About 10 years ago I used to get up early and go running every morning. I stopped after I injured a knee tendon and since then have done precisely nothing. I started again about a month ago albeit indoors on a treadmill. It's slow going but I have my eye on the Phoenix 10K in November.

I guess if you're the sort of person who loses things a lot, these would be handy? Can you imagine being genuinely excited to have lost something so you can use your cool gadget to find it again?

"Sweet, I finally lost my bag, what a bloody great day".

Some things I like. And definitely worth your time.

• Circle. Alien invasion movie unlike anything I've seen before. Filmed almost entirely on one set. What if you were forced to choose who lives and who dies? Gripping.

• Star Trek: Discovery. Season three comes to a close. It's still very good but I felt this season slightly weaker. Suffers I think from having so few episodes to flesh things out. Prestige TV is not like the good old days of ST: Next Generation with 25 episodes every season.

• Underwater Photographer Of The Year. Some truly amazing shots. Hard to pick one particular fave, but I do love me some shipwrecks.

• The Endless. Slow to get going, but then has you on the edge of your seat. Low budget extremely well done (what genre would this even fit in?) horror, sci-fi (?) movie.

• The Expanse. Season five comes to a close. This is by far one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. Like ST: Discovery, I felt this season suffered from having too few episodes. They say next season is gonna wrap things up. Yipes. Then what am I supposed to do?

The Phoenix metro area had quite the wonderful thunderstorm yesterday. Going outside this morning to sip coffee was just great. The air feels so clean and fresh. You can't help but sit and breathe deeply.

Some things I like and definitely worth your time.

• Star Wars Rebels. As a huge fan of the Clone Wars animated series, and anything Dave Filoni is involved with, I was really looking forward to watching this. Starts slow, and is a little kid-centric. But by season four had found its feet. Turned out to be a very very good tale set in the Star Wars universe. Clone Wars was better though.

• Rockonteurs Podcast. If you like 80s music (and if you don't, what is wrong with you?) this will be right up your alley. Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt chat with the who's who of what made the world go round back then. Billy Idol, Boy George, John Taylor, Dave Stewart. It's great stuff.

• Virtual Chat With Ted Lasso Cast. Ted Lasso was one of the best things to come out of 2020. And this chat with the cast of the show is just utterly delightful.

• Utopia. Comic books. Dystopia. Villains. Rain Wilson. John Cusack. It will shock you "salt, bleach, spoon".

• Ambrosia Devon Custard. When you find it over here in the US it just brings a smile to your face. And now a little something from the old country.

• Cobra Kai. Like most chaps my age, I was a bit partial to the original Karate Kid. Hearing they'd made a TV show set 34 years later, looking at life from Johnny Lawrence's perspective was intriguing. And oh boy did it ever work. Nostalgia factor sure. But great writing and some deliciously funny moments makes this a must see. Final episode of season three is just marvelous.

At the beginning of December, we popped a box in the mail bound for the UK. Just to be sure, I paid extra for International Priority because Christmas Presents. Time passed. A couple days before Christmas I tweeted:

Paying extra for international priority shipping was totally worth it. 17 days ago I dropped off the package bound for the UK. Since then it’s gone from Phoenix to Los Angeles, and then back to Phoenix. Where it has sat since Friday. Nice!

— Kevin Spencer (@kevin_spencer) December 22, 2020

Since then, it went back to Los Angeles again, up to San Fransisco, and then made it across the pond to Heathrow and cleared customs. From there it went from London to Coventry. And has sat since Jan 2nd with no further updates. No ETA for delivery. Nothing.

Best $85 I've ever spent.

To be fair, we're far from alone. I think I was hoping the UK postal system wasn't quite as backed up. First world problems I guess?

Update: delivered yesterday (21 Jan 2021). And on top of what I'd already paid on my end, my parents had to pay VAT and a "delivery fee". Cool cool. Won't be doing this again.

Some more things really worth your time, Oct 7th 2020 edition.

• accidentallywesanderson on Instagram. Now, I'm not one to fawn over things on Insta because, well, Facebook. But this account of things that wouldn't look out of place in a Wes Anderson film is so good.

• Vandal Moon. What happened was, Sir Kevin of Apgar mentioned on Twitter that a few of us might like this band. And he was so right. Cold wave post-punk goth goodness.

• Battlestar Galactica. I know what you're thinking, welcome to 2004. But this show is one of the best of all time, and I wondered how it would hold up again. The answer is, it's just as good as I remember it being. I'm 3 episodes into season two and it's just great, I'm hooked all over again. So say we all.

• Safari. No really. It's become my default browser on my Mac. Surprising for someone historically so focused on Netscape Navigator => Mozilla => Firefox since the olden times. At $job I started using it here and there assisting debugging one of our apps. That morphed to just opening a couple other tabs here and there. To then finding I had 37 tabs open and had been using it all day. So I wondered what it would be like to live in Safari full time. And here we are a month later.

Those of us who purchased an Apple device at the end of last year got a free year of Apple TV+. It's approaching subscription renew or cancel time. And I find it's a dilemma. Are For All Mankind, The Morning Show, and Ted Lasso worth re-upping Apple TV+ for another year?

Here are a few things really worth your time.

• Ted Lasso on Apple TV+. What started out as Jason Sudeikis commercials for NBC Premier League now turned into a series. And it's great. Heartwarming fish out of water story of an American coming to England to manage a football team.

• Minimal Gallery on Flickr. Minimal photography is probably my favorite. This gallery is must daily viewing.

• All Or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur on Amazon Prime. I'm biased obviously, because they've been my team since I was a kid. But an utterly fascinating look behind the scenes of life at Tottenham in 2020. Thoroughly recommended.

• Sunday Live chat with Lol Tolhurst and cEvin Key on YouTube. Founding members of two of my favorite bands of all time Skinny Puppy & The Cure have a chat. And it's great.

• World's Toughest Race: Eco Challenge Fiji on Amazon Prime. Bear Grylls hosts a grueling cross island race with 66 teams. You really get to like some of the teams and their own back stories.

The weather took a pleasant turn this past week. Going outside to sip morning coffee again is nice.

As I sit here a hazy smoke lingers over Phoenix. The pinky orange sun barely visible through the cover. Our neighbor California is having one heck of a time with wildfires. Some of the videos on the news are just mind blowing and I feel terrible for those without homes to go back to.

I worry things are just a lightning strike away from igniting here also. The summer has been brutal and as you drive around you can't help but notice how dried out everything is.

What a bloody year this has been eh?