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w/e 2021-01-17

This week I stacked lots of logs and did some work.

A last-minute work gig popped up and it pleases me that I can still get hired in both back-end and front-end developer roles. Given how much more complicated web development has become over the years, and how I continually feel like the latest technologies are beyond me (or, at least, of no interest), it’s satisfying that I can still just about be professionally “full-stack”.

§ While browsing rapidly through recent Carryology posts I noticed the “Q Timex Reissue Digital LCA 32.5mm Stainless Steel Bracelet Watch” which I mention only because I wore one of those for years as a teenager but, until I saw that new incarnation I’d entirely forgotten about it. Brains are weird aren’t they.

A screenshot of a couple of digital watches in the Argos catalogue
The watch on the right

I expect that I got mine from Argos and, yes, I found it on page 53 of the Autumn/Winter 1986/87 edition. The recommended retail price was £29.99 which, according to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, is around £90 now.

The reissued version costs £135 so we can calculate the Retro Fashion Tax as being about 50%.

Incidentally, when I was looking for old Argos catalogues I found lots of links to dev.argosbookofdreams.co.uk because in 2019 they got a lot of attention for putting all of the catalogues online at that domain, which I thought was a lovely thing. I found people linking to it only a few months ago but now the URL redirects to Argos’s main website. Boo. Thanks to retrofan01 for putting them all on archive.org and Retromash’s archive.

§ This week we finished watching the final season of Spiral which was as good as ever and I’m sorry to see those folks go. In the little thumbnails of the first season on iPlayer, from 2005, they all look so young and un-creased.

We then watched the first episode of The Fall but it was not pleasant and, despite wanting to see DS Gillian Anderson solve crimes, we will not be continuing. It spent as much time following the killer as on her, and I have no desire to watch a supposedly-happy-family-man stalking women then killing them. I didn’t enjoy having that in my head.

So we’ve moved on to season two of His Dark Materials which I’ve enjoyed more than I expected. It feels just right at the moment, away from the real world, with only fantastical jeopardy, plus nice scenery and plucky attempts to triumph over evil.

§ We’ve been enjoying TikTok recently. I went off it for a while towards the end of last year as I wasn’t enjoying much of the stuff it was recommending to me and I wasn’t sure how to find things I’d like more. I was getting too many car crashes, pranks, people getting angry in supermarkets, etc. Not much fun. And lots of the dancing was getting a bit boring.

But having tried again over Christmas it somehow seems better. All that ☝🏻 had gone and I now mostly find myself in Dog TikTok which is mostly very clever or daft doggies and is much more fun. I don’t have any regular doggy follows but at the moment I am particularly enjoying:

Please recommend nice funny tiktokkers you like. Once you hit a seam of stuff that works for you TikTok’s fun and human. It feels like a weird bump in the road when, occasionally, a video from a brand or a celebrity appears, but I feel momentarily awkward for them, swipe up, and move on to another dog getting excited about jumping through snowdrifts.

I’m still not using Facebook/Instagram because evil, but I’m apparently fine with using TikTok despite knowing next to nothing about the potentially evil Chinese company running it. I don’t know.

§ That’s all. I’m quite tired and feel like I’m plodding on through identical days until some unknown time when maybe things will be OK again.