• 💨 This one flew by.
• 🥘 Covid seem to be under control at the in-laws, so we joined them on Sunday, and had a really nice meal at a nearby restaurant. Not the usual two-day affair, though, we spent one day only with them. On Saturday we just went to my parents for lunch, and then found alternative activities for the afternoon. Play date for the little one.
• 🍿 El Camino Christmas. Started watching the new season of Drive to Survive. Aloha. And, yes, finally, Tokyo Vice!
• 🇺🇦 It keeps getting worse. Every. Day. At least my friend is out of there, after close to a month in the country. Stopped in Paris for a week on the way over, and should be in town by Wednesday or Thursday. Beer is ready for him.
• 📷 Three assignments for the paper this week. A quick one in town, a longer one in the Algarve the next day, and a final one in Sintra, a place I hate going to, on Friday. Busy week. Not at all usual for a freelancer, but they were a little short on staff photographers this week. I missed this kind of work a little more than I thought I did. It’s great seeing old friends again, and learning something new every day. Glad to be back.

• 🍜 And what a Sunday it was!

  We felt marginally better from the stomach bug that’s keeping us on our toes lately and, since the usual trip to the in-laws had to be cancelled due to their Covid infection, we arranged to have lunch with movieStar’s brother and girlfriend.

  We met her, and one of our cousins (Gu) at the beach, since they were there with their dogs (tinyMovieStar’s great friends). The drive over was pleasant, and we always feel a little better when there’s sea at the end of the road.

  Also, as usual, plans were quickly upgraded. We picked up my brother-in-law and Gu’s girlfriend, and had lunch at a great pan-Asian restaurant in Cascais. Thai Green Curry for me, a couple of Sapporo as well. Yummy!

  That part of town has art painted on the street, so the little one was obviously thrilled to be able to sit on blue. And yellow! We also sat on super tall red stools. Great time with colors

  After that we walked to the best ice cream shop in the country, and the little one had way too much strawberry ice-cream. Another cousin skated by, and stopped to meet her. This is one we hadn’t seen in a while, he spends most of his time abroad. He will be the little one’s surf coach in a year or two, and she looked amazed by how tall and blond he is. And she tried the skate!

  There was a fair in town as well, and a rally to support Ukraine at the same time! Busy, busy Cascais. Foot volley players on the beach, music and a party vibe all over. We didn’t stay long.

  We drove to Gu’s place, with more ice-cream in the bag. tinyMovieStar dipped her hand on the cold pool water, and played with the dogs in the grass. By the end of it, surprise, we weren’t feeling that great again, our tummies were complaining: spice food, ice-cream, beer, and churros?? What were we thinking!?

  It was worth it!

• 🍿 Finished Ted Lasso. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, The Great Robbery of Brazil’s Central Bank.

• 🧟‍♂️ On Wednesday, dropped tinyMovieStar off at kindergarten, came back home, went back to bed, and slept four hours. Woke up feeling like a zombie.

• 🍺 Our usual spot for an afternoon beer is nearly dead. We have a lot of fond memories of the place, and a few relationships that started there. Heck, I didn’t even drink beer before I found about this place!

  It was an incredible place. Cosy, filled with great beer and happy conversation. Over the years the owners have proven over and over they were great people too. And then they decided to open a second shop, and somehow ours felt abandoned. Sometimes it wouldn’t even open and, when they did, the shelves seem emptier by the visit.

  We kept coming, but the visits felt odd. Like we were the only ones pushing it, wanting it to succeed. The owners were nowhere to be seen by now, their visits far and apart. Soon we’d stop showing up as well.

  I get their reasons, to a point. They can, obviously, do whatever they want with their business. It just feels sad that a place with such a cool energy will stop being there.

  A couple of weeks ago a friend came to town from the north of the country, we met him there for a beer. The shelves were even slimmer than usual. It was probably the last time we arranged to meet there.

