Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap-Up (08.27.2023 to 09.02.2023)

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Ok, I wrote this later and back-dated it, because I was going to not, but I need to not get back into the trap of “not”.

Look at me, slacking already, no posts since the end of Blaugust. Not even the Friday music album post, PS, I have missed several of those.

I am at the time of the year when I realize I have a ton of vacation days left to use up, so I took Friday off. I may take a lot of Fridays off. I have enough days to take one off each week for the rest of the year, and some of those weeks already have holidays in them. We don’t really take trips or go anywhere so I generally just, don’t take days off. Plus a few years ago I was really saving them because my wife had had a stroke and some heart issues came from that, so she was supposed to maybe have heart surgery. I kept saving for that, so I got extra bad about not taking a vacation. The doctor decided not to do the surgery, for now, because it would be too risky, but I am still bad about not taking vacation and we still don’t really travel.

It worked out, she had a garage sale, so I could help with that some.

Saturday the weather was decent enough that I could comfortably run the power washer my parents let us borrow to strip the back concrete off. It’s been a few years, it’s filthy, and it needs doing occasionally. It took something like 4 hours of pretty continuous spraying. Tina did the garage sale again while I was out back.

Which reminds me of something else. So occasionally we get these Iced Strawberry Lemonades from Sonic, especially since they are half-price in the mid-afternoon. I decided to mix it up and get a Limeade. I am pretty sure I don’t really like lime, I am pretty down on super bitter things like lime and vinegar. The drink was… Ok, except it was a bit bubbly I think, which I was not expecting. It also, had bits of stuff in it, which is really gross for a drink. I assumed bits of lime, it was actually bits of strawberry. I tried to transfer things to a glass but well, I wanted the ice, so I could not simply, strain the strawberry out.

The reminder part is, that part of my motivation was to see how I would like the lime because I have this lime tree that I bought a while back on super clearance. It has not produced any fruit but I transferred it to a larger, nicer, pot. But like, I have no idea what I am going to do with the limes. The stores don’t seem to be able to give them away either, I have noticed they sell for super cheap, so it’s not like I could sell them or give them away.

Anyway, I also have a Lemon tree, which will be useful, because I like lemons, for the most part.

I didn’t get anything new this week, I slacked and missed Band Camp Friday, but I was broke anyway because I pre-ordered some vinyl. I may have mentioned that last week. CHVRCHES has a 10th-anniversary Bones release. There was a really lovely looking special edition of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) I went for (because 1989 is the best Taylor Swift album) and I came across a super nice looking 10th-anniversary edition of the Tron Legacy Soundtrack. That Tron album is probably my favorite soundtrack and it’s also probably a top ten album.

Not that spending a lot is a goal, but I have been increasing cash-strapped for a while now on my “personal spending”. Like years, awhile. It probably does not seem like it to some folks, I do spend a fair amount, but I also heavily deal shop. I have a set budget though, out of each paycheck, that goes into a separate account for my personal spending. This also includes buying gas for my car and any time I want to eat lunch out, which isn’t super often. I cut it back a few years ago though from what it had been, and in the past few years, everything became 25-50% more expensive.

Also, shipping for vinyl is always killer. It requires a large box which is pricey to ship.

Anyway, our contract was up this year at work so when it was renewed we got a bit of a bump as usual, and I am getting on-call pay starting soon. My wife already said I can have the on-call pay for my budget, which will probably amount to an extra $250/ month after taxes etc.

Which will be nice. Primarily because I actually would like to subscribe and support more. Like I recently subscribed to TWIT premium. I want to pick up Thurrott Premium. But there are other things like Patreons and such that I kind of want to sub to, even briefly, to support some things I enjoy, and having that bump will probably help put me over the edge to do some of that.

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap-Up (08.20.2023 to 08.26.2023)

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Not a lot going on this week honestly, it’s been kind of blazing hot which really makes some things difficult to do. Go Climat Crisis. I did start on a new project. Well, continued one I sort of started on. I have way too many bookmarks, enough that navigating them later is not useful. They are well sorted, but I need to make them more useful. I came across the concept of a “digital garden” recently. It seems to be just a fancy term for “personal wiki”. Anyway, I’ve started building a sort of personal wiki of bookmarks and resources, though it’s just lists of sorted links in markdown files, that I’ll eventually post out to Github for public use.

