So, I've been casually looking for a compact bookshelf stereo for my desk, something that could replace my computer speakers while at the same time giving me the option to listen to CDs or the radio, and yesterday I got this:

The image shows a silver JVC audio system with a digital display and various buttons and knobs. The display is illuminated with a blue light, showing the number "101." The system includes a radio tuner, CD player, and DVD player, as indicated by the labels on the front panel. The device is placed on a desk, with a red flexible tripod and a colorful LED light display in the background. The desk also has a small figurine on top of the audio system. The overall setting appears to be a workspace or a home entertainment area.

That's a big bigger than it looked in the pictures, or rather really deep. It is however great, and very much over kill. Why? Because it doesn't just do radio and CD, it also does DVDs, as in its a DVD player. No HDMI, but does have composite and I think S-video, so very nice piece, music and video in one small unit.

I might actually go back to the computer speakers, while this works fine, that'd allow me to hear things on the computer and play music at the same time, which is very appealing. Also since I've retired my engraver, I can replace my other computer with a small TV and watch DVDs at my desk if'n I want to.

Dunno if they still make units like this, but highly recommended, it's nice how it saves space while giving you so many options, imagine living in a tiny home or RV (caravan), all your media in one small box. I scored this one for just $20 on Marketplace, which seems about fair considering these were sold back around 2005, so really old.

#Stereo #electronics #Entertainment

Assuming the price was low enough, I'd buy one, should work well for my job. Top speed is a little limiting, have to avoid freeways, but unless I'm going west of St Louis county, that's easily done.

youtu.be/ddhjsKqrvOo

#YouTube #Electric Vehicles

So, over the weekend, I finally got around to putting up my M2 car collection mounted, which was not easy.

The picture doesn't show it well, but we live in a split level, so those are on the wall above the stairs leading to the basement level. That took some fun ladder settings which was still janky as hell. The shelves are an older Ikea picture ledge mounted upside except for the bottom one that I scored off of marketplace at an awesome price, 7 for... I think $30, something around that. A quick check on eBay, and people were selling NOS ones for over $100, so... I already have some figures on the newer model of picture ledge, those cost about $12 each, so it was a no brainer to snap these up, especially as they were nearby and I could pic them up while working.

I do have a thing for cab overs, which is why the vast majority are VW vans and pickups or 60's era American pickups and vans. I do have a few other things, but those were mostly bought before I found that I could get these at WalMart, when my choices were slimmer, stuff I like, but don't love.

And yes, those two cars with the orange background are Batmobiles, the Adam West one as well as the one from Batman Adventures, my two favorites.

#collectibles #Cars #diecastcar #homedecor

youtu.be/t1TDvy7djJg

#YouTube #Music

Found out that Waterfox plays nice with both Hitomi, and FimFiction, so decided to give it a shot as my main browser. FimFiction doesn't work well on FireFox but does on Chromium, while Hitomi doesn't work on either of those. Later I found out that WaterFox handles AliExpress fine too, a site that works on Chromium, but not FireFox.

Looks-wise, no different than Firefox, has a tab sidebar, but that's about all that's better. Oh, and it was giving a pop up about security settings with a link to click to get more info, official WaterFox and all, and the link was a 404. Yeah, that's real encouraging. After a bit I logged into my FireFox ID so I could gather all my add ons there, and see if'n they broke any of those sites, but they kept working. What didn't stay working was the browser itself, there was a blink, and most of my tabs disappeared. Oh, and GoComics oddly doesn't work with it, if you try to enlarge a pic, you just get a blank page.

Ok, so it's not going to work out, fired up Firefox... And now I'm missing my containers and one of my home page sites. Quit, went back to WF and logged it out of my Mozilla ID, quit and opened FireFox, and got most of my stuff back. Lots of logging in and a few settings later, and we've got almost everything, I've lost access to my Recalls group here.

The Recalls problem is partially my fault, BitWarden never saved the password, and I'd deleted the account email address, replacing it with a new account. Solution seems pretty simple, right? Just create that address again... And for some reason the Friendica password reset isn't making it to that address... Oh joy.

Any how, so I'm back to using FireFox for most things, and Chromium for a few others. Might keep WaterFox for Hitomi, dunno on that. Now to figure out something with @Recalls

#webbrowsers #friendica #friendicahelp

Figured I'd make some extra money, I mean over $200 to do a route? Sure, it's 150 or so mile route up in farm country, but we've done that before.

