Darkoshi

This video is from 6 years ago by Swedemason who also created the Masterchef Synesthesia aka "Buttery Biscuit Base" song and video:


Video title: Right Said Sherlock - Swedemason
Posted by: swedemason
Date posted: 2018/10/03

Besides disappointment, I felt some anger too, looking at the results this morning. It has faded back down to cynicism now, though I am still irritable.

Last night around 11pm, one announcer said the results were looking like they did at that hour in 2016. I still remember my reaction back in 2016 around that time; how I couldn't or didn't want to believe it and didn't give up hope. This time I didn't give up hope either, as slim as it kept getting. But unlike last time, I could believe it, because it happened before.

This is a somewhat heartening message:



Video title: Jon Stewart’s Election Night Takeaway | The Daily Show
Posted by: The Daily Show
Date posted: Nov 6, 2024

This year, I took the ornaments off the Christmas tree on May 27. I left the tree up, still enamored with the Twinkle lights on it which can be set to many different color combinations and effects. Today I took the silver garland off the tree branches. I'm still enamored of the lights and won't take the tree down at all this year (possibly the first time ever). It's too late anyway; no point in taking it down now just to put it up again in a few months. In December, maybe I will take it over to Qiao's house for a change.

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I have watched both the Olympics and the Paralympics opening ceremonies. Both were wonderful. I have the closing ceremonies recorded, ready to watch.

The upcoming U.S. presidential election hasn't seemed humorous to me so far, but this commercial on TV really got me laughing.

For more details, see the website:
https://presidentprison.com/

From the video transcript:
The presidential election of 2024 will go down in history.
The country is divided.
Millions of Americans want Biden to win and see Trump go to prison,
and millions want Trump to win and see Biden go to prison.
This historic period inspired skilled American Artisans to design the official 2024 President Prison Collection.
The pro-Trump coin features a Victorious Trump sworn in as president on the front and Biden in prison on the back.
The pro-Biden coin features a Victorious Biden sworn in as president on the front and Trump in prison on the back.
Each private issue commemorative coin has been minted in Exquisite detail and layered in pure .999 silver. The Artistry and intricate detail are stunning.
...

Wiktionary: kayfabe
(professional wrestling) The act, situation, or code of portraying staged events, performances, rivalries, etc as authentic or spontaneous.
(figurative) Similar fakery or suspension of disbelief in other contexts.

Wikipedia: kayfabe

I came across the term on this page:
James Holzhauer Delivered the Greatest ‘Jeopardy!’ Burn of All Time, which reposted one of James' tweets:
Thanks to kenjennings and bradrutter for a hell of a match. Ken and Brad are great jeopardy players but even better people, and have been incredibly good sports about my kayfabe feuding and trash talk.

That confirms suspicions I've had after hearing those type of contestant interactions a few times on Jeopardy, that (while amusing) they were likely to have been scripted.

M, the 5-year-old, was watching videos on TV via the Firestick. I don't know if my niece turned it on for her or if M already knows how to turn it on herself. I'd be surprised by the latter as it involves plugging in a power cord, turning on a power strip, turning on the UPS, waiting for the UPS light to stop flashing, then turning the TV on and changing the TV to the correct input Source.... or maybe pressing the button on the Firestick remote does that last part automatically*.

However, M seems perfectly familiar with using the Firestick remote to search for and navigate videos in its YouTube app. She mostly uses the voice-search option to search for specific things**, but also scrolls thru video thumbnails to select items that look interesting or familiar to her.

There were a few videos that came on which didn't seem geared to or appropriate for a kid her age. So I started looking up how to set it up to only show kid-friendly things.

After M left to go get ready for bed, I installed the "PBS Kids" and "YouTube Kids" apps on the Firestick.
I tried them out and found that doing a voice-search (via the mic button on the remote) from within those apps searches content from all the apps rather than just the current app, letting one jump right back out to non-kid content.

So next I created a new "Kid" profile on the Firestick and set it up to have access to a few kid-specific apps including the 2 mentioned above. I connected the YouTube Kids app to one of my YouTube accounts, so as to have access to more settings for it, but I don't see much extra you can do that way vs when not connected to an account.

I've got a PIN set up on the Firestick so the child can't simply switch back from the kid's profile to an adult profile.

Now that I have gotten all that done, I'm unimpressed with the results.

In the Firestick Kid's profile, the voice-search option does not work. You have to search by using the remote and on-screen keyboard to type in the words. I don't think M knows how to spell most of the things she would search on, and even if she does, she would probably have trouble doing it via the on-screen keyboard. Even when typing the searches in, the results don't seem to include content available in the PBS and YouTube Kids' apps. Maybe it only shows content from Amazon? I don't know.

Likewise, the home screen for the Kid's profile seems to only display Amazon content. (I'm not certain as it doesn't say where the content for each item is hosted.) To get to the other apps' content, you have to scroll down and find, select, and open the app.

Within the YouTube Kids app, I don't see a way to set up favorites. This page: Subscribe to channels on YouTube Kids says you can tap on a "Subscribe" button... Okay, some videos do have a Subscribe button. But it's not there for the "Kiya & the Kimoja Heros" videos - those looked good so I wanted to favorite/subscribe them so they'd be easy to find next time. But no luck.


*I just tested this, and while it switches to the correct input Source, now I can't even get the Firestick input on the TV to work again. It seems to be switched off. The power button on the Firestick remote only seems to be turning the TV on and off, not the Firestick. Argh.
Is it that once you reach 45 years old or so, TV and audio technology magically knows it should never work for you on the first or second try, only after multiple tries and/or hours of frustration? I remember how when I was in my 20s, it all made sense, and it usually worked as I expected. Now it's a mess of cables and inputs and switcheroos and switching from the regular TV to something else never works right off anymore.

