quote

    💬 I might be the one person using Arc Search, and never touching the "Browse for Me" button. I'm just enjoying it without ever using the AI feature.

    💬 Lots of chatter going back and forth, Lisbon and London, regarding very specific details about Bluey toys.

    Still no luck on the grannies front, I’m afraid.

    💬 No Chat For You!

    Screenshot of WhatsApp for macOS, letting me know it will stop working.

    WhatsApp for macOS is getting an update, and I’ll have to use it on the browser from now on. My laptop will not support the required OS without some shenanigans.

    thingsThisWeek #69

    An orange emergency phone booth, on a bridge.

    Again, a busy week. We had a national holiday thrown into the mix, and had to sleep away from the girls. Work to do in the city during the weekend, and it would be unfair to them to force them to stay behind, and miss out on all the weekend fun. They got on a train to the beach, then a lift to the countryside, and I picked them up after the weekend work was done.

    • 📷 Another week, another batch of assignments. Slower week this time around, I got two days off! Starting with a lifestyle thing, the worst possible thing you can have me shooting! I thought I was going to shoot glamorous photos of bacon and avocado, pancakes and kombucha, for a brunch place, and found out two days before that they were presenting a new line of skin care products AT a brunch place! Not very cool. Anyway, I did it. I also learned about skinfluencers, a special kind of influencer. Later in the week it was marathon time, and I mean a real marathon, with runners. The yearly Lisbon Marathon even was upon us, and I would be shooting for one of the main sponsors, like last year. This time I also shot a little video, with the phone. Not my favourite thing to do, and the reason why I had to do it is pretty shitty as well (smaller budget, no money for proper videographer), but I do get paid extra, and they don’t seem to mind the subpar video quality. As agreed beforehand, if I can’t do both anytime, I’ll stick to photography. I do love the marathon assignment, though. Fun times, fun people. Waking up too early, but riding that convertible double decker on bridges, and getting infected by the energy of thousands of runners, is a good way to spend a few hours. Also plenty of opportunities to get a few shots on the way there and back.

    • 👯‍♀️ First ballet lesson for tinyMovieStar, and I was away, on the silliest of all assignments. Darn! movieStar told me that parents are not allowed inside while the class is happening, but… Next week, next week I’ll be there. Outside, but I’ll be there.

    • 😢 Speaking of tinyMovieStar, she’s going through a phase where she will cry every day, when we’re dropping her off at kindergarten. Every day. She’s fine a couple of minutes after we leave, but it hurts to see her going through these moments. I’m now taking her alone, no mom, as we hoped it would be easier for her, but she’s doing it with me as well. It breaks my heart. She literally climbs to my arms, and won’t let go. A good ten minutes later she will finally relent, I’ll leave, and get a message from school saying she’s happy as can be, playing with her buddies. Even before getting back home, and it’s only a 15 minute slow walk.

    • 💬 I feel I’m posting a lot less than I used to. August is the usual culprit, as we’re busy on the road, vacationing and working at the same time. Lots of things to do all day long, lots of people to talk to. September came, and went, we took some time off and we’re away as well. Just now getting into the rhythm of things in town. I try to keep up with M.b, and Mastodon (usually just my 🦄 list, and social.lol local timeline), but it’s hard. Mostly lurking, still reading a lot of the posts, but not posting as often.

    • 🍿 Quite a few movies this week or, at least, a lot more than I usual watch. The Sisters Brothers. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. , delicious. Bottoms, very fun, loved the different take on the high school genre (Thanks, @sod). The Ringleader: The Case of the Bling Ring. Sue me! I was browsing HBO, this one came up, I’d heard about the case before, and watched the movie while doing stuff around the house. I did miss Paw Patrol, The Mighty Movie. The movieStars met a few cousins and went to the nearest movie theatre for that, but I was… you guessed it, working.

    • 📺 This Fool. A couple of episodes, maybe it will stick. The Morning Show had another episode, so I watched that too. I actually wrote the previous sentence before finishing the episode, and had to force myself to watch the darn thing. I believe I might be dropping this one soon. Also two episodes of Patriot, on Prime. It has a cool IMDB rating, so it seems, and that was enough to talk me into watching an episode. Liked it. A spy show with a few odd twists, and SO many familiar faces on the cast.

