Prepping for a New Normal - Webcam

One of the features of lockdown has, of course, been extensive use of Zoom and similar tools for video chat. One of the key things that has enabled this is that I brought the entire contents of my desk from work, including a webcam. Said webcam has been doing double duty as a webcam for our home PC. This has been a major boon, but of course there will come a time when I have to return to the office, and the webcam will go with me.

It is my expectation that even after things return to normal, the use of video chat will remain something of a feature - it's just much easier to get people together online than in person. Consequently, I knew fairly early on in lockdown that I would want to invest in a webcam of my own. (Additionally, if I do end up doing more extensive work from home in the new normal, having a camera here would just mean one less thing to have to cart back and forward.)

So I did what I usually do with this sort of thing and spent some time researching the market, narrowed my choices down to a few solid options from reputable suppliers, and then picked an item. And having made my choice, that was it - I try really hard not to agonise over these choices once they're made - even if they're not the best choice, they're typically good enough... and certainly good enough to render any further stress not worthwhile.

The chosen camera was out of stock everywhere, of course. And then, when it did come in stock, there was a Coronavirus premium applied, such that it was way more than it 'should' have been, and certainly way more than I was set to pay when there was no pressing need for it.

Still, it was a pain constantly looking to see if it had come back into stock at any decent price, or being tempted with alternatives at lower prices - most of which, I'm sure, were perfectly adequate for the job I wanted done... they just weren't the chosen item.

Well, the good news is that the item in question finally came back into stock, from a source I hadn't really considered (but am happy to use). So it should arrive later this week. I'll then look to set it up on both PCs, in preparation for returning the current camera back to the office.

#31: "The Broken Sword", by Poul Anderson

#32: "Sharpe's Sword", by Bernard Cornwell

Things Best Left Behind

This post is prompted about the recent events concerning Black Lives Matter, but it's not about Black Lives Matter. Largely because I have very little to say on that topic - of course black lives matter, and I'm frankly stunned and dismayed that it even needs to be said. But, evidently, it does.

However, one of the consequences of recent events is that WotC have started talking about making some changes to D&D and it's associated lore as a result of this, and the consequence of that is that the message boards are full of long and painful threads about the various changes.

This post isn't really about that, either, except tangentially.

The sad fact is that some of the material created for D&D over the past 45 years is indeed problematic in various areas. That's hardly shocking, given the amount of material involved. More troubling is that some of the more problematic areas include some very long-standing material and even some well-loved material. There is even significant debate over the most popular and most lucrative item in the entire setting.

This realisation, and the debates surrounding it prompted some uncomfortable reflections on how it should be dealt with. Because, bluntly, if WotC are serious about dealing with the issue then where there are genuinely problematic areas they will have to take some sort of action. In some cases, the areas affected can be fixed. In others, they just can't, and the offending material will have to be excised. (I should note that I don't necessarily agree on all the areas that have been flagged as 'problematic', and neither do I necessarily agree with whatever actions are proposed. Ultimately, though, that's a question for WotC, and it's also not really the topic of this post.)

But this isn't really about D&D, but culture more widely, be it in the form of films, books, and TV shows; or in the form of the statues we place in our cities; or indeed in the names of some streets.

Ultimately, what I'd like us to aim for is a society as envisaged by Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous "I have a dream..." speech - a world where race ceases to be a problem because we reach a point where it just doesn't matter. Obviously, I'm not so naive as to believe we're anywhere close to there, nor indeed do I think we'll get there in my lifetime, but that's pretty much the goal as I see it.

And the truth is that if we have elements in our culture that stand as an active insult to big parts of the population, we're just never going to get there. Some of these things need to be marked "handle with care", some of them need to be moved to the proper place and context... and some of them just need to go.

And some of the things that need to go may well include things that are very long-standing and much-loved. If we are to collectively enter a better future, there are some elements of our past that we will need to leave in our past.

Which doesn't make it any easier to take, of course. But there it is.

Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga

This was one of those films that really highlights the benefit of these subscription packages - there's no way that I would have paid to go see this film, but when I saw it included in my Netflix subscription it definitely became something I was interested in. And it was a really good choice - it's been a long time since I've laughed so much at a film.

This is a comedy starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams, which as the name implies is built around the Eurovision Song Contest. I'm not going to say any more about the plot than that, though it's almost sufficiently redundant to the silliness - you've seen it several times before with some near variations.

The film it actually reminded me of most was "Blades of Glory", which is probably no surprise given the presence of Ferrell in both.