I may also do the Wiki thing as well, for other bits of information I want to keep, though most of that is already in One Note.

I just have been pretty down lately and not really motivated for much.

On a gaming note, the Aurora Concert is back for the next week or so in Sky: Children of the Light, it’s pretty neat, but there are also just, videos of it on Youtube.

I didn’t buy anything new this week either, like I said, boring week. Ok, technically I did pre-order a few things, but I don’t really consider pre-orders buying until they come in, because I often end up canceling them later.

I didn’t listen to much new music either, though I did start building a sort of “monster playlist to shuffle” in Apple Music. We’ll see what comes of that in the long term.

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up (08.13.2023 to 08.19.2023)

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Another week of Blog Posts done, I’m in the home stretch now for Blaugust. I can assure you, and myself, that I will not be keeping up this pace. For a variety of reasons, probably most of which I will mention in a wrap-up post on the 31st.

But what about this week. The big event this week was going to see Alanis Morissette. I also had some overnight work at work, which I don’t usually have, which has thrown my whole schedule off, not that I am not tired, basically, all the time, already. Something fun that came out of my Instagram posts from that concert, Cedric LeMoyne, the awesome bass player from the show, liked my awesome photo of him. I really like the pic too, so here it is.

Anyway, I have some coding projects I want to get to but have not had time lately, or, probably more accurately, have not had the mental capacity to work on lately. I also have some code stuff I’ve been trying to puzzle out for work, and I am sure at some point it will “click” and just slide into place and work, and I’ll start running there, but other work issues, have been blocking that focus.

I’ve also started making an effort to read a bit more again, though not a lot of progress there. I go through ups and downs on how much I read. I just am ashamed of my massive book backlog.

Activity Log

I really want to, at some point, find a way to add things like, my Duolingo progress here. I could do it manually, but I also don’t really know how to format it.

I did get a new Marvel Legends this week, I didn’t plan to, but the two-pack of Endgame Captain Marvel and Pepper Potts Rescue was down to $20, and I had to jump on that. I’ve been sort of wanting it for a while, but mostly for the Endgame Carol, I already have the single-pack Rescue. The Pepper heads would mostly be a bonus. I’ve been tempted at $25 and $30, but at $20, it would be less than a single figure. If Endgame Captain Marvel had been a single-packed figure, I would have already bought it. At this point, the useless extra Rescue figure is just an accessory.

I picked up one book (for the embarrassing backlog) called The Little Book of Mathematical Principles, Theories & Things by Robert Solomon. What can I say, it was probably $2 and I like nerdy things.

I almost forgot that I also bought a game or a game bundle. Steam had a bundle of Mega Man games, half of which I already owned. Because of the way Steam discounts work, owning something, knocks even more off, so for a price I wanted to pay, I could get the Mega Man Zero collection. I’ve only played the first one a while ago, but it’s a series I have been meaning to play. I have beaten all of the previous Mainline Mega Man and Mega Man X games already. The Zero series is kind of a hole.

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap-Up (08.06.2023 to 08.12.2023)

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Weekly Wrap-Up (07.30.2023 to 08.05.2023)

Another week, another weekly wrap-up. This is technically the trickiest post I’m doing right now, since it’s the only thing I can’t really pre-write up. If I were not trying to do 31 days of posts for Blaugust it wouldn’t matter, I’d just, skip it sometimes probably.

Not a lot new or exciting anyway. I had some craziness at work but I don’t blog about work.