  This week we drove to one of the breweries in town, one that makes a beer we used to drink there all the time, and I bought a case. I will drink them at home, with friends, and alone. It will have to do.

• 💻 A have an assignment on the laptop, waiting to be edited. It’s been two weeks since the shoot.

• 🎉 We had scheduled a dinner party for some friends. Then covid happened to one of them, the gathering was postponed, then back on. We had a lot of fun, with some beer.

  There’s no way to set things up in advance these days. Something always happens in the meantime.

• 🇺🇦 Friend still in Ukraine, but this should be the last week, he’s probably making his way back home next week. I’ll be able to relax when he’s back here. Just today news appeared about another photojournalist who passed away. RIP.

Another couple of weeks went by, and I couldn’t even finish these on time. We’re having two-in-one again… Sorry about that.

• 🚗 Saturday. The usual lunch and trip out of town to visit the in-laws. We had additional plans, but couldn’t make it. On the following weekend we decided to relax, and spent the entire Sunday there, instead of driving back after lunch. Complete with nap. Perfect.
• 🍿 The French Dispatch. Finally! And I LOVED IT! Wes Anderson on acid, and I’m very fine with that. The Adam Project, Bad Vegan, WeCrashed, The Wizard of Lies. That’s it.
• 🏝Seems like the trip is back on. Or not. No, it is! No, not yet… Hmmm… We were planning for a late March departure, but seems like it was postponed. Again. I keep saying no to assignments, because we’re on the verge of going, and then we’re stuck here, and the assignments have been handed to someone else already. Not cool. Still managed to spend a day inside a hotel, shooting an event, a boring one, on a very busy Friday, one that ended with a quick drive to pick up my car from the mechanic, dinner with friends and kids. It was a LONG day.
• ⏳Sand storm, a few days when our lives had an Instagram/Narcos filter all day long. Sand dust from the Sahara taking over our skies. Not the healthiest choice, breathing problems are also to be taken into consideration. Thankfully it went away quickly.
• 🥰 Father’s Day. My second one, but this time tinyMovieStar is a little bigger, and she prepared a drawing for me, and it was beautiful. She had a great time too, probably thinking it was my birthday again, and she sang Happy Birthday, that always brings a smile to her face. She does smile (and laugh) a lot, now that I think about it.
• 🇺🇦 The situation has not improved, at all, and my friend is now in Odessa, after a little while in Moldova, and a quick trip to Mykolaiv. I’m keeping an eye on the areas where he’s going, trying to read whatever news might escape him. Our fingers are permanently crossed now, wishing everything turns out ok for him and tinyMovieStar’s godmother, who has family in the country. She’s worried sick as well.
• 🎵Our good friends from Chaves, the ones who created the N2 music festival, are in town. We love them, and it’s always a pleasure to welcome them. Had dinner with them, and I was supposed to join them on the award ceremony they’re in town for, but…
• 🦠 Stomach bug! Yes, another one. movieStar got it, and now I do. Happy days.

Unable to publish last week, here goes a 2-in-1 edition.

