If you'd asked me back in October about this one, I would've said one of the best written Sunset Shimmer meets Twilight stories, but still just another one of those stories, but its really hit its stride. Not only is Sunset much better written than canon, not just the arrogant student of Princess Celestia who dove through a mirror into another dimension when she didn't get what she wanted, this one is a teenager with what that brings, angry about the Princess not being her real mom, and as we see about when this really starts getting good, an inferiority complex. Yes, this Sunset is a real person, one that runs into Twilight, and realizes that the system is failing her. When she asks a Professor for help getting Twilight into Celestia's school, its pass admission day, and Twilight is too young, the Professor puts a price on his sponsoring her, Sunset will have to be her official mentor. She's been teaching Twilight and Moondancer, but make that official? She does decide to do it, but struggles with the choice. Things really got good in the last chapter, canon Twilight hatches a dragon egg, something the fandom has generally assumed was an impossible task to see how the student handles failure, here that's unquestionably the case as Twilight examines the egg and realizes its a rock. When she points this out, she's told she wasn't brought here to identify it, but to hatch it, that's the test. Could you be more blatant? And umm,
Click to open/closeshe hatches it and gets her cutie mark, one slightly different from the show.
Yeah, this one is looking real interesting, assuming the author keeps this quality up, I have to wonder where they're going, will this just go on for the entire show, stop at some point only for there to be another story, or...? Seriously, if you like Sunset or young Twilight, you really need to read this one.
While I'm here, let me point out another good one, Twilight's Me Time. Originally a one off, the fans demanded it continue, so it has. Nothing real deep here, SciTwi (EQG) decides since she's board, she'll spend summer break with Princess Twilight in Equestria. Two nerds that have a habit of experimenting first and thinking second, what could possibly go wrong? Yeah, this is just a silly thing, easy reading, but definitely a fun read.
@Andrew Pam Yeah, up until she decided to help Twilight get into school, it was a good Sunset meets Twilight story that I'd read and forget about when it was done, but after that its pretty much guaranteed a slot as long as the author doesn't fall flat on their face.
And thanks for letting me know Twilight's Me Time was continued - I read the first chapter but hadn't noticed the continuation, so now it's on my tracking list.
@Andrew Pam Yeah, I stumbled on it on the front page a week or two after the second chapter was posted, and clicked because it made no sense that it was being featured again, and imagine my surprise to see it continuing.
Ugh, Ok, my weekend list is so not getting done, I did get a lot yesterday, but today is out, I'm siiiick. Well, actually not too bad at this point, but spent a 0300 - 0600 or so in and out of the bathroom, then slept for a bit, and after a couple hours, dragged m'self out of bed, ran to the store for one thing I forgot to put on the list, and picked up some breakfast. I suspect once I get some food and coffee into me, I'll be better, but definitely not getting anything done #today
At this point, technologically, I doubt it's "if" but rather a question of how long EVs winning can (continue to) be deferred artificially. But I'm also sure there will be other resources to exploit and fight over.
Rule of Law? What does it mean in general? Btw I think electric cars are a good idea, they are best if you can afford your own solar panels (and maybe batteries) at home. Once installed, no more transporting costs (apart from regular service, which is very limited on electric cars compared to fossil fuel ones).
@dexter I use one as a delivery vehicle, even with fuel costs, its massively better than a gas vehicle, so long as you can charge at home, the local WalMart's fast charger is 56¢/KwH, home is 11.4¢/KwH, I'm spending maybe a third of what I used to spend on gas.
Considering fossil fuel prices lately thats a really good thing I guess. More and more people will switch as used but good range electric cars are becoming fairly cheap. This era should have started much earlier, we are at least fifteen years too late (where we are now should have happened around 2010). But its better to switch later than never.
If I'm not mistaken, forecasts are saying that demand for fossil energy wlll decline soon. Oil product demand peaked in 2022, Gas consumption had a decline in Europe of over ten percent. I'd say electric cars are an important piece of the puzzle. Interesting to notice that Chinese seem to become the best at it (building really good and affordable electric cars).
@dexter Honestly I'm not surprised the Chinese are so good, their gas powered cars were a joke for so long that they developed a reputation China couldn't live down, but electric? The western world gave up on them, so China dove in and created a new image for themselves, and here we are.
Interesting to notice that Chinese seem to become the best at it (building really good and affordable electric cars).
The US is simply giving the market away. Interestingly, I count Three separate times that General Motors engaged in major efforts to make, market, and sell electric vehicles - and it failed three times. Such incompetence leads to very bad consequences. Ford is doing no better, while Tesla has excommunicated itself.
