Sunday night. When salmon goes extinct in a few decades, will tuna become the new luxury fish?..

This was the first weekend in a very long while that I spent completely alone. (Not counting my landlords, who aren’t very good conversationalists.) On the one hand, I didn’t have to risk the crazy Toronto traffic, and I got so much sleep and relaxy time. On the other hand, hanging out with xgf was my last non-work-related social activity, and now my brain is all out of distractions. I’m trying to divert my thoughts when they inevitably get to work, but it’s only partly effective.

Some good news, though: I’ve done some research and made a tentative first step in setting up a home gym. The first couple of stores I called said they didn’t have any strength-training equipment (adjustable dumbbells, to be precise) and wouldn’t get any till 2021. I knew I wasn’t exactly original with my home gym idea, but wow. Good line of business to be in, I suppose. Eventually, I found a local secondhand sports equipment store (like Gamestop, but for jocks) that had some goodies. The salesman said they get a shipment of several hundred smaller-size weight plates (never above 10 lbs) about once a week, and they all get sold out within two days.

As of today, I’m a proud owner of two adjustable dumbbell bars and eight weight plates ranging between 2.5-5 lbs – 40 lbs total. Not sure what’s more hilarious: the baby 2.5-lb plates, or having seven plates on one dumbbell to simulate 20 lbs. Heh. That won’t exactly turn me into Mr. Universe, but that’s a start. Also, I guess I have a new hobby now: calling up that store every other day to see if they got new, non-children-sized plates. So exciting, this lockdown life.

In covid news, Israel is the first country in the world to institute a second strict nationwide lockdown. Their first one was in April, and all seemed well, but covid cases are on the rise again. The new lockdown will be mighty strict: no venturing more than 500 meters outside your home unless it’s for work, no indoor gatherings of more than 10 people, etc. The lockdown will last for three weeks, and it’ll coincide with Yom Kippur on September 27th. I wish best of luck to whomever will be tasked with enforcing those restrictions on the big day. So far, one of every 60 Israelis has contracted the virus: there are 9,000,000 people in Israel, and 150,000 recorded cases. In other words, they’re pretty high up there compared to the rest of the world. Here is hoping the lockdown helps.

In slightly lighter news, earlier today I read about the most unexpected side effect of covid. Remote learning for kids means they don’t have to school. That also means there won’t be any snow days: it could be a genuine blizzard outside, but they’ll still have to log on and virtually attend their classes. We didn’t have snow days in Siberia when I was a kid (only if it got below -31 degrees Fahrenheit), but I sympathize with the snowed-in kiddos. If it’s any consolation, their summer break won’t be delayed due to all the skipped days. That’s something, right?