First problem was getting out there, Doppel's never had great highway range, but with the new tire and wheel combo, it's noticeably worse. Of course I kinda new that, but hadn't worried about it as my regular gig has very little high speed driving, plus I didn't expect it to matter much on this, but I'd forgotten that in Illinois, most rural roads are 55MPH. Yeah, problem.

Still, manageable, until we got to Staunton, this is wear things really went pear shaped. I mean Worden was bad, connection problems, and the app is garbage, but not too bad. Staunton? Forget having a connection at all, for some reason it's a dead zone. Aside from by the Casey's, I couldn't get a signal, we're talking showing one bar of 4GLTE at best, but nothing actually working. Weirdly, just 3 miles out of town and across the border into the next county and I'm getting two to three bars of 5G, so this is really weird. Also the app had one stop in the wrong place requiring four miles of backtracking, and with the connection down and the app glitchy, I had to route m'self as best as possible which really wasn't all that great, adding more miles to the route.

After that, connection was sometimes bad, but mostly worked. App was still a dumpster fire until about ten stops from the end when it would finally show me what the route plan was so that I knew what it was doing and could correct it as necessary, a big improvement.

Finally get to the last stop in Carlinville, and I have... fifty-nine miles of range left. Lovely, nearest charger? Around 32 miles or so, and remember the highway range problem. We did make it there, with a little over twenty miles of range left... And the charger won't work with my car. Thankfully it was only about five or so miles to another charger, most of it low speed roads, so not as much range degradation. Still, finally arrived with all of eighteen miles left.

When I took the job, I was expecting to finish around two hours early, and I suppose I did, but once you take in the trip to the charger, which was basically on the way home, and the trip home, that ate up those two hours, so I didn't get home until... eightish I think. By that point I was too tired to care, got home, plugged in as I didn't bother fully charging where I stopped, enough to get home and then some, but not a full charge.

Yeah, that whole thing was one problem after another problem. Not doing that again, Staunton, only if'n I get another cell service, which is something that might happen, maybe a prepaid that's not tied to any one network, thanks to modern 5G that could work, as long as at least one of the companies has good service out there. There's also the possibility that @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe and me might change service entirely, assuming we can save over Verizon where we're spending about $195 for 5G home internet, two cell phones and around 5 or 6 streaming service accounts I think. Yeah, getting a lot of services at a discount, so I doubt we'd find a better deal. I'd say that my next EV will get better range, but that's iffy, I'm looking at getting a Slate Van in 2027 possibly, and the standard range battery is only 150 miles, there will be a longer range battery, but price and range haven't been announced.

#electricvehcles #work #gig #driving #badday

Not sure why though. Yes, I didn't sleep well nor much last night, but that should just mean tired, instead my neck, upper back, shoulders and feet all hurt.

#today was a good enough day, because of the sleeping problems I cancelled my shift with Better Trucks, but in the end wound up working any how even though I didn't need to as I had the opportunity to work in Wood River, somewhere I have been in at least six months, maybe longer. Funny, thanks to the tariffs, Better Trucks is drying up, but one of my other gigs is heating up as it looks like UPS is trying to build their own alternative to the USPS. Well, money in my pocket as long as things keep going like this, so no complaint here.

Oh, and this song just feels appropriate today: youtu.be/YApDcvIhlWw

#YouTube #Music

For those what don't know, I drive an electric car, a Chevy Bolt to be specific. While I don't usually need a fast charger, when I do, it's a bit of a pain as there aren't a lot of CCS chargers in St Louis, but Tesla chargers are a fair bit more common.

Obviously the solution is an adapter, but I'm frugal, so I've been holding out. Frugal, not cheap, you can get some adapters down around $100, but those are usually unknown Chinese brands with a warranty not worth the paper its printed on, and quite capable of melting down when used. So, I went to one of the well respected companies, A2Z to get one, now that they're on sale, use the code FLASHSPRING and it's just $127.50

#ElectricCar #NACS #CCS1 #Charging

We've started both a Mastodon and a Diaspora, mostly for crosspost testing, and having a backup for contacting @#SpaceHost Help should this instance go down.

