🎵 Currently listening to… 🎧

I’ve listened to this album twice while writing this post and, I don’t know exactly why, but it just seems to fit.

Anyhow, I found this nifty gallery shortcode and thought it might be fun to poke through the 2023 pictures on my phone and write a little bit about them. I brought photos of pets, watches, bracelets, code, and more! I’m not certain how I feel about including any JS on my website, considering that it’s sort-of “suckless” otherwise… well, I’ll see if I can come up with another way to do this that I like, but it’s JS for now.

Onward; let’s start with some pets!

🐕 Pets 🐈

Penny’s in two of these photos, laying on her little couch in the third. My fiance’s father has essentially adopted her at this point – we slowly went from 100% ownership, to 50%, to 10%, to now essentially not even 1%. It’s what’s best for Penny, since my fiance’s father gets outside a lot more, and has even started bringing Penny to work with him either frequently or all of the time. I was recently conscripted to pet-sit Penny while my fiance and her family went on vacation in Florida, hence these photos. And, sure, if I really wanted to tag along I could’ve, but my fiance and I just spent a week or so in Florida visiting my family, and currently I don’t work remote but she does. In any case, even though my fiance wasn’t home, it was a little crowded trying to fall asleep with all the pets!

On that, we had always closed the bedroom door at night previously, but I knew that Penny would refuse to sleep anywhere else, and that it wouldn’t be fair to Lucy and Lorelei if they were locked out while Penny got to sleep in the bedroom. So, since watching Penny, we leave the bedroom door open and the kitties frequently snuggle up. Sometimes if they’re being too much of a pain (just getting into anything in sight and making noise well after I should’ve fallen asleep), we’ll close them out and give them their new favorite toy to play with, but most of the time they snuggle up and sleep just fine :)

⌚ Stuff 📚

We start off with a self-portrait of sorts. I was just looking outside and thought the reflection looked pretty neat, I’m wearing my “retro” PlayStation sweatshirt with my Mangchi hat that I break out every winter.

The next 2 photos are an assortment of… stuff!

Jumping between both photos, there’s my Enchiridion alongside my copy of The Daily Stoic. I carry my Enchiridion on me nearly every day, and break it out and read random passages here and there. I revisit the 33rd verse more than any other. Before discovering stoicism, I recall actively making some of the decisions described in this verse – essentially, I decided that I wanted to be more. The NIN song Right Where It Belongs is a little deeper than the point I’m trying to make, but the idea presented in it of really reflecting on yourself and actively deciding what you want out of life is an idea of really resonates with me. I began considering these sorts of things between 5 and 10 years ago, and even then I thought it was “too late.” Of course, these years pass and I wonder to myself how I could’ve ever possibly thought that it was “too late,” but I feel like this is a trick we frequently play on ourselves.

I should also mention that I can push WIN+F2 to open to a random “chapter” of some stoic text. I’ve posted about this BASH script on Reddit if you’re interested, and here’s the PDF (written by Grey Freeman) as well.

The Daily Stoic has been a great companion throughout the week, giving me bite-sized pieces of stoic philosophy to consider each day. Maybe ironically, today’s is about considering the “hidden costs” of our possessions, and questioning if they’re necessary or not. I purchased this book for both my mother and grandmother as well; my grandmother’s copy should arrive tomorrow. It does make me some type of joy and “closeness” knowing that my mother, and soon my grandmother, is reading the same page I am each day, and occasionally we’ll text back and forth about our opinions on different “chapters.”

Under my Enchiridion is the mouse mat my fiance picked up for me as a gift that I’ve completely fallen in love with, showcasing a lot of “retro tech” from a Tamagotchi to a SNES controller, DOOM II on floppy, and a little sheet of paper with cheat codes written on it. I remember I used to have a sheet similar to this, with all of the GTA 3 and Vice City cheats written on it that we’d pass around at school, since the internet wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today.

In the same photo are my two bracelets, one from Unjust Jewelry and the other from Drought. Maybe a funny story but, Drought was taking a relatively long time to re-release their bracelet (the bracelet on the bottom), and I absolutely had to have it. Out of the blue, they called out Unjust for “copying” their idea, and posted a link to the Unjust copy (the bracelet on the top). I still liked the design enough to order it, but now that I own both I must say that there is a very clear quality difference between the two; the Drought “web surfer” bracelet is just so much thicker and more comfortable. Maybe this is obvious at a glance but, can you picture that pointer charm poking into your hand or wrist? Of course you can, and it’s relatively thin which just makes it worse. I just feel like the thicker bracelet’s corners don’t feel quite as sharp, if that makes sense. Otherwise, I certainly like both designs, but come on. AOL Instant Messenger, Napster, Clippy? Internet Explorer, QuickTime? I never thought a bracelet of all things could teleport me back a decade and a half, yet here we are…

Speaking of going back, I’ve started to pick up some Casio watches that I particularly like the design for. If you’re curious, left-to-right: CA-53W, F-91W, and the A100. I couldn’t get the A100 to fit on my wrist for the life of me, as the “perfect fit” seemed to reside between 2 links, but I asked ChatGPT what to do and it said to pick up some moleskin and stick it on the back of the watch. It worked perfectly! I haven’t attempted any mods or anything of the sort with these watches, but I keep seeing CA-53W mods being recommended to me on YouTube and one of these days I’ll be tempted enough to try one out. I’ll also mention that I recently lost a bidding war on eBay for a G-Shock that I liked, and I’m still in the market for a “tougher” watch to wear while I’m ie: shoveling or roof raking. My inexpensive F-91W is currently serving that purpose, but don’t tell my F-91W that :D

I finally landed the haircuts for men keygen album on tape, which included the pictured floppy disc, though unfortunately it contained a now-defunct URL which is a real bummer. I’ll reach out to the artist to dig more into this one of these days!

