Day 43 - Wednesday, May 13th, 2026: Chicken liver?

Today was brutal! Excruciating exhaustion when it started out. But interestingly, I ended up feeling a lot better towards the end of my shift. Which is weird, since I usually, gradually, get more tired the longer I work. But I made it! 

Now, for the title of the post: I tried some fried chicken liver! Hated it, not for me, haha! 

But I also got to try some banana pudding and pineapple icebox pudding, both were phenomenal!

I’ve also written down a lot of Notes & Thoughts for this weekend. The ideas started coming and didn’t stop coming, so I’m excited for this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, some exciting things are planned as well. So the next couple of days of work will be rough, but it’ll be a good weekend! (Hopefully.)

For now though, I’ve got to get some rest! 

Day 42 - Tuesday, May 12th, 2026: Lethargy… ?

Today’s post will be another one of those short, poorly-formatted phone posts. Apologies in advance! I take pride in my work, but today was… rough? It both dragged on and flew by, with a consistent feeling of lethargy. Perhaps I’m simply tired, so I’ll try to get some extra rest tonight!

For lunch, I brought with me a “faux burrito bowl” that ended up being amazing! It heavily relies on the seasoning I used, however, so I’m hesitant to post the recipe. (It’s nothing special.) The smoothies I made came out great also, but a little too thick for the tumblers and cups I use, which is a good problem to have. 

While I did take a lot of notes today, I don’t have the time (or frankly, the energy) to post them today. They’ll likely have to wait until this weekend. 😔

Tomorrow will be… challenging also, I believe. But we’ll see how it goes! I won’t be able to take my usual half-dozen naps, and I’m already pre-exhausted by that thought, haha!

I’ve also gone ahead and ordered a new USB C to 3.5mm adapter, hopefully it’ll help with some of the quirks I’ve been experiencing. (Especially Siri popping up every time I plug in the current dongle. It doesn’t happen instantly, there’s a three second delay that’s incredibly frustrating!)

I’m probably missing a lot of things I wanted to mention… But for now I simply have to go to sleep! 😴 

Day 41 - Monday, May 11th, 2026: Feeling nostalgic!

And I posted about it!

[ Bluesky / Threads / X / Mastodon / Tumblr / Instagram / Pixelfed ]

With the move comes change of scenery, so it makes sense that I'm craving comfort. So: out comes the DS Lite! Loved this system as a kid, and still love this system now. Didn't help that I tried to clean out my digital photos earlier too. But it's change for the better, therefore I'm allowing myself to drown in mid-00s games!

Packing isn't going all too well, it's hard to decide what to keep and what to pack for the next two months... My monitors need to get packed, for sure; I need to have this desk empty by next week.

Which brings me to the laptops. Chromebook is easy! And so is the Work laptop. But my other laptop (a ThinkPad T490) that's been running Windows 11... I simply don't want that to be my main "powerful" device. Or rather, I don't want to rely on Windows. But also running Fedora on that sounds too... boring? Tumbleweed's a little too hinky as a primary driver, Debian too stable. Elementary OS or Linux Mint sound like they'd fit the bill, but admittedly neither felt right. So I picked Ubuntu, since that got a new release. I've got a soft spot for Ubuntu, despite being very aware of all its flaws. It's recent and fresh, but doesn't need daily updates. GNOME is filled out with extensions so I'm not missing tray icons. Great fonts, clean UI, and decent performance. So I'll be daily driving an Ubuntu ThinkPad! Plus, it'll allow me to keep tabs on Ubuntu's progression as well. 

On ZFS, of course. I plan to use this system only occasionally (as in, once a month) so the cadence of updates paired with a resilient filesystem should make for a smooth ride! 

I've also gotten Taco Bell for the first time in months. And I'd like to do a brief review. (Something I'd like to keep consistent moving forward!)

Rating system:
Would get again!
Tasty.
Okay.
No thanks.

Leftover rating:
Great!
Likely okay.
Goop/Bad.

(Pretty self-explanatory, I think.)

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of any of these items. Fortunately, Taco Bell has images so I'll link each item below!