That said, as the newest toot on @Taurnsndhaus Admin says, I'll be using that one for St Louis related toots, maybe unique to there, maybe boosting stuff from here. No political stuff unless its really funny, or #STL related. We'll also be posting any STL or #missouri based recalls there as well.

@Taursndhaus Admin 's use is uncertain at this time, testing purposes definitely, beyond that, unsure. I might post (toot?) my Tumblr favorites over there too, that's what pushed me to set up these accounts, I my send them there and re-share them here, we'll see. Beyond that, I'm not sure how I'm going to use that. Heck, I set that one up as my old #diaspora on rageoss vanished, actually the whole pod seems to have. Activity on that one is obviously uncertain as Diaspora's lack of #ActivityPub limits the reach, if it had that, I'd prolly be running Diaspora instead of #friendica

So what started all of this?
It was brought to my attention that although my Tumblr posts were showing up fine on my end, albeit with some work as some posts wouldn't show a thumbnail or a link from the blog I found the post on, requiring me to find a re-share that would work, there were problems with sharing those posts. Mastodon shows nothing but a link, but that's the same whether its coming from here or directly from Tumblr; Diaspora however could show them fine when direct posted there, but when crossposted from here, all they see is a link. Clearly Tumblr is somehow breaking sharing from here as regular news articles, boosts, and any original posts here share fine, but none of Tumblr's posts do. Somehow I'm not surprised, I mean Tumblr offers an RSS feed, and I can follow feeds here just like I do any member of the #Fediverse , but their feeds are flaky at best, sometimes they won't work at all, giving me no way to follow them, other times posts lag and/or show up in clumps.

But any how, there's the whats and whys of where else I can be found.

So, just picked me up a new used LG Ultra wide monitor, got it set up and...

1920X1080 maximum available resolution. Yeah, that's a problem, the native resolution is 2560X1080 and that's why I bought it. Sure, size is wrong in the preferences, 34in, but the 29in LG ultra wide has always done that.

So, we go searching for an answer and on one thread, the question of cable quality comes up along with some ways to determine port, mode and things like that. Notably, despite it having an HDMI input, it shows my computer is using Display port. Hmm, that means I'm using one of my old Amazon Basics DP to HDMI cables, I wonder...

The computer has both HDMI and DP output, at one time I'd had two monitors connected, and I guess I just kept using the DP for no particular reason, switch to HDMI, and Bob's your uncle.

Yay, now I have...

#linux #monitor

He's the lead singer of Pearl Jam, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that remembers when Jeremy came out along with a few other great songs during the grunge era, right?

Thanks to Hawaaii Five-0, the new one, not the classic one, I got turned on to The End, which is a great song, particularly acoustically...

youtu.be/BHR9QTk2ERM

I've shared that before, but here's something new that the algorithm recently turned me on to...

youtu.be/lZVrOtO25zM

Doesn't sound like Roger Waters could've handled the singing himself, and I really like Eddie's voice here, along with him not trying to imitate the original, but instead singing it his way, which I think works quite well.

#music #pinkfloyd #Pearl Jam #RogerWaters #eddievedder

For whatever reason, the Better Trucks shift app doesn't have a decimal point restriction when it comes to calculating your pay. Sure, that gets fixed when the day is done and your pay is finalized, but until then you get things like this:

#work #programmingflaws

Not much to say about #today, relatively slow down, household finance stuff and did some work for fun. Yes, work for fun, picked up in Glen Carbon, did one drop in Edwardsville, three in Marine, and one in Highland, four from WalMart, one from Petsmart. I've already more than made my money for the week, so there was no need to do any more, but... Couldn't resist.

Too many miles for too little money, but like I said, did it for fun. Turns out I've been to both towns, did Amazon deliveries in Marine around 2018, and last time me and @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe drove out to PA to visit my family, we'd stopped in Highland at Huddle House for breakfast. Ain't a Huddle House no more, which is a shame as I like them, but I'm up for trying the new place, Eddies Rise 'n Dine, if'n it's still around next time. Whole thing was just wandering around rural and small town Illinois for a few hours, then coming back 44 miles.