Exactly, they were smart enough to admit that they are too far behind with fossil fuel engine technology. So they put their bet on (cheap) battery technology and all electric cars. I notice more and more BYDs and MGs on the streets here in Europe every day. GM literally tried to kill electric car development in the 90s. There was even a movie about the story. People liked their test venicles and wanted to buy them - GM seized all the cars and delivered them to a junk yard for recycling.
In general, this is the notion that people can agree to live within certain limitations in order to guarantee a better living place for all. And generally this works quite well when the parameters are reasonable and there is some mechanism for enforcement. The was the The International Court of Justice, which looked promising until the US decided it did not like the constraints. And the UN Security Council, which has been similarly ignored.
If the major powers had abided by the principles of these international institutions, and worked to bring about enforcement of abridgements, we would have a much better world today.
So, figure since it's a new year, should take a new photo of m'self. I don't think the glasses are a new sight, I've had them for a bit now, but look, hair!
Yeah,I've been bald by choice because hair requires too much effort to maintain frankly. Goatee isn't going anywhere, but it won't be joined by anything, nothing else feels right.
Ugh, keeping bouncing from one thing to another. This weekend I need to get the usual stuff done, grocery shopping, clean kitchen, do laundry, and that's about it, but so far I've killed 3 hours online, not because I'm doom scrolling or something, but because I keep jumping to one thing to another, rather than zipping through a relatively quiet internet.
And I expect it'll be a better one, I'll prolly jinx m'self if'n I claim it can't get worse, but after a year where my husband died less than a month after my birthday, and two or so months later the room mate had to put his cat down, the cat we took care of because she didn't like him..
Yeah, its been a hell of a year. Its not that there can't be other losses, there will be at some point in the future, but with older family members, its sorta expected that you'll outlive them, that's just life, but when they're only 5 or so years older? Yeah, I was starting to rough out plans for our retirement, with an expectation of at least another decade together, hopefully two.
So what's the plan this year?
As someone wisely said, do I look like I have a plan? Ok, seriously, not much, clear this place out, fix it up (anyone know a good contractor in #stl ?) a little bit, and downsize, the latter likely resulting in me moving out of state, because Republican states suck, but not sure where I'm going, likely Illinois, but Maryland and Pennsylvania are also possibles. First step of clearing this place out was done yesterday, rented two tables at the Sunset Hills community center for the first three flea markets, March, April and May, and while I'll still be selling stuff before that, that'll be when I really get things going.
Speaking of selling, anyone need any clothing?
Any how, that's about all, other than maybe building an electric kei van, finally found an engine small enough. Yes, small enough, there's something you never here with an engine swap.
And now, onwards with #today , grocery shopping and... Pack a few more things up for shipping.
Sounds like your year was like mine. I'm struggling a bit with the cleaning out the house chore. Seems I balk when it comes to getting rid of my wife's clothes.
Its bad enough that we have very few chargers here, but the weird part is we're not getting any new. Seriously, was just checking a site showing new chargers in the area or coming, EVGo has four coming in, all on the Illinois side, on the Missouri side, the good news is we're getting three Ionna stations... The bad news is that two of them I know as replacements for current stations, a Francis energy at Wally's, and the chargers at Schnucks in Warrenton. I'd really like to know why we're not getting chargers, even companies like Circle K who has there own charging network, and is expanding here (I know of three new stations coming in), isn't installing any chargers at the new or existing stations. Ditto for WalMart who's building their own network.
They're converting a Toyota pickup to electric, and according to them they do this all the time. If that's the case, the first five minutes of the video would make me never by anything from them, one of the problems was trying to use a model S accelerator pedal with a model 3 motor, and was surprised to find out it wasn't compatible... Umm, wouldn't you check that all the major components are compatible before starting a conversion?
So, I bought a bag of Maxwell House coffee pods at Ollie's (seriously if'n you have these and haven't visited, try it). Had no idea what I'd do with them, but was sure I'd figure something out, it certainly didn't help that they came with no info beyond 'Makes a pot of coffee' Umm, pots come in lots of sizes, but thanks to Amazon, its a 12 cup pot, and they're usually sold by the case. Cool, time for a cold brew, but how to keep the pod at the bottom of the pitcher? Butter knife to the rescue.
Not working as they cancelled my shift, but honestly I was likely to do that as the forecast became clear, the original low was 16°F, its currently 19° feels like 4°, and my normal load time is about one hour ago. Yeah, while I might do some work #today , no package route for me, no way I'm trying to work for 6+ hours in this nonsense. And to think the high yesterday was in the 60's, maybe higher, typical St Louis winter.
Not sure what I'll do with m'self, cleaned out the closet finally yesterday, most of Vik's ( @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe ) clothes are boxed up to donate with the exception of a few things that I added to my wardrobe and a few special items to sell. Fri? Sat? Whichever, I finalized the conversion project of his 401K to an inherited IRA in my main account. Bills were paid yesterday, including county, well, property tax, for some reason they're showing me as not owing any personal property tax for some reason, I do need to sort that out.
