Um. I bought a house. Scary times.

Got promoted at work, I'm now a manager and I'm very tired. Finally got my first of 2 Covid-19 jabs and we had another recent lockdown.

Also hello, hope you're all well.

Interestingly, I've been more sociable during and post-lockdown. We would host ZOOM beer sessions, play games with each other and sometimes even stream a movie together on Discord for a laugh. My social circles grew by quite a range thanks to Covid and some of the circles have now intersected.

I used to be able to go a full weekend without talking to anyone outside of my partner and perhaps my immediate family via text but now every day I'm talking to people. Can't think of a day in a long while that I haven't at least had a conversation with friends.

For whatever reason, my sociability went into overdrive when I realized I wouldn't be able to see people for a long while. The result has been really nice.

Yep a wee drive down the island from Christchurch and that's me! Sounds like we're spot on then :)

Aw what a lovely idea. If I'm doing the time conversion right, 6PM EST for me is ... noon Friday the 11th?

Time travel yo.

Ah shit, would have loved to hop in! Missed my shot. Next time :)

10k kettlebell swings challenge.. I've hit some lifetime lifting goals and am genuinely stuck for something new to aim for. May give this a go!

I've been seeing massive lines for voting in the US. Glad people are putting in the time to get it done!

In NZ, we famously re-elected Labour/Ardern and my vote took me less than 2 minutes. No line, staff were almost bored waiting for more people to arrive. Two ticks in the booth and back down the road to work! Gotta love small towns.

Gym stuff is going great - numbers keep jumping up.

Joined a DnD campaign after being an (the sole) audience member via discord. It's actually so much fun. The reveal was excellent too - I've been gaming friends with these guys most of this year, and have been following the campaign since it started, I just mute myself in chat and listen when they're in the zone. Eventually they said "Hey come join the campaign you'd love it" and I of course said "thanks but no thanks", but then I went to the DM and said "actually yes please". So the DM orchestrated a grand reveal mid-way through the session and it worked a treat. Chants started up, screaming and cheering. They didn't see it coming and it was glorious.

Good times yo, Wednesdays are so much fun now. It's the little things.

I've tried to read Dune twice now, I keep giving up but this trailer looked dope.

Benched 140kg this week. That's my lifetime bench goal attained with minimal fanfare. Last time I tried it before lockdown it pretty much folded me - this time it barely registered as a difficult lift.

Not sure what to aim for now. Jokingly told the gym owner I'd cancel my membership cause I've done everything I set out to do but sure enough I was back in the next day cause it's routine and lets be honest, I'm gonna try lift more anyway.

The fuck they whip out guns to evict people!

I guess the evictees could also have guns.. Still. I'll never get over handguns man.

Edit: Wait shit I have seen this - that chap getting the deal with the pizzeria, my partner and I have seen this. Guess I better watch it again.

Hmm I could only really give personal answers so I will provide this link about the legal consequences - https://oag.parliament.nz/2013/drink-driving/appendix3.htm as to whether these sentences are considered harsh or not, I'm unsure. They're all I know!

I can comment on our culture though - we have a nasty drinking/driving history and while things are changing, we lose hundreds of people to driving related incidents each year, in 2017 about 50% of those were drug/alcohol influenced deaths. That article also suggests making the alcohol limit 0 for adults which is the current rule for teenagers which I honestly wouldn't mind. But I rarely drive my car, I live in a small city and I walk everywhere I need to go so this wouldn't impact me in any real way.

We do have some stellar ads around drink driving though, etched into our lexicon almost a decade down the line -

My parents told me when I was about 16 and heading off for a booze cruise with my friends, how impressed they were that our group always, always, always has a "sober D" and that in their day it would just be a matter of the least drunk driving everyone home. So hopefully we're on the right path culturally.

If we're doing some random shit - here's Alien Weaponry, New Zealand's Maori metal group.

I'm not even a huge fan of this kind of music, but I am a big fan of what they're doing in general. The Maori language has this wonderful powerful cadence. From the 6.30 mark, "Waewae tapu takahi te ara taua" is just.. excellent.

I routinely forget about Stephen then suddenly he pops back into my playlists and I'm like "Hey bro, forgot I missed you".

Cheeky little shits keep trying to escape quarantine here in NZ. Running the risk of ruining everything we've achieved so far, so they can visit a supermarket. No community transmission in like 60(?) days now.

Senua's Sacrifice is still on my mind. Video games are often on my mind but this one has really stuck with me after completing it. Throughout 8 hours I genuinely felt horror, elation, hopelessness, determination and even a little bit of peace. It was an absolutely wild experience.

The group of people I regularly game with have a very active Discord server, I talk to them more than my local group of friends sometimes. I caved a bought a webcam as they had never seen me in about 7 months of knowing me, and they all tend to use webcams when talking or doing their DnD campaign at least. Turned it on and they all had a beer/drink in hand and they clinked their cameras for me, it was really sweet. The absolute nerds.

New Zealand is carrying on as best it can - job losses are starting to mount though, the next wave of covid-19 related crap is fast approaching.

A secondment for us here in NZ would be a new job but within the organization, like I could be seconded to a higher role within the University for a year, covering someone on maternity leave or something similar. After that year, I would go back to my previous job, or I could apply to take over the role permanently if it worked out.

They're pretty common in large organizations here, good for dipping your toes in a different world with a bit of safety if things don't suit.

I knew of one person here in NZ. A good friend of mine was in one of the clusters that cropped up in an international conference hosted in Queenstown.

She lost her sense of smell, had a ripping headache (at which point she was tested as she was at the conference and made it known to health authorities) and flu-like symptoms for a short while, then it dissapated and she's back to normal.

Other than that, nobody close to me has been impacted.

Adding in I've just finished Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice over the weekend. Started Saturday morning, finished Sunday afternoon.

Blew me away how good it was. Got teared up a few times. Pity about the godawful title, but I can forgive it after that experience. Now to wait for the sequel..