    • 📱 Tested Holafly. I didn’t have to, of course, but I wanted to check the service out, since I’m planning on using it on our next trip. Not cheap, but handy. This week I had the Marathon event, and that means a lot of images, and videos, being sent from the phone, on the fly, so why not test the unlimited data this way? eSIM are just an awesome idea, and I’ve been a fan since the first time I tried it, on the French island. Since then I swapped my physical SIM for an eSIM, and then I actually changed mobile operator, after decades with the same one, and all this without leaving home. Made possible by this great feature. The idea of Holafly (and many other services) is also great, as it allows you to always have a connection, jumping from operator to operator, always finding the strongest signal. No local number, true, but you’re not stuck with a single company in the country, you get to use them all. Other services have marginally cheaper plans, but the “Unlimited Data” on Holafly’s offer really appeals to me. The test went beautifully, I had a super fast connection anywhere, and didn’t have to use a single byte of my limited data plan. For this kind of days-long assignment, with the new to transmit from the venues, it’s probably a good idea to start including this expense in the budget.

    thingsThisWeek #46

    An onion with eyes, nose, and mouth.

    • 🌻 We had planned on changing our weekend routine, but ended up in the same spot. There’s some construction work going on at my in-laws, and family moving into the house next door to them, so things are a bit hectic, but the little one would miss her grandparents so much, we just went. It was a good as the ones before. Brothers-in-law visited, the little one loves it when they do. Having a full house is something she lives for.

    • 👨‍👩‍👦 Father’s Day. A couple of presents from tinyMovieStar, and all the love a father could wish for. It was awesome, our baby is, and I’ve said it before, the sweetest.

    • 🌡️ tinyMovieStar has a fever for a couple of days. She’s not one to complain, so it’s a bit harder to figure out what’s going on. She just gets a bit hot, and when asked if something hurts, or feels odd, she says “No, everything is fine”. She gets to spend the whole day at home, playing with us and napping, and she loves that. If the thermometer could be tricked by a three year old, I would suspect foul play.

    • 📺 Yes, Schitt’s Creek. It’s a long show. On the YouTube front, Hot Ones, with Pedro Pascal. Also some Seth Meyers, and a few clips from The Daily Show. Vice Principals, saw a few episodes, and will come back for more. And we did manage to move along with F1: Drive to Survive. We watched 2 1/2 episodes, not bad!

    • 🎙 Hacked, Really Specific Stories, with Gaby as guest. Swindled has a new episode out, and it’s also a good one, as they usually are. Dynamite Doug still going. Still have a few waiting around, but it’s harder to listen to them when tinyMovieStar is home, not going to kindergarten.

    • 💴 Actively trying to find more work, now that one of my clients went out of business, and the rest of them are having a lot less assignments. Inflation is a bitch, and I also decided to play fair with the apartment rent, and kept the old rent for the new tenants. So, not an ideal situation.

    • 🛒 The Shop is open. Don’t think I’ll get a lot of foot traffic, but it’s on. Later, if things work out, I’ll get a domain for it, and pay for a tier where the platform keeps no commission on sales. Would be great, but can’t afford that tier now. If you’re looking for a photo to hang on your wall, feel free to visit. If there’s one you’d love to have, but it’s not available in the shop (still working on setting things up), get in touch, I’ll add it. Trying to figure out how all this works, but I think I might have done this a while back. So far, not a single one has been sold, so… maybe I was right.

    • 📷 Micro.blog Photo Challenge is on the second half. Some hard ones this year, since I’m trying to get them for the challenge, and not pulling them from the archive. Quality, on mine, is lower than on previous attempts. Photos for days 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24, have been posted.

    • 💬 ChatGPT. I had to play around with it. Everyone is talking about it, even family members who usually pay no attention to tech stuff. It is fun, I’ll say that. And they seemed to have a lot of use cases for it, including replacing them on a few of their work task. It’s great when you actually witness people making themselves obsolete.. Will probably mess with it again, it’s fun.

