Week 42: Vacations, learning to swim, Öoo, and greek myths

Weeknote #42.25, from October 13 to October 19.

Last week I travelled to Isla Cristina in Spain with my wife for our first proper vacation of the year. A much needed break from an intense and eventful year, family- and work-wise. We came back yesterday so today I'm publishing last week's notes.

Learned #

• I think I can say I actually learned to swim! Or at least, learned to efficiently tread water, swim decently, and control my breathing, all without panicking after a while. Huge progress in my case. All thanks to my wife's instructions and patience (she used to swim competitively during her teens).

Listened #

• The Hades II fever has kept me spinning its soundtrack. Darren Korb has the gift of Orpheus and Apollo.

Watched #

• The first episode of Wayward on Netflix. Not sure we'll continue with it, as much as we like Toni Collette.
• Being spooky season, we started watching the only Mike Flanagan show on Netflix we hadn't watched: The Midnight Club. It's been great so far. Fun mini-stories on each episode plus a bigger overarching mystery.

Played #

• ⭐ On the homepage of backloggd.com there is a "Sleeper hits" section at the bottom - seemingly made of highly rated games with low amount of players - and this week the top game was Öoo. Out of curiosity I checked it out. Turns out it has a demo on Steam. Once I was done with the demo I immediately bought it. A few days later, I finished it to full satisfaction. It's a hidden gem that platformer and puzzle enthusiasts must play. My full review.
• Revisited Cocoon. Turns out it's one of the games listed as inspirations for Öoo (makes sense) which reminded I hadn't actually finished it. It was nice to rediscover how stunning the presentation is and how clever and mind-bending the mechanics are. I only had a couple of hours left to go and I finished it. My full review.
• The Hades II fever cannot be stopped. The post-game has so much stuff to discover and try that it hasn't stopped feeling fun and exciting to keep up the challenges.
• Continued Megabonk. I love the simplicity and straightforwardness of it all; it's enough to keep me going back. But I gotta admit- it's not easy to ride the difficulty curve. I haven't yet managed to beat Tier 2 on neither of the first 2 worlds. I expect that unlocking a few more upgrades would make it easy to get there, eventually!

Moved #

• We did lots of swimming, taiso exercises, and even table tennis during our vacations!

Read #

• "A cartoonist's review of AI art" by Matthew Inman.
• ⭐ "Odyssey" by Stephen Fry. I love greek mythology, and with the Hades II fever, once I saw this book on the airport on our way to vacations, I knew I'd devour it while we were there, and I did. It's the first time in a long while that I finish a book in less than a week. A great read.
• Continued "A Night in the Lonesome October".