hwan.com

2022. Fun to say and hard to believe. The pandemic continues as Omicron crashes across the country. Sora's daycare had an outbreak over the holidays so we've extended our stay at my parent's home. Though it's not our childhood house, it contains enough relics to cast a haze of memories over me whenever I'm here. Hwan and Sora 2021 has passed, one day melting into the next. We've so far managed to avoid catching any of the 'rona, though to be sure we've had more than our share of colds and flus as Sora builds up her resistances through the daycare. It has kept our fall months especially busy, with barely time to recreate. We did manage a trip in August to Saskatoon to see MJ's family, bathing ourselves in the dry prairie heat. Despite the stress of pandemic travel and it being our first flight with Sora the trip went without incident. I watched a fair bit of Netflix last year, and maybe I'll review in another post. In terms of video games, not muc...

In the early days of the pandemic, before the quarantine took hold, I ordered a pair of wireless earbuds, “Klipsch T5 True Wireless Headphones”, reasoning that since I liked their wired headsets the wireless ones must be decent too. Well, after a year of use I will say that the audio quality is good but overall this was a very disappointing purchase: The buds are hilariously large, and while they do fit in my ears they stick out like Frankenstein’s bolts, and snag when I remove a mask or change my shirt etc. Despite their size, they only have one button per bud, and this button is placed so that it’s frustratingly easy to accidentally play or pause by mistake. The buds have these intense blue LEDs that you cannot configure in any way. Particularly annoying since I primarily use them at night while everyone else is asleep, but it’s also not great when I’m out and about, blinding passing strangers. But my number one beef with them is that they are constantly losing their connection to my...

I rather thought the Outer Worlds to be absolute shit, and am bemused by how little people who review it seem to care that it's such a terrible game. I had expected a fun Fallout-esque romp in space but the experience felt empty, the characters completely charmless, the environments tiny and unimaginative, the action bland and forgettable. Truly, a game built by many committees and little love.   I felt much the same about Far Cry: New Dawn, but at least the maps and places were memorable and the characters have defining features that made you interested in what they had to say. My main beef was that the plot didn't make sense. That, and the awful A.I. Is having smart scripted enemies just too much to ask? Did we peak with Half-Life 2? Why do combatants have to shout their intentions and actions?  Well, that's what you get when you don't update your blog in a while -- outdated video game opinions. How am I doing? Uhm, we're still under quarantine so that's still...

This year is certainly moving at a brisk pace -- a US drone strike against Iraq, Bernie Sanders gaining steam in the Democratic primaries, COVID-19 and quarantines, Bernie suspending his campaign, an economic recession, a global backlash against police violence, second waves of infection and now the grumblings of the US election. I do hope that we see some lasting change, some momentum towards improving people's safety and inequality in general. This would be contingent on organizing the tangible fervor, lest it fizzle with exhaustion and ineffectual half-measures. On the one hand, the reaction to COVID has been a rather sad display of the lack of trust in science and epidemiologists, of the speed at which conspiracies flourish, and the partisanship of public health recommendations ( a known phenomenon ). On the other hand, as a whole we have been successful in participating in the largest voluntary health action in history, a cooperative activity that has likely saved millions of ...

Ontario has begun phasing the opening of businesses, and certainly it seems like people are going back out there in search of the new normal. Combined with the lack of contact tracing, I think we can expect a second wave of cases and deaths in a couple weeks. I've read that the modest drop in the rate of new cases can be attributed to institutions - their wave has passed but the broader public's still going up . Not much new to report from our household as I continue my parental leave/quarantine. The ants are back. Our bird-feeder is very popular and I've seen some cardinals and rose-breasted grosbeaks. Sora is basically crawling, and her first two teeth are peeking out. My health is coasting along -- not great, not terrible, some nights better than others. Quality sleep still manages to escape me, there being so much to do all the time. I have been getting a fair bit of reading done, mostly fiction. The Golden Compass/The Subtle Knife/The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman....

Well, it's certainly been an exciting few weeks since I last updated! Just when I was really hyped on the US Democratic nominations, COVID-19 rolls in and now we've passed through into a totally new world, a reset of global events. My hope, beyond seeing the curve flatten, is that people learn some lessons on politics, capitalism, epidemiology, statistics, and basic hygiene. Certainly it seems that everyone has an opinion on how things are being handled/mishandled by our governments. On the bottle I started social  physical distancing back on March 12th, as MJ had pointed out then how important getting ahead of the virus was, in particular to keep it away from Sora. My work is mostly doable from home but the less than ideal setup makes it a bit of a pain. I definitely miss having a large choice of convenient lunch and snack options. How strange to think that a month ago I was on the TTC going about my day, living my life, washing my hands only after using the bathroom. ...