I will be continuing to clean out my emails, we're under 1K messages and started at over 2K, mostly stuff that should've been deleted, but I was being lazy. Need to do some last comic and book pulls, and then figure out who to sell most of the collection to. Have lots of stuff to pack and send, but its cold, so that'll prolly wait until I man up and go outside. Will prolly move my car back to its usual spot in front of the gate, moved it so the room mate could get his truck out now that its running again, he blew up the transmission and had to install a new one which took 6 weeks or so, unusually fast for him, as he was doing other work at the same time, plus he's not as good as he thinks he is on repair work.
Anyone know a good charity in #STL to donate clothing too? Lots of men's clothes, but I also have a fair number of totes in the shed of women's clothing and shoes that should still be in good shape.
Well, as I've said, I read a lot over at FiM Fiction, so I figured why not talk about some of the stuff I'm currently reading, ie what's been updated recently in my tracking.
First off, I finished both Phoenix Beyond the Veil and its unfinshed cancelled sequel. I give that a B-, and that's prolly being a bit generous, the further you get into it, the worse it gets, mostly a matter of rushing and most characters other than Sunset becoming background characters. I like the story, and I like the ideas, but it really should be stretched out so the story can breathe, there's prolly two books worth of content in there. Still, I don't regret reading it.
Blooming Days, still not sure what to make of this, its an AU where Luna was never banished, Twilight is her student, Sunset is Celestia's, there's a bit of a rivalry between them. As the story has moved along, Starlight Glimmer is now a student of both, and yes her village existed in this one too. Discord recently dropped some knowledge of how the world is cyclic, it resets and strong souls return unchanged. I think I'm still reading it because I like AU's like this where you don't quite know what's coming.
The Stone Slab Witch, another Sunset/Harry Potter crossover, but this one has some unique elements, like Canterlot High used to exist as a Muggle private school, run by Celestia Austreaus a pure blood in one of the oldest if not oldest families. During the Wizarding Wars they protected wizards and witches born of Muggles, and Voldomort killed her sister Luna. When Sunset arrives, the school is in the process of being torn down, as Celestia left the wizarding world long ago with no one knowing where she went, although she did send Minerva a letter saying her daughter will be arriving on this day. Just started this, and while it has its writing problems, its looking like a very unique variation on a somewhat common theme, jury's out on this one for now.
Harry Potter and the Luna Princess, boy, what to say about this... I think his solutions in the quest for the cup are a bit too violent, but there's so many interesting author choices here. Harry meets Luna in one of his dreams where he sees Voldemort kill a muggle, and because her student. The EQG setting exists here, its a high school in California, and they weren't aware there was a wizarding world. This leads to multiple threads going on, Harry helping the house elves get recognized as a non-human magical race both helps his friend and sets the stage for Equestria introducing itself to the wizarding world, while he takes part in the trials. Training for them has mostly been handled by Luna, Tempest Shadow and Moondancer with ruling Princess Twilight Sparkle's approval. Yep, there's another unique thing, its set later in the MLP:FiM series than usual. Just what ponies Harry interacts with sets this apart of other stories of its ilk, and there's so much more going on in here, definitely one of the most interesting of these type of crossover stories.
I think I'll stop here, there's so many more that I'm reading and have been recently updated, but this is long enough, no?
There, finished a large and long breakfast, multiple courses I guess since I ate things mostly as I finished cooking them. Buckwheat cereal, followed by a hash and cheese omelet, beans, hash and a hash brown. Then a cup of yogurt and finally a half a danish. And of course coffee, three cups, or as I called the last one, a cuff of copee... Yeah, like Korben Dallas I speak too languages, English and bad English.
I will say the canned corn beef hash that I got from Menards is terrible, should've known when I saw Save-A-Lot, yes the grocery store, as the brand, but boy this stuff is bad. I'll be glad when its gone, but I'm too cheap to just throw it away, so we'll be eating a lot of meat soup, and yes, that's an accurate description of the quality.
That's done, gotta get dressed, and head out to Ollies in St Peters. Yeah, its around 20 miles away, and there's a store closer, and another one that's around the same distance, but the close one requires dealing with US 67 in Florissant, which I avoid like the plague, the other one is on SR 100, which I avoid for the same reason, way, way too much traffic, and I hate traffic. Yes, seeing as how I happily work as a delivery driver, that seems weird, but I'd rather take the long route than sit in traffic. Need to make a list of what I need, right now AA batteries and peanut butter filled pretzels, prolly more, but nothing comes to mind right now.
