together doing some interesting stuff in some varied weather ☀️☔️🌬️
🧑🧑🧒🧒 From cooking interesting dishes 🍝 to visiting interesting places we’ve had a fun filled week.
🏋️ Still managed to go to the gym 4 times this week. Not quite the every day I set out to do, but I’m proud enough of it. I finally got around to trying the rowing machines out and I love them. Absolutely something I can see myself getting more into. 🚣
We love a good murder mystery in this house. From Poirot to Columbo, midsummer murders and beyond 1. It’s a comfortable, well-trodden path for a TV programme to tread; however, for a good writer, that just gives them a solid foundation to play with and break the expectations.
We were really impressed and excited with the twists that Bookish puts on the genre. There may be things I mention considered very light spoilers, but for those who want to go in 100% cold, I shall leave a gap before I detail those bits of the plot so you’ve got a chance to bail.
Set in London, 1946 shortly after the conclusion of WW2, Gabriel Book is the proprietor of the amusingly named “book’s books”. Although thanks to a “Special letter from Churchill” from services he provided during the war, he acts as a special consultant to the local police force when required. Assisted by his wife, Trottie, and newly released from prison youngster, Jack.
A week of preparation and tasks, ahead of some well deserved time off.
Ah internet darling Murderbot. I’d read the first book in the series a few years ago but I fell off the series due to the price of them in the UK 1. I did like what I read in that first book, but I drifted off into the realms of Vandermeer and Abercrombie instead as I just couldn’t justify the price to collect the lot.
I did enjoy what I read in that first book. Don’t get me wrong. It was good writing and I really liked the character and universe that is being presented. It’s a well worn but interesting spin on the AI/BladeRunner/Westworld style brand of Sci-Fi and sentient AI. This adaption understands what the books are about 100% and portrays it really well. The presentation of the the bigger corpo controlled world is decent enough. Just attractive enough for the upper classes so you can see the appeal but also shows the poor people who are sacrificed to make it work. it does get into this a little bit in the last ¼ of the series, but not quite enough to show how truly shitty that life would be. Totally it’s played more for laughs with one later scene that should have been much more serious essentially fast forwarded through in a way that puzzled me. this is a minor point in a series that is overall well done however.
I like Murderbot’s design and the tech on display. It does the thing of showing computer screens and HUDs in-world against the characters. Those and the other effects are really well done.
Counting down the weeks until my holidays now. Not much left to go until I’m walking around the Cairngorms 🏴 Bring it on!
🏣 Photos from a weekend visit to a local post office to send a parcel. They had so many cool pin badges! Absolutely worth a re-visit when I have some more time. I also had to capture the fact they’d put absolutely massive goggly eyes on the hatch you give them your packages through 🤣
Welcome to another week where the heat is on! Man it’s been a scorcher in the UK this week.
We went to West Bay last weekend, which is a lovely part of Dorset. Just a beach, a few shops and some cute wooden food stalls selling chips. Everything you need.
🥵 Our office at work is so hot we’ve got 4 fans deployed at every window we can open. We just about get by until the afternoon when the sun shifts and we are roasting. Yesterday I unboxed another fan, built it and literally shoved it right next to my face for a couple of hours before I went home.
👨💻 I won’t keep moaning about work in these posts but it’s still a struggle with a lot going on and not enough resource to dint it properly. I have weeks of troubleshooting ahead of me on some pretty big technical issues (From waaaay before my time) to look at. Working for tech in health is a different sort of approach than when I did networking for private sector. The biggest loss back then you could cause was money. Now it’s peoples health and the brilliant people who give that cares ability to help people. For all my bellyaching, It’s a privilege to do this role, troubles and all.
I said to my wife (Who is a Nurse in the NHS) that there is “problems on top of problems, but I’m feeling strangely positive”. My wife says I’ve turned a corner and now I truly know what it’s like to work for the NHS 🤣
I have some ideas on how to change and improve things that I think I’m thinking about getting a bit more vocal about and start trying to put in front of the people that can change things.