There's actually not much more to say than that, except that it was nice to see so much of Edinburgh featuring in the film. I especially liked the shots of that well-known Edinburgh landmark, the Hydro (which is traditionally in Glasgow).

And yes, Graham Norton is in the film, doing just as he does at Eurovision every year. He's probably the best thing about the modern Eurovision, and he's great here.

(This is also a film with a really good trailer, in that it gives a good flavour of the film without using all the best material. Which means that you can watch the trailer and know easily whether this is a film for you. It certainly won't be for everyone, and won't suit every mood, but it's worth two minutes to check out a trailer, I would have thought.)

In Between

This afternoon I re-watched the "Voyager" episode "Flashback". I'm not a fan of "Voyager" by any means, but this is very definitely one of the best episodes, though it does suffer, once again, from showing hints of the show I would much rather have seen - Captain Sulu commanding the Excelsior. Oh well.

But it did occur to me that, given the state of "Star Trek" at that time, a full seven-season, 154-episode show may well have become very tired, very quickly. And that's assuming they could even afford to recruit the key actors required.

But it does occur to me that not every show needs, or indeed benefits from, that sort of massive multi-season approach. And, indeed, there are some cases where the show would have been improved by committing to a smaller, fixed run - "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Picard" immediately leap to mind as examples.

Of course, that's where a somewhat-underused format comes into play. A seven-season "Sulu" show was probably never going to fly. But what about a four-episode mini-series? (Likewise, I would very much like to see a "Doctor Who" mini-series starring the Eighth Doctor...)

For some reason, the mini-series seems to be deployed for adaptations of novels and not much else. (I entirely understand why it's used for novels, of course, given the limited source material. It's the "not much else" that surprises me.)

Anyway, that's what has been on my mind today. Or at least for the past couple of hours.

#30: The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence (a book from The List)

Malaise

On Saturday I finally got caught up on all my tasks, found myself with a little free time, and thought I'd get on with one of the things I'd said to myself I'd do during lockdown... and promptly decided, "nope". After spending so much time in front of a PC all week, I found I just couldn't be bothered at all to sit and do so at the weekend. (Nor, indeed, could I face sitting watching some TV or a movie. Basically it was screens that I was burnt out on.)

Which was a bit of a bummer, since the chances of me getting some more free time any time soon are extremely small. So I guess that project just isn't going to happen.

I do have one more thing that I (well, actually LC) wants to get through during lockdown, and that doesn't require a lot of time. So maybe I'll make some progress on that this weekend. But I wouldn't count on it!

#29: "50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know", by John Sutherland

A Matter of Style

My latest book is "50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know", which is rather interesting. Yesterday I came to the section on "Style", which suddenly crystallised something I had been aware of but hadn't been able to really grasp.

The relevant sentence reads, "The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time." (That is itself a quote from Raymond Chandler.)

As I mentioned once before, some years ago my grandfather wrote his life story. Once he had completed it he sent it out to the various branches of the family, at which point I spent some hours reading through it, and what surprised me about the work was that while the events of the story were of interest for themselves, and while the story was written in good, functional English, it was all surprisingly underwhelming. Given grandad's education, his career, and the fact that he was extremely well read, it was somewhat surprising that the whole thing wasn't, well, better.

Chandler, of course, neatly explains all that in a single sentence. The issue is that style isn't something that you either have or don't have; it's something that a writer develops and builds with practice. As such, it does indeed require an investment in time. (And, since writing the story of a long life is a significant undertaking, it has the same constraint as 'quality' in a software system - it's not something that you can add later. It needs to have become second nature, so that it's built in. Which means it really needs that investment of time.)

Grandad, for all that he was very well read, and for all that he was an educated man, had spent his life as an educator, not as a writer. He simply hadn't made that investment in time required to move beyond "good, functional English" to something more stylish.

And that's why his life story, while interesting to the family for the events that it recounts, felt somewhat underwhelming.

(Lest I be thought uncharitable, I should also note that at the time he wrote his life story, grandad was already into his eighties and in fairly poor health. So, really, the fact that he was able to produce it at all was rather remarkable. I just thought it was worth noting the revelatory moment I enjoyed yesterday evening when so much became clear.)

Back to Normal

For the past week or so there has been a formatting error on the blog, showing the sidebar at the bottom of the page. That was due to an HTML error on my part. Hopefully it's fixed now...

