I’m not a good writer, but I’m trying to be. A big reason I made this blog was to exercise that muscle and get used to putting my thoughts into words.
It isn’t as easy as it looks. Just throwing thoughts onto a page makes no fucking sense unless you figure out a way to order the words and lead the reader along a path that’s understandable.
The work of the writer comes in stringing together thoughts in a relatable way using widely understood language, verbose, meaning, the everything to the reader.
Not to be too highbrow about it, but the ability to write is powerful. I don’t want to lose it to having AI do it for me. Even if I’m not as good.
I’ve been on a anti-streaming platform tirade as of late. The latest target has been music. Since discovering the platform SoulSeek I’ve been gathering all the tunes from nostalgia and my current Spotify lists.
With this, I’ve been listening to music locally using Fooyin. I went through a few media players, even terminal based MPD ones. Fooyin just worked with no fuss.
A side effect of local listening is that I’ve been listening to music in terms of “albums” and not assorted songs on a playlist. At first, I didn’t like it.
That was until the other day when I went back and listened to 2000s Ohio band Hawthorne Heights. They were one of those bands I had my favorite songs added to some lists, but never the whole album.
I played some games and threw the album on to discover several songs I just forgot, then found ones I’ve never heard that I enjoyed. Hell, I listened to a whole 2008 album that I never realized existed. I liked it too!
Listening to the entire album from start to finish is an interesting experience that I think a lot of us (at least me) have strayed away from.
It reminded me of the time before instant accessibility when you would buy a CD for one song but listen to the entire album because it’s all you had.
We gave artists the attention to hear their whole vision. Albums had intros to set a theme. They included interludes. Most of the time there is a goofy song thats a little different than the bands usual sound. It was special.
Now, we have condensed artists into their top songs. Most people save a few songs from an artist and move on to the next. Playlists are compilations of a vibe.
If you haven’t in a while, spin up one of your favorite albums and just listen to the whole thing, start to finish.
Here is a few that I’ve been listening to:
Hawthorne Heights – If Only You Were Lonely (2006) Sugar Ray – 14:59 (1999) Post Malone – F1-Trillion (2024) Unleash The Archers – Time Stands Still (2015)
I have a love hate relationship with my Linux home lab right now. When it works I feel like 90s movie hacker. When it doesn’t I slam my head into the keyboard.
Since experimenting with homelab stuff, there is a few applications that have become invaluable to me. Specifically VaultWarden and Joplin.
I went on a short vacation with my wife and when I returned I began to have login issues. Joplin was telling me I had an invalid username and pass and Vaultwarden would connect via browser but not with my Brave extension.
Running “docker ps” showed all the containers were running, so that left a authentication certificate issue. Not that I understand a whole lot about how caddy works, but I suspected it to be the issue.
Up till now I was accessing my apps by using a .local address. So for the sake of doing it “right” I purchased a new domain just for my homelab to link to.
I discovered a new artist that I LOVE. Her name is Maphra. She is a vocalist who has posted a few covers on YouTube.
Maphra’s cover of Bring Me To The Horizon’s Doom popped on my feed so I casually gave it a listen only to be stunned by her voice. She has a haunting angelic-ness with amazing screaming.
The song is great, she is great, but that isn’t quite what I wanted to share here.
With all viral videos come comments. While a lot of comments are great and supportive I couldn’t help but notice the “hater” ones.
Sprinkled throughout is a few comments that just seem to come from a place of “Wow I hate that everyone else liked this, so now I’m going to shit on it a little”
Its not to say that you can’t be critical of an online video or have a negative opinion, but this drive by hateful Internet commentary kinda just pisses me off sometimes.
The kind of people that behave this way are never content creators themselves.
There is so much content available and our dopamine receptors are so fucked at this point we can’t recognize and appreciate normal everyday talent.
I woke up yesterday morning and shuffled through my routine. It was time to make coffee. I loaded up the filter, filled the water reservoir, and then nothing.
The Keurig I bought for my wife and I less than six months ago was completely unresponsive.
The Keurig Duo Essentials Gen 2 was the third Keurig coffee machine I’ve purchased. My wife uses K-cups. I’m old fashioned and make a full pot each morning. The Duo made sense because it handled both.
Our first Keurig was one of the original models and only supported K-cups. It lasted several years before needing replacement. I didn’t think much of it at the time and upgraded to one of the first Duos.
That first Duo only lasted a year. Frustrating, but the convenience kept me hooked. So, on September 9th, 2025, I bought another Keurig, and it was dead by January 2nd, 2026.
The short lifespan alone is bad enough, but what really turned me off was how Keurig handled it.
The troubleshooting process is basically non-existent. Plug it in. Does it work? Plug in another device — does that work? Yes? Okay, nothing else to check. We’ll send a replacement.
These machines cost anywhere from $75–$200 and that’s the extent of the effort? Keurig knows these units are disposable. They expect customers to keep replacing them. And the dead ones? They end up in a landfill. What a waste.
It occurred to me that I’ve probably brewed more coffee with a $15 Mr. Coffee maker from 20 years ago than with all the Keurigs I’ve owned combined.
Many Keurig owners have traced the failure to a thermal fuse switch that simply dies. The machines aren’t designed to be easily repaired, but some frugal DIYers have taken it upon themselves to revive what are otherwise throwaway appliances.
I’ll use the warranty replacement Keurig is sending me until it fails. I may even try to fix the dead machine sitting on my counter, if only to prove a point. But after this, I’m done buying Keurigs.
I loved the first Zootopia movie. I finally got to see the sequel on the last day of showing in theaters. And, just to get it out of the way. I loved it! I could easily talk about all the scenes and jokes I enjoyed, but instead I’d like to talk about some observations I made with the plot. Extreme spoilers ahead.
Like the original Zootopia, it was no stranger to making a political statement. The one here is obviously colonialism. There was another less on the nose one that I think flys under the radar which is whitewashing.
Gary De’ Snake’s grandmother the inventor of the weather wall system represented in my opinion not only female inventors but, African American female inventors.
There was a moment in plot explanation monologue where they were describing how the Reptiles town was literally buried under “snow”. Of course, we are talking about a family of Lynx and obviously they are tundra dwelling predatory animals. But, I didn’t think that reference was on accident.
I felt it was some pretty clever writing. Historically there were inventions that were ignored or not properly credited to African American females like the case of Ellen F. Elgin, inventor of the clothes wringer.
I’m looking forward to watching it again in the future. Maybe with a re-watch I can try picking up on other details.