• 🇺🇦 The situation in Ukraine took over most of the weeks. Twitter is where I spend most of the free time, for as long as my brain is able to cope. We dropped a few bags with warm clothes and baby stuff at the Ukrainian Church in town when all this started, and a lot of people were doing the same. A LOT. There’s not much else we can do for now, except worry and hope that, somehow, a quick solution is found. Improbable, I know, as each day brings horrible and depressing news.
• 🍿 No time for anything besides news about Ukraine. No shows, no movies. This will have to change soon.
• 🍺 We managed to go out and have a beer. Sounds simple, but it’s actually a lot harder than it should. Getting three couples (complete with babies) together involves a lot of planning, and a sprinkle of luck. We made it happen, but one of the parents couldn’t make it. As close to 100% success rate as we could get. We were still happy. The beer was delicious and cold, and we talked… Mostly, of course, about the babies, but the war talk was also on the agenda. It’s unavoidable at this point.
• 😔 Micro.camp is happening, and I couldn’t find a way to take part. I’m feeling both sad and embarrassed. I was supposed to have a presentation, then couldn’t get things ready on time, it was a mess. A huge one. These past couple of weeks have been hell, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to keep my promise and get the presentation ready.
• 📷 Work weeks! Damn, I did not miss having so much work. Went all over the place, both for the newspaper and the wine shop. That means a lot of time away from home, and a lot of time at home editing photos.
• 📱 Tech wise, not a lot going on (see previous list items). I did swap my physical SIM for an eSIM, and got a new number as well. Since I’ve been on the road often these days, I wanted to make sure I always have a working connection in case something happens to tinyMovieStar, so I got a new number from another provider. Also road-related, I gave TomTom another chance. Waze is basically unavoidable here, so many people use it, and that gives it an edge on current road conditions, presence of police on the roads, radars and whatnot, as well as the super Google search for locations. But I’m finding TomTom to be a great contender in looks (Waze looks really basic) and the routing is incredible. Traffic information is awesome as well. No police warning, but I drive so slow I guess I don’t really need them. Also has a nice web view for route planning and saving. Handy. Subscribed for a year.
• ⛽️A couple of weeks ago there was talk on M.b about gas stations, and attendants that help you filling up, and I was surprised to see one in the city one of these days. They are a regular thing outside the city, but here we can’t find them anymore. I was again surprised when I needed to fill up again, and found my tank cover was gone! The gentleman had forgotten to put the cap back on, and I drove off without it! Went back to the station, but it was gone forever. A new one is on the way. Gas prices are crazy now, way crazier than before (and they were already mental), so we’re driving only when we really need. Diesel went up by 14 cents per litre last Monday, and will go up again next Monday. This time: an extra 25 cents.
• 👶🏻 A dear friend, one of the three I call close friends, had a baby a couple of months ago, and it’s been hard for them ever since. Thyroid issues from day one, now also blood issues. Getting a blood transfusion this young can’t be easy, for the baby and for them. We look at tinyMovieStar and feel blessed, our hearts tighten whenever we hear the hardship they’re going through.
• 🙏🏼 A dear friend, one of the three I call close friends, has left for Ukraine. He’s a photojournalist, the one who took over my place as photo editor at the paper, and he will try to get to Odessa and report from there. We started worrying already, as the city seems like hours/days away from being invaded. It’s his first time in a war zone as well, that also adds a layer of worry. I don’t miss that part of the job, at all, and wish him all the best in such a stressful situation. Hope he makes it back safe.
• 🙋🏻‍♂️ The last of the three I call best friends had no big issues, and he’s the one who ALWAYS has something happening to him! He’s the unluckiest person I know, but these weeks have been good to him.
• 🍰 I managed to turn 51. We had lunch. It was great.

