It's the monthly review, still nothing to look forward to.
The lockdown diary:
- About two weeks between lockdown 5 and lockdown 6
- Starting with a one week 'short, sharp, snap lockdown' this time
- Soon extended for a second week
- NSW numbers keep increasing
- 400+
- 700+ approaching the Victorian record
- 800+
- 1000+
- Daily reminders the numbers will get out of control without this lockdown
- Daily reports of illegal gatherings and parties
- Continuing to record 20+ cases each day, not decreasing
- More exposure sites
- Most linked to childcare or schools
- Playgrounds packed full on the weekends
- Another 2 weeks of lockdown
- The famous curfew is back
- The playgrounds are closed again - not surprising
- Still a lot of daily cases not in isolation, different to the previous few lockdowns
- Cases slowly increasing, apparently a higher percentage of children
- NSW well ahead in vaccination rates, and getting more than an equal share
- NSW also passed Victoria for total number of cases
- New outbreaks in ACT and New Zealand
- Low numbers but still present after a few weeks
- Confirmation the current strategy is still appropriate and numbers are stable
- Two days later the strategy is basically abandoned and we're just waiting for 70% vaccinations
- Meaning another three weeks of lockdown
- Nothing of value coming after the target is reached anyway
- 10 kilometres and 3 hours of exercise - who cares
- Exposure sites being released 10 days after the event
- Not specified if it's due to delays getting tested or delays in contract tracing
- Probably both
As usual not much to report for running - no parkrun and most remaining events are either postponed for later in the year (good luck) or cancelled. A random collection of injuries on separate days - right hip, right foot, left hip, both small toe nails not looking good. Tried out some new cushioned Nike Invincible shoes to manage some of these injuries, but that coincided with the new left hip injury, perhaps a coincidence. Otherwise just doing one 10-11 kilometre session per week as there's no point doing more.
I thought I was due for a good month in the sharemarket but then got reminded that two days can erased two weeks of gains. At least after 2-3 years I'm roughly back to break even for my investment loan.
The Olympics were a good distraction for a couple of weeks, some of the highlights:
- Athletics
- Marathon men - Kipchoge
- Marathon women - Kenyan, Seidel, Australian
- 800m men - Bol
- 1500m men - McSweyn
- 5000m + 10000m women - Hassan
- 10000m men - Tiernan
- Basketball
- Australia vs USA
- Australia vs Slovenia - 3rd place and first medal
- USA vs France
- Swimming
- 4 x 100m women freestyle relay
- 4 x 100m women medley relay
- McKeon - 50m, 100m freestyle
- McKeown - 100m, 200m backstroke
- Titmus - 200m, 400m freestyle
The AFL finals are underway, and of course no matches will be in Melbourne again this year. Provides a big advantage for Brisbane and Port Adelaide in particular, to have home games and home crowds.
There's nothing to do right now:
- Running Calendar
- Just removing all the cancelled events
- Tax Return
- The first attempt came back with a $75,000 bill owing !
- I had calculated more like $25,000 - $30,000 so that was a shock
- Have to review the capital gains tax section again
- Vaccination
- Got first dose of Pfizer, just a mild sore arm for 36 hours
That's it for this month.
- Books
- None - got a few Stephen King to catch up on
- Movies
- Fear Street Part 1 1994
- Like a bad Scream remake with younger high school kids
- 3 out of 10
- Music
- None
- TV
- The Equalizer
- Most time is spent on the new mission of the week, rather than a long running story
- Quite similar to Person Of Interest, but less technology
- 7 out of 10
- The White Lotus
- Something a bit different, well written and produced
- Good story except the older woman part was boring
- 8 out of 10
- The Wilds
- Like a less complicated version of Lost, with stranded teens
- Didn't achieve much at the end of the season, but at least a second season is coming
- 8 out of 10
- Video Games
- Nintendo Switch
- Metroid Dread pre-ordered
- Xbox One
- Mafia 3
- Just started, ok so far but seems a bit repetitive
- Xbox One - Xbox 360 compatibility mode
- Call Of Duty - Black Ops 2
- A better story than most and gameplay was also good
- Veteran was challenging but not impossible
- 7 out of 10