Captain's Log: February 2023

Maybe I am waning in my desire to open journal like this. Usually I have the discipline to start the post with the changing of a month and then top it up once a week before posting it bang on time. I had not even started this post until 10pm on March the 1st which is unusual. So it is going to be brief.

Overall I loved living February 2023. I was in good spirits throughout. I was however sick for about the last 10-12 days of the month. Nothing serious it was just bad timing. $youngest was ill and I caught their cold and it was persistent. Then just as I was feeling well enough to go back out jogging on Friday 24th I woke up the next day with a new fever and an earache to match $eldest’s symptoms.

The cold was pretty mild and so I worked through it without issues. I just felt a bit grotty and wasn’t able to do much physically. The earache was fun though! It sounded like I was underwater and I could barely hear people talking a metre away from me. I felt absolutely shitty for the final weekend of February as a result and took Monday and Tuesday off work to recuperate and felt fine but a little tired on March 1st.

Health aside I spent some nice time with the kids. There was a birthday party to attend at a soft play that went well. Kids did well and had fun and they even came when called to go. Therefore earning privileges to go back on another Saturday morning sometime soon!

We had two visitors come to our house (we are trying to up our game here so that the kids see other humans). I was too ill to clean for the first visitor but I did get the house looking quite nice for the second visitor before the earache landed.

Music

I haven’t written a song in a while. Then bam a friend of mine had a video of them drunkenly describing why The Beatles are (in their opinion) crap posted online. I found his example lyrics absolutely delicious and so took on the challenge of making what I think he hears when he hears say Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts club band. To achieve this I listened to Lucy in the Sky with diamonds about 100 times and as a result each time I play this I laugh my ass off. The drum track in particular is bang on.

I think it works because if you strip out all the layers the song is actually not bad. In my opinion obviously.

It reminded my that for quite a chunk of 2022 I was making a random song in 2-4 hours every week. I have definitely gotten better at the process which is exactly why I am having fun with it. A great hobby.

Other bits

  • XCOM 2: War of the chosen: I spent most of the month playing this in the evenings. It was the only thing I was capable of physically for the second half of the month.
  • XCOM 2 – I had completed XCOM 2 in January I think. After defeating WOTC I immediately started this again but with an aim to run through it to see a reduction in the number of days. I got to plasma weapons in record time for me when I usually slowly build.
  • DIY Guitar Kit – I have not started work on the kit guitar finishing like I thought I would. I have all the items. But I lacked the energy to sand a guitar for hours and hoovering up the dust from the living room is going to be an ongoing chore. I will get on it in March!
  • Star Trek Voyager: I got through this while playing WOTC and during other tasks. I always liked the characters but this time I got some different stuff out of it. It is a good show.
  • Star Trek Enterprise: I started this after Voyager. I maintain that I love this show more than the average star trek fan. Even going so far as to say that it has one season that I loved so much on first viewing it that I said “it was the best season of any star trek”. I refer to the Xindi season where I loved the ongoing plot. The mystery. It had a purpose and it was darker than Star Trek had ever been. The show got so much hate when it was released. But not from me. If you are honest you will find the first season is pretty ropey in all of the shows. I am dreading putting up with the “ending” of this show. They really did them dirty.