Day 44 - Thursday, May 14th, 2026: Things are looking up!

Another tiny post, as I’m supposed to be sleeping right now! I got stuck behind a commercial truck, which added around ten minutes to my commute. That doesn’t sound like much, but it took up any extra time I had! Frustrating, but that’s life, I suppose…

Now, for the good news: the QA position seems to be moving forward! It sounds like it’s getting expedited and I should fill the spot more quickly than usual. I’m hoping I’ll be learning that role by next week! 

My wife made some amazing blueberry jam! No recipe (yet?), but I’m going to have pancakes this weekend. With homemade whipped cream, too! 

Taking naps on every break, while “weird,” definitely speeds up the day and makes the lethargy bearable. This is what I’ll do until my schedule changes, but definitely something I want to stop doing as soon as possible… 

I learned we can make requests for the vending machines at work, and I put in some suggestions. Let’s see what happens! 

Tomorrow’s post should be much bigger. But for now, I’ll get some rest. 😴

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.

Day 37: Looking forward to the weeken’t.

What a day today was! Started out truly horrendously, but somewhat interestingly ended “okay”. I think the only reason I survived today was because I napped on every break… Don’t underestimate the power of four 10-minute naps with a 30-minute slumber session!

I’ve been eating more, which has caused my stomach to feel upset pretty much all the time. And I’ve felt so lethargic and blah. I have a suspicion that the lack of coffee is to blame… And for some reason I’ve been incredibly hot all the time!

Speaking of time: I really hate that I never have any! These 12.5-hour shifts are so rough. I’m eating some leftover Four-N-One Stix as I’m typing this (on my phone). They’re great fresh, but pretty bad as leftovers! The Crazy Puffs hold up a lot better as leftovers in my opinion.

As for the pun in the title: I got Monday off, so I’ll be working Saturday. So: working Thursday, off Friday, working Saturday, off Sunday, and then the week starts anew. Not really looking forward to a split weekend, but what can you do? (Well, call out, I suppose… But I don’t want to leave the team hanging!)

But I promise there’ll be a proper Notes & Thoughts section tomorrow! I’ve got quite a few written down, and I look forward to typing them out properly when I can.

So with that, I’ve got to go! Truly looking forward to a day off!

Day 36: Bad days come and go.

And I would classify today as a bad day. Work was taxing, more so than usual. I got some new socks that I hate. My stomach has been upset all day, not to mention the extreme exhaustion! And the cherry on top: the fire alarm went off in the building (again) so I couldn’t even enter the apartment when I got home…

But hey, I got a donut today, so there’s that. Silver linings!

(I believe it was a plain glazed chocolate Dunkin’ donut.)

I need to go to bed pronto! Goodnight, hopefully tomorrow will be more bearable…

Day 35: Trying to look at the silver lining.

Today was... interesting. Got to work, found out some equipment wasn't working, so I got to go home again. I'll be working an "extra" day this weekend, unfortunately. 

And I've had the worst headache all day! So in a way, it was a good thing I went home today. But it did end up being a relaxing day off. I could use a nap, or a coffee. Or both!

(Although unfortunately, I'm quitting coffee which has been annoying, and I'm supposed to reduce the amount of naps I take. Seems like I can't win!)

No proper notes and thoughts today, as I'm a bit too tired for formatting. Here's everything that I either thought of, found, or heard about:

- It's Cinco de Mayo! 

- I found a list of free Linux-related Kindle e-books, on a forum of all places! I'm not familiar with Scot's Newsletter though.

- A shout-out to BleachBit; a very useful tool to clean your drives.

- Microsoft has a very comprehensive set of guides for learning about PowerShell. I've never done anything particularly involved in PowerShell, so I'll have to read up on this.

- Ever miss StumbleUpon? Enjoy CloudHiker! It's not exactly the same, but similar enough.

- I should subscribe to some photography-related podcasts. I bet I'd learn quite a few useful things that way!

- There is an optimal duration for naps! Or rather, different lengths serve different purposes. There are lots of infographics about this online, but here's a brief explainer from the CDC/NIOSH.