I tossed the headphone cups in the photo as a reminder to mention that I finally got around to replacing mine on my WH-1000XM3’s, but I won’t bother linking to the pair I bought since I’ll admit they aren’t the most comfortable. I’ll use them for a while before trying a different set, though, since it may just be a matter of breaking them in for now.

Last but certainly not least, the bone conducting headphones. My coworker’s father bought these for my coworker, and he let me borrow them so I could see if I liked them. He ended up upgrading to a different pair so I got a pretty good deal purchasing these from him, and I have to say that they’re a game-changer. The audio quality is definitely “meh,” but comfort and ease-of-use are king here. I own a pair of WF-1000XM3’s, Sony’s IEM’s, and they sound great! And they have noise cancellation! But they refuse to stay in my ears, and they’re uncomfortable while they’re in there, and I would frequently need to clean them. I tried another set of those little ear tips and they certainly made them slightly more comfortable, but what if I have one in and someone is trying to get my attention to talk to me?

There’s just no beating bone conductors where I don’t even have to pause what I’m listening to to hear what you’re trying to tell me, and if the conversation ends up demanding enough of my attention to where I can’t focus on two things at once, the pause button is a physical button, which I never thought would be such an exciting feature. It doesn’t have noise cancellation, and it doesn’t have soft-touch buttons, and it doesn’t have great sound quality, but it also doesn’t need any of these things. I tend to listen to ambient/“easy listening” music throughout my workday, and switch over to a podcast or audiobook when I’m walking to my car, or doing work outside or around the house. I’m wearing gloves while I roof rake? I can still push the pause button. My hands are full? I can still hear you. That, and it’s no problem to wear them for about half the day. As I said, they’re a game-changer.

My shelf is just a random photo I took, as it’s full of things I like or find interesting. The Linux Pocket Guide snuck in there, and has since made friends with my C Pocket Guide, Grep Pocket Guide, and Python Pocket Guide. I do frequently pester ChatGPT when I need help understanding this or that concept, or for example I’ll reference Python’s phenomenal documentation, but nothing beats having this sort of thing right in your hands to thumb through. Conversely, my bookshelf is littered with books that I likely won’t read until I spend an Audible credit on the audiobook version. I know myself, and I have a much easier time reading something long-form as audio. This isn’t always true, but it’s frequently true.

This cable holder stuck on my headphones I just thought looked funny, since I’m the only person who ever gets to see it. Since switching to a 1/4" to 1/8" cable, the cable would frequently fall out of the jack. How to go about fixing this? Well… stick a cable holder on there! :)

The t-shirt actually isn’t mine. A coworker conspicuously asked everyone for their shirt sizes, and then either made or picked up t-shirts related to things that fit our personalities and interests. I don’t have a photo of mine, but mine is a cassette deck and some tapes. I’m not a sports fan but the pictured t-shirt may be my favorite out of everyone’s, and was given to one of the football fans in the office.

Perhaps a random photo of some VHS tapes piled up, but these are actually some home movies stacked on top of a “Super VHS” VCR that my mother gifted me, that I picked out specifically because it had s-video output. I use it to digitize our old home movies, though the cheap s-video-to-USB adapter I picked up on Amazon seems to lock up my Linux PC randomly; essentially, it acts like I’m plugging/unplugging the adapter until it randomly moves at a slower-than-slideshow pace before completely locking up. This happens once every few weeks, so now I have to leave the adapter unplugged until I intend to use it. But, when I do use it, it works okay (save for the non-stop audio hiss). Of course, when I stumbled across my father receiving his Beavis & Butthead VHS on Easter in 1995, I couldn’t help but text it to him alongside a photo of where the tape ended up – in my office!

🎮 Games & Tech 🖥️

I never got around to completing it, but I made substantial progress on 00 Agent in Goldeneye on original hardware. When I was a kid, even beating Facility on 00 Agent was too much for me; now that I’m an adult, it feels almost literally like a different game. You can’t just run through the level holding down the trigger and trying to remember which of the 2 objectives (hyperbolic, I know) you need to finish before the mission will complete. Needing to actually think and plan, and conserve ammunition and focus on stealth, these are all things I never did when I played as a kid, and I had a blast progressing through recently. Other projects caught my attention, such as my recently-posted Outbreak Server Guide, but I’m sure I’ll revisit this 1997 classic again some day soon!