#28: "Sharpe's Company", by Bernard Cornwell

Space Force

When I heard about a new comedy parodying the newest branch of the US military, starring Steve Carrol and created by the guys responsible for the US version of "The Office", I was certainly interested. When I heard it was coming to Netflix I started looking forward to it in earnest. I've since watched all ten episodes... and I'm afraid it's not really worth bothering with.

I should first note that the first two episodes are very much worth a watch - the first to establish the scenario and characters, but then the second is very funny indeed.

Unfortunately, after that one the series seems to run completely out of ideas, and goes into a holding pattern of recycled plots, character moments that seem to come straight out of the nineties, and not much else. (It also doesn't help that Trump really isn't a laughing matter any more.)

Given the reviews, I find it really hard to believe that this will be renewed. Even if so, it would require some major rework before I could recommend giving it a go. The gag ratio is just far too weak, that one episode excluded. Which is a real shame - it had such potential.

#26: "Sword of Kings", by Bernard Cornwell

#27: "Call for the Dead", by John Le Carré

Dear 2020, I was just joking...

A million years ago, back at the end of March, I noted that the current situation had a few parallels with the old show "Crusade". I signed off by noting that the show was cancelled, and so the answer to "what happens next" was "either I don't know... or worse."

Given the direction 2020 has taken in the last few days, I'm suddenly rather concerned that we are in fact heading for cancellation, as the lethal cocktail of incompetence and malevolence that we seem to have collectively voted for starts to take effect in earnest.

Good luck everyone. Here's hoping someone resets the timeline soon.

Experimental Cookery 2020, Addendum: Cottage Pie

A couple of months ago my Experimental Cookery was shepherd's pie, taken from Hugh's "Love Your Leftovers". Since then we have had roast beef a couple of times, and so yesterday with the leftovers I made a cottage pie. This is, of course, almost exactly the same, but made with beef instead of lamb.

And it was fine, but we both definitely preferred the shepherd's pie. There wasn't anything wrong with the cottage pie... it just wasn't as nice.

(The other thing I would note is that while Hugh recommends aiming for 1kg of meat, making up any shortfall with leftover veg, I think I'm inclined instead to recommend about 700g, made up to the kilo with veg. That seemed to me to give a better balance between the flavours. But maybe that's just me.)

And that's all there is to say about that, really. It was blog-worthy... but only just.

Theme of the Month Wash-up: Quiet

This month has indeed matched up with the expectations - it has been a far quieter month than previously.

One thing that has been quite noticeable, though, is that on almost every forum that I've been talking with people we seem to have run out of things to say. Nothing much is happening to generate new conversations, and so the well just runs dry. Which is a shame, but I suppose not really unexpected.

Next month is likely to see things start to get back towards normal as we proceed with the unlock, which in theory at least should see new conversations being generated. I guess we'll see...

Things I Miss, and Things I Don't

During the lockdown there have been various things that I have missed for obvious reasons - seeing friends, family, and even colleagues; going to church, and for other outings. I'm not going to talk about those here, since they are indeed obvious. Instead, there are a few things that I have missed more than I thought, less than I thought, or in a surprising way, and it is those that I thought I'd discuss here...

My Commute: Not surprisingly, I don't miss the drive to the office and back. For the most part, it was just an annoying drain on time, a source of frustration, and something I'm quite glad to be without. But...

The commute did have one thing going for it, and that was that it gave me time. Specifically, time by myself to try to decompress after the day, before getting into the various activities of the evening. In lockdown, my 'commute' consists to leaving one room and going into another, and just doesn't provide that airlock. And what I'm really missing is:

Time to Myself. Prior to lockdown, there was a block of time on Friday afternoons when, almost every week, I had come home from work, LC was still at work, and Funsize was at nursery. And so I got a couple of hours in the house by myself with very little requiring my attention. In lockdown, that's gone.

To a certain extent, I've been able to carve out a little time by continuing to get up early, even on weekends (thanks, insomnia!). Though even that is far from certain, since Funsize is quite likely to wake up at the key time. It's not a particularly good block of time anyway.

Costa: This was an occasional treat that became a weekly treat (on my way back from Tesco), and it is something I miss. But, again, there's a caveat - once lockdown ends and Costa reopens, I think my intention is not to return to my previous pattern. The issue is that the cost really does add up, and it's been something of an eye-opener to see just how much money I've been saving by being forced to buy everything in a one-and-done Tesco shop. All those little "occasional treats" really should go.

