The Week That Was — January 15th
It’s been another week, and I’m back, albeit a day late. I’m a bit late because yesterday I had my booster shot — which went alright aside from issues with my anxiety, though it helped me fall off my schedule yesterday. Like last week I hadn’t gotten around to writing other stuff, but as I’m readjusting to the work schedule I got some plans for this week.
So let’s go and look at some of the interesting things I’ve seen this week!
Satellite Cats
If you have cats, or just know them, you know that they’ll sit on anything if it catches their fancy, and that goes doubly so if its warm in Winter. So while the rest of the world has been focused on cats holding a blender hostage by sitting on its box (a funny story itself if you have missed it), I’d like to bring another cat story to mind.
Starlink Satellite Dish’s have apparently become a favourite sitting place for cats among those who use the satellite internet service. As Aaron Taylor, who posted the above image (though cropped for use in this article) noted:
Starlink works great until the cats find out that the dish gives off a little heat on cold days
Taylor would elaborate that his cats have full access to the house, and volunteer to leave the house to go sit on the dish on sunny days, opting to sunbath on the warmed satellite dish. They even have a heated cat house for goodness sake. Even with cats covering most of the dish, the internet still got through, albeit apparently slower.
Cats aren’t the only ones doing this either. Birds have been causing similar issues by nesting or perching on them. The posting of the image has also prompted memes, like this one to go around:
Gizmodo covered the whole story and brought it to my attention in the first place earlier this week.
Ancient Board Game Uncovered
Human beings have always looked for entertainment in life, and no better proof of that is then how long we’ve been playing board games. In what is known today as Omar, archaeologists found a 4000 year old stone board game.
If you’re interested, you can read more on TechRaptor as we covered it a bit more there.
Gerrymander Golf
Have you ever looked at US distract maps, and thought that some of the crazy maps they come up with might make good mini-golf maps? No? Just me and the Washington Post?
Well, it does, and the Post did program a decent minigolf game that also highlights some of the gerrymandering issues in the United States. These sorts of things always make me happy for Elections Canada, as while it has its flaws and problems, it avoids the worst political football aspects of it.
Oh and lest anyone thing I’m just picking on Republicans — nope! This is a both sides issue in the states, and the picture I’ve got here shows an example of the Democrats rejiggering the map some to work in their favour. Play the game here.
“Oh right. I’m on a Plane”
The last story I’m sharing here today came to me via my mom and CBC. As can sometimes happen on flights, a women ended up giving premature labour and found herself to be very lucky on the Qatar Airlines flight between Qatar and Uganda that it had two doctors, and a nurse.
Dr. Aisha Khatib, who teaches at the University of Toronto (which is presumably how this ended up on CBC’s radar), was the main doctor in charge of the delivery and shared with As It Happens her account of the story, including her surprise when she announced it was a girl and it prompted applause from the rest of the plane, which is what led to the header lines above. Also on the plane was a pediatrician, and Dr Khatib was aided by a nurse as mentioned. The girl, was named Miracle Aisha, after the delivery and the good doctor.
A nice feel good story!
What I’m Playing
This week has been seeing a lot of the same games. I’ve been playing more Suzerain as I attempt to try out other ways of ruinin… I mean running the poor nation of Sordland. I’ve also been continuing to play Slay The Spire, as I am trying to clear it with each class, and more Wordle each day.
For new games though I started Monster Hunter Rise this week as it arrived on PC. It seems to be another pretty good Monster Hunter game with some neat takes on aspects that are new to the series. I admit though, I fell in love with the Palamutes, the dog-like companions you have in the game.
What I’m Reading
Canada Reads has started though I’ve had a slow start to it. The full long list is available here — and as I read through them I’ll share my thoughts on the books. I started with Dominoes at the Crossroads which was picked essentially at random and is an odd duck of a linked short story collection. I’ll have more to share on it later when I’ve fully come to grips and finished it.
I also finished Tim Severin’s Vikings series which was a fun read overall. Its a mixture of history and historical fictional telling of ballads and creation to tie them all together which if you’re interested in the Norse, Irish of the era or historical fiction its well worth a read — or if you just want to imagine travelling somewhere.
What I’m Watching
This week’s watching has been more spread out, but I’m going to focus on Peacemaker that is on HBO and we watched the first three episodes. While I liked The Suicide Squad, John Cena’s character in it didn’t really stand out to me in the movie, but this series manages to be highly engaging and humorous. It would be very easy for the show to become an edgy and meaningless or even self-defeating show but instead it enjoys the rediculous and silliness.
The ridiculous opening for the show helps set the tone, and is the second best musical dance piece done by a former Wrestler that I know of (“You ain’t women enough to take my man” by Dwayne Johnson in Be Cool still gets first and if you haven’t seen it, take 5 minutes and watch it). The show also opens addressing some of that potential fear of edgy-racism that was possible with the concept of Mr Whitey White going to kill anyone who gets in the way of the US Peace and does it as skilfully as it mixes the serious and absurd for the rest of the first three episodes. See the opening credits below:
And that’s been this week! A pretty busy week in whole but a good one I think and I’ll be back throughout this week with more!