Earlier today I got out what I thought was a DVD to play an animated movie for the child. It's one I'd bought last year but hadn't watched yet. (The Secret of Kells, part of the Irish Folklore trilogy. In retrospect, it doesn't seem so great for a kid her age. Rather scary and grim.) The disk didn't work in the DVD player. So I thought maybe it had a non-U.S. region code and needed to be played from VLC on a laptop. But VLC locked up trying to load it. I finally realized it was a BluRay disk, not a DVD, so it needed to be played via the BluRay player.

Sigh. I guess the Firestick won't work again until the next time the youngsters come out to use it.

**It seems to work better for her than it does me; it recognizes the things she says better than it recognizes what I say.

The local news is on TV (ABC, CBS, and NBC) here at 7pm and again at 11pm. I try to catch it when I can, at least the news part of it, not the weather or sports parts. It's on at 6pm too and at 10pm on another channel, but I hardly ever watch at those times. The tone of these local news broadcasts is usually pretty calm. Watching the local news doesn't bother me unless the content itself is quite upsetting. (There is a trend however, when reporting on weather events, to perhaps over blow them. All these "alert" days, as they call them.)

The national news is on TV here at 6:30pm. I like to catch it when I can too, depending on my mood. In recent years I started noticing how the tone of these newscasts affects me. The tone of voice used by the newscasters from the major networks, as well as the video clips shown (often the same thing repeated over and over again like a clip of an ambulance driving away with lights flashing), and even the intro music (boompa-da-doom type stuff), almost always seems to shout *URGENT* *IMPORTANT* *DANGER* *CRISIS*.

I know this is done precisely because it makes people feel that they should watch the broadcasts. But it affects my mood negatively, riles me up, and can be emotionally draining.

So recently I've started watching the PBS News Hour instead at 9pm, on those days when I can catch it. Those newscasters tend to talk calmly, which is such a nice thing. The PBS News Hour used to feel rather boring to me in comparison to the other news shows, and I rarely watched it. But now I like it.

There are nostalgic TV shows which discuss cultural things from the past. For instance, The Top Ten Revealed, which talks about old songs chosen based on various categories, like songs from a certain year, or songs named after women. Another one is on in the background right now, The 80s: Top Ten, about various things from the 1980s like boomboxes, the Sony Walkman, and McDonalds Happy Meals.

The shows are light-hearted and enjoyable to watch. Some of the things they mention I remember from when I was growing up, other things not so much or not at all.

The format of the shows involves switching between several people as they say various things about the songs or items under discussion. It is made to sound like these are personal reminiscences of those people.

It occurred to me that the speakers are probably paid actors, even the ones who are celebrities. The things they say were probably written by the shows' writers. Sure, it is possible the show producers chose the celebrities first and then asked them about their own memories of the items and incorporated that into the show. But it would be easier to write the show's script first, and then find people to speak the parts. So if the latter is how it is done, I guess it's ok and mostly harmless. It's a more entertaining way of presenting the information. But the shows now seem slightly deceptive to me, similar to what I mentioned about music competition shows in this post.

But the above IMDB pages don't list any "Series Writing Credits" under the "Full Cast & Crew", like they do for scripted fiction shows like Resident Alien. So maybe those shows aren't scripted after all and maybe those really are personal reminiscences. Who knows.

August:
I took a week of vacation.
I watched the Peacemaker series on HBO Max, and enjoyed it. That show has the best title sequence / music.


September:
I got a new phone.
I drove to Myrtle Beach with my mom, for a half-vacation half-work week.


October:
I visited an Arts & Music festival and browsed the art.

I went to the SC Pride Festival and got to see a performance by Sheila E.. A nice thing about these public outdoor events here is how close up you can get to the stage and performers, if you want, compared to a concert with assigned seating.

I got my flu shot and bivalent Covid booster on the same day, one in each arm.

Wyze treasure hunt! It affected me, oddly, remotely. I wish I had time to describe the feels.

Halloween: I put up decorations and lights. I replaced the net fabric from my ghosties with a different fabric less likely to entrap flying insects. The new fabric is thicker and heavier, so I cut it into strips to make it look better. Turned out quite well; I was very pleased. I gave out treats. There were 13 trick-or-treaters.


November:
I early-voted the Friday before; stood in line for an hour. But I was relieved to get it done with.

I've finished watching the last batch of Resident Alien episodes, and am still enjoying the series a lot. It is still quite amusing as well as touching. It's more about friendships than sci-fi.

Other TV recordings on Qiao's DVR still remaining for me to watch:
A Million Little Things
Killing Eve
The Wonder Years

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Since working from home, I've read very few books. I used to mainly read books during my lunch breaks, sitting on the picnic benches by the pond at work. I no longer take full-fledged lunch breaks like that due to the many other small breaks I take during the day. It takes me long enough to finish my work hours each day without adding an hour-long lunch break in between.

But last year I started reading books again, even if at first only while flossing my teeth before bed.

I finally finished "Good Omens", which I had started right before the pandemic. I didn't find it very amusing* nor did I feel a connection with any of the characters. But I still want to see if I like the TV series that was based on it. Maybe I'll connect more with TV characters.
*Perhaps some of the British-based humor passed me by, but perhaps also, satire of Christianity doesn't seem funny to me as I don't have enough esteem for the religion to begin with.

Now I've also started book-reading while using the exercise bike, which I try to do twice a day for ten minutes or more. Reading a book distracts me from the effort and tediousness of the exercise even better than playing word games or scrolling thru random DW entries.

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Lately, I often work on my laptop outside during the afternoons. I've sat outside in the sunshine enough this winter and spring to have gotten a tan on my arms.