Wow. That's one heck of a breakfadt. 😮 Are ya sure you'll be able to waddle out to do your shopping without detouring for a bit of a sit n your comfy couch for awhile??
I mean its not like I would've been surprised to hear the song modified, maybe gayed up if'n it were Dee Snider or George Michael singing it, or for a straight guy replacing Santa Claus with Mrs Claus, but for Nathaniel Ratecliff and the Night Sweats to play it straight? Yeah, I think they broke my brain.
Didn't get to it this morn either, actually didn't surf the web at all, just wasn't feeling it, and won't be bothering tonight. Woke up a bit meh, dragged and ran errands before going to work a bit early, including hitting MickeyD's as I had a craving.
Tonight is much the same, mostly skipping the web, I'm tired, and my shoulder hurts bad. Ice and reading.
Reading is the big reason, although some of the stories I'm tracking on FiM Fiction do have updates, I'm not feeling it, so I started reading some of my Read It Later stories. Right now I'm on the 5th chapter of A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - The Philospher's Stone, and I'm rather taken with it.
Sunset Shimmer in the Harry Potter universe isn't unknown, but it isn't super common. However, those always use canon SS, a teenager who uses a portal mirror after the mirror showed her a future where she was an Alicorn, because Princes Celestia won't make her one. This one is more mature, what if anything she saw wasn't brought up, instead, she's gotten fed up with Celestia not teaching her like she used to, so she decided to go somewhere else where she can learn more. None of the desire for alicornhood, nor a plan to conquer Equestria, just a desire to learn more. Despite expecting to come out of a statue by a high school, what happened in canon, she comes out of a mirror in the Grainger household, something she blames on Philomena, her pet phoenix that came with her, because she perched on the top of the mirror where the focus is before they used it.
Any how, I'm finding the writing to be to my taste, and while SS is overpowered, the way they're handling it is quite good, she's happy to learn, experience new things, and help people. It makes it quite enjoyable to see how she interacts with the world.
What really has me engaged at the moment? I just reached the point where she tells Hermine's parents that she can give them magic, or more correctly, she can unblock their thaumic passageways. Apparently this is a known problem in Equestria, and she's been reading an advanced medical magic book, and feels capable of fixing it for them. Interesting idea, muggles, or at least muggles that have magic capable children, are capable of magic themselves but have a malady that stops them, wonder where this'll lead.
Funny thing about this, last I checked, they still haven't figured out who sung it nor when it was recorded. If'n I had to guess, prolly an 80's morning show, you can even hear people laughing in the background.
Having Loops problems, it took a few weeks, maybe a month before I was able to upload that last video, and I thought the app was working.
Nope, yesterday's video is a no go, I get the title typed... And it crashes, doesn't even start uploading. Not sure if recording in the app would work better, it refused as I hadn't given it mike permission, something it never asked for.
That's one of the weirdest things, it never asked for any permissions, oddly it can upload videos even though it doesn't have permission to access them, but it can't record as it doesn't have mike access, how's that work? Also it apparently has no notification function, I tried to allow it, but got told nope, it doesn't do notifications, which seems a bit odd, I mean how do I know if someone commented or liked a video without opening the app?
I might need an update, not sure, nor do I have any idea how to do that as I'd side loaded this as soon as it was available, so dunno how that works.
Today I tried recording a video, and that worked fine. so the problem is with uploading a video, but not with compression as the app quits/crashes when I go to fill in the description, so before compression.
Feature Requests App permission setting, most apps ask permission for what they need the first time you launch it, Loops doesn't, so it'd be nice to see that become a thing. Notifications, why doesn't the app do notifications? I'd like to get an alert when someone likes or comments on one of my videos Allow recording of videos without requiring the record button to be held down, that's rather inconvenient for the type of videos I make
Was sitting in traffic when a car came flying up through the grass behind and to the right, flipping and throwing a part into the road. At first the first person there didn't think the driver was still in the car, so I threw on my safety vest, and got the biggest part out of the road before it causes another accident.
After realizing the driver was still in there, under the supervision of an ER nurse who'd stopped, we started working on getting her out so CPR could be done, but it was only the two of us and I can't lift much. We did get her from wedged between the front seats to the back seat face down before the cops got there, and i supported her so she didn't fall between the front and back seats, while they got her out so CPR could be performed. She did have a pulse when they got her in the ambulance, so she might survive.
I wound up taking a shower when I got home, because I'd been kneeling in vomit and even after taking off my clothes I could still smell it.
So that was how my day ended. Not sure how I feel right now, aside from sore as my upper back was already hurting, and my shoulders are now, but I already was going to chiro tomorrow, so no big deal. Besides, as I told the nurse, a little back pain is a small price to pay for saving a life.
Still, I'm kinda processing the whole thing as you can imagine.
