Friday I had a bunch of classes, followed by going out to a friend’s place for in-person board games night. We played games of Sequoia, Modern Art, Istanbul, and Coup. Here’s Istanbul:
It’s the longest game we played and I think the one I enjoyed the most. It was very close, with one guy winning it just one turn before myself and another player would have also reached the winning condition (and it would have gone to the tiebreaker condition).
Today I tackled a chore that I’ve been meaning to do for a few weeks. Our shower had begun to be a bit drippy, with it getting harder to turn the water off properly. I really dislike the job of replacing the valves in the taps because its fiddly and messy, and I have to get tools from the garage. So I tend to put it off as long as possible. But I decided I had to bite the bullet today and get it done. And last time I only bothered to replace the cold tap valves, so I thought I better do the hot ones as well this time.
I started at 11:30, thinking I’d be done by soon after midday so I could have lunch. In fact I didn’t finish until after 1pm. When I unscrewed the shower cold water tap I found the reason why it had been dripping lately:
The old valve was completely mangled and worn out! Once I’d done the replacements and turned the hot and cold water mains back on, everything seemed to be working nicely. So hopefully I won’t need to do that again for a year or more.
This morning I did a 5k run, clocking 27:01 on my new route. I think this will be a faster route, without the steeper hills of the old route, nor the extended uphill slog over the last 2 kilometres or so.
This afternoon we all went on a walk up to the shops. I grabbed a gelato from the local gelato place. As I sat eating it, my wife noticed a sign at the specialist grocer next door advertising Doglato – an ice cream product for dogs. While I waited outside with Scully, she went in to take a look, and emerged with a small tub of peanut butter and honey Doglato. We gave Scully a bit, but it was frozen pretty solid so difficult to scoop out. We ended up taking the tub home and sticking it in the freezer, and will try giving Scully some more over the next few days, which will be easier with access to our kitchen utensils.
New content yesterday:
New content today:
You have to replace valves every year? I’ve literally never had to do it. Does Sydney have water at a pH of 4 or something?
You must belong to a very elite gaming group, if you don’t dominate, Mr. Astrophysics Ph. D. game author renowned for his creativity in multiple fields. That isn’t even a joke, although I hope it wasn’t unwitty, it’s just an accurate description.
Some of my friends were surprised when I said I replaced my tap valves too. I thought this was a regular home maintenance thing that everybody did. I just kind of took it for granted that this is one of those adult things everybody did when they moved out of home and had to start looking after themselves.
As for games… I rarely ever win games with my group of friends. Some of them are COMPETITIVE and analyse games and do their very best to always make the optimal moves. I just goof off and have fun socialising and I don’t care if I win or lose. So I don’t put nearly as much effort into trying to win.