• 🍷 Comida Independente had a party, we attended. I was supposed to document the event, but things didn’t turn out as easy as expected. I’m not really great at shooting these things, and the end result is always so depressing that I find myself shooting less every time. Of course that means I have fewer, and worse, photos. I guess I should just start saying no to these.
• 🍿 The Tinder Swindler to start the week, followed by The Drug King. Special Correspondents, second time for me, because movieStar hadn’t seen that one yet. 6 Underground, Screwball, The Highwaymen, True Memoirs of an International Assassin, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing. Series? Inventing Anna. We binged the series, meaning a couple of episodes a night. Last week’s show (Murderville) was left behind. Somehow it didn’t feel funny enough for movieStar, and I’ll have to agree. There are SO many shows to watch, some are bound to be left unwatched.
• ❤️ Yes, Valentine’s Day happened this week, and I totally forgot it was coming. We ended up having lunch at our Mexican joint down the street, and that was it. Turned out pretty great, with lunchtime margarita happy hour thrown in for good measure. Next year I promise I’ll remember and plan accordingly.
• 🎥 Movie Day for tinyMovieStar. Kindergarten took the kids to the movies, and she had a great time. It was her first time at the cinema, and they watched mostly Russian short (very short) movies. Everyone was behaving very well, silent and entertained. She slept on the bus that took them back to kindergarten, even though it was a 15 min drive.
• 🔋Felt tired all week long. No energy. Nothing. Still have some photos left to edit, and took care of another batch, but that was hard. Did nothing worth a sentence. Nothing at all.
• 🏝 Seems like March might not be the month we go back to the island after all. Confirmation didn’t come through, some things that were planned there have been postponed, so probably our trip will go the same way. A couple of friends have been down there in the past month, we keep hearing about it, looking at the photos. It’s even harder now, when we thought we were so close to going back. April, maybe?
• 📱Got myself a birthday present, a month before the actual date. Finally upgraded the phone. The X will now go to movieStar, and it’s the phone I enjoyed the most up to now. It was the one that shot most of the photos of the previous years, the best time of my life. It’s been with us on the island, around Asia, a bit of Europe, and, topping that off, it was the phone that captured tinyMovieStar’s first months on this planet. Thank you, mrBatsu.

• 🦥 Zoo time! Haven’t been in ages, didn’t really want to go back, but there you have it. tinyMovieStar rules the world, with movieStar as second-in-command, and we ended up spending a couple of hours at the local zoo with cousins, and their kids. What can I tell you? I’m not a fan of zoos. Can’t recall, but I don’t think I liked them when I was younger. tinyMovieStar loved it tough. She talked about it the whole week. movieStar got her a plush sloth on the way out, and it’s now one of her favorites, along with the panda she’s had for a while.
• 🍿 Another week, another batch of tv series and movies. Started the weekly marathon with The Hater. Then A Family, Get Him to the Greek, The Fable, The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn’t Kill, Untold: Crime & Penalties. We also watched one episode of Murderville. Funny. I heard about this one on Smartless, and was curious about it. Not great, but good enough for a few laughs.
• 🦷 Teething. Ongoing. These are probably the last ones, but they are proving to be a challenge. Poor thing keeps sticking her finger in her mouth. Still, I find it amazing how strong she is, I’d be rolling around on the floor.
• 📰 Surprise, I got back and did an assignment for the newspaper I left years ago. Felt good to be back to these assignments. It was a small, simple, affair, but felt great getting in the car and driving an hour out of the city to shoot a place I’ve never been before. When is the next one coming?
• 🎉 This was also the week when we, finally free from the Covid shackles, could visit both our families. Grandmas and grandpas were happy to see tinyMovieStar again, she was thrilled to see them as well. She played with the dog, she had strawberry ice-cream, scrambled eggs by the dozen, the whole thing… We slept over at my in-laws, and came back on Sunday, after a lively lunch with my brothers-in-law. A day later one of them calls and announces they too got the virus. Not from us, but from someone else at the wake we all attended last week.
• 🏝Seems like we’re going back to Príncipe. Probably March, but still waiting for the confirmation. A lot of things are worrying me at this point. I’m sure we’ll be fine, but the move from Gang of Two to Gang of Three has me thinking about the preparation a lot more than I used to.

