I can’t sleep. Yesterday was rough. What was supposed to be a relaxing day off work before Thanksgiving was ruined by drama during a Twitch stream. Drama that I did not cause or invite, but that found me anyway. And the fallout from this latest drama is making me revisit the idea of just leaving Twitch altogether. I...

I don't even know who said it first, but it's a good axiom: the best things in life aren't things. In other words, there are more important things than money and possessions. I'm realizing that I've been stuck yet again in a cycle of obsessing over things like finances and gadgets and technology and collecting...

I got a haircut today at Great Clips. In my area, a standard haircut costs $21 before tip, but I had a $3-off coupon so it was $18 today. I usually tip $7 because that's the middle of the three suggested tip amounts. So today I paid $25 out the door. I tried to find Great Clips haircut pricing info from 2019 but I...

I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner, but I am now blocking ads and trackers system-wide on my iPhone via AdGuard's public DNS. And anyone can set this up for free on their phones, PCs, or even their home routers. There are several different free DNS providers who can do this, but I went with AdGuard for now....

Today I took a chance on buying a used early-1990s Pioneer HiFi system I saw listed in an online classified ad. CD player, dual cassette deck, and stereo receiver for in great cosmetic shape for $45. The seller said the CD player and cassette deck powered on, but hadn't been tested, and the receiver didn't power on....

A friend reached out with a dilemma. He lives far away from the meeting place of his religious community. They use Zoom to broadcast their meetings for those who can't attend in-person. For many reasons, he avoids using proprietary software (software that is not free as in freedom), but he was seriously thinking...

I just wanted to add my voice to the chorus calling for a decentralized internet infrastructure. Within the span of a few weeks we have seen web outages on a global scale caused by problems with AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, and now Cloudflare. I'm reminded of the old addage: “never put all your eggs...

I was blessed to be able to get a used HP laptop in practically new condition with decent specs for free, so I installed Linux on it and I'm going to try using it as my primary personal computer for at least the rest of 2025 – about six weeks. Specs Model: HP Laptop 14-dq2053cl Released: November 2021 CPU: Intel...

I like to sit in the living room every morning while eating breakfast and looking east out the window. Weekday mornings this time of year I don't see much. It's still dark. But on weekends, when I can stay in bed and eat breakfast later, I see more. Breakfast is almost always a bowl of cereal. The cereal is almost...

I had already been leaning towards simplifying my physical media collecting by ditching vinyl records, but a video with some startling information gave me the push I needed. Vinyl is Toxic I knew vinyl should be kept out of landfills – that's one reason I justified collecting it. But after recently discovering a...

We had a decent VHS tape collection in my family when I was a kid. Some were store-bought. Some were recorded from TV, like episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Disney Sunday Movies. Sometimes, when we were in the mood to watch a tape, one of us would stand or sit in front of the VHS shelves and read off...

I have many concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) and LLMs in their present state. I'll elaborate on these concerns in future posts, but I wanted to make it clear that until my concerns are resolved, this is an AI-free blog. I do not use or consult AI in the research or writing of my blog posts or in any other...