So #today I made the rather bizarre decision to jettison my scheduled package route that would've paid up to $150 for an on demand $50 order.
This was a gamble, I mean I could wind up with $50 and nothing for the return trip, but I got lucky. It started with this one, fifteen gallons of paint down to Crystal City, somewhere me and @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe had been to tour the caves down there, but that's about all we did down there, so I figured this'd be a more fun to do than my usual package route.
After that, we did start heading home, only to score a decent gig in Arnold at WalMart. Cool, but we still have a long drive home, right? Best Buy stepped up with a route ending about two miles past my home.
Yeah, that worked well, a wandering route home that in the end paid $115 for 116 miles. Usually you have enough wasted miles that you don't get anything near $1/mi, but there we go, almost spot on.

Yep, fun work, good money, and there's still plenty of time to do more. Today was a good day.

#work #gig #driving

Ok, I think I'm going to try to post a song cover video each day for the month of March.
Why?
Because I can... though whether I can remember everyday is rather iffy, so feel free to remind me. I'm going to try to come up with interesting ones, so no Hurt by Johnny Cash nor Sound of Silence by Disturbed, I'm some rather obscure ones in my music collection and I'm aware of a few more that I don't have in my collection yet. Oh and the new ones that I have on physical media and haven't ripped yet.

Yep, prepare for a month of #youtube video links.

At least nothing formal, not that I plan on doing anything today, another than recovering from seven days of work and I think around sixty-five hours. Yeah, I might've over done it, both knees, one foot, back, and shoulders all hurt. Still, got a lot of things to catch up here, household finances, cleaning, and might do some online used shopping off Marketplace, if'n I get to it, but going to a store? Nah, not happening, haven't got the energy for that.

Oh, any #android programmers here?

We did say we got it, right?

loops.video/v/6BstSglyI4 sums up things quickly, but a few details as to why the purchase, as I'm anti-consumerist.

Like I said in here, it's an upgrade in all but memory over my previous G Power 2023. I did have to give up half the memory and settle for 128G, but since I was only using 47 and have an SD card option, that's not exactly a big deal. In return, I got a better camera, bar code scanning yesterday was lightning quick, wireless charging which is a nice plus, IP68 and IP69 water resistance, along with Gorilla Glass 5.

As a delivery driver, those last three are very important, the IP ratings are for water, one is for spray, and one is for splash/submersion, apparently you could clean this by throwing it in a dishwasher. And unlike the model one step down that has Gorilla Glass 3 which is scratch resistance, this one is impact resistant, ostensibly to a nearly four foot drop. I also hedged my bets by buying a case for it.. Actually two, there was a delay on the second as the one I ordered was out of stock, instead of clear magnetic, I'll be getting a black one. That kinda sucks as I like showing off the fact that I have a green phone, something interesting considering how many phones come in black. I did get a clear regular case, but I want to try the magnetic one, as it allows the phone to work like an iPhone does, allowing the use of magnetic charging and accessories.

Not much else to say, light on the pre-installed apps, and all but Google and Motorola are unistallable. Yep, don't want FaceBook on the phone, then feel free to delete it, though you are stuck with Google's stuff as that's an Android requirement. As to the Motorola, that's mostly just stuff to customize it, and it works rather nice, I like the experimental monochrome icon theme m'self.

Obviously it doesn't work on everything, but quite a lot work, with the funniest failure being Frayt, which just turns into a dark blue blob.

Overall, I gotta say I'm liking this, we'll see if'n the battery is big enough for work, I do currently have it set to battery saver where it stops at 80%, the camera works much better than the old one. I'll have to find a magnetic charging mount for the car and see how that works. I definitely have to recommend Motorola if you're looking for a phone that works, and is reasonably priced, they're made by Lenovo who makes computers that are reasonably priced and perform well, but won't blow your socks off, and the same holds true for the phones.

#android #cellphone #phone #motorola #Lenovo #review

Right now I track mileage on a spreadsheet, and another page on it works as a checkbook register. This all works well enough, however its all manual, and it seems to me that this could be automated.

I write down the details of each gig trip in a notebook, then type it into the spreadsheet, and then total everything up on the mileage page, and calculate my pay. On the banking page, I record all my receipts, and copy over the info from the bank. Seems like a lot more work than necessary.

Ideally I'd replace the notebook with an app, but everything I've seen is over kill and costs money, basically I just want an on phone version of my notebook that exports to the spreadsheet.