That's way more dramatic than when I recently rescued an adolescent gallah that fell out of its nest. Sadly, it's wing was so damaged the wildlife rescue hospital had to put it down. I felt horrible.
If I had left the bird where it was, it would have died near the tree it knew with mama nearby, albeit after some suffering. My transporting it caused the bird plenty of trauma, but in the end it shortened its suffering. I kept thinking maybe I hadn't done it much of a service. But then I thought, if my efforts could save it, it would have enjoyed a longer life. Perhaps it was worth a hopeful effort.
Thank you for being the sort of person who stops and helps.
Today lets be more traditional, I think Little Drummer Boy is my favorite Christmas carol, and this is if not my favorite version, its certainly right up there.
Finish yesterday's plan, its nice to have a four day weekend. Well, we did have a few things this morn, needed to hit the bank, and was going to hit breakfast at a Black Bear Diner (if you have one of these in your area and haven't tried it, do so, especially for breakfast), I have a check I forgot to deposit earlier in the week. Woke up a bit lat at 0830, but I had stayed up to around 2330, so that was mostly expectable, albeit I wasn't up much last night, so a little odd. Lets see, what's the temperature...
7°F feels like -5°... House to car, to restaurant to car to bank... Yeah, too cold for even that, I am so not leaving the house. I swear, since Vik died, the universe doesn't want me going out for breakfast like we used to, last time I tried when I had some time to kill before work, power was out in that part of Bridgeton killing both restaurant choices. I could've gone elsewhere, but that would've given me a choice of Denny's or going out of my way which would've eaten up a chunk of the time I had, so that was out.
So, I guess the check'll get deposited via app, not sure I want to run out tomorrow, but we'll see, I prefer to hand the check over to a teller.
Tomorrow will likely be estate matters, I need to call Farmers, a check arrived a week ago, some kind of refund on what I could swear was a joint account, but its only made out to Vik, so that's a problem. And have to call Fidelity to make some account changes, they gave me his 401K, but my finance planner wanted it an inherited IRA, so gotta get that done, should be relatively simple. Also gotta reach out to e*Trade, somewhere I have the instructions from a few months ago on how to take over his stock shares as I was the beneficiary. Outside of those, got a lawyer working on the stuff I'm not a beneficiary of, probate court fun of course, hence the lawyer, St Louis County requires a lawyer for all estate filings. Once all that stuff is done, I'm pulling everything out of e*Trade (owned by Morgan Stanley) and Morgan Stanley, not just for consolidation, but because they're owned by Bank of America, who I hate with a passion for various reasons. Once his Apple card is closed, that'll be the last I deal with Goldman Sachs, because they are such a dumb outdated company. Really, they required me to mail paperwork to their legal department showing he'd died, and yet two months later, I'm still get bills as well as 2+ late notices a week. Heck, the account would've been paid off back in August, but they refused, since I'm not on the account, they won't take my money, only his, at least until they accept that he died. Seriously, this is an investment company, or at least how I know the name, can you imagine this company handling your investments? At least they'll be secure, but considering how outdated they are, they're the only company I'm dealing with that doesn't have any way to handle things online, I can't imagine how good their advice could be. Oh, yesterday I got one step closer to closing the Chase account, which would be nice as technically its a joint account, so my credit is taking a hit from it, but I don't have access officially, though I do have ways to get in there.
Boy, that got long, no? Any how, things are kinda going, doing what I have to do, keeping on keeping on.
Well, not fail per se, just be a piece of garbage.
I think I mentioned that I was planning on ordering a Boox Go7 which is an Android e-reader, which is to say its basically an Android tablet just with an e-reader launcher installed and an e-ink screen.
That's it laying on my Lenovo 11in tablet. Umm, I would've expected a 7 inch tablet to be around half the size of the 11, but oK. Problems started out of the box, the thing was thin, light, and felt more like a toy. Initial start up was glacially slow.
And things basically went downhill from there. Turn it off on the launcher screen? It not only closes all open apps, but it also defaults apps back to standard, ie FireFox stops being my default browser, and the factory installed browser takes over. Oh, and FireFox now launches all web pages in desktop mode which is much smaller print and harder to read.
Then there's the random glitches, like my keyboard having no visible space bar, the graphics on my solitaire game giving me a headache, or my RAR program basically not having any interface.
Ummm, I hope this isn't an example of what to expect with Android e-ink devices.
Oh, and I already got the replacement, no surprise, but I did what I should've done in the first place, just grabbed a Lenovo 8 inch tablet. A more classic design than my 11's (I have two, the old and the newer one), but its about the right size, and I expect it'll be typical Lenovo, won't knock your socks off, but it'll do the job at a very reasonable price, in this case, $99 on sale. Funny thing, if I picked it up today from Best Buy via Lenovo's website, I got an extra $10, so I guess I got rewarded for being impatient?
