Now
Reading
Have started many fiction and non-fiction titles and finished none.
Well, that’s true right now, right now. But I did tear through Piper CJ’s “No Other Gods” series, the third of which was released recently and I finished it in a night or two and I have to wait another year probably for the next installment because she is writing other series at the same time.
I paused my Lord of the Rings re-read all while considering finishing that and starting over with Laurell K. Hamilton and or William Gibson. For example I re-read Neuromancer inside of the last year and kind of want to read my way back through that universe.
I’m no literary snob. I live and breathe genre fiction for the most part.
Have read some witchy titles recently because Kindle Unlimited. I read Salt & Broom most recently of four, and of them I enjoyed it the most because at no point did I really know how much the protagonist knew how to do. The danger was perhaps a little too easily held a bay a few times so while I enjoyed it I didn’t love it. The other three were more educational for me from both a historical perspective and a gender perspective: The House of the Witch and The Library Thief and The Familiar. As in the best fiction, stories and details that would not have occurred to me, but all of them showed old gender issues that we wrestle with to this day and caused me to sit with ramifications. There is something that needs to be smashed, and I am with you.
Projects
Re-Ripping my CDs
I am a collecting monster. Ripping to WAV on my Plex box and ripping to lossless for my Apple Music server. Oh! The meta data. Oh! The duplicated tracks. The WAV rips are super fast. The Lossless rips in Apple Music take several times longer, plus I’m caring for a library of digital files that began life in 1997.
Two things I’ve learned:
- Trust but verify the metadata you get from public sources.
- Album art is getting harder to find. I found a possible remedy via a membership at discogs.com.
- When replacing an album in Apple Music or Plex, sometimes it’s just simpler to delete the old tracks. Software libraries don’t always replace like with like correctly.
- Sometimes the minutiæ is overwhelming and I have to set it aside for a while.
- I have ripped everything to WAV. I have about 30 discs left to convert to Apple Lossless and I have run out of steam.
Career
My current leader sees me and appreciates me.
I wish conference room technology was less vendor-specific (or perhaps more cloud agnostic) and that folks would stop blaming the meeting room when it doesn’t intuitively and automatically configure itself the way a person imagines it should work for them.
It is strange how technical support has meant I now also have to be worried about video streaming, audio amplification, lighting, framing, editing—every bit as much as the videographers and audio engineers and production teams have needed to become more adept with their use of computers and software.
Nintendo
I am excited about the Switch 2 console and hoping I can get one this summer. I do not have a pre-order, so I will be fighting for availability just like most people.
I played my kid’s Switch Lite, specifically Mario Cart 8, which set the hook.
I have my own OLED Switch now with aftermarket controllers. And I posted about changing the button color and joysticks in my original Joycons.
My favorite game that will be updated for the Switch 2 is Hogwarts Legacy, and I’m looking forward to migrating my Animal Crossing New Horizons island. I also find myself hoping to hear news on a next Animal crossing game.
My kid is excited about getting my OLED in the deal. ##Movies Took my kid to see The Minecraft Movie and enjoyed a pretty luxe theater experience. Looking forward to more opportunities like that with them.
Have been looking to familiarize myself with the Studio Ghibli movies. Just watched Kiki’s Delivery service and I have several more on deck.
Grateful for the selection at my library.