Darkoshi

I sent an initial email&text about getting the gate fixed, and got an initial reply.
I sent an initial text about getting a bunch of junk hauled away. There are a lot of wood boards and panels in the garage I want to get rid of, mostly still from the big shipping box from when my brother had his things sent here on a ship from Germany more than a decade ago.

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Qiao and I finished watching the live-action version of Cowboy Bebop on Netflix. I felt it was very good, and true to the original animated series although I don't remember many details of the latter (which I want to rewatch now). It's unfortunate that the series was cancelled after just one season. The character Ed only showed up once at the very end of the last episode; clearly a harbinger for the next season had it not been cancelled.

Ooh, I need to watch this:
Cowboy Bebop: Unlocked | FULL SPOILERS Official After Show | Netflix Geeked

Dang, looking at a couple other videos and their comments, some people really hated this live action version. Sigh.

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For over a year, the good exercise "bike" at my house has been half-disassembled. It is a cross between an exercise bike and elliptical trainer. Qiao bought it when he was living here, then ended up getting another one for his house too. Since then, I've used both of them much more than he ever did. The center part of this one's flywheel got worn out. It didn't turn smoothly anymore and began producing graphite-colored dust which fell to the floor beneath it. So in December of 2021 I removed the flywheel to inspect it and tried thinking of how to fix it. This weekend I finally did something. I cut off a piece of metal tubing of an appropriate size and glued it into the worn out hole. After giving the glue time to dry, I reassembled the bike (not an easy task) today. It works. But the flywheel is a bit wobbly and still seems to have the same problem as it did before, so it probably won't last long. I suppose next time I will take it apart for metal recycling.

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Often when I'm looking around my house for an unspecific thing of a certain size or shape, to use for a particular purpose (such as a narrow metal tube yea wide for fixing the exercise bike), I find something that is just right. This never ceases to amaze and delight me. This time, I first found a curtain rod which was the right diameter and could be cut shorter with no ill-effect on its curtain-holding ability. But the tube wasn't solid metal all the way around - it had a lengthwise slit. So I searched some more, and found a perfect solid tube on an old broken umbrella (the lime green umbrella mentioned in this post.)

I took the umbrella apart to get to the tube and to be able to cut it. Umbrellas truly are marvels of engineering. This one was a relatively small umbrella yet it had a 2-foot long spring inside the center.

I like the short Exercise with Smart Cat segments on PBS that are shown between some children's programs.
I can do that! It's fun, easy, *and* good for me, yay! It gets me up from my chair whenever it comes on.
I have the TV on to drown out the sound of the neighbor dog who is barking.

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I've got a headache but no fever, which isn't unusual for me.
I worked in my yard for several hours today.
The back of my neck is achy. It may be exacerbated by stooping down to pull weeds, which I did Wednesday and today. It was bad enough yesterday that I started considering getting one of those neck braces like the pharmicist lady on the Doc Martin TV series was always wearing. Maybe those things support the head, taking stress off of the neck? Or maybe they prevent you from turning your head... I'll have to read up on it.

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Heard on TV: "The moose is on the loose!" hahah

I tried something out, using dandelions as an artistic tool. Coming soon to a universe near you! Maybe.

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I'm trying to clean off my table. It is taking very long and I'm only making small inroads.
Oh that's right, I wanted to try out the new Wyze sensors that are sitting there in that box.
And I also wanted to buy a raspberry PI to see if that makes the old sensors work more reliably especially as I wasn't able to get their bridge to reconnect after it had a problem last week.

There's the folder with my tax docs. I can put that away now; I've already gotten my tax refunds by direct deposit, as well as this year's stimulus payment too.
There, that is done.

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You know how in some commercials they have the legal stuff spoken very quickly at the end?
You know how, to a native English speaker, Spanish sounds like it is spoken very quickly?

Well, I saw a commercial on a Spanish-language TV channel, and the legal stuff that was spoken at the end of it sounded even more blisteringly fast than the English-language ones.

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A note I wrote on a paper on the table:

"My hands look old.
My skin is dry and textured."

They don't look quite as old to me today as they did then.

Starting in December I went 4 months without any significant menstruation, only minor spotting. It was great. Last month I got a period again. Maybe the note was from the dry period, an unwelcome side effect.