Cold today in #stl , likely to be equally as cold #tomorrow , so I decided to cancle my shift, frankly I've made enough for the week. Well, more or less, goal is $700, with a min of $500. Last week we made a bit over $200, that's it because I took off because of the weather, so making $6xx this week is a bit of a shortage, but not bad, and I don't _have_ to work as hard as I do. #today #stlouis #work
@paul_kelly Oh that isn't me, just an artist I follow, and I don't think that's a ukulele, but something very similar, but you'd have to check his page.
@paul_kelly Could be a guiatarlele (didn't make it up, but might've spelled it wrong) which is basically a cross between a guitar and a ukelele, and there's also a banjolele, which is a cross between a banjo and a ukelele, but that looks much different.
Two weeks since my last post, and... Well, not much going on here. Little of this, little of that. Lets see, 18th I met with the lawyer to wrap up the estate, Vik hadn't planned on going so soon, somewhat surprising after losing his mom a few years, but then there are really two ways to react to that, plan for your time, or try not to think about it. Guess which one he did? Yeah, bunch of accounts don't have a beneficiary, so the lawyer is working on that including subpoenaing companies for the amounts as they're not particularly interested in giving it out to a non-account holder. Well, should be, I haven't heard from them since that meeting, and I do need to pay a retainer and such before they can do anything, so going to have to check in with them. Thanksgiving was a big nothing, his family which I don't know all that well is 150 or so miles away. I had been thinking of wandering around eastern IL along I70 near to the Indiana border as its possibly where I'll relocate to, but just didn't feel like it in the end, which was prolly good considering the storm that hit today. Instead I've been doing various things around the house, packing up the books my sister wants from Vik's collection, ditto for the comics @RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist wants, though those will likely get repacked into smaller flat rate boxes, as you're not supposed to ship comics Media Mail. Also moved the altar to the book case the living room TV'd been on, I moved the TV, the unfinished media computer and the power station or whatever you call it into the computer room.
A little cramped compared to the table, but it'll do for now, after all, long term I expect to get rid of that book case as well as some of the others, so it'll be re-located to a semi-permanent home, permanent until I move then.
What else... Cancelled the WalMart+ membership, not out of any belief of striking back at them or anything, its just that now its me as both Vik and the roomy's cat passed, it just doesn't seem worth it, I get very use out of it, the only thing of value in there is the Parmount+ membership, and that's cheaper than the W+ membership. Sure, W+ offers an electric car charging discount, much like they do for fuel, however that's only for Walmart charging, and that's only in like half a dozen states right now, who knows when it'll get here, plus I mostly charge at home. Ordering a Boox Go7 tablet/e reader tonight, its basically an Android tablet with an e-ink screen, which should work for most of what I use my tablet for. Oddly I can order it direct cheaper than I can get it from WalMart.
Oh, did a small project on T-day, removed the shower doors as I've never been a fan of them. Oddly, I tossed them up on Marketplace for shits and giggles, a set of shower doors, tracks and hardware, dirty but complete free... And they were taken less than 6 hours later. Didn't think anyone wanted them any more, colour me shocked.
Kinda chipping away at various little projects, debating how I want to handle the books and comics, prolly contact Half-Price Books for the former, I have a CSV file with all of them, as for the comics... Not sure, have a store that's supposed to be buying them, but I'll prolly be old and grey by the time they make an offer, so I might just throw the collection on Marketplace at a flat price and see what I get, 10,500 comics with a few graphic novels for... $7K maybe? I think that's a very generous price, prolly higher than a store would give me, but still quite reasonable.
Beyond that, gotta get my insurance situation sorted out, and that's about it other than chipping away at the estate.
So, y'all might remember that I arbitrarily decided that March was cover song month, and posted a song a day.
Well, I had so much fun I decided next year was going to be a repeat, so I started collecting songs, and ... Well, I have enough for next month, and 9 so far for 2027. Amazingly enough, no repeats, and no violating the rules, must be a released song, can't be a comedy band.
Oh joy, it snowed. Meh, pup doesn't like snow, thank you very much. Going to be watching Ryan Hall for a bit this morn ( youtube.com/live/Z0YWlul2v90 ), and do stuff around the house, we are so not going out in this, especially as its still coming down
Its that kind of morning, woke up around 0330 to use the bathroom, and didn't fall back to sleep until after 0600, in and out of sleep until getting up near 0900. Going to be a long day me thinks, that or there's going to be a lot of coffee and at least one nap.