As to the spreadsheet, it just seems that there should be a way to automate much of the processing, but I have no understanding of how spreadsheets work.

Anyone out there what know how to fix this stuff? Maybe write an app for me?

#android #spreadsheet #Data #accounting

Fairly big box with something clunking around in it...

That's an Amazon quality packing job, though the worst has got to be REI.

Salutations all y'all, whatever your are.

Not working today, I'm waiting for the cursed phone to arrive, besides, I needed a break, it's been a week. Monday wasn't bad, chaotic, but nothing bad, Tues was normal.
Then there was Wednesday, where I started work at 0530, picked up 136 packages in my Bolt and spent around 7 hours delivering.
Next morning was supposed to start the same, but got there and wasn't needed. Too late to go back to sleep, so home until standard start time, but at least dispatch did me a favor and gave me my favorite route. And why's that my favorite route? 75 stops plus having to take packages back to the warehouse, and I still only drove 47 miles and got $103. Yeah, that zone is a gold mine and for some reason none of the sorters claim it even though they get first dibs on zones. Ran an errand, grabbed some food, then grabbed a delivery that wound up being unable to be delivered, but at least there I get paid for the return trip, $27 for 14 miles anyone?
So, today is waiting for UPS so I can finally get my cursed phone. You might remember me mentioning that I was supposed to get a new phone last Friday. Yeah, that didn't happen, in fact on Sat it was still showing as not shipped. And then on Sunday the order status link stopped working. Tues I poked the customer service chat bot, as there's no other online service, and it said there was no such order...! And then on Wed I get an email it's on it's way, yay... Shipping delayed due to mechanical issues, and unless I'm blind, none of the emails nor the tracking screen said anything about signature required. Yeah, you know what happened. Ok, so now I'm here waiting for them, and expecting the phone to be defective or destroyed in shipping with the way my luck is going.

So, how's everything going out there for y'all, whatever y'all are?

Not much to say, ordered a Motorola G Power (2025) this afternoon, should have it tomorrow.
I'm already rocking the same phone but the 2023 edition, this one'll have half the memory, but be faster, have wireless charging, and most importantly considering my job, higher water rating (IP 68 & IP 69 IIRC), along with MilSpec for drop. Memory isn't an issue, I'm only using 47G of 256G right now, so being cut down to 128G is no big deal, especially since this still takes SD cards.
Oh, and the battery might be bigger, which would be nice, the apps I gig on are power hungry, I don't come close to making it through an entire shift with the current phone.

Only bad thing is getting it set up, that'll be a hassle as I prefer not to import my apps and such, I prefer a clean manual install, so lots of work getting everything set up on a weekend where I have to do household finances, normal chores and want to do some extra shopping.

Oh, and I have to sell the old phone, I could've gotten $75, but with them selling on eBay for $90 to $125, I figure I should sell it m'self. If'n anyone wants a good phone, give me a holler. Oh, and I have a 2020 edition Razr for sale too, usable, but needs repair, along with a Lenovo 11 inch tablet if'n any of that interests y'all.

#cellphone #motorola

Yep, still trying to find something what runs good on the craptop, and it's not going swimmingly.

I've tried various Linuxes... Linii? to no avail, so I decided to try something new...
FydeOS? Basically a fork of ChromiumOS, yes, Chromium, not Chrome, but basically the same thing. How do you use this thing? I got it up and working, but I can't wrap my brain about the computer is the browser... or is that the browser is the computer?

So, next up, Haiku. Whaz Haiku? An operating system inspired by BeOS from the 90s. Ehhhh, not sold on it, but it has potential so let's install it... Ummm, the installer can't see my HD... well, EMMC, haven't had that happen in a while.

Well Ok then, let's go back to Linux with Rhino Linux, been a bunch of chatter about this one. Launch the live installer, and... the tray is missing. No clock, date, access to the WiFi, etc, but glitches sometimes happen with live environments, so we'll install it and see how it goes, because this is a real nice looking OS... And same problem. Yeah, that's kinda a deal breaker.

Up next, after I finish writing? TinyLinux, we'll see how this goes, can't say my expectations are particularly high at this point though.

#linux #computers #operatingsystem

I've been thinking of going solar in the future, and was thinking why not run as much of the house off DC as possible?

Well, YouTube offered me this video, which basically covers the same thing only targeted for off grid campers.

youtu.be/UAZGX379dmc

Anyone know what it is?

