Playing Skyrim: The Adventure Game. Not gonna lie, it’s a bit of a learning curve with the kids. But it’s still pretty epic.

When the first smart speakers launched in Australia, I was so filled with excitement. I lusted for the idea of a home I could talk, which could turn even my three bedder into Tony Stark’s Malibu mansion. I was fortunate enough to be able to test just about everything that launched in that first year. From Google Home to Amazon’s Echo family, plus a bunch of products from brands that should have done better than they did, like Sony and Panasonic. Continue reading →

It’s been a long time since a Friday afternoon beer went down as easily as that one. I think it probably reflects my past week more than anything else though.

Despite my children reaching an age that they are somewhat independent, they are still mostly dependent. And this is best exemplified by the weekday morning routine. Despite the fact that I wake up at 6:30am every Monday to Friday, I don’t get to think about anything other than The Routine until almost 9am. Two and a half hours spent working to make sure my children are fed, watered and ready to be educated. Continue reading →

Sweet, sweet relief peppered with mild panic is apparently today’s emotional range.

🎲 Opening up the door and discovering my copy of the new Skyrim board game had been delivered was quite the start to the day!

I’ve spent a fair amount of time today having deeper thoughts about being in my 40s and constantly feeling like shit. When I say “feeling like shit”, I do not mean “unwell”, by the way. I mean the never-ending feeling of impending doom and disappointment; the silent strangulation of happiness that fills my waking thoughts. A lot of this is just me working through my thoughts on Matt Rudd’s book Man down. Continue reading →

Finished reading: Man Down by Matt Rudd 📚

This book helped. I feel a little less lost, though I’m not yet certain of my next steps.

Definitely worth a read if, like me, you feel like life in your 40s isn’t what you hoped or expected it to be.

Listening to the cast recording of the Aussie Jesus Christ Superstar from the 90s for the first time in years and am shocked I still remember more than 3/4 of the words. My son is mortified.

Gotta love a message from your bank at 11pm on a Saturday night saying your credit card may have been used for nefarious purposes… now waiting for the call from the fraud team. So tired.

📺 Now I’ve seen the season finale of Rings of Power, I’m really looking forward to rewatching the whole thing to pick up on all the hints I missed first time around as to who was who and what was what.

Thoroughly enjoyed season 1. Don’t want to wait for season 2.

With the sun shining for the first time in a while, I walked my daughter to and from school the past couple of days.

And now my hip is aching.

I do not like this “getting older” thing at all.

Day in the life: Mt Annan, NSW Australia. Still can’t believe all this space is less than 5 minutes from home.

📺 That last episode of She-Hulk was weird. Was laughing all the way through it, but not sure how I feel about it all.

Thanks to a combo of public holidays, annual leave and illness, I haven’t worked a full week in a while. Which is probably why this week is taking forever to end…

I for one can’t wait to see the upcoming blockbuster from Marvel Studios, “Lad”.

(Always love when image cropping does things like this)

Finished reading: A Darkness at Sethanon (The Riftwar Saga, Book 3) by Raymond E. Feist 📚

This captures a good chunk of my feelings on the Metaverse:

It’s funny because VR is such a powerful technology, as anyone who has used it even once can attest. But Meta, its biggest proponent, doesn’t seem to know what to do with it beyond “what you already do, but worse.”

techcrunch

The thing I can’t understand about the Metaverse is why.

Why would anyone want to subject themselves to this horror? If this is the best idea anyone has for convincing people to strap a big, ugly device to their head, then they are going to lose a lot of money.

Today my daughter brought home her prizes for school fundraising, which included an exceptionally cheap plastic “VR headset” - just a slightly better version of Google Cardboard. I stuck my phone in and she watched a 360-degree YouTube video of a roller coaster. According to her, it was the best thing ever. I tried to look through it and couldn’t make the image clear. But I don’t know if it’s because the headset is so cheaply made or because my eyesight has deteriorated so much. Continue reading →