    • 📷 Newspaper conferences. Got a call late in the evening, and it only came through because my editor is on the vip list, that bypasses the notification ban of my sleep focus mode. Anyway, a full day shooting the yearly conference the newspaper organizes on its birthday. A couple of other things to do later in the week, for the agency, so it turned out pretty good in the end. Hopefully these will become regular, as the struggle is real.

    • 🥰 tinyMovieStar’s godmother visited, from the UK. It’s always a thrill when she’s back, we miss her a lot, even though she’s been living there for quite a while now. Thankfully she flies back often, but of course not as often as we’d like. The little one loves her, and she get all sweet and cuddly when she spots her coming after months without seeing her.

    💬 Made it. Same place as last week, totally different subject today.

    Two men talk on the ground floor of a modern looking building.

    #photography #architecture

    💬 Et Tu, Carrot Weather?

    Screenshot of Carrot Weather with ChatGPT.

    thingsThisWeek 35

    An old typewriter, “Royal”.

    • 🌞 Hello, 2023. Dinner with friends, stayed up late, slept in, drove to in-laws. Nothing else. I do not like NYE, for a long time now, and it’s usually followed by a miserable Jan 1st, when we have to deal with a whole day of trying to handle things while extremely tired and suffering from lack of sleep. This year, I’m happy to say, the same thing happened. Glad it’s over. On to the rest of the year.

    • 💻 This year starts with me using IRC again ¯_(ツ)_/¯ omg.lol has a server going, bye was kind enough to provide an account at their The Lounge install, and I’m there. I was using Igloo as IRC client, but I’m not used to the _you only see stuff that happens when you’re online routine anymore, and The Lounge solves that. Also, since I suppose a few others aren’t that used to IRC as well, a Discord server was also launched, and now we can use both, as they are mirroring everything. It’s not perfect, but I guess it works.

    • 📺 The White Lotus, second chance. We’re loving it, after almost giving up on episode 1. Glad we stuck with it. Season 1 is done, we’re now on Season 2 of the show. We didn’t get too far, both fell asleep while trying to talk tinyMovieStar into it. A few times this week.

    • 🏝️ The preparations are still ongoing for the upcoming trip to the island. While I’m a little nervous about this one, I’m very much looking forward to it. Still a ton to do, but we’ll go in the end. I miss the people, the island, but I’m anxious about doing it with tinyMovieStar. We had a good routine there, both of us working, both of us together the whole time, and that will be no more. I’ll be left with the little one most of the day, in a place that really isn’t prepared for little ones. Many (all?) of the food items we’re used to are not available (someone paid €20 this week for a bar of butter!); there is no support network from family; there are no cafes/restaurants where we can go for food, or even a toilet when we’re out and about; the transport situation is dire, with no taxis, or buses, or anything remotely appropriate… We’ll be stuck in the very little city, away from the beach, and away from everything that could make things a little easier. Anyway, glad to go. Also, almost 7 hours on a plane will certainly be a challenge for our baby girl.

    • 📜 The passport situation is solved. We have our travel documents.

    • 💬 On the Mastodon front, I’ve decided that it’s not worth to keep my instance alive. It’s been very fun, and I cannot thank Vincent enough for setting it up, and putting up with me. At this point in time, though, I’m really REALLY trying to cut down costs, and there were also a couple of things I missed from my times at social.lol. I had kept both mrBatsu and the stickerspotter accounts there, and now I moved my main one back to the original place.

    • 😴 It was also a strange week when it comes to sleep. The little one would go to bed, with us, we’d fall asleep way too early, then wake up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep. When that routine changed, she had a fever, and we couldn’t sleep again.

    • 📚 Still trying to get going with Unreasonable Behavior by Don McCullin. Books.app letting me know I’m at 2%. Brilliant. I have 5 days to finish it, somehow I don’t think I’ll make it.

    Note: next week’s thingsThisWeek will be posted, if everything goes according to plan, from the island. Probably still on the bigger one, so we should have no issues with access to a reliable Internet connection. Still…

    💬 Also… IRC!

