📁 12-23

I am a stranger to hifi equipment required for the ‘clarity’ offered up from 🔗Flac. I’d imagine that most albums are cut with $20 headphones in mind, so I’m not sure what point I’m trying to make here. YouTube offers ~128 kbps 🔗m4a files that can be converted with some ffmpeg wizardry. That quality seems to be fine for most (~CD quality). I mean, most devices are not equipped with integrated audio capable of anything beyond 192 kbps (lower hifi range iirc).

If you find an error in any of this, I recommend yelling about it profusely. That’ll show ’em.

Might as well make working from home more interesting right?

Thank you 🔗DeaDBeeF for the convert CD wav files to 320 kbps mp3s feature

I never understood this line from TMNT2 (1991): “But when I do, I’ll dream of something a little thinner.” Nah.

I’m not sure what headphones most recording studios deploy for audio engineers, but I believe the term ‘professional studio headphones’ came from those industry standards. So that leaves me with the thought that ‘professional studio headphones’ will reveal the album as it was revealed to the audio engineers. And that level of audio fidelity is probably more than enough for my untrained and boisterous ears.

Air tight Vulcan logic brought to you by India tea, 🔗Cadbury Dairy Milk, and 🔗Stouffer’s lasagna

Also, I’ve mentioned my Fossil Hybrid e-ink watch in past blog posts. I respectfully do not recommend. What I’ve noticed with mine is that the e-ink display refresh leaves artifacts behind from previous frames. A quick 10-15 minute rest in the freezer seems to fix the issue by returning the e-ink display to black. Which is great, but fades back to grey-ish after warming up. I’m not sure if the issue is overheating or a randomly glitchy firmware update. The screen of mine dims in color because most of the artifacts left behind from previous repaints are of the white repaint used to simulate refreshing the screen.

Da screen.

Sleep tracking for 🔗PineTime in 2024? Oh, and my Fossil Hybrid watch face developed an aged look on the e-ink display due to condensation build-up. Not even suitable in shower steam or any steam. Eat and prepare ramen with your opposite hand or something idk.

PineTime to the rescue! It’s a watch that does a few things (music, notifications, timers, stopwatch, etc.). At the moment the stopwatch works for tracking my time while working. I bought two of them, so technically I have a backup once I unbrick the first one I bought a few years ago (whoops–switching from WaspOS to IniniTimeOS did not work out as planned). I wish there was a toggle to disable touch controls. It’s water resistant, just not functionally sound in the rain (which is why I bought a Fossil Hybrid–smh). If I could lock out the PineTime screen somehow with a three button press or whatever that would be pretty awesome. Or just to disable to touchscreen. Ghost input will occasionally clear timers and the stopwatch (long arm hairs).

To be fair, I’m RMA’in my Fossil Hybrid for the sake of sleep tracking. And I’m not worried about Alexa spying on me, because that feature via the watch is so basic it’s barely functional

Oh, and the 🔗inverted colors anomaly of my PineTime watch appeared after charging.

No comment section via Disqus because I don’t have time to babysit this website. I may tap into my middle school self and redesign the website off HTML5 though. Browsed the Defcon website a few times the past few days and realized how kooky this site must look to security professionals. Another Git branch, another dive into HTML. Suppose I could dust off Inkscape and work on the site icons too.

Not that this site has any influence. No delusions of grandeur here. A few OK Computers tho ;)

Currently waiting on a Japanese copy of one of my favorite albums to ship from Japan. Super stoked to have a copy of those instrumentals as well as the album. As of 2024 all songs posted to the 🔗music blog will accompany a physical album. And to be fair, the one 🔗vinyl album I posted was a fluke. I ordered a CD copy and received a vinyl copy. Maybe they were out of CD copies and I got a bonus for being a loyal consumer?

“Breh, do you even purposefully purchase vinyl records?” Uh, yes?

So yea, I’ve been alone for eleven years. It’s not like I haven’t tried to strike up a dialog occasionally, but most of my conversations were turned into entertainment value. So now when I think about sending a private message, I see that message being passed around to all their woman friends as a source of stress relief. It’s not like I’m going out in the world enough to bump into the love of my life or anything. Which brings me to another point–yes I have, and I wish I hadn’t. I thought I knew what love was, but it was never reciprocated in a way that makes me feel ok.