- MadeByHarriet's art always puts a smile on my face. Mostly greyhounds, mostly silly. ☺️

- I've been thinking of getting one of those Japanese futons. The new place will be a lot smaller, so being able to "put away" the bed might give me some more room in the no-longer-office I spend so much time in. 

    - I'd like to have less stuff, generally. Lately, things have been cluttered and slightly overwhelming. I don't intend on going all minimalist (though I'd love to), but saving room sounds like a win for my mental health.

- Speaking of remembering: what about Hyperbole and a Half? If the name doesn't ring a bell, "Alot" might. Or "Clean ALL the things!" 2010... Time flies!

- Ash & Adam's Existential Treads looks like it'd be right up my alley! Part city builder, part twin-stick shooter. Steam Deck verified and on sale currently!

- I've been working on meal planning, and it's tough! Making enough food without making too much. Prepping, planning, cooking, cleaning, storing... It's a lot!

- I fell into Takahiro(FKS) again. It's been a few years, so this was a nice rediscovery.

- Also, I'm thinking of going ChromeOS-only the month before moving. By then, I should be mostly done with packing, so I can't have half a dozen machines and nearly as many displays out. Perhaps I'll keep the Steam Deck out, too, just in case. Or I could go crazy and do a Chromebook + Switch setup. We'll see how it goes!

- And lastly, I'll leave you with this weird Pikmin Bloom text glitch. 

Goodnight! I could definitely use the sleep... 😴

Day 34: May the 4th be with you!

And goodness gracious, I could use some magic! I'm running on one hour of sleep, so bear with me. 

It's been an errand-filled day more than anything. Although I put a sizable dent in the iCloud-Notes-To-Google-Keep migration. I managed to move over all the recipes! 

I've also swapped the main PC over from openSUSE Tumbleweed to Fedora. I was having some odd bugs I couldn't recreate. The two main ones being:

- My power buttons would disappear and stop working. I couldn't lock, sleep, turn off, or restart* the machine! The sleep shortcut didn't work, the buttons were missing, and it would happen seemingly at random. 

* A sudo systemctl reboot did work, but that led me to rebooting a whole bunch of times, unnecessarily. 

- Krunner and the taskbar were slowly but surely becoming way slower. It's instant on Fedora, and I believe it was instant on Tumbleweed at first, too. But it started taking upwards of two seconds just to search for a program. Those seconds really do add up!

It's still being set up, so no screenshots yet, but it's largely the same system and setup.

Something I can show screenshots of, though: my Chromebook! I spent some time organizing my programs, and I like the simplified folder-only layout.

Taskbar on the left! It makes so much sense on ChromeOS. My apps are sorted in the following folders:

- Most Used

- Social Media

- Games

- News

- Google

- Multimedia

- Browsers

- Tools

- Linux apps

Nice and clean, and everything's just a quick search away anyway. 

Another shorter post, but I've got to get some sleep! Aiming for a tidy 10 hours, to try and catch up! Good night. 😴

Day 33: Always changing; like a rolling distro!

Writing this blog post on a chilly Sunday while listening to Lunatic Harness. Quite fitting, don't you think?

Most noticeable change: Titles. Shrinking them way down. "But Riley, how will I know when this was posted?" Fear not! Full dates will be displayed below the title, on every post. I'm opting to remove the day, since I've found out that searching the web will tell you what day it was. (No matter the search engine!)

I'll try to include the day in the opening sentences moving forward though. Because I do believe it adds useful context. 

Today was interesting. I slept a lot, and felt pretty good after waking up! Then played Overcooked on the Nintendo Switch with some old friends of mine. It made me realize how much I've missed our game nights. In a lot of ways, I miss the small town we're from. But the grass is always greener on the other side, and undoubtedly I'd miss "all the nice places" from the city. 

More changes ahead, however. I've decided to swap back from TickTick to Google Tasks. I love TickTick, but it's a bit too much for my needs. Sometimes, all you need is a simple hammer, not a whole toolbox. And on that note: Keep Notes. I've set up an extensive labeling system. It's still a work in progress, but I like the granularity it offers. Now I've got to move all my notes from iCloud into Keep. That'll be a chore! 

