At least for me, I think it’s fair to say that my phone is now an extension of my body. This is kind of a sad indictment of modern life, and kind of awesome.

I’m essentially a cyborg. I can tell you the time in Dallas, the weather tomorrow, or the distance to North Adelaide from my current location with the same amount of physiological effort as it takes to pick up a rock, detect an expression, or recall a melody.

Perhaps this goes some way towards explaining the physical state of shock my body went into when I dropped my phone and broke the screen. I knew from the moment I picked it up from the footpath that the chip in the glass and the leaking LCD was a serious injury that would not get better on its own. This should have just been annoying. Replacing a phone screen is not cheap, but I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford it every five years or so when this happens. I could understand a gloomy mood overcoming me, or an urge to kick something, but that’s not how I felt. I instantly started to sweat. I felt sick to my stomach. For the rest of the way home my knees felt stiff, my whole body janky and tight. And the whole time my brain was begging me to return to baseline. You can get screens replaced with same day service. If I claim a percentage on my next tax return it’s not even that bad. I’ve thrown away cash just in the past weeks on 4D CTs, haircuts, physios, private health insurance premiums, petrol, stuff at Bunnings that I didn’t want to buy. Money is just money, and a phone is just a phone. Transient and temporary.

All of these thoughts went through my head, but my body refused to concede the point. The other half of my mind started going through counterfactuals - what if I hadn’t pulled it out at that exact moment? What if I had worn different shorts? What if my wrist strength maxed out a more than 29 kg of pressure? It flashed me back to February - what if that bug hadn’t hit my eyeball? What if I had been riding slower? What if I had taken a different route back home on my bike?

Eventually I calmed down. Physically, I was never mentally upset. A Zooper Dooper helped just like it did in February. That sealed it for me, the phone definitely is an extension of my body, and that’s twice this year that I have smacked myself lustily into the footpath on my way home.

This morning my phone had its surgery and I endured the metaphorical general anaesthesia of not having a smartphone. I successfully paid for goods, ate lunch, went to the toilet and wrote some code without a smartphone providing contactless payment, mindless scrolling, word games, and music.

Post-surgery there is now an issue with the fingerprint sensor. That has double-sealed it for me. The phone is not just an extension of me; I am an extension of the phone

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Alex offered me a free ticket to the T20 World Cup semi final tonight. T20 is a pretty dumb sport, but I said yes. Partly because I like saying yes to things and I like Alex, but also partly because I have never seen Virat bat in real life before and I thought this would be the best opportunity even if it was in meme cricket. And I expected a good atmosphere.

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In fact, I got to witness his 4000th run.

He went on to make a half century. He is a very good batsmen.

England also had some very good batsmen and they absolutely smashed India, most likely because of all their BBL experience, which tells you all you need to know about T20 as a sport.

There were a lot more Indian fans at Adelaide Oval tonight than English, or neutral. They were very loud during the first innings but as the powerplay progressed it was quickly clear that England were on top and the mood was turning. Before the fourth ball of the sixth over, Pandya Hardik from his position near the pitch was able to draw the crowd's attention and motion for them to get loud and cheer. This was actually amazing to witness in person. He conducted the stadium like they were a part of the Indian team, like moving a piece to gain a tactical advantage. The crowd cheered, a dot ball was bowled, the crowd cheered louder and Hardik encouraged them some more. A second dot ball followed and all of a sudden it felt like some pressure was showing in the English batters. The crowd screamed and cheered even louder for the final ball of the over, which was cleanly dispatched to the boundary. That was probably the last moment that it felt like India had a chance, but it was a cool moment to experience nonetheless.

Normally I don't bother, but because I have a new camera I decided I should take some photos of the lunar eclipse tonight.

Here's some other people doing it probably better than I could.

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Seems like Spring Summer has finally arrived.

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After this week's round of spring storms took down some of the shadecloth I knew that I would have to undertake some home maintenance this weekend just to maintain the status quo.

I'm not proud of my hack of eye bolts, fencing wire and a kitchen chair, but I was able to drink my reward beer faster than it could fall down again.

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I am proud of the spatial and chronological search parameters I added to the event API of my current programming project.

Today started with another walk up the Bluff!

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Followed by more frolicking.

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The End

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