October 2024 – dangermouse.net

First play of Arcs

Firstly one thing I forgot to mention on Thursday: While waiting for my iPhone appointment at Apple, after having some lunch I went to the new Lego store. This one in the heart of the city is supposed to be the biggest Lego store in the world. Although honestly I’ve been in the Lego store in Cologne, and the one here isn’t really that much bigger; maybe 20 or 30% bigger in floor space. They had some cool giant models. I would have taken some photos to show, but I only had my old phone and it was about to be wiped when trading it in for the new one. (I suppose I could have uploaded them somewhere or emailed them to myself, but I couldn’t be bothered.)

Friday was board games night at a friend’s place. This particular occasion was special because one of my friends just got given the keys to his brand new house by the builders. He had his old house demolished and a new one built on the land. We got to christen it with a games night, even though he hasn’t moved in yet. He brought over a table and some chairs and some ice to throw in a sink to keep drinks cold (no refrigerator).

We played Arcs for the first time. We decided to make it a learning game and not try to play too seriously, and just see how far we got before we decided we’d learnt how to play, then stop ready to restart a proper game next time.

It’s a space battle game over a set of planets in different systems. There are several different strategies for scoring points, some more aggressive and others more passive. We ended up playing 3 “chapters” of the possible 5 that makes a complete game. We were enjoying it, but felt it was getting a bit late and we’d learnt the game well enough by that point. Several players had made what later turned out to be strategically awful moves, so rather than play to completion we called the game done. In particular I tried attacking very early and aggressively, and ended up losing enough ships that I had to spend a long time simply recovering my position. Next time we’ll be prepared and ready for serious competition.

Today (Saturday) I got up a bit early. The sun is rising before 05:30, and the birds make noise way earlier. This changes tomorrow when daylight saving starts, so sunrise will be at a more sane 06:30. I went for a 5k run. It was already warm when I started at 8 o’clock. The day was a warm one. I made a new Darths & Droids comic.

In the afternoon my wife and I went for a long walk with Scully over to Cammeray. There’s a Mexican place there that does good margaritas and we had some during their happy hour, with some chips and guacamole. After relaxing for a bit we ordered some dinner. I got a plate of pork with corn various spicy bits and pieces, my wife got halloumi with broccolini and patatas bravas. Each plate came with tortillas to make little taco-like handfuls. The food was good and very filling.

Then we walked all the way home again as the sun went down. Venus and a super thin crescent moon were setting in the western sky, which was glowing orange. A nice way to end the evening.

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No nuts!

I learnt a weird new fact about Italian today while watching an Italian YouTube cooking video.

There’s no word for “nut” in Italian.

The language only has words for specific types of nuts: walnuts, almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, etc. In a sense, this is logical, since most of the plant parts described in English as “nuts” are diverse and botanically and anatomically unrelated. A bag of mixed nuts in Italian is called a bag of frutta secca, which literally means “dry fruits”.

Rewinding to this morning, after I did my two ethics classes I backed up my iPhone and then went into the city to the Apple store to buy myself a new release iPhone 16. My current phone was an 11, so six years old, and the battery life was really starting to degrade noticeably. In fact for the walk I did on Tuesday I started with a fully charged phone, and it was almost empty by the time I got home. So I decided it was a good time to upgrade.

I traded in the old phone for partial credit on the new one. I got an iPhone 16 Pro model, with the superior camera. I take a lot of photos, and the extra telephoto focal lengths are the biggest feature for me. When I got home I spent some time checking out the camera features and I’m pretty impressed. Also the new camera control button is pretty cool and should be extremely useful.

I had to restore the phone from my backup, which went smoothly, but took some time. My old phone had a leather case which I liked. but I noticed the cases for the 16 only come in silicone, which I dislike the feel of, and polycarbonate plastic, which seems tacky to me. Also the case doesn’t allow the phone to lie flat like my old one did, due to the protruding camera lenses on the back. That was one of the main reasons I had a case on the old one. So I opted not to get a case at this stage. I’ll see how I go with the naked phone for a while before deciding if I want a case or not.

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8 kilos of cards mailed

Today I worked on a new Darths & Droids strip in the morning. Then before lunch I had to pack almost 8 kilograms of Magic: the Gathering cards to be mailed off. Someone had bought a huge stack of common cards off me, and a smaller number of uncommons and some rares. It added up to a fair value, but it’s also good to simply get rid of a large shoebox full of cards!