Ok, that's a spicy cheese, & I suspect it'll go to waste, Schnucks Carolina Reaper cheese. I will say I had my doubts as to how spicy they could make it, but yeah, I'm impressed. Problem is what to use it for, I put a liberal amount in my chili, & its got a decent bite. Usually I use shredded cheese in my omelets, and while this might be fun to combine with a sweet egg omelet, I suspect I'd find it too hot unless I put a very small amount in, & I don't have a matching cheese... Anyone want it?
I've been using my GV number as my phone number on FB because there's no way I'm giving them my main number, but the problem is that Facebook now sees what I'm shopping for on my other tablet. Yes, aside from the phone number, FB is on a separate device that shares a WiFi connection, so the leak is cause by Google Voice or my network, and I'm leaning towards GV, which is an easy one to plug... I assume?
At this point the only thing that GV offers that's important to me is the ability to use it through a computer as well as my phone, so I'm thinking some type of VOIP that has an app and a web interface? I don't mind paying a small fee for the latter, though I don't need a full on business VOIP solution, which is where you usually find web interfaces.
> [...] Facebook now sees what I'm shopping for on my other tablet.
Have you thought of using umatrix on your shopping tablet?
I once made a joke at a friend's place where I was staying the night, and the punchline involved me saying the word "pineapple" quite loudly.
A couple hours later, I went to bed, and I used a brand new laptop with a fresh Linux OS to go to YouTube and check for some videos. As soon as I opened YouTube, I was greeted with dozen upon dozen of pineapple videos.
They most likely configured their phones with all sorts of GAFAM accounts and, from simply sharing their IP address, I was associated with any keyword their devices picked.
So, yeah, it can be potentially pretty freaky, but in the end, it is almost always either a rogue microphone or a rogue JavaScript dependency.
@7heo I don't think so in this case, because both devices are Android (Google product), and Voice (Google product) is installed on the tablet, and Voice number is used for Facebook. Google has a long track record of selling everything they can harvest from you, and with a connection between Facebook and my Google account? Yeah, I'm fairly certain that's where the leak is
Google having a track record of selling anything they can from you is correct.
I don't get how this makes them unable to constantly listen to your microphone, and constantly log all you do (and buy).
And then sell this data to anyone (including, ofc, facebook).
Absolutely get rid of google voice, I'm not gonna stop you there, that's a great first step. But don't be surprised if the leak doesn't stop. Your public IP is a much likelier identifier here than a phone number.
Started out with being told I was making over $200 doing 105 packages. Thankfully they reduced my work, giving part of my route to someone else, frankly I don't want to work that hard. Plus considering that I wound up getting the car about ¾ full only to realize I'd have to more or less start over because it wasn't going to all fit, it was a good thing. Interesting part is that it was supposed to be 45cu ft of packages, but a Bolt is supposed to have just over 54cu ft of space, so I think someone's calculations were off. So in the end, about 60 stops or so, and about 64 packages, nice amount of work.
But I could never leave it at that, could I?
So, we stopped at the bank to deposit the check from selling my car yesterday. I wound up getting only $4700 for my 2020 Bolt, about half what they initially offered, but it is a lemon, so the price got cut way down, but I kinda expected that since Carvana had offered $4600 and CarMax wouldn't even make an offer until I brought it in. Sure, I might've been able to get more, but considering what I paid, and the fact that this was inline with the only offer, I decided to take it. Besides, did I really lose? The car was $14,800 when I got it last year, however I got $4500 EV credit from the government, and $8200 for my trade in, so the out of pocket was only around $2200... Should've seen the chaos it caused when I pulled that out of my pocket cash. Any how, yeah, $2200 out of my pocket to buy it, and $4700 sale, so I guess I came out ahead?
Any how, since their was a branch of my credit union, First Community, a credit union I highly, highly recommend, I deposited the check, then got back to work. And then later I was passing a DMV office, one that had only one other customer and around five clerks, so in and out in about five minutes with a plate transfer. Yep, my current Bolt, formerly my husband's, is carrying the BOXEN plates now. Hopefully I'll have to visit the DMV soon to collect the new version of that plate, MIssouri Bee Keeper Association specialty plate, looking forward to that.
Oh, and I also changed my insurance around via email, removed the old Bolt from my commercial, and moved this Bolt from personal to commercial, thankfully the DMV didn't ask for any documentation as I hadn't been home to print a new insurance card yet.
So yeah, that was my #today Tomorrow morning will be spent trying to get all my gig apps updated, car change, insurance update (did I mention that it expired yesterday on all of them?), and possibly other settings, then it'll be off to work. Prolly do a speed breakfast, homemade microwavable breakfast sandwich and K-cup of coffee while I work.
Ok, yesterday was fun. Well, sorta, I mean I don't really like doing D zone, north St Louis County, there's some real sketchy neighborhoods up there.