Probably the most exciting thing this week was Guardians of the Galaxy 3 coming to Disney+, so I finally got to watch that. It’s not exactly glowing praise, but at the very least, I didn’t come off it thinking it was very “meh” like all of the newer MCU projects. Like Secret Invasion, which I think I finished last week. Secret Invasion was, ok, but not super impressive. A few things on GotG3, I kind of wish they had toned down some of the end a bit. Mild spoilers, as generic as possible but it felt like they needed to save that “large group of people”, entirely because for some reason every Marvel climax has to have huge stakes where the heroes have to save large groups of people. Like, maybe they could have just, gone there, and faced off with the bad guys and had a little fight, without all the extra.

The Activity Log

This part is partially just for my future reference, and it maybe deserves its own name. So we’ll call it the Activity Log.

No new toy stuff this week, not directly toys, I did buy another set of acrylic riser shelves from a daily deal off Amazon. I kind of needed one more set and now I’m pretty good for little shelves for a while. Being able to lift some of the stuff in the back side of a deeper shelf really helps with the aesthetics of a display.

I did pick up a bundle of games on Humble Bundle Because Baldur’s Gate III is the recently released hotness, Humble Bundle has a bundle (affiliate link) of older titles, including Baldur’s Gate I and II, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights. I think I may have a couple fo these on CDs somewhere but I don’t seem to have them on any modern platforms, and the bundle was cheap (a lot of HBs have become overpriced) so I figured why not.

Another one that is probably worth tracking a bit, if only for my own sanity, is books. Because I often will impulse buy books that seem interesting from Kindle Daily Deals (and elsewhere). This week’s books:

  • The Elderon Chronicles (Books 1-3): A Space Colonization Science Fiction Collection by Tarah Benner – I usually steer clear of these “bundles of Sci-Fi Books” but this one seemed appealing so I figured why not.
  • Bilbo’s Last Song by J.R.R. Tolkien – I have most of Tokien’s works already, and I didn’t have this one.
  • This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture by Whitney Phillips – I have a bad habit of picking up randomly are these sorts of, “cultural exploration with witty titles” books.
  • Nordic Tales: Folktales from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark (Tales of Book 5) – I have a variety of these folktale books from different cultures because one of my many interests, in general, is various world cultures and history.

Lastly, there’s Music. I didn’t listen to anything new really, just a lot of stuff I already listen to. A little Nirvana, a little Orla Garland, a little Alanis Morrisette, a little Sigrid. Not trying anything out of the ordinary this week. It’s just been kind of a boring week overall I suppose.

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up (07.30.2023 to 08.05.2023)

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Who knows how long this one will last, but I’ve decided to try something different for Saturdays. Basically, just a sort of, rambly, weekly wrap up of… life. No structured requirements, maybe nothing happened and it ends up being short. Basically just sort of, straight regular journaling. What I’ve been doing, what I’ve gotten new, any major events, that sort of thing. I won’t discuss work really, except in vague terms, for a variety of reasons.

Something little I’ve been wanting to do, I added some outside speakers to my music set up, so I can listen to music outside while on the deck. I actually mounted them below the deck, so they would work above and below, but if it doesn’t really work out I can always get a second set for above.

The big thing this week was working on doing Blaugust. I’m taking the mad man route of trying to post at least one post a day. So far, I have…. some… pre written and scheduled, and some TBD. I doubt I keep up this pace after August. I usually keep gaming posts on Lameazoid, but it helps a lot that I’m bored of Fortnite so I’m not super playing it these days. I managed to get Optimus Prime out of the Battle Pass, which that and Summer Meowscles were basically all I cared about. I will probably skip next BP and not play for a while unless it has some super amazing stuff in it. I saw a rumor they may do an Overwatch Collab, which…. I would be really likely to go in for. Because I really like Overwatch as a concept, but I absolutely HATE Overwatch as a game.

Anyway, grinding a game like Fortnite normally eats up too much of my spare time. It’s Unhealthy gaming honestly. In slightly more healthy gaming, I picked up the Avengers game, because it’s being de-listed and it’s on sale for $6, and a bundle of Train Simulator add-ons from Fanatical, because maybe one day I will get on a TrainSim kick like I do with Truck Simulator.

It’s probably worth mentioning new toy stuff for the week too, though that really is also a Lameazoid topic, so I’ll keep it to a minimum. My Pile of Loot from BBTS reached it’s 90 days and needed shipped, so I’ve added that to the collection. I also picked up a lone Transformer from Ross. Let’s just make this one a list.

