Week 4: thoroughly modern Mario
03 November, 2020- We now have the new Lego Mario in the house. It contains bluetooth, a gyro sensor, accelerometer, colour sensor, a speaker (for all the wa-hoo!s) and small LCD-ish screens in his eyes, mouth and chest. I thought it would be a total gimmick with about 5 minutes of fun before it got put in a box and under a bed, but my kids have genuinely loved playing with it every day and the boy has spent some of his accrued pocket money and a voucher he got for his birthday on two expansion sets which will arrive next week.
- We went pumpkin picking for the first time! Except there wasn’t really much picking – they’d already all been picked and lined up in a field ready for punters to just choose and take. Not quite the farming experience I thought, but probably easier. It was torrential rain, so at least that bit was suitably outsidey.
- We’ll hopefully be moving house soon and so my wife is eyeing up pianos, because she can play (I can’t). New pianos are really expensive.
- We are going to have a second lockdown. It hardly seems a surprise, but people are surprised. And some people are upset. And others are surprised that people are upset. It’s one big wheelhouse of surprise and upset.
- We’re watching The Queen’s Gambit. It’s pretty entertaining. My wife was a regional chess champion in her teens and had a lot of empathy for the first few episodes where the old men are resenting being beaten by a girl.