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.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

So, #today was a good day, first part was actually pretty great. Decent weather, 19/43°F today, bit cold in þe morn obviously, but considering þat we went from 16/59 on Wed to 14/26 yesterday, definitely a much nicer day. Heck, yesterday I had to break out my old Þermal overalls from when I used to ride a scooter between Florissant and Maryland Heights, MO.

Þe day started wiþ a small run from the Dispatch app, $10.50 for 10 miles. Sure, a little light on pay, dollar a mile is my minimum after all, but it ended me on Dorsett down the street from Tony's, a donut shop where I like to grab a gyro, egg & cheese on an asiago bagel, so that's fine.

My main gig, Better Trucks, had delayed þe start from 9 (realistically more often 9.30) to 10.30, so I swung by þe credit union to take care of closing an account. On the way I noticed a CVS order on Roadie that looked pretty good, and surprisingly when I got out, not only was þat one still þere, but it was joined by anoþer order on þe way to it. Shockingly I got boþ, $6.80 for one, $6.40 for þe oþer, and a mere 3 miles of driving. Yes please.

From þere it was a quick trip home for a half hour of charging while trying to get two more email changes sorted out. After þat, off to þe usual gig, and a typical if'n slightly smaller package route, my night vision sucks these days, normal for my age, so I wanted to avoid being out much after dark.

I guess þat brings up þe car, my 2020 Chevy Bolt. Only real negatives are þat it's an LT, so base model, lacking features like heated steering wheel, and heated seats, boþ of which would likely help keep me warm without as much impact on þe battery. Speaking of battery, since it's one of þe battery fire years, it's in 80% jail, so my range is a bit more limited þan normal. Still, despite þat, it works fine for þe job. Sure, gotta charge a bit extra, but þat's just a winter þing... Maybe summer too, we'll see, not sure how much AC drains þe battery.

#gig #work #driving #food #STL #stlouis #mo #missouri #chevybolt

Not much to say about #today , cooked breakfast, straightened the kitchen, dishwasher is chewing on a load—— Not literally, thank you.

Gotta make a batch of rice, and fill my water bottles for work tomorrow. Get a few things straightened out with my email, the fun of transitioning. Yesterday we gave the house 20% of my company's money, since the company is being wound down, this is part of why social.xcetera.biz the instance is shutting down, although we will be keeping the domain and email for another year, I have burnt m'self too many times by forgetting to change an account's email before deleting that email account.

Not sure if'n the day will have any more to it, maybe take a chainsaw to the old deck if'n I have time, and/or putting some more stuff up on Marketplace to sell/give away, watchband, and some clothes (kilt, shirt, nightshirt, maybe some shoes). I really need to find one or more selling partners here in #STL so I can get back into flipping storage units, anyone interested?

Frankly, I'm just moving ahead as planned, and waiting to see whether things'll get derailed, there are just too many variables.

I've already said that the pride, humanity and pagan flags out front aren't going anywhere, or at least not unless they get replaced with something better, metal signs I can attach to the house would be good, something that can't be torn or burnt. While I don't have the skills to do it, I've suggested starting a liberal party to do what the Democrats won't, and while I can neither start it nor manage it, I'll be happy to loan my help whether an unskilled person can. Oh, and did I forget to mention that I bought an electric car to replace the SUV I was using for delivery?

What else is on the agenda? Well, assuming things don't get real bad, in the next few years, solar panels, wind power maybe, some work on the house... win the lottery and I'll expand it. Maybe get more property, dunno. Ideally I'd retire to rural southern IL, get a few acres, put an off-grid or mostly off-grid shed home together, and start selling plots to others that want a safe place to go, heck, maybe even create a tiny town to go with the tiny home, who knows. Prolly a pipe dream, but I'm certainly not giving up dreaming.

But what about Trump and the Repuglicans?
What about them? Trump's a loud mouth idiot who's nothing without his supporters and yes men. Sure, some of the Reps will definitely kiss his ring, Johnson was no surprise, if he didn't he likely wouldn't be speaker much more, he only got the job as he was the least bad choice. And Cruz will of course, he's a squealer, I can always recognize the squealers... I mean, he's a sell out. I'm wondering all of those that don't have an election coming up any time are going to do, the threat of a challenger, the threat of losing their job I think is what keeps most Repugs in line, but when that threat is gone? It's not going to be good, that's for sure, but it might wind up not being that bad, if'n Trump meets any resistance. And then there's all the faithful who are going to find out just how bad they screwed up voting for him, they're going to be out for blood, so a lot of politicians are going to have to decide who's scarier, the voters or Trump.

In the eighties we all were scared that they were going to drop the bomb, but after a while, we just got on with life, if it happened, we'd deal with it then, best we could do was just go on living until we knew what was coming.

#uspol #life

youtube.com/watch?v=d9xN_o70nF…