• 🎂 Mother-in-law had a birthday, and we couldn’t attend. We’re still a little scared we might be infecting people even after the mandatory week at home. Still testing positive when the week started, and the cough had yet to disappear. That changed later on, as the week unfolded.
• 🍿 Made it to the end of The Girl From Oslo, and moved on to… Did watch a couple of movies as well, still on my quest to go through the worst movies on Netflix: Home Team, Munich The Edge of War, The Polka King, The Trader, The Week Of, Bad Boys for Life, Yes Day, Sand Castle, Operation Finale, The Dirt. Busy week! One series that I keep turning to when I have nothing else lined up, or have no time to look for something, is Superstore. Fun enough, perfect for a break while editing photos or other chores. I believe I’ve watched it all already, but don’t mind seeing the odd episode from time to time.
• 🗳 Sunday was Election Day. This is the one I was working for until my test came back positive, and I’m sad to say that the nazis got a lot more votes than I expected. At the same time, the socialist party managed to get a huge chunk of the votes, an outright majority (way more than expected), and consequently they’ll be able to keep doing what they’ve been doing for six years now.
• 🦠 We finally tested negative on the Covid test. We had complied with the mandatory isolation, but we were still a little scared to go out and meet people, because our tests kept coming back positive. Now we’re free to go anywhere again. We can visit our parents again! This variant is still going strong, and everyone we know that has kids is getting infected.
• 🖼 Something I hadn’t done in a long while: go to a museum and see an art show. A colleague from Porto is showing some photos at the prestigious Gulbenkian museum in Lisbon, and Nuno thought it would be a good idea to visit. It was. He rode his bike and offered a lift (always a thrill), and the show was pretty cool. Small, but nice.
• 💻 Finally got around to it and edited a ton of photos from an assignment that was left behind when the virus came into our lives. Still another one to deal with, but shouldn’t take long.
• 👶🏻 tinyMovieStar is growing fast. Too fast. I’m aware this is something every parent feels, we were warned about it multiple times, and everyone was spot on. Things happen at a speed I wasn’t prepared for, and she’s not even two yet! Every single day we’re amazed by the new thing she’s doing. She talks a LOT, and I love it. She narrates her whole day, describing what she’s doing at all times. And it gets better and better, every day, with the new words she’s picking up. Sweet as can be.

• 🦠 This week was all about Covid. Locked at home, on mandatory isolation after the positive test. Days One and Two. Days Three and Four. Day Five. Days Six, Seven, and Eight. We made it. It wasn’t easy, but also not too hard. We’re lucky.
• 🍿 Midnight Asia, not brilliant, but we’re suckers for Asia, so we’ll take it. Also Ozark, amazing, as usual. Laura Linney is incredible. She goes from sweetie pie to devil in one second! Mr Bateman is brilliant. The kids are great, but Julia Garner is… awesome! Two days was all it took to binge the whole season. We also started The Girl From Oslo. It has some moments, but not totally on board with it. Movie count (and quality) very low: Rising High, Get the Goat, The Brothers Grimsby, and Not a Game. Not a good weeks for movies (but I guess I’m to blame by picking the worst ones available), and a great week for tv. Ozark made up for the whole week.
• 🐦 I celebrated my 15th anniversary on Twitter. Still enjoy it, so maybe I should just say celebrated. I still get a lot out of this site.
• ✏️ Micro Camp was announced! This year I’ll be one of the presenters, and it’s causing me a bit of anxiety. I’m sure it will be fine in the end, and there’s a note on Ulysses with thousands of characters in it, so there’s that.

• 📷 Starting with work, since that’s how the week began. Quite early in the morning, as a matter of fact. Rougher neighbourhood on Saturday, and then I had to leave the campaign trail for a couple of days, Sunday and Monday spent on the road, visiting vineyards for one of my other clients. Always fun, even though I don’t drink wine. On the campaign trail things are on overdrive, as the election date is approaching. One more week and we’d done, or so I thought when the week started.
• 😢 Sleeping away from the girls is no fun. No fun at all! Being on the road used to be something I looked forward to, a part of my job that I enjoyed immensely. Not anymore. I end up worrying too much, unable to sleep. We have slept in different houses maybe twice before, but not too far apart. I knew it would take me an hour to get to them. This time I was further away, and with no easy way to make it back.
• 🦠 Of course the first Covid positive in the family had to be tinyMovieStar, and of course, this had to happen when I was away! Of course. movieStar also tested positive, one day after the little one. The timing was bad. I should be home helping out, and this is the one time I had work that forced me to be out all day, every day! Fear not, as the week ended with the three of us locked inside, isolating as a family! I tested positive on Thursday, and that was that. No more leaving the house, no more work, no more.
• 🍿 So happy that After Life is back. It’s a great show, one we waited for with anticipation, and it does not disappoint. Amazing writing, stellar performances, it’s wonderful in every way. Sadly, my work schedule during most of this week, and the fact that both movieStars were feeling exhausted with covid side-effects, has prevented us from bingeing this one. We’re good for another week, I believe. No movies were watched this week.
• 🎙 David Byrne on Smartless. Listened to this one while driving to work this week, trying to keep my brain away from the thought of the positives at home. It worked. Such a great show. The man is a legend. I’ve been listening to his music for decades, loved the interview.
• 🥰 This week my Ulysses theme was finally approved, and it’s now available. If you use the app, and want to check it out, you can find it here: movieStars.

