It's the monthly review, half year over. This is shaping up to be one of the two best years on record.
No shortage of lockdown news for this month, as we went into media overload.
- New claims you can catch the virus just by brushing past someone on the street
- So much for that 15 minute proximity with the COVID safe mobile app
- Several days later most of those scenarios were determined to be false positives !
- A second week of lockdown for Melbourne
- The seven day 'circuit breaker' didn't break the circuit
- Another Melbourne hotel outbreak to overlap with the Adelaide hotel outbreak we imported
- Of course both remain unsolved mysteries
- We still haven't got another word for 'jab'
- My favourite was people with both doses being referred to as 'the fully jabbed'
- Instead of daily cases the media started reporting the daily exposure site count
- They must like the higher numbers
- Massive outrage from NSW and Queensland because one family drove out of Victoria
- Thousands more would have arrived in the days before the borders were closed
- After two weeks the 'lockdown is over' apparently
- Except for all those restrictions that remain
- The new phrase from the state government is 'run this to ground'
- I don't even know what the means, into the ground maybe ?
- Still banned from most states for additional weeks even when our lockdown is over
- Just as Victoria restarts another outbreaks begins in NSW
- For about one week the country was looking good, except for NSW
- Wait for it...
- Queensland
- Northern Territory
- South Australia
- Western Australia
- Simultaneous shorter lockdowns in every other state besides Tasmania
A dramatic month for my running plans would be a fair description. No parkrun for four weeks was just a minor disappointment. Besides that interruption I kept to my usual routine and one weekly training session, although found it hard to be particularly motivated as the Gold Coast marathon became less and less likely to include Melbourne residents.
There was about a week when everything came together and the Gold Coast marathon was likely to run with everyone except NSW, then Brisbane got a couple of cases and decided to shut down Gold Coast in the process, even though they never had any cases before or after the announcement. Then states such as Victoria declared South Queensland a red zone and the dream was over. So the marathon had to be cancelled during the race week, annoying as I needed to cancel my hotel booking seven days prior to get a full refund, at least the flights can be rescheduled and the race entry rolls over to 2022 - or 2023...
The parkrun events came back at the end of the month, I managed a 6th consecutive PB and 20th different even in a row - just something different to keep things interesting. My five kilometre times haven't been the best though, generally in the 18:20 - 18:30 range.
Just an ordinary month in shares, still down for the year but not by too much. A bit annoying that Afterpay went up shortly after I sold the last of them, but they have levelled off since.
A few more things happening in the sports world.
- AFL
- At some point we started referring to ankle injuries as syndesmosis injuries
- Euro 2020 / 2021
- The daily highlights have been good, my favourite games were:
- Netherlands 3 - Ukraine 2
- Germany 4 - Portugal 2
- Germany 2 - Hungary 2
- Switzerland 3 - France 3 (penalties)
- England 2 - Germany 0
- NBA
- Brooklyn was my hope for the playoffs, but couldn't overcome multiple injuries
- I haven't been able to watch many games due to work and lunch time running
- Most series have been ruined by injuries
- NBL
- Melbourne had two close away wins in Perth to start the series, then finished them off 3-0
- It's always good when Perth doesn't win
A few more things happening in the to do list also:
- Holiday
- Gold Coast - planned and cancelled within a month
- Laptop
- HP Omen 15 - main purpose was to replace slow old Galaxy tablet
- Mobile Phone
- Galaxy A52 - haven't done the upgrade yet, hopefully it's painless
- Other
- Spending 2020-21 - have good data of annual spending to review now
- Running
- Booked Run Melbourne for late July - surely that won't get cancelled
Like usual nothing too eventful happening with work, just a small pay rise I think coming next month. Should be heading towards a busy time later in the year. It's not like I have any holidays planned or anywhere to go.
That's it for this month, went a bit longer than usual - it takes much longer to write and check than it does to read.
- Books
- None
- Movies
- None - cinemas are starting to open again, but nothing good showing at the moment
- Music
- None
- TV
- Manifest season 3
- It's been cancelled now, apparently they had a goal for six seasons
- Feels like a waste of our time when there isn't a conclusion
- 4 out of 10
- Mare Of Easttown
- Better than expected, really well produced and written
- 9 out of 10
- This Time With Alan Partridge season 2
- The episodes felt a bit long but still some good moments
- 7 out of 10
- Video Games
- NES
- Zelda 2 Winter Solstice
- Fun 'hack' game but quite difficult
- Couldn't be bothered with the last palace maze
- 7 out of 10
- Xbox One
- Call Of Duty - Black Ops 3
- Starts very slow almost like a tutorial for two levels
- Confusing and slow story
- Much harder when replaying just one difficulty setting higher
- 6 out of 10
- Call Of Duty - Infinite Warfare
- Shorter campaign than the previous two games
- Never ending shootouts, not sure if you are supposed to wait or forge ahead
- Poor story and limited character/weapon upgrades
- Missed a lot of optional missions as they can be skipped from the map
- Hated the plane missions, and being in space
- 4 out of 10