I took a few days off. I didn’t have any particular reason nor much in the way of goals (though I had some of those, mostly unmet). My boss keeps reminding me that I use the least PTO of all employees so, here I am, having burned a few days’ worth.
Continue readingI suppose I should apologize to somebody for that post title, but it’s true in its own way, right? Right.
A couple of years back I threw some money behind the idea of a self-produced, non-Netflix-y 13th season of Mystery Science Theater 3000. And it was good! Very, very good. Albeit not without the sort of technological growing pains one might expect from cobbling together a whole streaming environment out of available parts. (Not entirely unlike using special parts to make robot friends, after all.)
But seriously. Several sets of hosts, some superb(ly bad) movies and top-notch riffing, exactly what one hopes for from another batch of newly-minted MST3K. I got what I paid for, no argument there.
Oh, but I also had signed up at a level which suggested there’d be… physical goodies. At some point. Well… it took a couple of years but today’s that “at some point.” Behold:
Stickers! A t-shirt! A popcorn bucket! A guzzler of a drink cup! Posters! (Not pictured in an unrolled state; they didn’t want to stay unrolled without heavy weights for eight corners’ worth, oh also they’re huge. Just trust me that they’re really nifty.)
It’s not like I signed up to back Season 13 specifically to have physical goodies shipped to my doorstep, but I’m sure not complaining. And I’ll definitely get some mileage out of that t-shirt if nothing else.
Maybe I’ll pour some non-popcorn-y snacks into the bucket and curl up with “Beyond Atlantis” some evening soon…
What do you mean I haven’t posted in nearly a month?!?
Well. Whoops.
To be clear, nothing interesting happened other than, um, I bought a computer. (It’s been two and a half years and the previous one isn’t really suited to upgrading unless I want to replace nearly everything in the chassis anyway, so really it just made sense to go all-in on a new rig.) Mind you… the new computer immediately developed a problem (a ticking noise that has been tracked down to something in the power supply unit) that has necessitated an RMA from the builder (and a future “take it all apart myself and hope it works once I put it all together again” replacement project) (prompting me to wonder why I bothered having someone else build a computer when I have to do all this work anyway).
(Look, I’m in a parenthetical mood. Be glad you’re getting a post of any kind, yeah?)
Otherwise it’s just same old same old, suffering through summer, wishing we could get into a nicer larger place that isn’t a noisy cheap apartment, and so forth.
I’ll try to come up with some Satisfactory content for fans of such once I’ve got this computer situation a bit more nailed down… hopefully soon… hopefully.
Well, just by typing that subject line I’m going to have a particular Pet Shop Boys song stuck in my head for a while.
There are worse things.
Anyway: Since that-which-was-Twitter continues its slide toward both irrelevance and hostility toward the masses who made it what it was, I should mention that I’ve (more or less) moved elsewhere. If you look on the sidebar you’ll see the “Find Me Here” link list. Other than the webcomic and the self-referential link to… the website you’re reading now… no, I don’t know why that’s there, honestly… you’ll find the social-media-ish things I’m inhabiting (to greater or lesser degrees) in the meantime.
I wouldn’t say that any of them are my exclusive hangout. Even Twitter was never my exclusive hangout, just… where the bulk of my time & energy went. (Maybe I should thank the emerald edgelord for freeing me from that? Er, no. No, never, never will I thank that jackwagon for anything, ever.)
Anyway: I can be found at “the fediverse” (on a Mastodon server), Tumblr, Bluesky, and I really ought to pick my Pixelfed account back up again, plus potentially whatever else may come down the pipe later. (Technically I have accounts at Spoutible and Cohost but… eh. I haven’t touched those in months, not going to bother linking them.)
Things are a hot mess, aren’t they? Find me somewhere and we’ll chat about it.
The scene: Our apartment.
The time: 3:20am.
The temperature: Too dingdanged high.
I’d turned the big AC unit off at quarter to 11pm last night to conserve power (and reduce noise), but by 4am I’d already turned it back on again. We have another couple days of near-100F high temperatures to get through, and maybe afterward we can “enjoy” the rest of the summer.
Remember when the Portland Oregon metro area was (rightfully!) known for being rainy most of the time? I sure do, but those days are long, long gone. Hundred-degree heatwaves are no longer notable rarities but expected trials, year after year.
And I hate it.
In lieu of more interesting content, let’s do a quick rundown of a few of the shows I’m watching lately:
Continue reading