I feel like I may have posted about Sports Bizarre a couple of times but this was another cracking episode.

The whole story behind Enhanced Games is fascinating. It's an idea that just doesn't sit right with me from both a moral and health standpoint but I'm curious to see how it plays out.

A good question posed was:

from a legal standpoint what if one of the athletes has health issues that stem from taking drugs later in life?

I've been thinking a bit lately about my membership at Patterson River.

I love the game of golf. I love playing and trying to improve my handicap.

But being a member of a golf club is expensive. I currently pay $300 a month. I feel like I need to go all in on playing multiple times a week to get value out of it.

I feel a pull at the moment to have a bit more balance with my hobbies. I still want to play a bit of golf but I also want to focus a bit more on my physical and mental health.

What I'm thinking right now is cancelling my membership at Patterson River.

My new plan for golf is as follows:

• Pay $91 a month for membership at Golf Studio Mordialloc where I can go hit balls and practise
• Try and play an 18 hole round once a fortnight and just pay green fees: some of my favourite courses I've played recently are Mount Martha Golf Club, Lancefield Golf Club and Beaconhills Golf Club

This opens up some more time for me to:

• Spend time with Emma
• Try some group exercise classes
• Go to dog club with Boots

I think overall this will be a positive step for me moving forward.

A date night in Carlton is really enjoyable.

It may be some nostalgia but going to the Melbourne Museum is fun. The Star Wars Lego exhibition is a nice addition too.

We had dinner at Bistra which was delicious. Very small portions but the food was outstanding.

In the last week or so I've played a lot of Roots of Patcha. It's an excellent Stardew Valley clone.

Playing another similar game to Stardew has made me realise how much I enjoy this genre. The beautiful pixel graphics and just the general feeling of warmth is something I love. I find that playing the game really helps me unwind.

It also makes me think about how I'd love to make a game like this. Not necessarily a "farming simulator" but something with the same art style, fun music and some sort of goal to grind towards. I'd love to make a golf game with this art style. I have no idea mechanically how it would work but I just think it would be cool.

Maybe some kind of "golf course builder" where you're the greens keeper. I'm just spitballing ideas.

This was a wild decision that really cost Sam Burns.

Cairns Beach (and the Walking Track Tea Tree Creek) is one of the best hidden gem locations in Victoria in my opinion. We took Boots there which is illegal (as it's a National Park) but we chanced it anyway.

Some of the photos we took are beautiful.

I've been to a couple of Collingwood bars and pubs in the last few weeks that I think are excellent. We're blessed in Melbourne to have some of the best pubs in the world. It's just a shame none of them are anywhere near where I live on the south side. These are some of my favourites in no particular order:

1. Marquis of Lorne
2. The Park Hotel
3. Retreat Hotel
4. Bar Liberty

I felt a bit burnt out from playing Skyrim. The game was almost too big and overwhelming. I might come back to it eventually.

For now I might check out these 2 games:

• Roots of Pacha
• Katana ZERO

They seem to be much more my speed.

Really cool to see that Myke now has a blog. A lot of his taste and thoughts on technology I generally align to so I appreciate this being a thing.

Last night saw birdies (at the US Open) and runs (at the World Test Championship) hard to come by.

This is truely where these sports are at their best.

When a golf course or cricket pitch tests even the best players in their respective sports you're in for some entertainment.

I'm backing in Jon Rahm at the US Open.

Australia hopefully win from this position but a few more runs from Starc and Lyon tonight would be very helpful before they have to come out to bowl.

Last weekend we headed up to Woodend again which was really nice.

Boot's limp had gotten better and we were confident he was on the mend.

He hardly ran in the paddock when he was at the farm anyway because it was so cold.

The day after we got back Boots had a bath and after the bath we noticed his other leg (his right) had now gotten very sore. He was really limping around and seemed like he was in a lot of pain.

We took him to the vet and had some bloods done. Unfortunately some of his markers from the blood test were a little higher than what they should be. The vet recommended that we get a joint tap done which essentially meant he'd need to be put to sleep and have some fluid taken from his joints. The fluid is now being analysed by a specialist so hopefully we know more soon!

The sad reality is that vet bills are not cheap. We're hoping we can get some of this covered by insurance.

Some happier content: here are some cute photos of him when he was limping around at the beach yesterday.

This is something in my world that's interesting from WWDC. I wonder if any GUIs will be built with this? I feel like this will be the best way to do containers on macOS.

I probably should start using Copilot more efficiently with these shortcuts.