    Mock-up of an iPhone with an IRC client running.

    thingsThisWeek #31

    • 📷 The workshop! Classes were great, and I actually had a lot of fun walking around the city with a group of people who had never thought about photography beyond the “Let me take a photo” part. The cold, foggy, weather was a first for me up there, so that made it even more interesting for me. I walked to the classroom every day, leaving the hotel with plenty of time for a few photos before class, edited them in a cafe close by, and showed them to the gang before we started. In the end everyone had a good time, and came away with something new. Mission accomplished.

    • 📝 One thing I should have done before classes began was getting a list of references to share with the attendees. Since this was all about mobile photography, and they’re all on Instagram, I’m now working on that list. It’s already shareable, but not complete.

    • 🌰 The whole festival is an awesome idea. Setting things up in a small town can be a challenge, and the gang at Indieror are pros at that. Overcoming difficulties is something they have become quite good at. I haven’t met a single person who comes into contact with them that doesn’t fall in love with the things they do, and them. The fact that they’ve done it in the middle of December, in a place that feels so isolated as their city does, is incredible. Proud to have been invited, proud of them.

    • 🥶 It was cold! It was very VERY cold. We couldn’t find a way to keep tinyMovieStar entertained for longer than 4 days, so ended up moving back south two days earlier than expected. We gave a lift to an old colleague from the paper, now a famous writer/scriptwriter, and that made the drive even better. There was a lot of catching up to do. The trip is a long one, so we decided to have a layover at my in-laws, resting for a day, and then drive the final hour to our hometown.

    • 🎄 Christmas is VERY close, and we can certainly feel that at my in-laws. The house is in full Christmas Mode already, I’m sure the electric bill is going through the roof this month! My father-in-law is probably the biggest Christmas fan in the country, truth be told. He used to build giant Nativity Scenes for display on malls and such. As a hobby! Decorations are all over the place already, the only music allowed is Christmas themed, and he will look menacingly at you if you dare suggest a movie or tv show that’s not in the spirit of the season (mostly joking, of course). It’s also the first Christmas that tinyMovieStar is old enough to get, so she’s having a great time playing around the house with all the extra toys scattered about. She loves Santa already (white beard helping the old man), but Rudolph is the clear winner of her heart.

    • 🍿 We did manage to watch a couple of non-Christmas movies in the end, even with our physical well-being on the line. Sing, and A Man of Action. We spent the whole afternoon at it. It was amazing. Another one on the following day: El Pepe: A Supreme Life, just before picking up the car and, finally, heading home.

    • 🗓️ Adam is having an advent calendar with weblog.lol. It’s awesome, and I just want to sit in front of the computer to explore it better. Not sure when that will happen, but I’m really looking forward to it. There is still a lot to do, but it’s great already.

    • 🤪 In tinyMovieStar news, there’s not a lot to say. She’s still her sweet self (that seems to be growing daily), but she will not sleep before 11PM, if we’re lucky. She is a night toddler. And she’s definitely growing up. She’s no longer a baby, and it’s incredible. She now makes very grownup faces, and she jokes a lot. Arranging words into funny expressions is something I love watching her play with.

    • 🇸🇪 IKEA run. A quick one, at least at the shop, but then there’s the second “half”, with hours spent trying to figure out how to assemble the damn things.

    • 💬 WhatsApp groups, and email threads, another Christmas tradition. Sorry if this is turning into a Christmas themed report, but it’s mostly unavoidable. The day is getting closer, and everyone wants to coordinate things. Family, families, want to know when, and what, and how things will happen, and there’s a ton of activities at school that need planning as well. It’s messy, to put it mildly.

    • 🎁 Christmas shopping. One of the things I simply won’t do. I know it’s not cool, but movieStar loves picking stuff for people as much as I hate doing it, so it’s perfect. I’ll drop her off at the chosen place, and pick her up when she calls. I’m lucky, and I thank her, as this saves me from the embarrassment of getting to Christmas Day without a single present. That’s what happened before we met.

    • 📺 Still time to watch the first three episodes of Harry & Meghan on Netflix, and The Masked Scammer. I know, I know, not the best, but there’s no way to escape the royal shenanigans in this household, and I love scammer stories as well. Beats watching the WorldCup, in my opinion.

Older Posts →