Here's the list, feel free to use it as inspiration:

/ Inbox
/ Waiting
Dev/Code
Dev/Code/Bash
Dev/Code/Scripts
Dev/Config
Dev/Guides/Linux
Dev/Guides/macOS
Dev/Guides/Windows
Dev/Hardware
Dev/Tools
Home/Decor
Home/Food/Meals
Home/Garden
Home/Recipes/Baking
Home/Recipes/Meals
Home/Recipes/Try
Life/Chores
Life/Goals
Play/Gaming
Play/Gaming/Backlog
Play/Gaming/In-progress
Play/Gaming/Vault
Play/Music
Play/Reading
Play/Watchlist/Movies
Play/Watchlist/Shows
Shopping/Books
Shopping/Gear
Shopping/Grocery
Shopping/Wishlist
Social
Studio/Blog/Ideas
Studio/Social
Studio/Thoughts
Work/[REDACTED]
🗄️ Reference/Manuals
🗄️ Reference/Receipts
🗄️ Reference/Vault

I also ate some Little Caesars today. It upset my stomach (unsurprisingly), but I've learned that they apparently don't sell different sizes. Just 14-inch pizzas. Interesting, I thought. Must help a lot with logistics. 

I also drank the La Colombe Triple Draft Latte. Delicious! That texture is truly divine, in my opinion. Oh, and I did forget to mention I got Cava yesterday! I quite like their pita wraps, specifically. Can't go wrong with their falafels! 

Switching back to productivity: Gmail still has a ton of customization settings available on the website! I initially went looking for the ability to get desktop notifications, but I ended up enabling the reading pane, editing my labels, setting a theme, and turning on the favicon number. Truly unstoppable now! 

I've also spent a lot of time messing with my Chromebook (Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3). I love this little thing! But I should mention: it's objectively not good. The MediaTek processor is slow, the 4 GB of RAM is insufficient, and that 64 GB of storage will fill up quickly. It's a true "single-tasking" device. But that's precisely why I love it. It forces you to slow down and prioritize your tasks. It won't let you get distracted. I picked mine up on sale for $139. And if it truly gets supported until June 2033, it'll have cost me just $20 per year. That's less than most subscriptions! I really wish it had a backlit keyboard, but it's so cheap I truly can't complain. 

So, what's left for today? Cleaning up my notes, sorting through Google Drive, attempting to clean out Google Photos, and analog-ing my recipes. I think that'll fill the rest of my night. Some YouTube, maybe some dinner, and lots of music. I've been on a bit of a "retro" kick lately, listening to early techno and demoscene music. 

And I'll leave you with one question (and answer) I had: How do lava lamps work for security?

CloudFlare has a magnificent write-up about this! LavaRand, how quirky.

Not exactly looking forward to tomorrow (technically speaking "tomorrow", but it'll be two days from now, for me.) Going back to work will be tough, I miss having free time! 

And I do hope that my Discover Weekly will be fixed. 

But, time for me to sort out my productivity programs, and then catch some zzzs!

Day 32 - Saturday, May 2nd, 2026: Sleepy; solutions.

 Quick PSA: Mother's Day is next Sunday, May 10th! (In the U.S., at least.)

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

I've been exhausted today, but this time it's simply because of a lack of sleep. That's an easy fix! And what's more promising: we found out what's wrong, and we've got solutions. So over the next week and beyond, I should be feeling a lot less tired all the time. 

There won't be any Notes & Thoughts today, this is more of a diary-style entry. Spent all day running errands, and nothing too interesting came on my radar.

I'm listening to Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin, I enjoy revisiting this album every once in a while! Xtal is probably my favorite track on the album, but I also highly enjoy Pulsewidth, Ageispolis, Heliosphan, and Delphium.

While grocery shopping, I saw this beautiful and vibrant display of flowers. For Mother's Day, of course, since that's coming up!

I also saw a really cute lemon-themed collection of kitchenware. If only that darned move wasn't coming up, I'd get those kitchen towels and that serving platter. Just imagine the charcuterie boards!

Food-wise (since I'm doing some diet changes) I got myself four treats. 