Band Practice: I thought I'd miss this, but I find that I haven't really. I mean, band's fine and all, but... I just haven't missed it. I think part of the issue here is that we don't really learn any new tunes, and we don't really practice for anything, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to the point. But maybe that's just general malaise.

Being able to "just pop out". This one perhaps fall into the 'obvious' category, but I do miss being able to think of something I'd quite like to do and being able to just go and do it. Though, again, I'm not sure that's something that will revert to normal even when things do start back up again.

Day 150: Update on Goals

It's day 150 of the year, so here's the update:

• Books: By day 150 I should have read 24.59 books. I'm somewhat ahead of target. I'm also up-to-date on all sub-lists, and have finally finished "The Count of Monte Cristo". So that's all looking really good. In fact, my biggest concern now is that I'm running short of reading material, but I'm working on that.
  
• Weight: No progress since the last update. I'll need to take some action here.
  
• Blogging: I'm pretty much right on target on both blogs.
  
• Work: This continues to go well, mostly. I'm due my annual appraisal soon, so we'll see just how true it really is. But, either way, I won't be talking about it (much) here.

So, everything is actually going pretty well. I'm rather hoping that by the time of the next update the lockdown may be over, or at least much relaxed, but we'll need to see how true that proves to be. That in turn may have an impact on the progression of the goals, so we'll need to see how it goes. The next update is in July, so we'll see then.

#24: "The Count of Monte Cristo", by Alexandre Dumas (a book from The List)

#25: "Blindness", by Jose Saramago (a book from The List, and now the leading contender for book of the year.)

Experimental Cookery 2020: Chilli with Nachos and Cheese

This one comes from the Hairy Bikers "One Pot Wonders", and is pretty much what the name implies: a big bowl of chilli served with a topping of nachos and cheese.

The recipe for the chilli is slightly different from that in their Hairy Dieters book, and it's fine but not game-changing - it was another perfectly-serviceable chilli that we enjoyed but that won't be becoming our default chilli recipe. The topping of nachos and cheese was likewise very nice, but not exactly a revelation.

So file this one under "very nice, would definitely have again, but otherwise unremarkable". Sorry there's not more to say about it!

#23: "Centuries of Stories", edited by Wendy Cooling (a book for Funsize)

Experimental Cookery 2020: Malloreddus (sort of)

This one comes from "The Hairy Biker's Mediterranean Adventure", and is described as a gnocchi-like pasta. However, I found it because I had some gnocchi and was looking for a use for it, and liked the look of the sauce described here. So what I actually cooked wasn't Malloreddus at all, but rather gnocchi with a tomato-y, sausage-y sauce.

And very nice it was, too. I really like gnocchi (having had it all of half a dozen times), and so was always on to a winner, and it's quite hard to go wrong with good sausages and tomatoes. I was rather surprised at the tiny amount of liquid that was added to the sauce, but it turned out okay.

All in all, this was a winner. The only downside was a half-hour simmer step, but that should have been negated by starting cooking earlier than I actually managed. Would definitely have this again - indeed, I may end up having the leftover sauce with some of the leftover gnocchi for a lunch later this week, if LC doesn't beat me to it!

Experimental Cookery 2020: Pepper & Tomato Pasta Traybake

This one comes from this month's Tesco magazine, and was a bit of a winner. It's quick and easy to put together but, perhaps more importantly, it was a nice tasty vegetarian dish that we all enjoyed.

I don't have a great deal more to add at this point, due to the relative simplicity of the meal, except perhaps to note that I'm looking to gradually expand my repertoire of vegetarian meals in general. And this is a definite addition to that set.

#21: "Sharpe's Battle", by Bernard Cornwell
#22: "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

Gaming the System

One of the ongoing controversies in the Scottish political scene concerns the formation of a new "list party" - a new party that will not stand in constituencies but will instead only stand on the regional list, and hope to do well enough to get a handful of MSP seats as a result.

The stated goal of such parties is to "maximise the pro-independence majority". The logic here is that the results of the regional votes are corrected to give each party the 'right' number of MSPs, so the better a party does in the constituencies, the fewer seats they get in the region. Thus the SNP, who can expect to win most constituency seats, have a very large number of 'wasted' votes in the regional votes.

Up until the weekend, this was a largely theoretical proposition. Over the weekend, though, a number of disaffected ex-SNP members registered a new party, and thigns got real.

I can't say I'm a fan of the notion, at all.

