I had to look at a calendar just now to figure out that we're at week six of quarantine. Days are running into each other, and it's often difficult to figure out what day of the week it is.
I'm just coming off “Spring Break”, which I took despite this quarantine in order to spend time working on the back deck, where the paint is peeling so badly we're worried about it rotting away. My brother Glenn is quarantining with us after his summer gig as a bar manager disappeared as a result of the quarantine, and he helped this past week. The two of us spent about four solid days with two power sanders, and got the worst of the peeling paint up. Now we've just got to actually paint the thing. Maybe this coming weekend.
I'd expected to do a ton of reading while stuck at home, but in the end, I've really done just about none. Instead, we've seen a lot of movies and television. Re-watched that old gem The Ladykillers, The Man from Earth, which has some great character actors, and we also just watched The Hunt, a newer film. It's entertaining, but odd. Action, Horror, and some very dark comedy. We're also slowly going through Tales from the loop, and we're up to the second season of The Ozarks.
Linda is still able to work from home, but having the kids here makes it a lot more difficult for her. Honestly, I'm just glad that she and I both still have work. My older daughter Lia is killing it at her from-home schoolwork. She locks herself in her room and gets it done. My younger daughter is a bit starved for attention, and is having a hard time not seeing her friends. Quarantine is a lot more difficult when you're an extrovert.
My main PC, which I've had for five years, is dying. After mysterious slowdowns and restarts, I identified the problem as an overheating issue. I dropped it with a friend who was able to do some hardware work and lower the internal heat a good bit, but the machine still hits 100 celsius if I try to run a serious game like Dishonored 2. Thankfully, there are two new Greater Than Games video game titles which just came out this past week. I backed both on Kickstarter, and both of them run just fine on my PC.
The first one is the digital version of the board game Spirit Island. I've never really been able to beat the tabletop co-op game, and so far the digital version is the same. But I'll get there at some point.
The other new game is Sentinels of Freedom, which in many ways is a remake of the 2002 game Freedom Force. I liked Freedom Force, and Sentinels of Freedom is more of the same. I'm digging it.
I'm back to work this week, and while I'm making the best of quarantine, I'm hoping that it doesn't go on too much longer.