1. La Colombe Triple Draft Latte: I love La Colombe! They manage to make their coffees incredibly creamy. Quite sweet, but not too sweet. Their Mocha is probably my favorite; I haven't yet tried this triple-shot variant.
2. Fix & Fogg’s Everything Butter: By far my favorite nut butter. Although it's more than just a nut butter, as the name implies. This stuff is incredible!
3. Beehive Cheese Red Butte Hatch Chile Cheddar: This one caught my eye because I love the taste of peppers, plus I've been on a cheddar kick lately. I'll have to try it plain first, but I can't wait to make a grilled cheese with this!
4. Clawson Crimson Wensleydale With Cranberries: This was on sale! I've never tried a Wensleydale cheese before, and I figured the sweetness of the cranberries would offer a nice contrast to the possibly spicy chile cheddar.

And finally, the moonrise was absolutely stunning today! This first picture is taken with the default iOS camera, Bright Style applied. It appears a bit brighter than real life did, but the vibrant red-orange is true to life! I promise, that's not the sun! 

But speaking of pictures, I also tried two other apps. I wasn't particularly happy with the results (due to my own lack of skill and understanding).

This photo was taken with the Moment Pro Camera II app. Colors are dull, but overall brightness is more realistic. 

And this photo was taken with Snapseed's camera. The app has built-in filters, which is neat. I'm not sure if the crunchy artifacts are from the filter, or the fact that it's a JPEG image. It does have a nice, 90s-inspired "retro" look to it, though.

But I'm once again absolutely wiped out! Tomorrow I'll be playing some Mario Kart 8 and/or Overcooked with a friend, which I'm looking forward to. It's important to stay in touch with loved ones! 

On that note: goodnight.

Day 31 - Friday, May 1st, 2026: April showers bring May flowers!

It's officially May! I'm looking forward to this month.

Had to call out of work again, my arm's been killing me, and I can't shake this "sick" feeling. But there's hope! In about a week, we'll find out if the changes I've made will have helped.

Notes:

- Fedora 44 has been released! Update your machines, and enjoy all the goodies. 

- Talkie is a 1930s LLM. Or, as they'd call it, a vintage language model. Worth mentioning it's a 13B model. Spiffy!

- Logitech announced the G512 X Gaming Keyboard, notable for its TMR switches. TMR seems to be the trendy new technology! It offers improved precision, lower latency, and better durability compared to Hall Effect sensors. Plus 8K polling and dual-swap beds.

- Changelog News uploaded a new episode after a month of silence! I've missed Adam and Jerod.

- EFF & the Internet Archive have published a book on the vulnerability of digital data. It's called "Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record" and can be downloaded for free from the Internet Archive. You can also purchase a physical copy, if that's more your style.

Thoughts:

- Turns out that inserting a Jump Break cuts off the posts on the homepage, and there's no quick XML fix for that. So the posts from this past week will be cut off. Oops! But it's all part of learning, right?

- I've always been skeptical of Amazon's Send-to-Kindle, but... I might be a convert! I don't have a Kindle yet, but you can use this to send files to the Kindle app on your phone. Previously I was using a comparatively complex setup in Calibre, where I'd run my library as a server, and then download the books from my phone into Apple Books. Which is not particularly useful as a multi-OS admin! Through the Kindle app I can easily read books on my phone and all my devices (Linux, Windows, ChromeOS). Plus, if I ever get an Android device or a Kindle, all my books are a simple download away! And there's cross-platform syncing, oh my. 

- I've heard good things about The Empty Man, and I've added it to my Watchlist. I love a good (cosmic) horror!

- And I've been working on my iOS layout. Lock screen and home screen are set up, as are the icon designs. I'm currently working on icon layout and widgets. Pretty tedious, compared to a PC.

- And my attempt at moving over to Firefox has been slow. I want to make sure all my passwords have correct timestamps, which involves finding the "Account Created" email, taking the timestamp, converting it to Epoch Time, and then putting that into a spreadsheet to import into Firefox. 

    - Plus, I'll have to move my Reading List over to another read-it-later service. Pocket has been shuttered, which is a shame as I genuinely used and enjoyed the service. (And being able to sync with my Kobo was such a nice bonus!) I'm stuck between Instapaper and Raindrop.io. Instapaper is more of a drop-in replacement, while Raindrop.io seems more versatile and powerful. Since I'll have to get used to a new service, I might as well get used to a "more difficult" one at the same time, right?