Entertainment value like what I imagine takes place when a woman receives a ‘dic pic’

Ferociously independent is one of the ways of which I describe myself. Group activities were never my strong suit either. Kind of ties into me being terribly independent. “That’s not the way you do it.” When I hear that my mind races to find the source of why that was spoken. Are they asserting dominance? Are they factual and desperately logical? Or are they regurgitating something they have heard from a TV show? Couple those thoughts with my financial constraints and there’s a decision that must be made. Do I waste valuable resources (calories) on this interaction? Or do I move on and appear like someone that is selfish and disinterested in the group arrangement? Typically I move on and appear like someone that is selfish and uninterested in group conjunctions.

Headaches burn away valuable calories as well (years of poor, etc.)

“You’re probably gay.” Nah, I lived in South Florida for two years. If I was gay people would know I was gay. I saw plenty of people living openly, and marveled at their courage. I can’t imagine being in a relationship that could easily be undone by external forces. In fact, I won’t go into detail for the sake of respect for my family, but a relative took his life because he was gay. It’s not something I take lightly, and I will viciously defend against bigotry of that nature.

“I didn’t know.” Yea, because you didn’t care enough to know.

“He’s like a warrior monk or something.” Nah, I like tearing apart rotisserie chickens far too much to be a monk. I’m just a dude looking for someone to share his life with. Someone that would watch me play with my childish fingerboard and smile because she knows I’m meditating. Someone that wouldn’t rush to my aid at the first sign of provocation or stress. Someone that would fight side by side with me during those meddlesome teenage years of parenthood. I’m not interested in joining for the sake of appeasing loneliness.

#RotisserieChickens4lyfezYo

“He’s trying to be a rapper.” Now this is an interesting one. Actually, it really isn’t. This is a montage of white men from suburban environments looking back at their ‘rapper’ phase and mistaking that for what I’m going through. I had to walk and talk a certain way because that was what was expected of me in my environment. When I walked home from school, I was immersed in it. Rappers from that area were forged, without an ounce of baby fat left on them. To walk or talk anyway different would paint a target on my back, and an easy to follow path to the door of the family trailer. Which some pounded on at 2am-3am in the morning looking for a … lost love. Wearing a tie dye Goosebumps shirt was my only connection to the middle class lifestyle. And I only got away with it because people thought I smoked weed.

During the 7th grade, I switched to a middle school in the city, and my first thought was: “My god, they all still have their baby fat.”

I played 21 on a half court with a chain net, because the local boys kept stealing the rope net to get back at me for not joining their gang. Because of them I know what it sounds like to play 21 on a court with a chain net. Sounded like Machinima Jam or something.

🎵People are strange when you’re a stranger🎵

Next year I’ll do my best to keep a positive tone in this blog.

Hoping to put this X270 Thinkpad through some paces via tech certifications too

Regardless of the somber tones echoed from this blog, 2023 was a great year, and hopefully 2024 will be even better. With that said, hope everyone reading and not reading this blog have happy times this holiday season.

Steve The Lamp says happy holidays as well ;)

Busy dealing with a backlog of shows to organize and shift over to Jellyfin at the moment. Thought I would take a break to re-establish my intentions as a person. While I am totally going to watch some old cartoon favorites and read the first edition Goosebumps collection, my thoughts moving forward will only be about the future. No more nods to people from my past that have helped me along but are no longer in my life.

Thank you.

I need to clear my thoughts and focus on how to get myself out of this mess. An apartment and a dog has been the goal for decades now, and maybe I can make that a reality if I can just let go of the past and focus on the future. Cannabis is taking the back seat at the moment. I’m also wearing boots with bootstraps, so maybe those will help.

My boots have two bootstraps per boot, which is like pretty sweet for pulling myself up stuff

I squeaked a few songs in to the music blog without buying the CD mostly due to time constraints. I bought the digital offering because there’s no way I’d get a CD shipped from the UK in time for the holidays. And btw, I never thought I’d have a favorite laptop until I bought the X270. Little did I know it also has a touch screen. So awesome. Now to upgrade the batteries and RAM lol.

Removing Steam off the X270 has been so much of a challenge (Snapcraft) that I may have to reinstall the OS. Kubuntu is worth it IMO

Anyway, I think that about wraps up 2023. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and or Happy Holidays. See you next year.