29th January 2022 - TV Repeats
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Written while listening to a mix of George Harrison, the Kinks and 
other such 70s rock.

I have found myself rewatching a lot of series. Why, I have no real 
idea. Boredom from the darkness of January I assume. Comfort is 
another reason I guess. There is comfort from repetition. I have 
finished another rewatch of the brilliant Canadian comedy Trailer Park 
Boys. It is well worth a watch if only for the master of drunk acting, 
John Dunsworth. This is a mockumentary following the lives of Julian, 
the straight man and planner who always has a rum and coke in hand, 
and Ricky, a weed loving oddity who is hard to describe. The 
characters are cartoonish but you can believe such a person could 
exist in this world. Worth a watch but be ready for a strange filming 
style which arose from small budgets rather than stylistic choice. I 
am currently in the middle of Him & Her, a British comedy about a 
couple in the early stages of their relationship. They are in their 
mid 20s and jobless although that suits them fine. Who can blame them 
when those around them are working retail and seemingly worse off. The 
programme is near enough entirely filmed in a single bedsit. It is 
sweet and each episode involves the couple wanting to eat in bed while 
watching dross but always being interrupted by family, friends or the 
weird chap who lives upstairs. I love the dynamic between each 
character and have known many people like them. It is nice to see a 
programme about fairly introverted people without making that the main 
focus. The programme is intimate too and shows the silly things 
couples do rather than relying on big gestures to show the characters 
love one another. Russell Tovey is wonderful in it and I actually 
didn't realise he was gay until embarassingly recently. It is a credit 
to his acting skills. Next, I suspect Arrested Development will be 
selected. It has been a while and we all know that there is always 
money in the banana stand. If you have not watched it, go now and 
ensure you only watch. None of this watching while browsing reddit or 
sitting in com nonsense. It is worth the attention and time. 

Recently, I have been a bit reclusive and yet social. It has been 
weird. I have been out a fair bit but that was mostly to do with 
Scouts and climbing. I have been talking to people but mostly through 
work. There has been little talking to family or friends. Normally, I 
would blame this on SAD. January is always a miserable month where 
people are broke, dieting and in a nesting frame of mind. I have been 
taking fairly strong vitamin D supplements to avoid my usual morose 
times and that has been helping. Working from home helps with being 
able to see the day light too. Yet I feel a bit numb and bored of 
life. I think this is the key culprit for wanting to rewatch 
programmes. 

So how to break out of this? Well I am seeing people today. A friend 
has organised a meet up in the centre of Birmingham for their birthday 
and that means I am with people. So that is good. Add in a new work 
challenge and a new Scouts challenge for good measure. The work 
challenge is to design a new control architecture for a specific 
platform from scratch. It makes me nervous as it is meant to be 
adaptable for future platforms but it is a challenge I have missed 
since early on in a formative project. The brain has been firing away 
with ideas galore and I need to work out the constraints. With Scouts, 
I am now helping with the digital side of life for the county. I like 
working out ways of automating boring stuff and helping others. It 
also helps that we are nearly in February, the mental month. Things 
get brighter and the weather is so screwy you don't know if you will 
have weekly storms, snow, heavy rain or beautiful sunshine. Hell, it 
might even be all 4 in one day. It often shakes the January blues away 
ready for the joys of spring. Enough navel gazing for now. Time to get 
sorted for tonight.