I should note at this time that my opposition is not from the "it almost certainly won't" work line of attack, nor even the more extreme "it's likely to be counter-productive" line of attack. Both of these are probably correct, but frankly that's beside the point.

On the one hand, if all the party exists for is to maximise the pro-independence majority, then frankly that shouldn't be allowed. It's an attempt to game the system - about 50% of people in Scotland are pro-independence, so there shouldn't be a significant pro-independence majority.

On the other hand, if the party has some other agenda that puts them at odds with the SNP (whether it's that they don't feel that the SNP are pushing independence strongly enough, because they simply don't like the current SNP leadership, or the trans-rights issue that I am absolutely not going to comment on at all, or whetever else), then that's fine - people can set up whatever parties they want and campaign on whatever platform they want... but in that case they should be campaigning explicitly against the SNP. They're rivals for the same vote, so they should act like it.

And that, incidentally, is both why this post hasn't made mention of the Greens, either as potentially "taking votes away" from the SNP (since they have that distinct agenda), and also as being the list-only alternative to the SNP (because if the new party is distinct from the Greens also, then that is also their prerogative).

(It's also why I don't have an issue with the three major Unionist parties all standing and vying for votes, even though the regional list system gives the a leg up. The three are all fairly clearly distinct voices - they just happen to agree on one topic. I just wish they were better.)

The Crisis Hits

The one thing that I will confess to panic buying before the lockdown was a stockpile of books. I figured that there was a good chance that deliveries of non-essential items were quite likely to be hit, and also that there was a good chance that the lockdown would last 2-3 months, so I stocked up.

However, I'm now reaching a point where I'm running short on some of my sublists. Worse, I'm now getting to a point where I'm running out of ideas for books to read at all - I have enough earmarked for the rest of this month, but thereafter I'm out of ideas. (Funnily enough, I predicted that that was likely to become a problem, and when, two years ago.)

The sublists for the year are four in number: Books from The List, New Books (which only has 10 entries), the Sharpe novels, and "Other". I have plenty of books lined up from The List and in the Sharpe series; the problems lie with the other two. New Books would have been fine, except that the virus has caused most of the novels on the list to be delayed by some months. But at time of writing, the next one is released on the 28th of the month, with one scheduled for each month thereafter. That means that I have a gap right now, but then should be okay for a while... assuming they don't get delayed again.

The "Other" sub-list is the most problematic. I need approximately fifteen books to see me through the year, and can scare up one or two for right now. Annoyingly, I can find loads of partial trilogies, but in each case either the early books have dropped out of print or the final volume has not yet been released.

The likely upshot of this is two-fold. Firstly, it is likely to mean that I'll read more books from The List than I had perhaps planned for the year. Secondly, it is quite likely that the reading goal will come to an abrupt end - many of the books from The List are hefty tomes, so expecting to read the full 60 books with so many of these to tackle isn't terribly realistic.

Unless, that is, I have some sort of inspiration...

Natural Optimism

During the lockdown, one of the things we have going on at work is a "Picture of the Week" contest. Well, a contest of sorts - it's mostly just a bit of fun. But one of the things that I have noticed is just how many of the pictures that are posted are of landscapes, or sunsets (or sunrises), or animals, or otherwise of the natural world. I suppose that's not surprising - the human world has come crashing down, so it makes sense to take comfort in what remains.

I can't help but thinking, yet again, of how priviliged that makes us. In most places in Scotland it's not that hard to get away to somewhere natural, or at least some facsimile of it. And even the less renowned parts of Scotland can still manage to be rather nice:

Given that we're stuck here for another three weeks, given that that lockdown is becoming increasingly hard to bear, and given also that even when it does end it won't be a reversion to the way things were before, it's very nice to be able to at least step out of doors and get a genuine and refreshing change in the outdoors.

#20: "Eberron: Rising from the Last War", by Wizards of the Coast

Theme of the Month: Quiet

One of the features of April is that it includes both our wedding anniversary and LC's birthday. Many years it also includes Easter, and it includes the schools' Easter holidays. So Easter can be a rather hectic month!

Of course, this year was complicated a little further by the start of lockdown in March, which then continued into April. This took quite a while to settle down, which made for an even busier month than normal.

So the theme I'm hoping to set for May is simply "Quiet". My hope is that it won't be a month of huge transitions (except maybe back towards 'normal'), while it is also unlikely to involve many celebrations or events. Alas, the gala days that should have started thing month have, of course, been cancelled or deferred until later.

That's the plan, at least. Cue the entire situation being turned on its head once again!