I moved to the USA nearly 7 years ago, but this is the first Independence Day I've actually spent in the US. Traditionally, due partially to Alex's work calendar, we spend this time of year back home or in France visiting my family.

Consequently, my homesickness has got a lot worse. Knowing that even if I did think it was a sound and reasonable idea to travel internationally (I don't) I'd have to spend 2 weeks in quarantine and/or I couldn't go to France (because the EU is very sensibly stopping US travellers), I'm generally just feeling a bit land-locked and sad.

I'm not experiencing the 4th of July as I think Americans are supposed to, with our local city fireworks cancelled (plenty of local illegal ones, mind you). I wonder if we'll even live here for next year's?

In between sulking...

• I've enjoyed these podcasts:
  • Winds of Change. Did the CIA write The Scorpians' hit.
  • Rabbit Hole. How the internet has radicilised many people.
  • Forgotten: Women of Juarez. Missing women in Mexico, the cover-ups and who might be responsible.
  • Borrasca. QCode's latest fiction piece. Creepy town conspiracy thing.
• Played all of The Last of Us Part 2. I liked Tom's notes on it and totally get where he's coming from on feeling the crunch of the makers in the beauty of the game. It's so lavish and honestly I sort of plowed through it because I wanted to see the story play out ASAP, but I feel bad that I didn't stop and look at the details for longer. There's just so much going on in the background.
• In trying to remain spoiler-less, I did not dislike the ending but I also felt a little empty is all I'll say. There's so much violence through-out the game that you can't avoid (even if you stealth as much as you can) that it sort of undermines the final note for me.
• I'll be honest and say that I did use the very good accessibility options to get through a particular boss fight that I just couldn't do (rat king), and if it were not for those options I would have abandoned the game entirely after throwing my controller through the TV, so kudos for designing ways to make the full story accessible to as many people as possible, whether they want to become experts in combat for a game they'll likely only play through once or not.
• Swimming in Animal Crossing! Cute!
• I used to walk a lot - if a trip would take less than an hour on foot, I'd always prefer that method - but now I've got nowhere to be or go I don't do any. Dave has been quite inspirational in that since lockdown he's taken up just going for a walk to nowhere and logging them in Strava, clocking a good 10 or 15 miles a day. I've taken it up too, not as frequently, but the thing that finally convinced me (other than Dave saying "Just make your tea and go") was him showing me City Strides.
• When I first moved to SF, as part of my not-particualrly-helpful patter about how crap SF was, I had a plan to walk all the streets in SF (It's only 7 miles across! It'll take no time!) but I didn't have a good method to record said streets. That's what City Strides logs.
• I'm continuing to improve my RPG character sheet by studying for my Japanese N5 exam and HAM radio exams. I can't take either right now because neither has figured out how to do them in lockdown, but I intend to be ready when they do.
• I think I'll learn to lockpick, too, for +1 dex.
• The local Canadian nerds and I got our FRS radio licences and it is insanely exciting to be able to tune into extremely mundane things (like a local security guard in a supermarket or a construction site) that are just being transmitted plain, in the air, for anyone to hear! What magic!
• Got a COVID-19 antibody test via One Medical a couple weeks ago, because I had been near persons with suspected cases in February and I had been sick with a cough earlier in the year.
• It came back negative.

That's it. Still staying home.