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When you've got a weekend off, and you don't know what to do with it.

I've been reading Temeraire. It's very good. So far I am pro- Dragon Rights.

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I haven't really done anything today. Read a few pages of Temeraire, I see now how a book gets written intending to be part of a trilogy/series because I'm most of the way through it and they're still just practising combat manoeuvres, played a few hours of a game here and there, paced up and down my room, laid downstairs stroking the dog, watched a few Let's Play videos I don't care about, thought about tidying my room. Blah.

( Anxiety/health anxiety rambling )

And also Borderlands 3 is coming out this week, so there's really no point starting anything big until then, certainly not games-wise. I pre-ordered the fancy big collector's edition, and I went into the store I'm getting it from this week to check how much it is again, and they told me about the midnight launch they were having on Thursday. I can't really do that in Leeds, but then I got an email from the shop saying that my order would be ready at 9pm on Thursday - which is a lot more doable. And then if I have the time that evening I can just get the game installed and ready to play when I get in on Friday. So I will probably do that. But Thursday isn't today. And the witch expansion for Sims 4, Greedfall, and an interesting-looking expansion for Red Dead Redemption Online are coming out on Tuesday, but at some point I have to start considering the amount of funds at my disposal. And also what is the point, I will be playing Borderlands 3 by Thursday?

Also, I found out that some interesting looking films I had no idea about are coming out next week - rural Irish psychic woman vs Satan worshippers and Roman soldiers vs werewolves. Original screenplays! Both probably won't be in cinemas very long. I know, logically, that autumn is when the nights get dark and cold so the entertainment industry starts throwing all the indoor pursuits at us, but is it really necessary to get the interesting films on right when the games start amping up again? Is that really a necessary thing to do?

Other things that happened this week:

• I had to have a conversation with my dad, who until recently said he wanted another referendum so he could change his vote to 'Remain', starting with him asking "what is Boris Johnson doing wrong?"



• I got the chilled-out week I asked for regarding the car parking, but during that week the new Head of Facilities started asking a bunch of questions about the system, and my manager was copied in but didn't respond to them very quickly, so I answered them. He would have had to ask me about the system anyway, because he doesn't know anything about it, so it wasn't that much of a difference. And then this week apparently the business had some sort of mass-employee call that they do every month, and they told everyone off about the car parking, and said people who didn't follow the rules in a specific way were now going to have their parking spaces taken off them. And they didn't speak to us about that at all. I tried to speak to my manager about it, and he just cut me off and told me not to worry about it. So we'll just see how it will play out I guess. Who will have to actually take spaces off people? Will it be me?



• We think my cat killed a squirrel. She's 13, and doesn't seem that much bigger than a squirrel, so it's dubious. But a squirrel is dead. That's all we know.



• Had a conversation with another member of the Facilities team yesterday, the guy who will mostly be onsite and will be sort of in charge when my manager starts spending less time there. He tried to start a conversation about how awful 'people' look when they get plastic surgery, and then wouldn't accept and got quite angry that I kept saying that people generally look about 80 when they're 80, and looking 'young for 80' isn't the norm and that's why people even point it out. Quite angry. So that was fun.



• I ordered one of my favourite takeaway pizzas tonight, with the chicken and barbequeue sauce. There's always some variation whenever you get it, but tonight it came with no barbequeue sauce and twice as many jalapenos as usual. So, after the basic work to make it edible, it was basically just bread, greasy cheese, and dry chicken, with a bit of pineapple every now and then. This week has not been good for ordered food.

Steve Harrington is a real light in these dark times. Honestly, it's just nice to like a character that's nice again. As much as I love Joseph Seed, you do have to accept the fact he's a psychopath that will never accept that anything he does is wrong when you think of him, and that puts a dampner on things. But not Steve. No. But then you do have to think about the things that happen in Stranger Things, and get sad again. ( Spoilers for the end of Season Three )

And then also you have to deal with the weird writing of the whole show, while trying to figure out canon and characterisation at all. ( Stranger Things, all three seasons, probably some large spoilers )

But Steve Harrington is a pleasant thing to think about.