However, the thing I’m most excited about right now is what they’re doing with iPadOS. The multitasking changes look fantastic for productivity on the system. Freely resizable and overlapping windows! We finally got it, and it already works pretty well. I am eager to see how this feels once settling into some real work, but I can already tell I’ll finally want to get a Magic Keyboard.

The window system looks nice.

Also, AUDIO IMPROVEMENTS??? For PODCASTERS???? I can’t believe after over a decade of asking, they actually did it. Later this year, it could genuinely be possible for me to record a podcast over Zoom and have a local recording to share for editing. I am thrilled this day has finally come. Maybe there is a future where I won’t need both my Mac and my iPad on a trip—I can actually just choose what feels right. I can’t wait to see what Federico ends up doing.

Woah this came out of nowhere. It's been a long time coming. I'm keen to check this out further.

I am also intrigued to learn more about how developers can leverage Apple Intelligence models and exactly what they can be used for. On the surface, this feels like a big win for the community.

If you can run models on device for free and they're good then this is a huge win for developers.

I also just noticed that they're supporting background tasks on iPad. This is again long overdue but this is incredible for podcasters and video people.

As my mate Oscar reminded me this is a huge week of late night sports for both the US (eastern) and British time zones.

The US Open is shaping up very nicely to be a cracker. It starts Thursday night / Friday morning on Kayo.

The World Test Championship kicks off this Wednesday night 7.30PM and will be on Amazon Prime.

This truely is a classic stableford result. A guy has shot a course record 56 and still not won the daily competition. What a farce.

This is going to be another beastly golf course for a major.

Whatever your thoughts on Bryson are; this is so cool to see a professional play a practise round and hear their thought processing going through each shot.

I've really deep dived in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in the past week. For a 14 year old open world RPG it still holds up remarkably well. Clearly a tonne of work was done by Bethesda to make the game run well on the Switch and it shows. Clearly you'll have the best visuals on a beefy PC but being able to play the game in handheld mode is so convenient.

I have some thoughts so far:

• The game is just ridiculously large, almost to the point of being overwhelming, the map is massive, the amount that you can do is crazy
• The controls feel so clunky at first, you feel slow and you don't know how to access basic things like items, magic and the map, it eventually starts to click after a few hours of play
• The level up skills tree was also confusing at first but I'm starting to understand it now, you really have to grind to level up, the game makes you work for it
• The weapons based combat is really basic, where things get interesting is using magic, I'm starting to get better at taking down enemies using different variations of magic
• Some of the quests and combat weirdly reminds me of playing the Star Wars: Jedi Knight games, especially when I started dealing with enemies who used lighting I was getting a real Star Wars vibe
• You go from killing a dragon feels impossible to it being relatively manageable
• The story is pretty interesting, Bethesda must have had a lot of excellent writers on their staff at the time
• The ties to Lord of the Rings is pretty clear with dwarves, orcs, elves and men
• Hogwarts Legacy clearly takes inspiration from Skyrim, the mechanics and general RPG style gameplay are similar

The day has arrived and the Switch 2 is for sale in Australia. I'll hopefully be picking one up in the next few months when I can afford it.

Sports Bizarre continues to be an excellent listen. This guys motor sports career is just bizarre:

Born in Medellín, he raced in stock car and motorcycle speed championships until the 1970s and claimed many victories. Londoño left for the United States in 1979 and took part in IMSA GT Championship races. The following year, he placed seventh overall in the 24 Hours of Daytona and twelfth in the Can-Amstandings. Londoño received support from coffee growing and drug trafficking and this enabled him to compete in the season-closing British Formula One Championship at Silverstone where he finished seventh. Despite his inexperience, he was selected by Ensign to compete in the 1981 Brazilian Grand Prix,[1] mainly for financial purposes. Londoño took part in the Grand Prix's acclimatisation session and recorded fast lap times before hitting Keke Rosberg and was thus not granted a super licence by the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile. He was therefore dismissed from the Ensign team.

Londoño's illegal support enabled him to race in three Formula Two events in 1981 with the Docking-Spitzey Team-Toleman and took a best result of ninth at the Pau Grand Prix. Despite the arrest of several of his sponsors which prevented him from participating in the 1982 Can-Am season, he continued to drive in the IMSA GT Championship until 1986 when he withdrew from motor racing. Londoño subsequently returned to Colombia and carried out illegal activities related to drug trafficking. A majority of his property was seized by the Colombian courts in December 2000 and he was murdered nine years later.