That said, one notable thing was an apartment complex I hit, nothing special about the design in and of itself, but this is only the second one I've found in the St Louis metro, which is kinda impressive considering the size of the area, and the amount of places I've delivered to, and these aren't even close to each other. Weird.
The second thing was fun, I delivered to a very Christian house, y'all know the type, right? Well apparently there's a bit of a feud between them resulting in the neighbor putting up a Fuck Trump flag on his garage. Seeing that, there was only one thing I could do, visit... And give him almost all of the stickers I had in my car and wallet that I got from Plastic Jesus, as well as hanging out for a bit and telling him about the Fediverse. I'll be going back soon, and dropping off links to this blog and more stickers.
While yesterday wasn't a great day, that definitely made it better.
Ok, really, really tired, its bed time, but with that said, a little run down on today first.
Today I buried my husband. I mean that literally, I don't mean I outlived him, nor do I mean I attended his funeral.
Arlen who's the caretaker, grave digger and everything else at Bethlehem Cemetery in Tunnel Hill Illinois is older than me, older than my husband, heck, I think it was ten days or so he had a stent put in. Yeah, he's already up and working.
Any how, its not like the graves needed to be particularly large nor deep, cremain vaults aren't particularly large, so he dug the one for Vik's mom, and I dug the one for Vik, placed them in the graves, and covered up Vik while he took care of Betty.
So we drove 155 miles or so in an electric car, so charging stops in Mascoutah and Benton. Mascoutah didn't go well, the charge was real slow once I got it started after three or four tries, finally through the app. The one in Benton went weird, speed was good, but the dispenser's display was out, so I had to rely on the app, and its a little slow, so I was concerned I was stuck when the lock on the charge cable didn't release at first.
Then the burial, and then head back with a single stop in Mt Vernon at the WalMart where we had a little trouble with the Electrify America charger and its app, the latter glitching when it came to updating state of charger, and the dispenser being disagreeable about starting until I used the app.
There is now a GM Energy or whatever they're calling it across the street, so I'll prolly try that next time and see if'n it works well.
I picked up dinner at St Louis Bread Co (Panera to you heathens) before heading home, ate, surfed the web, and here we are, time for bed, but no sleeping in as I have chiro in the morning. And if'n it warms up enough, we'll try to get the tires on my Bolt to hold air so I can sell it.
So, today I'll be burying my husband and his mother. Paying might get a little complicated, when planning the day I hadn't realized it was a holiday, and I forgot to hit the bank yesterday... Oops. ATM and money order I guess? If'n I can find a money order.
Bit of an update to the memorial, some additional items, plus some risers to better display them. The marker was a gift from some of his friends, and I still don't get it, I guess its from a campaign his gaming group did?
I've gotten cremation vaults, and Sunday I took care of moving the cremains in, while Vik's mom was easy, he'd already spread about half her ashes, so splitting her between two spreader urns and the vault was easy, him not so much. Vik was a fairly large gentleman, and that means a lot of cremains, I'd thought that once unsealed there'd be enough room in the back to shift him around to fit in the vault, but nope, had to scoop a fair amount into a bowl in order to fit his bag in, then add the cremains back in and re-seal.
The white is his mom's cremains, and the blue is him and Panta, it felt like they should be buried together.
It seems with how much Panta meant to him, it was only right to bury them together.
Speaking of burial, that'll be Tues. I haven't told his family, I have a very, very small social battery, and doing this, I'm really not going to be up for being around people, I'm barely up to it on a good day, and that's not going to be a good day obviously. We're not doing a graveside service, this is just a basic burial, places them in the grave, and I'll likely help Arlen fill it in, I mean at his age he prolly shouldn't be digging graves, so I'm certainly going to offer to help fill it in, I've already offered to arrange for someone else to open, but he insisted on doing it himself. I won't chase his family away if'n they show up, and they have access to this blog, but I'm definitely not going to feel like being around people. Its kinda funny, he always said he was an introvert, and yet he was on a bowling team, active part of the pen club scene out here even helping with the convention, was at least part of events related to Ingress at one time even taking part in a big event here, active with WikiTree and other genealogy sites, and more, so much that I doubt I've contacted them all. Me? I'm a happy hermit, I'll just stay home, read and watch... well, more listen to TV, and that's it. I don't think he could really be counted as an introvert...
There might be a memorial in the future, a lot of people would certainly like it, but I've been leaving that up to his family, at least the organization, and I haven't heard anything on that front.
We'll also need to pick out a headstone, plan is to get a double headstone, but use it a bit non-standardly, with his mom's name top center, his name lower left, and a blank spot for me on the right for when my time comes. Well that, or put my name without a date now, but that seems a touch morbid to me.
We've also scheduled an appointment with a lawyer to get the probate matter settled, 18th we'll see about getting that rolling so it goes to court.
Andrew Pam
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