Hola The days pass by pretty quickly, each moment slipping by. There is some routine to my week, as you can see: 08:00 Get up, feed the cats, make breakfast (usually oatmeal with toast), get dressed. 09:30 Catch the streetcar, check e-mail. 10:00 Work — meetings, more e-mail, programming, reviews. 13:00 Lunch, sometimes with friends but often listen to a podcast. 14:00 More work. Usually a bathroom break. 18:00 Head home, play Hearthstone on the streetcar. Pick up groceries. 18:30 Help prepare dinner and/or watch Sora. Eat and catch up with MJ. 20:00 Bathe Sora, prepare her for bed by rocking her to sleep. 21:00 Clean kitchen, sterilize baby stuff. Clean kitty litter. 20:00 Evening ablutions, check Twitter, watch Netflix or YouTube. Pretty hum-drum stuff. Seeing Sora is an absolute joy, to be sure, but I’ve little time for much else as you can see. This may change in April when I take my parental leave for five months, which I cautiously look forward to. My condition has...

Mary Jean gave birth to our daughter at Sunnybrook hospital last Thursday morning, two weeks earlier than the estimated date. We had made arrangements to have the birth at the Toronto Birth Centre but the intensity of the contractions combined with the slow progress forced a trip to the hospital. The actual act of delivery was unexpectedly quick, a comically sudden arrival of a vernix-covered tiny alien, an event I nearly missed by taking a bathroom break at what I thought was an early stage. We spent the next three days in the hospital as they monitored Sora's various vitals, and in particular her blood sugar and red blood cell count. MJ practiced her breastfeeding skills and I attended to her needs, both of us running on adrenaline and the jolt of being parents earlier than expected. I also got to practice my sleeping-in-chair skills, something I probably haven't done since my days in university. Being away from home, away from my comforts, was actually quite bearable -- we...

Last month I came down with a terrible flu. I wondered where I could've picked up such a punishing version of the virus. Wherever it came from, it hit me hard, forcing me to spend several days in bed, weak and feverish. With my appetite so affected my usual meal regime was thrown out the window, and my trips to the bathroom were more uncomfortable than usual. I had such a bad cough that I ended up going to a walk-in clinic, getting some heavy duty cough medicine and an inhaler to stave off pneumonia. In those moments of wakefulness, between sips of tea and soup, I found myself turning to old anime. Namely, I watched Hikaru No Go and Great Teacher Onizuka again. Oh, how it does bring me back. The voice acting in both of these series is really quite excellent. And the music! Haha oh man it brought a smile to this old brain. Out of curiosity, I started reading the Hikaru No Go manga, and so far it's been a real treat, seeing the source for the anime. I think I can recommend bo...

It occurred to me, some time last October, that I used to really enjoy reading. That is, I hadn't read a book in a long time, and I did not really have an excuse. So I looked up how to read library books on my iPhone, installed Libby, got my library account re-activated (I had applied for one many years ago but it had expired from inactivity), and have been burning my way through books, my appetite much returned. The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian. Still a classic to my heart, an excellent appetizer easing me back on the reading track. I don't think I could ever tire of this series. 5/5 Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Superbly written, I so enjoyed the film that I was pleased to find that the novel gave so much more. Sublime, thoughtful narrative. 5/5 Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro. I only made it through a 1/4 of the 1200+ pages before I had to return it but that was enough to convince me that this was a historical work worthy of its many accolades...

Andrew passed away on January 4th after a battle with nasopharyngeal cancer. It was a surprise to us, his university friends, a passing shot fired over e-mail, apparently nearly a year since his diagnosis. Those that could visited him at his house, his frame weak and thin, weighed down by the cancer, drugs, and radiation therapy. He kept a brave face, a rather deceptive face in hindsight. I last saw him on December 12th, about a week before heading to Saskatoon for Christmas. At the time a small thought entered my head, that this could be the last time I'd see Andrew but I quickly dismissed it as we talked of foods he could try and measures he could take to make living at home safer. I was back in Toronto on the 31st when we got word that he had been moved to palliative care and would no longer be taking visitors, a concerning sign but even then we thought he still had a few weeks left, maybe even months. His memorial was on January 12th, in Scarborough near his father'...