🪻Our garden lavender has literally exploded and we must have evey bee in a 5 mile radius hanging out at our house. we’ve tried to tie it in a bit so it doesn’t cover our path but it’s still growing. Every time I walk the house and disturb them they all fly off. I feel like some sort of bee tamer unleashing my tiny striped minions every time I leave the house and disturb them 🤣
🏋️ Weight loss continues. I’ve lost 22kg at this point. Someone at work actually commented on how I looked this week (First work person to do so!). That person is now my favourite work person in the world and I would literally die for them. 😍
🛒 We are doing one of my favourite things today. We are going to Costco! 🥳 I love the fact I can buy 20 chicken breasts, an armchair, a petrol lawn mower, a lemon tree, get my tires done on my car, visit an opticians, get a paddle board and solar panels. 1 All under one roof. I may do a post later if I get anything particularly exciting or interesting.
📺 I have the final epiosde of Murderbot left, which I’ve enjoyed very much. So I shall do a review post soon. Nearly everything I’m watching at the moment is an Apple TV show I think. I’m so excited for Foundation to come back as well.
It’s funny, as if you compare Apples entrance into TV/Film compared to their continually lacklustre entry into the gaming sphere it’s pretty evident they could do this if they want. They just don’t’ understand or care about games… And that’s why Apple Arcade is filled with shovelware like “It’s literally just mowing”. 2
🎮 Still very much enjoying my Nintendo Switch 2. Playing a few Switch 1 games that run better on the new hardware. Primarily Yakuza Kiwami at the moment exploring the dark streets of Kabukichō (or Kamurochō as they Retitle it for the game). I hope the rest of the series come out for Switch 2. When I had a Steamdeck it was my Yakuza machine and I’d love to mop up the rest of the series I’ve yet to play on the Switch 2. Man it needs more proper Switch 2 games though. I hope the rumoured Red Dead 2 port announces soon.
Read up on the nothing phone and headphone launches. They continue to be a really interesting little company.
Anyway, I need to finish this coffee, hit the shower and get ready to go to Costco. Have a wonderful weekend everyone 👋
If you like video games, and relaxing, strangely specific videos about say… where the rivers come from in that game, or if the wires for the power grid in a game actually lead anywhere… Any Austin is your guy. I’ve been finding these relaxing, funny and interesting.
I have been very lax at finding other posts this week, but I’ve been posting a bit more directly to my lovely social.lol Mastodon instance. I’ve enjoyed reading peoples posts and reviews of things. Wow that Superman movie is scoring all over the place huh?
I won’t buy any of that, but it does make me laugh the sheer range of bizarre stuff they sell.
There are some decent stuff in Apple Arcade, but it’s few and far between. It’s a bad service.
It’s been a couple of weeks. Work again made me miss last weeks 🙄
Though I did find time to post a weird post I kinda dig… some family stuff and edit some photos.
My 28 Weeks later review is very nearly ready as well! Hoping to post it this weekend. 🧟
I like Tom Hardy. He always seems like a nice bloke in interviews and I’ve enjoyed some of his acting over the years. Even his attempts at accents bless him.
Another week where I’m afraid I just….didn’t do that much besides working and coming home. Haven’t wrote that much at all… Family have been busy though. Lots going on!
💉 My son has got a tattoo 😳 It’s nice! But I’ve been joshing him every time it comes up in conversation or I see it I’m doing a “😱 look at this ink on my baby boy!” Sort of way that has made him constantly roll his eyes 1. Tattoos are one thing I’ve just never done, and now I’m so old it’s not even worth considering. I’m so indecisive it’d literally take me a decade to decide what I’d even have 🤣
Watched the first couple of episodes of Lazarus last night. New anime from the creator of Cowboy Bebop. It’s real good so far. The animation is beautiful as well.
It’s ridiculously cheesy, excitingly ultra-violently “watch through your fingers” sometimes, with incredible fightwork and is pretty well shot.
It has a great cast as well.
Episode 5 has to be one of the craziest most tense scenarios with one of the craziest fights and subsequent deaths that must have ever been put to screen 🫣
Two new episodes of Kasso are on YouTube 🙌🛹
If you haven’t watched this, it’s really good chill fun watching these skaters having to do utterly crazy courses. They’re very chill, friendly and supportive of each other as well. Great spirit and a joy to watch.
I love me some David Simon and this is an amazing, funny, tragic, brutal look at the military, warfare, America, youth, peer pressure, failure of leadership, racism, violence, incompetence, PTSD, ambition, the pointlessness of war and much much more.
Appreciated it even more now than when I first watched it.
RIP Evan Wright