Week Notes #17: 3 August, 2020

Lots of potentially interesting things this week ... lets see how they pan out.

• I'm just about to book tee times for a full 18. This will be interesting. And more importantly it will be with one of my mates. An actual human friend.
• I'm still trying to work out which TV to buy. Going to shops, seeing the sets IRL and stock levels in general is tough at the moment.
• I played golf. Flipping heck 18 holes was a bit of a shock. We got trough the first 11 really well. I posted 50 for the front 9 ... this was bit worse than I'd hoped for, but a lot of those shots were my putting being terrible. Four 3 putts or something daft. Getting to the holes was fine and I hadn't lost any balls.
• From the 12th onwards everything got very difficult. The 12th itself was a long par 5, into the wind. It took 4 shots to even get close to the green, then I put an easy pitch into the trees. Energy and focus took a massive hit from there on.
• We both finished on 108 for the round. Which is bad. But we had fun and it was great to be out with a mate talking bobbins for 4 hours.
• On Friday my wife and I picked up a shiny new bike each. We kind of ordered them on a whim last week. We've been wanting to for ages. My bike got stolen about a year ago, and my wife has been hankering for years.
• The whole pandemic thing made bikes scarce. But we noticed Halfords had a really handy tab on the site which was basically "this is stuff you can order now". So we looked. And we bought. (Damn you Klarna and you're dangerously easy UX and agreeable interest free terms).
• In the 90s I was heavily into mountain bikes.
• I had been hoping to maybe get a gravel/adventure bike at some point ... but I ended up getting a Voodoo Hoodoo. It got great reviews, had a 1x10 drivetrain, Shimano disc brakes and is supposedly still a Joe Murray design. I am (mostly) pragmatic enough these days to accept Halfords own brand bikes for what they are - good value, well specced machines that get me riding.
• My wife got a 29" Carerra Hellcat. Again this comes with proper hydraulic brakes and a decent set up for the cash - and it's a gorgeous purple.
• We've been out locally as a family twice already, knocking out easy 5 milers.
• Now we need more bike racks for the roof bars.
• And I need a new helmet.
• And new pedals.
• And a saddle.
• Maybe a seatpost.
• Ooh God. It's happening again.
• Back to the telly saga. So to recap ...
• The Samsung 49nu8000 I bought 18 months ago for an absolute steal of a price got smashed by my children
• We eventually claimed on the house insurance. They paid us more than I paid for the TV.
• It turns out the equivalent TV in Samsung's 2020 range is actually significantly worse than the one we had.
• I once more ventured into the helpful and confusing world of AVForums. It seemed a Hisense u7q might be TV for me. But Noone has got one.
• Or maybe the Ambilight of the new Philips 50pus8555. But noone has got one.
• I went to Currys - who are crap. Everyone knows they're crap. And pushy. And expensive. And only exist because they're last chain standing. They had nothing except a greasy whiff of lies and sexism.
• I mad an appointment to go to Richer Sounds in Liverpool. Who were absolutely brilliant as always ... but didn't have anything on show that really helped, except to show what I didn't want.
• The same was true of John Lewis.
• On a side note - this was my first time back in Liverpool city centre since March and it was super busy. I didn't enjoy it much, when normally like a sunny stroll through town soaking up the atmosphere. The pedestrianised Bold Street is a winner though - that'll be great if they keep that.
• Oh yeah ... TVs.
• It had been mentioned that what I really wanted for this type of telly was a Sony XF or XG. XF being 2018, XG 2019. And having seen the XG in Richer (at over £1000) ... I knew that they were good.
• Then I saw Argos had the 55 inch XF9005. In stock at my local store. At a good price. And I could use some nectar points.
• The XF9005 was released at the same time as my original Samsung. It cost in the region of £1700 when released.
• I paid a whole magnitude less than that.
• The picture is absolutely astonishing at times.
• It's got the works for a non-OLED set. Direct lighting, all the HDRs, amazing colour range, motion processing. I'm chuffed to bits with it.

Yeah that was a busy week.