Weeknotes 22 Mar 2020

A lot of things have changed in the past few weeks. COVID-19 has really thrown the world for a loop.

I'm fortunate. I work from home and my employer is still at least partially in business. Selling windows, doors, roofing and siding involves being at events and in people's homes, so that part has been shut down. Canceling upcoming events at least has them shifting the funds from those to keep the business running how it can and supporting employees while everyone endures.

Work-wise, for now, the technology department proceeds as normal so at least I still have a paycheck coming in. Like I said, I'm fortunate. Many are having some tough times.

I also look back and realize that since I worked as a contractor for so long I got in a habit of keeping a lot of savings stockpiled for those lean times when cash flow may be interrupted. So I'm also in a position to survive for a while in the event I find myself out of a job temporarily.

Otherwise, my wife and I are paying attention to the news, particularly where we live. Ten confirmed cases where I live as of this time. I realize as tests can take up to a week, that means there are most likely more cases, just not reported.

Movies

While I have to catch up on some tv series I'm behind on, I am trying to catch up on movies, too. So here we go.

Shadow is a film by Zhang Yimou who I've been a huge fan of ever since seeing his first film, Ju Dou, which I still think is his best, and most powerful, film. With Shadow, as always, his films are absolutely breathtaking visually. There aren't too many directors who's films are as beautiful. The problem with it is that the first half of the film is very confusing. You really have to trust that things will end up making sense and let it go. Once things get moving, it's pretty stunning, but it creates a huge hurdle for itself trying to get into the movie.
Wing Chun is an older film I saw as part of the Alamo Drafthouse's secret screening series. I hadn't seen this since the 90's probably, but it definitely holds up and a whole lot of fun. Perfect example of why I love Michelle Yeoh so much.
Frozen II was pretty meh overall. I feel this movie was rushed out for money and/or meant to be direct-to-video but then released theatrically anyway.
6 Underground was released on Netflix and is a Micheal Bay movie. It was awful. Easily the worst film I've seen in the past ten years. Action happens, but otherwise, nothing does. Not even a story really.

Board games

I don't have any screenshots, but my boardgaming friends convened online to hang out and play some games on Board Game Arena the other night. It's had some capacity problems recently with everything going on, but we were able to play without any major issues for the evening.

Here's what we played:

7 Wonders takes at least three players and a lot of fun. We played a number of games of this before wanting to check out the others.
Carcassone is a great tile laying game. I've played it many, many times before. Great fun and an awesome introductory game for anyone new to board games.
Saboteur is a game where you are dwarves trying to dig your way to some gold. However, one or two of the players may be a saboteur trying to prevent the rest from reaching that gold to gain it for themselves.

Overall, the service has been good. It's one where the site knows the rules so it has some instructional hints and won't let you play wrong moves. Some services aren't like this and may contain the virtual pieces of a game, but only allow you to manually maneuver things rather than know anything about how to adhere to rules. For example, it may allow you to roll dice or flip a card, but the sites have no rules engines to know what to do with that dice roll, or card. Board Game Arena games know the rules.