real life

A 3620-post collection

Fun times ahead

I've been trying to transfer my music files into #myphonebygoogle, with varying degrees of success. Our current, dropbox model has hit a snag, in that the phone must be active in order to download.

Google Pixel has a maximum activation period of half an hour. There is no 'never' option and no assumption that a user is clever enough to hook the phone up to a power source whilst that shit is going on.

I mean, come on, google. We were smart enough to swap over to your phone in the first place. We should be clever enough to work out that a power supply is vital if we want our phone to light its screen for a really long time.

And the downloads slow down to a stop when the phone goes dark. Like, you can download updates whether you want them or not... why not also download the things you want while it's dark? But no, that would just make my life easier. And making my life easier is apparently against the law.

And in an extra added hiccup, it doesn't always restart downloading if you re-activate after a long time. I'm currently watching a zero bytes-per-second download with few options bar starting over. And I don't want to start over. I'd like it if I could just hook my phone up to my compy and treat it as an exterior drive. But as I mentioned earlier, Google and Apple both have this small war going on.

Sigh.

Of course, it'd be real easy if I could just use iTunes in my Pixel Download it all off of my account.

No such luck, I am sure. So far, any and all attempts to get non-streaming music onto my phone as actual data and not a stream have been... disappointing.

But in other news, we're rebuilding Bitzer's hip crank. Our last attempt had the fail when it broke on the first day. Hooks designed to hold the clock case on my hip stuck to the backing/front for the clock just fine. It was that the backing/front delaminated under enough force. And the handle kept falling off.

So we've printed a new backing/front, new clips, and a new handle in two parts. The interesting bit will be transferring the egg cup/bead embellishments onto the new handle. That's a two-person job. I have to cut the old coathanger handle and I need someone to make sure all the bits don't attempt a flight to Mars.

Re-threading those beads if they go off-centre is going to be the absolute biggest bitch since Clifford's girlfriend. Therefore I would rather avoid it.

The other interesting bit is going to be glueing both parts of the handle together. I made the handle shaft slightly bigger so that there's room for improvisation, but I suspect that that's going to be another big bitch.

I refer you to the title of this blog entry.

I am frustrate

On the continuing saga of New Phone Wat Dis(aka #myphonebygoogle), I have finally combatted the hassle of getting my music data onto my actual phone. The caveat being that the file manager in question will also play random shit that's content for games. We'll work around that when the time comes.

And speaking of workarounds... I did some 3D drafting for Bitzer's new hip handle, this morning. And once done, it should have been an easy matter to transfer those files

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#myphonebygoogle

I love that Google is cheeky enough to bring out a bigger, brighter, better phone than the iPhone7.

And I have to confess that setting up new apps to supplant the old ones I'm used to is a pain in the arse.

But the biggest pain in the arse is music. Porting ALL my music from iTunes is like unto a labour of Hercules. And it's not just because I own something like five weeks' worth of music.

No, it's because Apple

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Google Pixel!

So I'm a long-time Apple nerd, all the way back to the late eighties when I got my first Mac Classic.

But that time is past.

Basically because Apple repeatedly drops the ball by coming out with substandard crap and trying to market it as what the people want. If the people move, en masse, to a better product, then the companies will see what the people really want.

And better yet, I'm getting it for free because Telstra has an upgrade-your-phone

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Nothing to see here

It's hard to be entertaining when there's nothing to bitch about. Things are kind of okay.

I finally chatted with the counsellor people and got some useful advice to going forward with the whole mental care thing. As a result of having all that stress no longer important, my current energy levels are low.

Discoveries this week: Food is expensive. Especially the stuff that only diabetics are allowed to eat. Especially the recommended fish like salmon and tuna. We need to learn

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Glorb: It's what's for breakfast

So I usually call soup-and-bread-mush 'glorb' and is one of my very many horrible food choices.

But I've come up with a healthy one.

Two Weet Bix, one snack-sized tub of fruit, and enough almond milk to turn it all into moosh. Voila. Brekkie Glorb. At 995 kilojoules and whole grain goodness, it's the best start to the day that I can manage.