- The Google Story by David A. Vise came onto my radar, and it's been added to my Reading List.

- I've managed to download all my files from iCloud Drive, and moved them into Google Drive. Another excruciatingly tedious task, as Apple doesn't make it easy to export your files. (In my opinion, anyway.) Dates on folders are incorrect (all timestamped as today), but the files seem fine. When I find the time, I need to comb through my years of accumulated digital cruft, and really sort everything properly. 

- The Zen Browser did catch my eye, though. Not only is it available on Linux, there's even a Flatpak on Flathub! It's downloading now, but I may not have any time to test it this weekend, unfortunately. 

- We all know Alan Turing, but I never realized how tragic his (short) life was. The Wikipedia page is worth a read. Without his work, I wouldn't be sitting here typing this, so I'm incredibly grateful for everything he's done.

- I'd never heard of IBM's "Quantum Chandelier", but it's a stunning piece of engineering work. You can read more about it on CNET. 

- TechDweeb on YouTube has some very interesting videos about retro & handheld gaming. Not sure why he's not shown up in my recommendations yet; he deserves the shout-out!

- Steve Jobs' "Thoughts on Flash" is a lengthy read, but really interesting given how everything has developed since.

- I'd like to try out some different email clients on iOS. The default Mail app doesn't work for my needs, and I've had some issues with the Gmail app. Outlook seems like the obvious choice, but I've heard good things about Spark and Edison, so those might be worth checking out!

A rather lengthy post, with lots of thoughts! But all caught up, for now. I'd like to get my recipes written down and digitized, so that might be tomorrow's project! Goodnight for now. 😴

Day 30 - Thursday, April 30th, 2026: One month!

Thirty whole days, I almost can't believe it! Quite a few ups, definitely some downs. April 1st feels both so long ago and almost as if it were yesterday. It's quite hard to articulate. Words seem to be failing me, so I'll try to put it concisely: I'm proud! 

Aiming for 12 months next! 😄

I won't be throwing a party, though, as I've been feeling under the weather. And by "under the weather" I mean "I feel like I got run over by a truck".

Since I'm feeling a little off, I figured I'd switch things up. Notes & Thoughts from going through my old phone tabs, instead of the usual (podcast) news stories.

Day 29 - Wednesday, April 29th, 2026: Even longer shifts...

Shifts got bumped from 12 hours, to 12 and a half hours. And wow, those 30 minutes make a difference! Paired with a one-hour commute (which can be longer, depending on the traffic) and the fact that I can't simply teleport places, means I have pretty much zero time. I wake up, I drive to work, I work, I drive home, I shower, and I sleep. It's only temporary, but it's absolutely crushing. Wouldn't be a problem if I lived closer, but of course the schedule will go back to normal right before I move. 

It's incredibly tough, but the overtime is welcome and it is only temporary... I'll need all the coffee I can get my hands on for the next 6 weeks! ☕

Outside of work, I did make (and try) a slightly adjusted Overnight Peanut Butter Oats recipe. It's amazing! Remarkably dense, with a strong flavor of peanut butter. Reminiscent of those Pillsbury Vanilla Frosting tubs!

Side note: when I went to their website to get a link (just in case someone's not familiar with that type of frosting), I got a pop-up that seems wildly out of place. Why does Poppin' Fresh need to check my LAN? 🤨

 

Anyway, I don't have a cohesive recipe yet (though to be fair, it's overnight oats; they're hard to mess up!) But here are the ingredients, in grams:

• Great Value Chia Seeds - 50 g
• Bob’s Red Mill Protein Oats - 103 g
• Better Body Foods Organic Coconut Palm Sugar - 14 g
• Crazy Richard's Creamy Peanut Butter - 50 g 
• Great Value Greek Yogurt - 150 g

I'm supposed to go to sleep in -17 minutes, so that'll be all for today.

Oh, but before I forget! I've recorded a tangible drop in my resting BPM over the past several months. That's something I want to touch on in a later post, too. 

Goodnight! 😴

Day 28 - Tuesday, April 28th, 2026: Went on a little adventure!