Diablo Dusted Crispy Nuggets:

By far my favorite of the order, and what a surprise! Chicken nuggets from Taco Bell? Pretty good, as it turns out! Quite crispy, and that Diablo dust is divine! I highly recommend dipping them in the Jalapeño Honey Mustard.

Would get again + Great as leftovers!

Jalapeño Honey Mustard:

Honey mustard with a kick. Highly recommended, this was delicious!

Would get again.

Hidden Valley Diablo Ranch:

This sauce was supposed to be spicy, but I personally didn't get that. It was fine enough as ranch, I suppose, but I'm not the biggest ranch fan.

Simply okay.

Chocolate Fudge & Caramel Empanadas:

These I also adored! The caramel empanada is like a fried, pancake-wrapped Werther's. But whoa, the chocolate one! Same crispy, tasty outside, but that filling is divine. Flavor-wise it's reminiscent of Nutella, but the texture is closer to a dense chocolate mousse. I didn't expect to like this one, but I ended up loving it.

However, they make for terrible leftovers. The shell dries out and becomes hard and brittle. It goes from a delicious crispy-fried pancake to a sad, crumbly cracker. Taste remains delightful though!

Would get again + Bad leftovers.

Zab’s Chicken Ranch Nacho Fries:

Fries? In my Taco Bell? It's more likely than you think!

These were pretty decent. I quite liked the taste of everything, but keep in mind that everything's mixed together and the fries get soggy quick! And they make for terrible leftovers, resembling nothing more than a colorful glob of paint.

Tasty + Goop.

Doritos Cheesy Gordita Crunch - Nacho Cheese:

An old favorite. Delicious! I love the cheese-stuffed double-shell deal they've got going on. So good, in fact, that I had no leftovers. 🫣

However, it's a pretty boring item outside of that, so I probably would get something else next time.

Tasty + Not sure how they'd fare as leftovers.


I've got no Notes & Thoughts this time around, but I do have one interesting news article: Nintendo will raise the price of the Switch 2 by $50 ($449.99 -> $499.99) on September 1st, 2026. So luckily, no sudden price increases like the Xbox, or Sony's "Hey, we're raising the prices in a week!". I don't like price increases, but I feel like this hike was respectfully done.

Nothing further as I've been occupied with packing and other household chores! 

I didn't start writing this blog post on the ThinkPad, but I did finish writing it here! It works phenomenally well. 🦝

Here's a screenshot as proof, from my mostly-unfinished setup:

Written at 1778500521.

Day 40: QA Specialist... Me?

Another post from the Chromebook! I love this thing, even though it's just... objectively not good. It was a struggle trying to open .HEIC image files. 

Protip: send the files from your iPhone via LocalSend, it'll convert them to .JPGs. 

I needed to do this to make a couple of posts. (All socials: Bluesky / Threads / X / Mastodon / Tumblr / Instagram / Pixelfed)

On that note: Happy Mother's Day! Sunday, May 10th. Hope you didn't forget; call your mom.

But the topic of the title is quite an interesting one. A few weeks back, I heard some rumblings that our QA Specialist was switching positions. I was curious, but didn't want to seem invasive by asking. Besides, I'm still the "new guy", so why bother? And not only that, I was sure loads of people were interested in the position anyway, and I didn't want to step on any toes! But as it turns out, internally my supervisors and the QA guy had been talking about getting me to apply. They figured I'd be a good fit! I'm already part of the company, have a good work ethic, mesh well with all (or most, at least) of my coworkers, and love working with computers and data. So I applied! It's being fast-tracked and I'll likely have a meeting with the soon-to-not-be-QA Specialist to see if I'd be as good of a fit as they assumed. Fingers crossed! The bump in pay would be nice, but that's not why I was interested. In this position, I'd be working with a bunch of data every day! Measurements, verifications, calculations... The same thing every day! And boy, I sure love doing the same thing every day! While I'm hopeful, I also shouldn't expect too much since it's a pretty sweet role, and I might not get picked. But that won't stop me from dreaming! Looking forward to the next few days, and seeing where things go. Wish me luck!

Oh, and I'll need to get a notebook ready in case I get the position! There'll be so much for me to learn, and I reckon I'll be writing a lot of SOPs for personal use.

Even though I spent a lot of time listening to podcasts today, there are very few Notes & Thoughts. In fact, just a singular thought!