Seriously, the cruelty is the point only works short term, make the rich richer?
These days we don't make things, we consume them, so every person that's deported?
One less sale
Every person arrested?
One less sale
Every person who loses their income to a government shut down, etc?
One less sale

Crashing the economy doesn't make a lot of sense, as the rich need the economy to keep making them richer, so where is this even going?

#uspol #trump #consumerism #capitilism #economy

Wait, I've always been a bit loopy, I meant to say that I've joined Loops. Actually joined it last week, but finally posted my first vid, just a little intro video, but I think there'll be more as I like it. I could use to find a PeerTube for longer stuff, and I'll likely do a second intro since I think I'm going to make more use of this than I'd originally thought, but we'll see.

loops.video/@Vextaur

#Loops #video

If'n it's utterly impractical for me, too small for work, and not enough range for @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe 's commute. Surprisingly if not for that, it'd likely work for us, enough room for the groceries, and those can be reached without using a highway. If'n I did Doordash or the like, it would be big enough for that, and maybe enough range for the day. It'd make a great third car for us, or likely be great for cities, which is what it's intended for.

youtu.be/K8zZ_4jXXEU

When was the last time I posted a pic of me?

A freshly shaven and showered me, wearing my new to me (Goodwill purchase) around the house sweater.

#selfie

The joys of being a delivery driver in #STL Yep, snowpocalypse, so very fun to work in.

Hasn't been a terrible week, but it's hard to make money when you have to take two days off because of weather, and then on the third day, make $105 but wind up spending $150 to get recovered on the way to your last delivery.

Rest of the week hasn't been bad, though yesterday was interesting, had a couple near stucks where it became a matter of keep moving. That or find a way out before no forward movement becomes no movement at all, including at one point driving nearly ¼ mile backwards to the nearest place I could safely turn around.

By the time I get home, I'm dead, so haven't been keeping up with online stuff including doing proofreading for people. Hopefully next week'll be better, couple cold days in the forecast, but most at or above freezing, and no snow in the forecast either.

So how's your week been?

And what is there to say, I'm still here. Really, it's not been a really notable one, which I suppose is a blessing in itself, I mean I've lost my father a couple years back, and it's inevitable that I'll lose more in the future, but this year wasn't one of those.

Work, still the perfect job for me, I'm almost undeniably autistic, and have found the perfect place for me. Of course the tariff threats worry me as my job is delivery, which is of course import driven, heavily Chinese imports driven. But what can I do but wait and see? On the work side, we have streamlined things, shut down my LLC, everything I was doing had fallen under the sole proprietor envelope, so no point in wasting money on that and making things more complicated.

Money, we survived, but our backup account is in rough shape, down around $1K maybe. Checking is always depleted, but that's how our finances are set up. Property saving account is going strong, I was originally going to put it into a short term CD, but I'm leaning towards using it for home improvements instead. We will be reducing how much we put into property by $50 every two weeks as well as potentially increasing my pay and lowering the phone bill, so if'n things don't change too much we'll end 2025 better, but time will tell.

And me? I work, read, occasionally proofread fan fics, and that's about it, assuming I even have energy for that, something that's been a problem lately, not sure if'n it's winter issues, or something else. I don't really go anywhere, the world is too peopley for me. Seriously, I mean my job requires about 1 minute of interaction with people, otherwise interaction is option or accidental. I want to retire somewhere rural, maybe southern IL, where there's less people.

I'd post a year end selfie, but I need to shave rather badly.
Whelp, onwards, it's 2025 (time not year) as I type this, that seems appropriate. Bedtime will prolly be within an hour, sleep when I get to it, unless something interesting pops up on one of my apps.

#2024recap #life

Hadn't known bZ4X actually stood for something, but apparently Beyond Zero (in other words, electric), and 4X means it's an all wheel drive crossover. Who the heck named that?

Admittedly it's not the first naming WTF though, C-HR anyone? Nothing wrong with it, but says nothing to me, and makes me think Honda with their CRV and such. Then there was the Prius fiasco, anyone remember the Prius V and then they tried again with numbers IIRC, and didn't they try a third time? I might have the order wrong, but that happened.