Still feeling quite rough, but I'll be okay. Overwhelming nausea and queasiness, which made getting some sleep really tough. 

But I did play a bunch of Pokémon GO and Pikmin Bloom, which was a very welcome distraction. If I'd felt better, I would've considered this a good day.

So there'll be 6 photos at the bottom of the post. (I'm also still refining the way I include pictures in the blog; it's a work-in-progress, so bear with me.)

But as always, the Notes & Thoughts first!

Day 27 - Monday, April 27th, 2026: A little late, for good reason!

This is my first late post! It was bound to happen; I'm not perfect. (And I'm not a machine either.)

The reason: getting my blood drawn. Being tired before was nothing compared to how I'm feeling now. Tired, lethargic, and queasy. It's been well over 12 hours, yet I can't help feeling under the weather. 

Despite feeling awful, I did manage to eat some interesting food. I've also (mostly) caught up on chores, and tended to the aquarium. 

The 27th and 28th did end up blending together, due to how much I slept over these two days. So I'll try to separate them, but keep in mind they're more like one continuous day.

I'll present the Notes & Thoughts first, with some food pictures and thoughts at the bottom.

Day 26 - Sunday, April 26th, 2026: Today should've been great...

Alas... I've been too tired to do anything. Too sick to have a good time. Tired of being sick; sick of being tired. 

But enough kvetching! It's a special day, and we got some cookies to celebrate! 

No pictures of the actual cookies though, mostly because I forgot. I have a huge sweet tooth and got carried away! (Although I promise I didn't eat 12 cookies in one sitting all by myself! 😆)

Unrelated to the cookies, I'm going to the doctor's and getting some blood drawn. Hardly an experience I relish! But I've got to do it. 

I'm also trying to "catch up on sleep" (which may or may not be redundant as sleep debt might not be a thing, but that's a topic for another day.) 

But I did go ahead and change the title layout back to how it previously was. I much prefer it that way!

Day 25 - Saturday, April 25th, 2026: The sleepiness never stops, but neither do I.

Despite crushing exhaustion, I'm moving forward. And as promised, a massive list of Notes & Thoughts!

Day 24 - Friday, 04/24/2026: TGIF; I'm tired!

I've got a giant list of notes and thoughts in my little notebook, and I was planning on documenting everything digitally. But I'm so tired! So the sizable collection will have to wait until tomorrow. Saturday catch-up!

One thing I'm super excited for tomorrow, too, is some instant curry ramen. I've never had this before! 

Before I rest, enjoy this image of the redesigned Xbox logo.

(Oh, and I think I'll indulge in a nice homemade cup of coffee when I get up. Moka Pot, a touch of creamer, and a splash of milk. Can't wait!)

Day 23 - Thursday, 04/23/2026: A short one!

No time! No time for Notes & Thoughts. No time for anything!

The new schedule is truly hectic, and it's evident that traffic will cause me to have no time whatsoever! 

However, a few noteworthy updates:

- I've learned that taking a nap on every break makes the 12-hour shifts go by faster. Or feel like they go by faster.

- I set up TickTick, which has a convenient Apple Reminders import feature.

- The Ensure French Vanilla is delicious! It tastes like a milkshake. I imagine that blended with some ice, this would make for a delightful little shake. Maybe I'll try making one with banana and peanut butter, too. 

For now, I must go again! 

Geen tijd! Geen tijd!

Hoezeer het me ook spijt!

Day 22 - Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026: Short breaks, shorter naps.

The schedule itself isn't too bad, and neither are the 12-hour shifts. But the lack of post-work time is beyond draining! I have barely enough time to eat something quickly, shower, and sleep. I'm considering waking up a tad later to compensate, but I don't want to be late to work either...

Speaking of eating: I opened a new bag of my all-time favorite pretzels today! The Stellar Pretzel Braids - Maui Monk were a random on-sale purchase roughly a year back, but they've been a mainstay ever since! Delightfully crunchy, and a flavor that's out of this world. Imagine a less cheesy, slightly sweet Dorito. (Upon re-reading, that doesn't sound very good... But I promise you: they're delicious!)