Thoughts:

- On the latest episode of the WAN Show titled "AMD Proving to be Linux Chads AGAIN - WAN Show May 8, 2026", Linus is doubling down on his stance on the Billet Labs situation (which I literally complained about yesterday!) That's the final straw to me, so I unsubscribed after eight years. Perhaps I should revisit LTT as a whole, if Linus' stance changes, but it's been about three years, so I doubt it...

Written at 1778421296.

Day 39: Satur-yay(n't).

A clunky title, but I like it. Yay, it's the weekend! Nay, I have to work. But I've got some photos I wanted to share. I posted my favorite across all socials, but I saved three other ones just for the blog. 

[ Bluesky / Threads / X / Mastodon / Tumblr / Instagram / Pixelfed ]

I did a bunch of meal prepping for next week, and although I ended up with very little decompression time, at least I feel productive. Plus, I've got some delicious meals I'm looking forward to!

But I did go ahead and delete Duolingo. I kept it around as a way to practice French when I had some time, but I didn't enjoy the amount of notifications or the oddly threatening and FOMO-inducing phrasing they used. 

And while cleaning up, I've also unsubscribed from a bunch of podcasts. I'm now down to 43. By my calculations, I should be through my entire backlog (of 5,000+ episodes) in a month or two, but we'll see how that pans out!

I've also got some Notes & Thoughts, since I missed a page when going through my notebook yesterday!

Notes:

- Allan Jude (Klara Inc. co-founder and ZFS expert) made his own website, and it's stunning! (Although no favicon on my end yet.)

- The ANBERNIC RG Rotate will be releasing in a couple of days on May 12th. I am super tempted to pick this up! $88 for the basic version, and $108 for the version with a metal case. I loved my GBA SP, and this would be like its weird cousin. 

- BlueBubbles, an open-source client for interacting with iMessage on non-Apple platforms. This one is super interesting to me (as a user of many OSes) but I'm not sure how I'd feel about poking a hole in the security. (That, and you generally need a Mac to make it work. There are VM-related work-arounds, but that sounded a little too finicky to me.)

- KDE Plasma 6.7 is shaping up to be another performance-improving update, and I simply can't wait!

- Xbox's achievement update is out now. It's still by far my favorite gaming achievement system, and I'm glad it's not been abandoned. Looking forward to hearing more about Xbox with Project Helix.

- You can view pictures from the Artemis II mission on Unsplash now. 

Thoughts:

- Unsubscribing from DTNS and Live With It was difficult, as I genuinely enjoyed those podcasts. However, the amount of ads was overbearing, in my opinion. And "bad" ads, too. Gambling, alcoholic beverages, etc. Not something I want to spend 5+ minutes listening to each time. I'm contemplating paying for the podcasts, as to avoid the ads, but for now I'll simply remain unsubscribed altogether.

- Vib-Ribbon popped in my head the other day. A really neat music game, but get this: it loads the entire game engine into the console’s 2MB RAM, allowing you to remove the game disc and insert an audio CD! It's just such a neat concept to me!

- Even though I'm contemplating the RG Rotate, I haven't abandoned the idea of getting a controller for my phone, so I can play retro games on a very powerful "handheld". Debating between the MCON and the GameSir Pocket Taco. One's considerably cheaper than the other, but both rely on Bluetooth which I'm not a fan of for gaming. 

- I've also been considering unsubscribing from the WAN show, a long-time favorite of mine. But the episodes are so incredibly long, and Linus' controversies keep stacking up. The Billet Labs fiasco made me feel quite negative about LTT, and Gamers Nexus' deep dive was pretty condemning. And now with the whole private jet thing... I'm not sure. I don't hate Linus, and I really like Luke and Dan, but something doesn't sit right about everything that's been transpiring.

- Since I'm back on Fedora (with KDE), I've been itching to try a different DE. I love both Enlightenment and Pantheon (from elementary OS), although neither have an official spin. Perhaps another weekend project some day?

- After doing a little bit of audio-related digging, I found out that JACK stands for JACK Audio Connection Kit. I love recursive acronyms! 