...and then I go and make my heinously over-sugared coffee...

But I am looking after myself. I even have

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Unexpected inconvenience

Today's sideways happenings are the direct result of a pupil-free day in both Chaos and Mayhem's schools. We found out about this via the radio because I never have the time to read the school newsletter.

Mayhem's school was empty of kids. Chaos' school was empty of kids. So long half an hour of our precious time, hello my little darlings having party time all over the house.

At least we got a walk in, this morning.

The local ants have decided

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Things done, things to do, things in waiting...

Checklists have this way of growing and mutating if you're not watching them.

Like:

  • [X] Hat repaired
  • [X] Chaos' bodysuit futzed with
  • [X] Makeup organised (more or less)

But still to do is:

  • [ ] Garden watering system
  • [ ] Unmuck the kitchen gizmo's cupboard
  • [ ] Fix the heart rig
  • [ ] Chaos' chest gem (entire)

The last of these includes doing the wiring and batteries, printing the case, and arranging a way to attach it to Chaos' chest without visible means of support.

We have a fun weekend

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Maybe today...

I didn't get to half of what I wanted to get done. Part of my brain was really thirsting to do some Minecraft, I guess. Procrastination helps the mind re-set and lets it rest between emergencies, and therefore it is a good thing. In moderation.

I'm making myself get to all those little side-projects, today. All those tiny five-minute tasks that end up taking two hours and all the patience you have to spare. Sooner started, sooner done, and all that associated

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...sigh

Beloved stayed up later than they should have, last night. As a result, I've had my first sideways morning for a majority of a week.

BUT... the house is not in chaos, I have plans to tidy up one of my piles, and I have other plans to do some minor fixes for costume parts for Halloween.

What I really have to do is hurry up with this blog, today's Instant, and the thousand words I usually do on Fridays so that

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Anti-entropy

The house is starting to look firkin fantastic. The kitchen countertops only need a little bit done, the bathroom's gorgeous. We start our day with the beds being made.

Today, I'm talking with the school dental van about braces for Miss Chaos. Something that's happening in TWENTY MINUTES.

Yikes.

I'm also doing some minor and major futzing to get Chaos' costume done. This is going to include some shopping at Jaycar later on. The dollar shop light I got only does red.

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Ridding the house of time vampires

Anyone who does housework knows what time vampires are. You want to work on the hobby, but you have to do this bit or that bit of housework that just sucks your time away.

Well, Mt Laundry now has its last load in the machine and I am waving farewell to that set of time vampires. Now I should have more time to deal with mental health and Halloween costumes and assorted whatnot that has been biding its time until I finally

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Living in the procrasti-nation

The scary thing about my levels of procrastination is that Beloved is worse. I've procrastinated doing my daily duties by writing the starting paragraphs of a book that I'm not due to start until 2018. I love the concept and it's so shiny. I had the perfect starter sentence and I could not resist setting a scene.

Of course, since the Mou editor is slower than frozen molasses, I started editing in my old friend, TextWrangler.

Everything old is new again.

I've

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Ow ow ow ow ow...

Beloved has a day off Mondays, because working on Saturdays is a thing during the Melbourne Cup wind-up. This, I thought, would be a prime opportunity to get them to adhere to the rest of the house's rules.

No.

Such.

Luck.

Beloved had a great case of persistent inertia and gave me the Irrits. Which culminated in a crescendo of me yelling about all the things that Beloved does to piss me the fuck off.

Good news - cleaning the gritty bits

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How I eat cake and lose weight too

It's not easy and it's not fun, but oh, how the cake is worth it.

I'm currently using a diet app called Easy Diet Diary to keep track of how much I eat, and how many kilojoules I consume. My goal for safe dieting, according to the app, is eight thousand kilojoules.

On an average day, I make it up to around eighty percent of that noise. One slice of cake is roughly a third of my allotted kilojoules.

Therefore, the rest

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