But back to the schedule issue: I'll have to figure out how to shuffle some things around, I think. I've also been napping on pretty much every break. It seems to make the day go by faster, but it also means I don't get any time to focus on anything other than work. I'm not a psychologist, but I do wonder if that'd have any long-term (negative) effects. Suppose we'll see!

On to the Notes & Thoughts:

Notes:

- John Ternus becomes Apple CEO. I'm sure you've heard all about it, it's huge news! 

- Tim Cook also published a farewell moment of transition letter. Absolutely worth a read.

- Framework announced a wireless keyboard + trackpad combo, similar to the Logitech K400! This I am super excited for, and I can't wait to pick one up as soon as possible!

- BasicAppleGuy's blog is six! Known for his stunning wallpapers and engaging (Apple-themed, obviously) posts. I'm happy for him, although I can't believe it's already been six years!

Thoughts:

- I got a bunch of protein shakes to help "eat enough" during work. Shelf stable, enough calories for a quick snack, and doesn't need any portioning, packing, or cleanup. Excited to try the Ensure French Vanilla!

- Since I was so tired at the end of my shift, I figured I'd pick up a pick-me-up. The only thing available was a Black Rifle Coffee Company Espresso Mocha. It was delicious! However, it left a foul taste in my mouth (literally) so I don't think I'll get this one again. 

- Thinking of switching back to gPodder. I adore Pocket Casts, but... I don't adore my iPhone. It seems to have so many issues I can't resolve. Pocket Casts itself is not to blame here. If I'm using wireless headphones, sometimes they don't connect. Occasionally, they'll randomly disconnect. And I don't like having to keep up with charging earbuds, although that's more of a personal issue. When using wired headphones, which I usually do, the frustrations are never-ending. Sometimes my iPhone won't recognize I've plugged in (USB-C) headphones. Sometimes they're not recognized as headphones. Upon connecting, Siri pops up after a two-second delay, every single time. Frequently, they disconnect, and pause the podcast. Sometimes, the podcast gets paused randomly. Volume seemingly gets changed too, although that might be the fault of my Apple Watch's digital crown. Any static makes the headphones become extremely noisy, especially during quiet parts. (As in, static noise, I think.) And when bending down to pick something up, there's a specific angle I seem to hit multiple times per hour that guarantees a disconnect. It doesn't get fully unplugged, mind you, it just stops playing. So I need to unplug the headphones, plug them back in, wait for Siri to show up and go away, then play the podcasts again. It's an incredibly frustrating experience! I've suspected something's wrong with the USB-C port, but I have no way to further test or fix the issue as of right now...

- I finished listening to the Dubstep Classics playlist on Spotify. This was an absolute blast from the past, and I recommend you take a trip down memory lane too!

- Also considering switching back to Firefox. It was my exclusive browser from 2022-2025, before switching back to Chrome due to a litany of bugs. I'm hoping those bugs have been squashed; I miss using Firefox! That's a weekend project for sure, re-importing everything into Firefox. 

Now I'm officially out of time. Goodnight, world!

Day 21 - Tuesday, 04/21/2026: What a headache!

Turns out the 12-hour shifts are very manageable. Today went fine, except for the awful headache I had all day. But everything surrounding work is now much more difficult to manage. Especially dinner; I have to rush just to eat and shower in time to get to bed! But I'm sure I'll get better at this!

And I was quite happy to be given a Philly cheesesteak today. Better than having it get trashed!

No Notes today, just Thoughts:

- The Pringles Hot Ones Los Calientes Rojos are really good! Pringle-y texture, but a nice hot sauce-like flavor with a little bit of heat. 

- I'm thinking of removing the date stamp from my titles. They're right below the title, and it'd save a good few characters.

- I swapped the Tumbleweed branding for Firefox with the Upstream branding. I'm not a big fan of a default Tumbleweeded-Firefox.

- And I wish I had more time to try out TickTick. I've got some great ideas that I can't execute (yet).

- I was sent this Daily Dose Of Nostalgia playlist that I can't wait to listen to! 

As predicted, a very short post. But come Friday, I should have many Notes & Thoughts! 😄

Day 20 - Monday, 04/20/2026: A hazy world and a long shift ahead.