- Androidify is still alive and well! I need to make myself a little android. ☺️

- I've heard good things about the Dragonfly Super Hot Roasted Chili Oil! I made some LAO GAN MA Spicy Chili Crisp oil quinoa the other week, and we all really liked it! The Dragonfly oil is supposed to be hotter, so that caught my attention. However, it doesn't sacrifice on the flavor side, which is equally important to me.

- And after moving and stabilizing finances, I'd like to get one of those Japanese snack boxes. Online reviews of Bokksu seem positive, so that's probably the one I'd go with!

- I mentioned streaming sticks a while ago, and the onn 4K Streaming Device seems to fit my needs (almost) perfectly! At $40, I'm willing to get this, although it'll likely also have to wait until after the move (so I can finally start using the TV again.)

- I used to watch Ashens' videos religiously a decade ago. He's still making the Poundland Specials to this day! (Or week, rather, as the most recent update was seven days ago.)

And to round things out: the four photos as promised!

Perhaps I could post the other three to my socials some other day, they're thematically consistent, and I love how they turned out!

Written at 1778330388.

Day 38: The sort-of weekend.

Fueled by leftover stuffed crust pizza, I'll write another sizable blog post!

It's been an interesting week, so without further ado:

(Or some slight ado: I'm thinking of separating the Notes & Thoughts, and applying labels for either section, or both sections, when applicable. But that's irrelevant for this post, it's more of a future-forward change.)

Notes:

- WhatPulse 6.2 has been released. I was particularly excited about the new pause toggle, but it doesn't seem to be available on Linux yet unfortunately. 

- Ubuntu 26.04 is out now, too! Here is the list of all changes from 25.10. GNOME 50 is the big one!

- Super ZSNES was released, after nearly two decades! Being nostalgic for an emulator is a funny thing, but I'll have to give this one a try!

- The Android Show | I/O Edition will be happening May 12th, and I've already created a calendar event! Curious to see what the "big changes" will be. The main Google I/O event will be happening a week later, May 19th - 20th. 

- Google COSMO was briefly released, then pulled. Seems like it was supposed to be an "anticipating" AI assistant. 

- Gizmodo's article on the leaked iPhone 4 is an evergreen article worth a read for a nice hit of nostalgia.

- Spotify has released a "Save To Spotify" CLI tool, mainly intended to push your own (AI-generated) audio for personal use. Interesting enough for me to mention it, but I likely won't use it.

- The long-rumored Google FitBit Air was finally released! $99.99, so I'll have to pass, but this has been an "open secret" for a little while now.

Thoughts:

- I need to set up a "Work" Focus Mode on iOS. I toggle on/off Sleep Mode when I (don't) want notifications, which is a bit of a hassle. A mode that automatically enables when I'm at work would be way more convenient!

- I can't wait for FEX (or similar translation layer) to get good enough to where we can run Borderlands 2 on Android phones. I'm sure we're almost there, given the rate of progress these past few months! I remember having to play the game on low settings at 630 x 480, just to get a playable 20 FPS. The future is now! (Or soon!)

- I'm excited for the new iPhone Luminance wallpapers, coming soon!

- I had to unsubscribe from the Mobile Tech Podcast, as it made me want phones I couldn't get. 😔

- And talking about emulation, I've been meaning to do some testing for the best cores in RetroArch. The idea of turning my Pi 5 into a retro machine sounds like a blast.

- Blast from the past: instead of using the Pi 5 as a retro emulation machine, what if I used it as a retro machine? A late 90s or early 2000s themed-PC. Linux, XFCE or MATE, using only The Old Net. Sounds fun, I think. 

- Playing with the idea of adding a UNIX timestamp to each blog post, at the time of writing. Silly? Maybe. But fun! 

- I want to read The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. 

- And I really need to look into PGP & GPG! I'm vaguely aware of them, but not using them (yet). Signing all my posts would be really cool, I think. In a nerdy, sysadmin-y way.

- For nostalgia's sake, I'd love a little desk mantle clock with swinging pendulum. However, they seem really expensive... 

- The different designs of the flags of earth are definitely worth a look! My favorite is the One World Flag design by Thomas Mandl

Time for me to get some much-needed rest. Looking forward to trying the new cheeses tomorrow! 🧀

Oh, and I'll be posting some pictures tomorrow, too!

Written at 1778252636.