- Wow, that number of days is creeping up!
- It is odd how easy it feels to lose touch with the outside world. We haven’t, of course. My beloved continues with her job, we shop for groceries, exercise (by video in my case), and buy stuff on the internet. We read news services and stay in contact with people by phone and videoconferencing. We went for a walk this morning, as we do most days.
- In spite of all this, my sense of what is normal has been reset. My beloved got some cash out when buying our last lot of groceries, and gave me $10. I thought fleetingly “What use is money to me?”. At that moment the thought of going out and buying things the way I used to, without even thinking about it, seemed foreign. Of course I expect I will get used to it again pretty quickly.
- I spent an hour or so fiddling around with our NBN modem to see if putting it up on a box made a difference to our wifi coverage and download speed. It didn’t affect either of these things. Neither did taking the modem off the box and moving it so that it sits inside the window, instead of hidden away in the corner. (Moving the modem closer to a window is one of the things our telco recommends to speed things up.) I did a coverage map and a speed test before and after doing both these things. Both are pretty well identical.
- Moving the modem is quite a business. There is a curtain which opens into that corner of the bedroom, which has to be pushed out of the way. There is also an unbelievable number of wires and electrical leads in that corner:
- telephone jack
- modem
- NBN box
- cordless phone
- telephone cable
- electric blanket
- bedside light
- power board into which all these plug.
- However, while browsing on our telco web site, I discovered we can get a wifi booster at a reduced cost using our accrued points through the their loyalty scheme. It becomes a toss-up whether to do this, or put that value towards about nine months’ worth of a plan with a greater download allowance and a faster maximum speed. If we get either of these, will we end up having to get the other as well? No-one is going to be able to tell us in advance. The wifi is working OK at present, fortunately, with very occasional dropouts.
- I discovered a good ebook through our local library: Conclave, by Robert Harris. (The link points to a New York Times review.) It seems very well researched, as is usual for his novels. The book is helping me get back into reading, something that I feel I have lacked much concentration for just recently.
- The setting of the book reminded me of a terrific movie we saw a few years ago on SBS, We have a Pope (Wikipedia entry). Unfortunately this film doesn’t seem to be available on any of the streaming services listed on JustWatch. Keep an eye out for it, though. In the old days I could say: look for it at your local video store, or public library. Of course the former are almost all gone — I think there is one left in Melbourne — and the latter aren’t lending physical media.
- I get the feeling that services like public libraries will reopen reasonably soon — along with all the usual stuff. We will have to start thinking about due dates again!
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