It was too heavy to consider walking up to the post office, so I drove up with Scully. I was hungry so we sat at the fish & chip shop first and I had a chicken burger for lunch. Then I went to the post office and sent the package. I also sent off a copy of each of my two Irregular Webcomic! books to a reader. I still have a few copies of those available (in case anyone reading this wants some).

This evening I had three ethics classes on the new topic of Time Passing, which I started yesterday. I think this is a slightly tricky topic to get the kids talking about, as some of the questions are a bit abstract and open, and their thinking is still a bit limited. As in they’re imagining restrictions to possible answers that aren’t really there. For example, I ask them “What are some things that change over time?” and a lot of the answers are focused on technology, while ignoring other potential avenues such as nature, culture, or societal values. I’m still working out how to encourage broader responses without too much prompting. But hopefully it’s a good exercise in getting the kids to think more broadly, rather than setting their own restrictions.

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Bondi to Coogee Walk

Today my wife took Scully to work, so I had the entire morning free. I decided to leave early and catch the train and bus to Bondi Beach, and then do the Bondi to Coogee Walk along the coast. I took the new Metro train to Martin Place and changed to a regular train to Bondi Junction, and then hopped on a bus to the beach.

I arrived there before 9am and the weather was fine and mild, with the forecast maximum of 22°C. I began the walk at the southern end of Bondi Beach. Here’s the view looking north back to the beach.

Heading south, the first major sight is the Bondi Icebergs swimming club, with its ocean pools.

The waves sometimes crash spectacularly over these pools, but the ocean wasn’t too rough today.

Rounding the Icebergs, there’s a view looking back north over the pool to Bondi Beach.

From here the path south follows a fairly new track with boardwalks built in the last decade or two. I’ve never done this new walking path before!

The path head south around a rocky headland called McKenzies Point.

Here there are sandstone cliffs overlooking the ocean, undercut by the waves.

Around the point we can see the next couple of inlets in the coast, with Tamarama Beach (hidden) and Bronte Beach (left).

There were bunches of surfers in the rough water near Tamarama. Tamarama is the roughest and most dangerous beach in Sydney because of the geography of the bay.

Tamarama Beach itself looks like this. It’s tiny.

Rounding the next headland we get a good look at Bronte Beach. Bigger and safer for swimming. Although the sea is still a little rough today after some heavy weather over the weekend.

Circling around the beach to the south side, we find Bronte Baths. Unlike the Icebergs Club, this pool is free for anyone to use.

A wider view.

The new walking track isn’t very well signposted. I followed what I thought was the track around the pool, only to find a dead end. So I had to track back and take a set of stairs up to another path above. On the way I took this photo of the pool from the southern end.

Eventually I found the correct path and continued south past Bronte. Here’s a panorama looking back to the north.

The next sight is Waverly Cemetery, the cemetery with the best view in all of Australia. A new boardwalk takes walkers along the cliff below the cemetery. Walkers here used to have to walk through the cemetery, which annoyed the local council.

It’s a historical and very picturesque cemetery. In fact I saw a group of three guys in there filming something.

Here’s the view looking back north once past the cemetery.

The next beach is Clovelly, which is a tiny beach in a very deep, sheltered bay. Unlike Tamarama, here the long cove calms the waters so much that there were toddlers splashing in the water.

There’s another free public pool here too.

Next along the coast is Gordons Bay, which has a tiny beach, but mostly used for launching boats, not for swimming.

And around this next small headland is our destination, Coogee Beach.

The beach has this cool rainbow decoration on the main central steps down to the sand. It wasn’t far from here that I spotted one of my neighbours, walking his dog! I said hello and he was surprised to see me too. He’d dropped his partner off at some work thing nearby and was walking their dog along the beach while waiting to take her home again afterwards.

I ended my walk at a cafe in Coogee, The Little Kitchen. I had the chorizo and chick pea shakshuka, which was delicious. They also had muffins, which turned out to be strawberry and chocolate, in the one muffin! I had one of those too as a dessert (but forgot to take a photo of it).

After a relaxing meal, I caught a bus back to Bondi Junction, where I stopped to look around the shops for a bit. I timed my departure to arrive back at North Sydney on the Metro in time to pick up Scully from my wife’s work. And then I had to walk her all the way back home from there! I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing after a busy day…

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