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On Thursday, I had saved a short audio recording... it was after my laptop microphone hadn't been working, but then it worked again. In it, I said:

"Testing One Two Three... NOW why is it working!!??.. But fine, it's working, right?"

I was idly playing around with that recording. I selected short clips of it and played them back several times in a row. Then I reversed one of those selections ("NOW why...") to see what it sounded like backwards. I did NOT expect it to same the same backwards as it did forwards, but it DID, which blew my mind.

forwards
backwards

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I saw this beginning clip of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" on TV the other night, and it made me laugh so good! I happened to be laying on the floor while watching it to begin with, so it was really a ROTFLOL moment.



I didn't end up watching the whole episode, as I had to finish up my work, but I need to watch the full thing (again? not sure if I've seen it before) one of these days.

The Peloton ad seems a bit weird to me, but not offensive or sexist. Maybe she wanted an exercise bike. I remember 2 times when I asked for one either at xmas or my birthday, when I was younger. And just because she's thin to begin with, doesn't mean she's in very good shape, cardio-vascular-wise. Was there really a lot of hoopla about the ad, or did someone only want to make it seem that way? Trolls? I would think that the exposure, even if supposedly negative, would actually be a benefit to Peloton, not a drawback. I wasn't familiar with their company or product before. I saw the SNL skit (which briefly mentions Peloton at the end) before seeing the ad, and only looked up the ad after Qiao mentioned something about it.

Pelotón is Spanish for "platoon".

Oh, it also is a term used in bicycling. I wasn't familiar with that one.

But other than that, now I remembered why the word is familiar to me. It was the name of a secret organization in the TV series "The Tunnel".

I'd been wanting to make these green tea cupcakes ever since Qiao gave me the fabulous vegan cupcake cookbook. I finally bought the essential ingredient - matcha green tea powder - last year, but didn't get around to actually trying out the recipe until last week. The cupcakes turned out soft, fluffy, and super-duper yummy, even without any marzipan flowers on top.

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It is blackberry season. I've seen people gathering berries along the roads. On the way home from work today, I stopped by a patch and picked some myself. I'm glad I stopped at the place I did, as 2 other people were already stopped by the larger patches further down the road which I passed by later. As it was, after stopping my car where I did, it took me a while to gather my courage to get out of the car. I had a silly fear that someone would come out of the commercial building whose driveway I was parked in, and accuse me of stealing their berries. From the car, I couldn't even tell if there were any ripe berries in this patch. But I finally got out, and got me some lovely berries.

Thin dress pants aren't suitable attire for blackberry picking. A branch snagged my pants and tore out a few threads before I managed to get free. Denim would have been better.

After getting home, I checked the bushes across the street and picked some more berries there too. But those were tiny compared to the others.

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I remedied the pinholes in the curtain black-out liners by using fusible web to iron on extra strips of black-out fabric over the seam lines.

The black-out fabric and/or the fusible web gives off fumes while ironing it at the necessary heat level. But at least those fumes were temporary.

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Knoppix! I created a live disk and used it to boot my laptop to Linux. Neat! The last time I created a similar live disk and tried it on my old computer, I never got the internet working as that would have required finding and installing the necessary wireless drivers. But this Knoppix live CD had everything I needed - my wi-fi and internet worked, as did my external mouse and keyboard.

I was using Linux in order to reformat a 256 GB flash drive as FAT32. Windows didn't let me do it. Linux did.

The reason for reformatting the flash drive is a story for another time.

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Partially inspired by this post by gfish, as well as articles such as this one, I've been trying to do more work standing up.

When we moved buildings, I was given a 2nd monitor. Rather than position it side-by-side with my other monitor, I put it on my cubicle's shelf, after moving the shelf down a few notches. That puts the top monitor at a fairly good height for me to use while standing. So now I have one monitor on my desk to use while sitting, and another on the shelf to use while standing. I can position my mouse higher by using a small stack of books. But I can't really get the keyboard high enough to be very comfortable while standing.

I was thinking that rather than moving the monitor and accessories up and down, it would be simpler to have everything up high, and to have a high chair. Then everything would be at the right height whether I was sitting or standing. Maybe someday.