Starting off with this photo I took that's perfect for today. (While I took the photo, the graffiti itself is not mine.)

Today was a pretty eventful day, "funny" date aside. Most of it was spent going through everything; prepping for the move. It's surprising how much stuff one can accumulate over the years. I reckon I'll be spending most of my weekends packing, unfortunately. But the future is bright! 

I made some delightful cold brew, discovered my new favorite muffins (banana nut mini muffins), found some exciting playlists, set up MyNetDiary, purchased the Moment Pro Camera II app, finished setting up both my Windows and ChromeOS laptops, and managed to get caught up on various other things.

But that's where the "Wait!" part comes in: I'll be starting my 12-hour shifts. On one hand, I'll be getting three-day weekends. On the other, my working days will be beyond busy. 12-hour shifts, paired with a one-hour commute (that'll be during the busiest hours), will allow me very little time. It's a good thing I've had nearly three weeks to get used to writing daily blogs, as I'll need to get my thoughts "on paper" as quickly as possible. Let's see if I've managed to streamline the process! However, I did mention I'll likely be writing slightly shorter posts during the working days, and really go over my thoughts during the weekend.

I did not listen to any podcasts, so there'll be fewer notes today. I did sign up for several news websites and their respective newsletters; these should help supplement the interesting finds I struggle to capture during the podcast-less days. I'm really excited about The Verge in particular. I'm now also on Awful.Systems. (Which is hosted on a decentralized, Reddit-like platform called Lemmy.) Feel free to say "Hi!"

And that's not all for social media; one of my posts gained a lot of traction. On Threads, of all places! As of writing, the post got 864 likes, 23 comments, 2 reposts, and over 167,000 views. That's a significant amount (to me, anyway). And my profile, with a mere 5 followers, sits at 102K recent views. 

The post was an off-hand remark about how Samsung doesn't allow the term "admin" in email addresses. Not the one I thought would gain a lot of traction, that's for sure!

So for the Notes & Thoughts:

Notes:

- There's an ARM64 build of Steam for Linux! I'd been using FEX to run Steam on a Raspberry Pi 5, but this should perform much better. Thoroughly testing this will be next weekend's project.

Thoughts:

- The Gemini App for Windows opens insanely quickly. Nearly instantly, which is impressive given that even the start menu takes longer to show up.

- Spotify still hasn't generated my Discover Weekly. Apparently it can take up to two weeks though, so I'm not too worried about it.

- I discovered that the Google Drive app for Android and iOS allows you to scan documents directly into Drive. I've been saving all my user manuals in Apple Notes, and it's taking up almost 3 GB now. Can't wait to give this a try and see if it can replace Apple Notes in that regard.

- Remember Pix'n Love Rush? This had completely faded from my memory, until I saw someone's old Android home screen setup. I played this so much on my PSP Go, ages ago.

- I'll be trying out both TickTick and Todoist. I have my qualms with both Apple Reminders and Google Tasks. Maybe one of those programs can convince me to switch away from the old mainstays... We'll see!

- I'm also going to be giving Notion a try. I was going to go with Obsidian, but the sync system is not something I'm willing to spend money on before being able to give it a try. (And while I know you can self-host a vault, that's a bit more trouble than I'm willing to go through just to find out whether or not I'll even like the software.) Google Keep is a little too simplistic, Google Docs doesn't quite fit my needs for quicker notes, and Apple Notes is horrendously slow on web. OneNote is also too complex for my needs. I want to use a platform that allows me to both quickly jot down notes, as well as write down lengthier thoughts. (Think blog post drafts, recipes, installation instructions, things like that.) Google Keep is so close to being perfect, but it lacks just a few too many features!

- My favorite coffee place has also officially closed. I'll miss their Banana Crème lattes...

- Both PowerToys and Raycast are installed. PowerToys is up and running, but I haven't messed with Raycast yet. And I'm looking to install DaVinci Resolve soon, too!

- I'm officially on the Windows 11 Pro Beta channel now. I'll wear this string of characters as a badge of honor. 

I suppose it's more of a "Note & Thoughts" section, as there's only one Note today! But that's all for today. Wish me luck with the long shifts, I'll need it.