It’s about about two months since the last time that either of posted anything here, which is not good at all. I’d like to claim that we didn’t have access to the internet (it’s been pretty sketchy but we have) or that I have been too traumatised by the death of my shoes (I haven’t but I do still miss them).
Maybe I could use the defense that these haven’t been the average couple of months for the majority of the global population. We’ve watched the world not so slowly descend into a state of curfew that few people have ever experienced outside of wartime. The reality is that while quarantine is being touted by many as a time to unleash creativity, it’s also a time with a lot of frustrations and it can be hard to actually sit down and get stuff done.
Casting all of those excuse aside, It’s time to do something about our online inactivity. There are currently a load of Mysterious Beans posts in drafts that have been there for far too long, covering everything from apple pie and styrofoam packaging to energy bars made from blood and public transport in Tijuana. We are going to try and take the time to finish some of those and post them very soon.
Right now we are in the North of Mexico with plans for the next months that have changed from very fixed to very fluid, as global travel options become less and less and more places impose restrictions on movement, etc. Compared to many places Mexico so far has a low number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 but it also has a very low number of people who have been tested. Whether the actual number of cases here turns out to be low or high, it’s still causing us all sorts of logistical problems.
We had booked a way back to Europe at the end of this month. It was a decision based on the idea that travelling by sea was always going to be a more eco friendly option than flying, but when we did a bit more research after buying tickets it turned out that we might have been very wrong about that (more thoughts in another article coming soon). In any case, our ship across the Atlantic is now cancelled so we’ll worry about how to get back home when there are actually some options.
Keeping Ourselves Amused Busy
So, when you can’t go outside and play as much as you would like, just what do you do to keep yourself amused? Amazon sales are up massively, there are global toilet paper, condom and viagra shortages, and Netflix and other streaming services are reducing resolution. So, shopping, being intimate and binge watching things you may have missed seem to be common options, along with either spending a lot of time on the loo or just stockpiling paper.
But what have we been doing? Well among other things we have been mostly…
Working (and helping to save the world just a little)
This is a website, one of more than 1.5 billion in existence and of a little under 200 million that are actually active. The internet is a huge and strange place and we love it. We also love the planet and are worried about the impact of thousands of datacentres using massive amounts of power, which is one of the reasons that we have spent a huge amount of time developing our own sustainable and ethical web hosting service called S4. If you are looking for Sustainable, Speedy, Secure and Stable web hosting then take a look at S-4.host.
Being beautiful (or at least trying)
Maybe it would be a little less narcissistic to say ‘playing with hair dye’. It’s much easier to not be worried about experimenting with pink and red when you know that far less than normal people are going to see the result. That is until you decide to post pictures on the internet of course…
Watching (random) stuff
We’ve found ourselves watching a lot more movies than we normally would, including some typical Hollywood stuff, some more indie fare, and also a pretty random selection of films from around the world. Some of the stuff we’ve seen from all three of those categories has been pretty awful but some have actually been pretty good.
Mother! If you haven’t seen this 2017 movie by Darren Aronofsky then it’s worth watching it without reading too many spoilers of any kind, you might reach the end desperate for some explanations but it will all make sense once you realise a couple of simple concepts.
If you aren’t against reading subtitles (or are a polyglot) then I recommend taking a look at either of the following:
Psychokinesis (Yeom-lyeok), a fun South Korean film about a guy who develops superpowers. There are no cloaks or alter-egos here, but he does do a bit of flying.
Honeyland, almost definitely the first Macedonian movie I’ve ever watched. It’s a touching movie about preservation of a way of life and about the way we manage to bugger up the human/nature balance all the time.
Reading (kinda)
There are some things that you like doing that just aren’t that important and seem to get lost from routines. I used to sit down in the morning, open my laptop and spend about 40 seconds reading my favourite web comic Questionable Content. Recently I realised that I haven’t for months and have had a couple of hundred pages to catch up on, which is was great. If you don’t know it and feel like discovering something new then you have over 4000 to catch up on, which should swallow some time.
Ordering (questionable) Food
We don’t eat out often and almost never order food to be delivered, but have explored Uber Eats and other services far more in the last couple of months than ever before. We drew a couple of conclusions from this experience, the main one being that most takeaway food is really not all that great at all.
There are some exceptions though. If you do happen to be in TJ and in need of delivery food then we recommend Jaco Veggie Bowls or EarthBowl. Oh, and if you need a pizza then there are a lot of incredibly mediocre and/or very overpriced options around, save yourself some bitter disappointment and try Tony’s.
and you have been…
We don’t know, we aren’t you. Whatever it is and wherever you might be, we hope you are safe and well. Keep doing what you do, and have as much fun as possible but do it safely and sensibly. Quarantine and restrictions are a real pain in the ass, but they are a lot better than some of the possible alternatives.