Ilandar

The episodes are super short so altogether it's essentially a film and very bingeable. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

I think this is a One UI 7 thing, but the battery indicator for connected Bluetooth devices has completely disappeared. The only way to check the remaining battery life of my connected headphones or speakers is through a third party application, I can no longer find a way to do it in the OS itself.

Again, shitty phone. You’re supposed to actually push the button to unlock it. Don’t understand why your finger would be on the back of the phone when putting it in your pocket anyway.

This isn't a "shitty phone" thing. Every phone I've owned with a side-mounted fingerprint reader has unlocked via touch (not press). It's standard.

I agree with most of your points. This year's Tour was less exciting than last year's, but 2024 was also one of the greatest I can remember (so many amazing narratives) so that was to be expected. There were some strong individual stages this year but every jersey suffered from a disappointing lack of competition (except maybe the white jersey) and that did suck some of the excitement out of the race. Some of that is just the way cycling goes (Pogacar too strong in Yellow, top sprinters crashing out or suffering bad luck leaving Milan unopposed) but the KoM jersey seems to be suffering greatly from the strength of the big teams in this current era and maybe needs some changes to liven it up. The pace is so high and the racing so frenetic that I think a lot of the lesser climbers who would possibly be interested in the KoM jersey just don't have the energy to get themselves into multiple breakaways or stay away long enough to collect more points than the GC leaders. The Australian commentators talk a lot about Storer's potential to become the first Australian KoM winner, but he doesn't seem to be particularly interested and I think part of the reason is that it is so much effort and risk compared to trying for a stage win. One of the reasons I love Grand Tours is because of these "race within a race" dynamics across all the different jerseys and it was disappointing that we didn't really get that this year. It was all about the GC (which was over quite quickly) and stage wins.

I thought 'Man Vs Bee' was hilarious and on-par with some of Rowan Atkinson's earlier physical comedy. It was more controversial than I expected; quite a large number of people review bombed it online.

Thanks for all the race threads over the last weeks!

Usually you can, it was just that the flat terrain and sprint teams made it near impossible to gain any meaningful time. As a result, it was considered a bit of an unwritten rule that you don't attack and respect the results of the last 20 days of racing. This year the time gaps were neutralised on Montmartre because of the wet conditions (pre-race safety rule).

Yes, Plapp was the one I was very surprised to not see chasing. He has been quite strong at this Tour, and even tried for some breaks later in the race.

I'm very happy for Jegat, he deserved a bit of luck after trying so hard for that Top 10 all Tour. Those lesser GC guys often don't get much attention but I respect that they go through a similar grind as the top guys on every climb to minimise time gaps when a lot of other riders around them are taking it easier. I didn't think O'Connor would care about a Top 10 considering his goal was a Top 5 and he'd already won a stage, but the fact he chased by himself at the front of the peloton suggests it meant something to him. Hopefully he gets a proper GC support team next year. I know Jayco were down one and Schmid crashed while leading the peloton, but it's really quite poor that their team was so weak O'Connor had to defend by himself.

I guess part of the reason I think about it quite a bit these days is because almost all of my friends who are my age and older have mostly stopped. The guys who haven't are the ones who are still single, living by themselves with no responsibilities to anyone beyond their employer.

One guy I know has vlogged and blogged quite a lot about his experiences "quitting" video games. The realisation he came to was that gaming was holding him back in many other areas of his life, and that he had been reluctant to acknowledge this earlier in his life because he was scared about what that said about all the time he had sunk into video games instead of solving his problems. It's not that severe for me, but I do wonder whether it's a hobby I maintain out of laziness/fear of trying something new, rather than because I still love it.

Don't worry Oscar, Primož has your back!

Also, I can't remember if I mentioned this previously, but I bought a secondhand 2DS a couple of months ago so I've finally got around to starting Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. The DS Layton games were some of my favourites but because I never owned a 2DS/3DS, or a portable device that could emulate them well, I have held off on playing them until now. Layton games are best played in a cosy space, like in bed or an armchair with a rug, with headphones on and the weather has been colder and wetter here recently which is perfect for this type of game!

Other than that, I haven't had too much free time for gaming lately, and to be honest I haven't really had the drive for it either. I am approaching my mid-30s now and sometimes wonder if I'm going to "grow out of" gaming as a main hobby at some point in the near future.