Another great feature of the EverDrive is its built-in GameBoy emulator. I played Oracle of Ages as a kid, and I remember my parents printing me out an absolutely massive GameFAQs guide for it, which included all of the codes and such you’d get by playing both games. I never got around to playing Seasons and, alas, it still is not time; not yet, anyhow! I really hope to play through this at some point though. Maybe it’s an excuse to start streaming again? Who knows!

This first random picture I took of my monitor was taken while I was working on my Automated Bandcamp Album Downloader, bcdl, that is currently in an alpha state and posted on my github. I recently purchased chris†††’s discography after going a couple weeks without even touching this project, and it felt really good to just type python bcdl.py --update¹ followed by python bcdl.py --search chris², running my own project and downloading everything all in one go into the media folder that feeds both my Plex and mpd servers. Maybe I’ll make a dedicated post about bcdl once I get it closer to a “beta” or even a “1.0” state but there’s plenty of information on my github page if you’re interested in it right now. I should also mention that, after listening to a lot of chris†††, I’m convinced that I need to start a sort-of “Superstars of Vapor” series on this site. I’m not sure how he slipped by me, given how well-known he is in the community, but for some reason I never gave his discography a chance until now.

Additionally, it looks like this photo was also taken after I switched away from the default LARBS nvim configuration, and moved over to using LazyVIM. I’ll admit that it has its quirks and I’m still trying to hunt down and remove different features that I don’t like, but all in all I’m a fan.

The next two photos are broken just because. I don’t even remember what I was trying to do when I made my Arch PC glitch out in this way, but it seems the character map or something of the sort had been corrupted in memory, and not even signing out/in fixed it. So I just quickly signed in as root and ran neofetch, as any “btw I use arch” user would, and snapped a photo before rebooting. The 2nd broken photo was taken when I was accidentally creating glitch art while listening to Linx Linux and coding on Linux. This C code was for reading, processing, and saving bitmap images for the free CS50 class. My code was buggy, so my images turned out buggy as a result :D I did end up completing all of the C code exercises, with tideman being by far the most challenging, but I paused during SQL week – coincidentally, to work on bcdl (which uses an SQL database) and the Outbreak Server setup guide (…which also uses an SQL database!)

Lastly, why am I booted into a live Arch USB and running the colloquially-named “disk destroyer” on a partition of my drive? Well, a coworker had been lending me a pair of servers ³ to learn Windows Server with, but recently ended up essentially selling me a server to keep more permanently, which has now become my Proxmox server. As such, the old server had to be retired by any means necessary. I recently got around to migrating Plex away from my NAS and over to Proxmox and I’m still surprised by how much of a difference it really makes. I’ve set up a few other services and perhaps I’ll make a sort-of “state of the homelab” post in the future… ah! So many post ideas!

🍲 Food & non-alcoholic brews 🍺

Last but not least, a little bit of New Years resolution, and celebration!

As any frequent reader would know, I don’t drink alcohol, but I do very much enjoy non-alcoholic beers. Unfortunately, the Pointer beer lacks any head immediately after being poured because, I don’t know, it seemed to just lack carbonation in general. It still isn’t clear to me if the cans just got shaken up too much in transportation and it was bad for that reason, or if I just plain didn’t like it. In any case, the Free Wave was wonderful as usual; Athletic Brewing never disappoints. Additionally, I just want to point out that I’ve had these Sam Adams glasses for over a decade now. They used to be the glasses that restaurants would carry, and there were commercials describing how great and wonderful they are. The shape really compliments beer, since there’s plenty of room for the head, and your nose. There’s also a ring of perforations at the bottom of the glass that somehow (using science) attracts the carbonation bubbles, so they flow from the bottom to the top of the glass in a sort-of ring. Ah! I bought the blue Athletic Brewing beers when I went shopping earlier, and now I’m looking forward to pouring one up shortly. I may not drink alcohol, but for whatever ritualistic reason, I still generally refuse to drink my NA beers before 5PM :)

You’ll also find my fiance’s and my attempt at swedish meatballs. We sat down and decided that we would more regularly cook together, as neither of us particularly enjoy doing it alone, or in general. That said, baby steps! I still have no problem counting a bag of frozen beef and broccoli as “cooking,” even if all I’m doing is essentially heating it up. We weren’t/aren’t fast food addicts or anything, and though we drink coffee we’ve been a lot better about sticking to using our Keurig, but we just needed to push ourselves and really decide to make and eat food at home instead of always ordering out. That reminds me, I think my mother is planning to get me a type of device to vacuum seal and freeze our meals, for when we want to cook in bulk as we did with the swedish meatballs, for instance. Maybe it gets a little boring having swedish meatballs 3 days in a row, but we could eat it today, freeze the rest, and do something different the next day. Yeah, people who are more into cooking than we are probably already do all of this, but it’s relatively new to us! :)

📔 The End 👋

Ahh… not the craziest year so far, but it’s also only just begun. I’m looking forward to all this year has to offer, and it may sound maybe a little “trivial” or “dumb” but I also look forward to revisiting this post and remembering, “oh yeah, that’s when I got my first pair of bone conductors… man, those really were a game-changer!”

Thanks for reading

c.zip