For now, I can only manage to stand for a few minutes at a time before I start feeling tired/uncomfortable, or before I feel the need to sit down to do something that takes my full attention. Working while standing is sort of like trying to write with my left hand - I can do it, but at a slower pace and with more frustration.

Sometimes I stand in a spread-leg or horse-riding position, which brings my torso low enough to comfortably use the lower monitor and keyboard. But I don't do that for long either, as it makes my feet tired, and I feel self-conscious about looking weird to anyone who walks by.

Then again, I do full-body stretches in my cubicle a few times a day, which surely is a strange sight to see, too.

Both Dreamwidth and Netflix are experiencing technical difficulties.

I was quite tired today after work, considering that my body had only been sitting around all day. Too tired to even go for a walk. But I did manage some exercise.

An electric shock to my brain.
It seems like it would require something strong like that to break through to me, so that I could feel, really feel again.

Once in a very long while, an experience affects me like an electric shock - but it doesn't last.

I am so disillusioned with everything.

I spend all my time doing things that don't really bring me any great satisfaction or happiness, just things that seem like they need to be done, or things that I feel like doing.

The skin on my hands is dry. My hands seem to look so much older than they did a few years ago.

I am not procrastinating doing my taxes; truly, I'm not. I just keep thinking of other things to do first. Surely I can still get them done tonight and still do my daily exercises too, and get to bed on time. Right?

I've started back up doing my daily exercises regularly. It's been about 2 or 3 weeks now. But my legs are still not flexible like they used to be, and I seem to have strained something in my right leg.

Screwing in light bulbs isn't all that easy. No really, I'm not procrastinating. I wanted to write that since yesterday.

The Chinese preserved plums actually taste pretty good. The Watermelon Frost Tea, I haven't tried yet... apparently watermelon frost is some white stuff (fungi?) that grows on watermelon rinds when the watermelon has been filled with Gluer/Glaubers? salt and buried in ceramic pots. The Chinese seem to have a culinary penchant for burying food and digging it up again... It must have been like a form of alchemy.

I am backing up the data on my hard-drive. I keep temporary files sometimes, and I was going through them, seeing which ones could be deleted. Old posts, emails, chats. Some of the more meaningful/affecting ones, I keep around a long time, even though surely I've archived them in my regular backup folders too. But reading one of them brought this post on.

I wanted to let the files copy to the flash drive, while doing my taxes. I had already started doing that this morning, but ran out of space on the flash drive, daggonit, because the files took more physical space on the flash than they did on the hard-drive.

I can hear my neighbors having an argument from my bedroom. Sounds like they are both tired and irritable.

I will have to call a different electrician up. If the other guy doesn't want my business bad enough to even call me back with the estimate like he said he would, he won't get it.

Maybe I should do some of the work myself. I've grounded an outlet before. I guess I could do as good a job as they would do, perhaps. I can put the pull-switch on the kitchen light myself, so I guess I'll do that part myself at least. I just want the wiring done right. But there's no guarantee that anyone I hire would do it right. They might do as amateur a job as me.

Oh dear, now I can hear them from this room too. She is shouting. He wants her leave him alone while he finishes the yardwork.

I have to decide on a washer and dryer. I need to fix the floor in the washer/dryer area first, because the linoleum is torn. Or should I just leave it torn? I don't want to. But I don't want to buy a vinyl floor product. And I don't want to deal with adhesives. And tile is complicated too. Why is it all so complicated???

Maybe I will need to hire a plumber to replace all the shut-off valves, so I can at least turn them.

I've felt vaguely moody, like crying. I notice it mostly at work... then I finally come home and don't find the time to relax and cry.

Oh, look. The moon.

I was wondering, what is more important in a romantic relationship. Feeling comforted by the other person's presence, or feeling excited?

Tired. Hungry. Should go cry. Should go eat. Should go do pushups.

I was going to go jogging yesterday, but then didn't feel like it. I just sat instead.
I was considering going jogging today, but didn't feel like it. I walked a bit instead.

Should go install locked handle on bedroom door.

Maybe I should just put some thick plastic on the floor, and some of the big leftover tiles over that, without any adhesive or grout. Or maybe I should just tape shut the torn part of the linoleum, and put the tiles over it. Even though they won't fit right in the space. Would need to cut them to size. That would be difficult.