And beyond names there's the vehicles that don't make a lot of sense like the Corolla Cross, which doesn't seem like a Corolla and has a weird hybrid option what with a gas motor under the hood, and an electric motor in back. Toyota hybrids in the past have stuck with gas and electric under the hood joined by a planetary gear CVT. Or how about a hybrid Sienna? I don't think they make it any more, but I can't say I'd buy one used, sure Toyota has a pretty good rep for quality, but I can't imagine that it'd be using a four cylinder like the rest of their hybrids, so being rather unique, how well will it work, and how long will you be able to get parts?

I think Toyota needs to get it's house in order.

jalopnik.com/toyota-may-finall…

I'm rather a fan of this story, I've read the book though well after I've seen the movies, many movies. So far this year I haven't watched too many, notably I haven't been real interested in an American Christmas Carol for whatever reason this year, though I have caught both Patrick Stewart's and George C Scott's versions, and will likely catch a few more. I've also seen more than a few Muppet Christmas Carol reaction videos.

So, let's start there, the Muppets. What's there to say about this one? It's sorta an acquired taste, it's kinda weird what with muppets and humans coexisting, I mean more than a little of the food is sentient for example. They also make some interesting choices, although they do stay fairly true to the book. Nothing wrong with it, but it's definitely on the weird side.

The Patrick Stewart version, well acted, but the most overtly Christian version, what with adding a Christmas morning church visit to the story, along with everyone him and Present visit singing Silent Night, although I think that's been the standard carol in the few versions that do the visit. Then there's the fact that he threatens to beat a caroler at his office door with his walking stick. Say what you will about Scrooge, he's not violent, just willfully ignorant about the suffering of the working class and poor. The only other even remotely Christian version I can recall is the Alistair Simms version I think, one of them ends with Scrooge going to Hell and getting a taste of what his afterlife will be

George C Scott remains my favorite of the traditional versions, and it's tweaks are really down to the performances, I can't think of anything that jumps out at me as being added. Obviously a very expensive production, from the cast to the setting, a preserved piece of London that doesn't normally allow any film productions in. Of course an ABC TV (US) production financed by IBM can get access to places like that, and they hew close to the book, most notably in having Marley's funeral coach pass Scrooge on his way home. Notable in the performances is Scrooge's glee at described what he thinks should happen to those who go about with Merry Christmas on their lips, along with Present's very, very blunt assessment of Scrooge, Edward Woodward is an absolute joy in that role.

Will I watch more? Perhaps, maybe give Kelsey Grammer's version a look, I recall thinking it was alright, though the actor reuse for the ghosts really feels far more forced than the stage versions I've seen as well as An American Christmas Carol. It is odd as IIRC it's a musical, and Kelsey is not really a great musical performer.

Speaking of An American Christmas Carol, I really love the idea, but the execution is definitely lacking, though that's really to be expected from a low budget TV movie of the late 70's. Setting it in a Great Depression New England quarry town is a great choice, and they do a job of keeping the same message while tweaking 'Scrooge' to better fit the setting. It'd be nice to see someone redo this with a better budget and fix the flaws, the biggest being how he gets the truck loaded up Christmas morning when the unloading took both his clerk and his driver.

#christmas #christmascarol

Remember this?

Yep, it really works, that's the good news.
The bad news?
Well...
You can find a similar one on the Ninja brand, and I'm not sure if'n the differences are to protect against lawsuits, or just cutting every corner they can.
Instead of a central filter like the Ninja and many other cold brew devices, you just pour your coffee into this.
Instead of a digital control, you have a simple knob, turn it until a vortex forms, then turn down until it just touches the mixer.
Yes, it'll make coffee in 15 minutes, so long as you want a light brew. It's 10 minutes for light, 20 for medium, and 30 for strong, plus five minutes for the grounds to settle.
Once it's settled, you push the filter in, it's attached to the lid with a plungers, and you push down until it clicks onto the mixer, then hold the lid while drawing the plunger up to pull the grounds out. Its messy even when done right, and more so when you mess up, my last batch needed me to filter the coffee a second time before I could drink it.

Is it worth the money? Prolly if'n you have an Ollies near you or find one in another discount chain, since it's $5 there, and the Ninja lists for around $50 or $60 on Amazon. I do like the fact that I can fairly quickly brew cold coffee, but it is rather messy, and by no means fast, it's almost easier to use a Keurig on a strong brew and put a lot of ice in the cup.