  • Transformers Kingdom Deluxe Pipes (why did I never get Huffer, the superior one???)
  • Star Wars Black Series Cassian Andor and B2EMO – I need a better Cassian than the awful original Rogue One release and this two pack was cheaper than a single BS figure.
  • Star Wars Black Series Mara Jade – It’s fucking Mara Jade. No more reason needed. Why the Sequels cut all the existing post OT lore is beyond me.
  • Power Rangers Lightning Collection Rita Repulsa – My PRLC is pretty much limited to mighty Morphin’, and it was basically there except for Rita, which was previously only available in a 2 pack with Lord Zedd, whom I already had. Now I have Rita, and she’s a pretty good figure, but I’m a sucker for cloth goods.
  • Power Rangers Lighting Collection Minotaur – OK, Might Morphin’, and any cool monsters they put out. And I need to stop buying the monsters at full retail. They ALWAYS go on markdown/clearance. So far I’ve gotten them all except Pumpkin Rapper, which I should have done, and the Snake Man, which hits all the right buttons, but I can’t bring myself to get it because it looks kind of lame. Anyway, a Minotaur figure is useful to have in general for fantasy stuff.
  • Jada Toys Street Fighter Ryu – Everyone in the toy community is stoked for this line, and Jada in general. Now that I have the first two releases, I’m more excited, for Street Fighter and for their Mega Man stuff. Because these are good figures.
  • Jada Toys Street Fighter Fei Long – I like him even more than I do Ryu.

Something else that might be useful here, with no context, and mostly for my own reference, I’m going to throw out a list of new (to me) music I may have listened to this week. It’s easy at the moment because I’m trying out Apple Music. i tend to keep this huge list of random notes of “Artists to listen to,” but never actually get to them. I want to try to get better about just, throwing them onto the endless playlist and listening to them.

Ok, I said no context, but maybe, a LITTLE bit of context might be useful.

  • Apple had one of their suggested playlists that was just called something like “African Music”, which was a collection of music, by artists from Africa. Lots of sort of hip hip/reggae sort of music. It was good stuff, but I skipped over it after a bit because I wanted to get to well, something else. It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying it, I just wanted to try other new music.
  • Let’s Eat Grandma – I think this one was a Facebook or Instagram Ad. I want to say it was decent.
  • Bluhm – I think this was another FB/IG “Suggested post” This is actually a fairly common place for me to find suggestions.
  • Laufey – Ben Folds is hosting or performing with, I’m not sure what, but basically, Ben Folds and Dodie are doing a thing with Laufey, so I thought I would give her music a try. It’s pretty good. Dodie-ish.
  • Skyr0 – Another Instagram suggestion, but this time it was a Reels suggestion. Some pretty interesting Synth music.
  • Blondshell – A bit more rock/alternative, a photographer I follow who seems to share some of the same tastes in music posted photos from a Blondshell show, so I decided to give it a listen.
  • Jade Bird – Suggested I think in the Lauren Mayberry Discord. I need to give it another go to jog my memory of if I liked it.
  • Half Gringa – One of the acts that’s going to be at Pygmalion, which I am going to in a month or so. So I wanted to listen. I decided I liked it enough to try to catch the live act, then realized it’s not actually at the event I am going to, it was just, posted by the event’s IG.
  • Claud – This one IS going to be at Pygmalion, and right before Lauren’s show, so I’ll definitely be catching their show. It’s good stuff. Some strong “King Princess but maybe not quite as raunchy” vibes.
  • David Byrne/Talking Heads – Occasionally I am reminded of some older artists and I decided that I can’t actually remember which songs they did, so I’ll throw on the “Essentials” list from Apple Music. This was the case for David Byrne. I’ve decided I don’t really care that much for David Byrne, though Talking Heads are decent..
  • David Bowie – It was also the case for David Bowie, except I know what songs David Bowie did, I just…. wanted to listen to a bunch of Bowie.

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