Christchurch and Life Goes On

Last Friday I attended a pleasant gathering at The Black Cat, quite a Melbourne icon of some Perth visitors, hosted by Jason M. and Megan M., which involved quite a collection of recent and old Perth migrants (and others), some of whom I hadn't seen for literally decades. Yet despite the animated conversation and good spirits, there was a sombre mood in the background as we inevitably reflected on the events in Christchurch that day. There is a great deal of distaste left in my mouth witnessing numerous politicians, including the Australian Prime Minister, who have vilified Muslims for years and then expressed horror when an extremist massacres people of said faith. For one Sky News reporter, who had lived a double-life for too long, this was a time to leave. I try to be sensitive to personal contexts and not to elevate them (as even good media is want to do), but I do have a heightened visceral reaction to this. As many readers will know, the South Island is a special place for me, and home is where the heart is.

Life, however, goes on for the living and even mine as I try to pack more in a couple of lives in my allocated time. The following day would have been my 1,000th day-streak on Duolingo - and I forgot with the last leaf for the day as I was distracted by macroeconomics of all things. Thank goodness for the streak-freeze. As it turns out I've taken to writing short essays as I'm working my way through my economics courses, looking at market concentration in various industries, monetary policy and money, and - coming soon - the ideal size of government. Another area of interest is in the next couple of days I'll be taking the course to become a credited Software Carpentry instructor, something that's been on my bucket-list for five years. Unfortunately, the classes are in the U.S. and I'll have to attend by video-conferencing and do so from 3 am in the morning to 11 am. Nevertheless it was too good an opportunity to miss out on, and a couple of days working ridiculous hours will just be the price I have to pay.

Ran Eclipse Phase on Sunday with the PCs now in the role of Proxies managing a team of Sentinels. Dealing with a direct existential risk one group decided to enhance an existing intra-Transhuman conflict rather than take a peaceful but even more dangerous option. Another Proxy has the interesting task of receiving two jobs from competing factions, one to kidnap a group and the other to prevent it. The other Proxy has the issue of having to extract information from the equivalent of a minister of internal security. It's all quite challenging and as yet unresolved, but in terms of rising tension, there's plenty of that. Afterwards, there was a committee meeting of the RPG Review Cooperative which went well, following by dinner with nephew Luke. I took the opportunity to introduce to some material of Radio Birdman and, in somewhat related news, have discovered that one of the main people behind the musical act New Waver works in the same building as me. I was quite a fan of what they were doing in the late 1990s, so the opportunity to meet up is tempting.