#coffee #coffeemaker #coldbrew

Just a nice traditional tree...

What do you mean bats, margarita glasses and peppers aren't normal Christmas lights?

tumblr.com/taur10/769952833272… (video)

Yeah, we don't do traditional here

#christmas2024 #christmastree

Yeah, just not feeling it this year. I supposed compared to many my year has been pretty good, and it has, but the tail end, woo, chaotic, but that was mostly my fault.

Nov was spent mostly not working as my truck spent nearly three weeks in the shop trying to find a problem. Three weeks and nearly a thousand dollars by the time all was said and done. I had the money, but that took a bite out of company finances. And of course that means not contributing to the house, no work equals no paycheck after all, so the house is a bit strained right now including back up funds. And there were some bumps with the room mate's share of things, he switched banks and is now in the same credit union as us, however they don't have an easy way to transfer funds between members, it's through a third party, it's manual, and it's slow, like three days assuming you don't hit a holiday or weekend. Once again, nothing big, just disruptive.
Oh, and did I mention getting a new car? Yeah, been meaning to do that for like a year, but the three weeks of repair hell led to it finally happening, and luckily only $2500 out of pocket and no payments. Yes, the company was doing really good.
Heck, and then there was dissolving my LLC, it hasn't been doing anything in a year, but it was the holder of my domain name, so that meant dissolving the company, changing insurance, getting rid of the bank account, changing email, and on. Yeah, that's been chaotic, and it's still going on, though it's at least down to a trickle.

Dec is fine, work's going great, I'm settling into the car, capacity and range, especially winter range was a big concern. Despite having electric cars in the household for three years and being gung ho on electric vehicles, the transition wasn't quite as smooth as it could be because I was still a bit nervous about what the limits would be and how they'd effect the job. Frankly, no real change. Sure, the lack of seat and steering wheel heaters means I have to charge more than I'd planned, and my fuel savings will likely be smaller than expected, but that's basically it, no changes needed, Chevy Bolts are surprisingly roomy inside.
Outside of that, all that's kept me from Christmas shopping and decoration, I mean all the chaos I mentioned, plus work, plus story proofreading equals little spare time, and no real motivation. Wed I finally got the inflatables set up after getting the lights on the garage, but the wind picked up and I didn't feel real safe going up on the roof, so the main string of lights hasn't gone up. And today its 36°F and raining, so that's not happening, ditto for tomorrow. Wed is my last day off, so maybe then if'n the weather is good, otherwise no Christmas lights this year. I think I also have a car costume 'round here, but no radiator grill means how do I put the nose on? And then there's the tree, going to have to figure out how to make some room in the living room, between the record player on the folding chair, the unfinished computer project on the couch and a dismantled desk that no one wants to buy taking up the spare living room space... Ummm, where to I put it?

Any how, that's about where things are here, bit more than a month, and then we'll see how the new admin messes up my life, my livelihood is very much in danger, but no use worrying about something I can't change.

#life #christmas2024 #electriccar

and then I bought this today at Ollie's

Tornado effect allows you to make cold brew coffee in minutes instead of 12 to 24 hours...
Yeah, sounds like horse hockey to me, and definitely not the kind of thing I'd normally buy, but it was... $5. Yeah, really, how could I refuse at that price?

Might be trash, but I've wasted the price of what, less than one cup of coffee at Starbucks?

#coffee #kitchengadgets #kitchenappliances

Saw an article on Flipboard that was from Popular Mechanics via AppleNews, so I couldn't open it on my phone. No problem, just go to the site and search, right? Almost the entire first page of results for off grid solar were 'articles' about great sales on solar panels, power banks and the like.

#reading #news #advertising

So, saw þis sign...

Yes I know, it's referring to þe school's mascot, but seriously, am I þe only one picturing a club þat delivers a new hawk to your home every monþ?

Funny thing, this past weekend, or Monday I happened upon an article about blue stop signs, apparently sometimes seen on private property. Never seen one of those before, so it was interesting. So come Tues, I'm up in a trailer park... sorry, mobile home village, slightly outside of my zone thanks to a miss sort that wasn't that far out of my way, and...

Well Ok then, guess we have them in MO too.

#stcharles #mo #missouri #oddsighting