w45 sunday review (the tech that stopped serving)

The weather turned mild again. Heaters and long-sleeved tops back in the cupboard. Not away away. Just away. You know.

I said I was going to mash 2k words a day and conduct the bare minimum of household and body maintenance, didn't I? Well, 5700 words isn't 14k but it's not 0 either. And we're all healthy and clean, if not as brushed as you imagine, and we've had balanced meals.

Pay no attention to the empty cinnamon roll packet in the bin. That was for science. (Hypothesis: I reckon we can do bake-at-home frozen cinnamon rolls in the air fryer. Method: bunged them in the air fryer at 'whatever temperature it was last time' degrees and set the timer to 'Iunno, all the numbers are rubbed off'. Results: delicious AND served as home fragrance. Conclusion: Repeat that.)

I genuinely forgot to get my phone back out of the knife drawer on Monday morning (it goes away all weekend). Didn't turn it back on until I needed to 2FA something on Wednesday afternoon. Listen, I started having phoneless weekends in... week 29, & it was dramatic & difficult & i got really twitchy & pacey without it, and sixteen weeks later i resent turning it back on for commerce purposes.

Hey, week 29 was the week I ended Spotify Premium, too. Have I told you lately how awful Youtube Music is? It's incomprehensibly bad. Like - it would have been easier for them to write a less bad program. They've put a great deal of effort into making it not play the music you requested nor anything particularly similar.

Relatedly, the two things I have used the little Google Home speakers for in the last year are 'Hey Google, what time is it?' and 'Hey Google, let's listen to Olafur Arnalds' [or whoever] and now they have actively removed that function, so the little speakers are unplugged, the cables rolled round them, and they're tucked in a bag in the Tech Cryosleep tub with the Amazon oblongs. We'll revive them once the corporations walk back on their decisions. Or when someone releases a foolproof way of flashing them to some kind of FOSS, I suppose.

But then, I lived 33 years without them and only 10 years with them. I can spend another 4957 years without them if it takes that long.

I'm not meditating in a cave, here. I'm still reading epubs on a screen & I've got youtube & discord on the laptop and I'm listening to modern music on a TF card in an unethically cheap Chinese speaker. But there's something about 'going to sit at the internet' that is vastly less damaging to me personally than having the Everything Oblong travel with me from room to room.

I've deliberately had a lot more time this week with the dogs directly on me. Most things I do in the winter are safe for them to supervise as closely as they like. And since I lost some weight they each fit up my jumpers again.

We played eights and rummy while supper cooked on Saturday night. We should probably get new cards; ours are busted because I'm awful at shuffling. But then it's become a running gag to say 'heyy, there's the ten of clubs' when the one with the missing corner gets dealt out. And eights is kind of collaborative anyway. The card rules book didn't say it was, but it is here.

I dunno what to tell you, man. I aimed low this week and hit it square on. But posting the weekly review is its own good habit.

intents for w46

• take no damage
• return library books, pick up dog tablets
• prototype christmas cards
• touch grass