• 😔 A sad way to start the week, the saddest. As I had work to do during the weekend, I would be unable to spend the weekend with the girls and the in-laws, our usual weekend activity. So, I dropped the girls at their place, out in the countryside, and spent the weekend alone at home. That is, the brief moments I had to be at home. Missed them a lot. Not used to being away from them.
• 📷 Busy week, shooting the campaign for the upcoming election. Early start every day. It’s great to see old friends again, and being out shooting them is always great fun. We get around the whole district, that’s another plus. I also get some driving time, great to pick up new songs from the radio, or listen to a podcast episode on the way there and back. All in all, I enjoy these. Getting up so early in the morning is a pain, not being able to take tinyMovieStar to kindergarten is not nice, but it’s work, and it will be over soon.
• 🍿 Thunder Force (⭐️), The Hitman’s Bodyguard(⭐️⭐️⭐️), Who Am I (⭐️⭐️⭐️½), Flight (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️), Shiny_Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord (⭐️⭐️⭐️), as well as a series, Folk med Ångest. But that is mostly me, movieStar didn’t find it too appealing. I might give up on it as well. We did finish Hit & Run. Nice enough, but we thought it was no match for Fauda. Next up: After Life, season 3. We’ve been waiting for a very long while.
• 🖍 Back to school for tinyMovieStar, and I couldn’t be the one dropping her off after the vacation. I had to work. Bummer! She did have a birthday party, from her closest friend no less, and was thrilled to get back. Happy for all of us.
• 🦠 Booster shot day was also a part of the week. We don’t have a vaccination center close to home now, at least not that close, so I drove to the other side of town, and got my shot. In and out in no time, just like before. Furthermore, the week when we started getting emails from tinyMovieStar’s kindergarten, people are testing positive over there. These are the first emails, which is a little scary, but also surprised we didn’t get any before. Classes started in September, it’s incredible that no one caught the bug until now. Anyway, side effects felt a little milder than before, but I had to work the following day, and that was not easy.
• 💻 No time for anything else. That’s it.

• 🎈 Here we are, 2022! No predictions, as we are well aware how that went a year ago.
• 🍾 We joined a couple of friends for NYE. The (by now), antigen tests done by everyone before leaving home. And had a wonderful time. The sister of one of them was there as well. She’s going to our island in a few days, and we were left dreaming about it again. Hoping this is the year we make our way back there. Anyway, the night was short, we were back home by 10PM, ready for the new year. Same as last year, the three of us welcomed the new year in bed, together. Last time we did it in our bed, this time we squeezed ourselves into her tiny bed. A cool family tradition was born!
• 🍿 We made it to the end of the second season of The Morning Show, while watching a couple of movies on the side. This week it was The Laundromat, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Magnificent Seven, The Wedding Ringer, and 2 Guns.
• 🎨 Getting a Ulysses theme ready! Works great for me as it is, but I want to share it with others. It’s great that Ulysses has this feature, and I’m almost done porting my Drafts theme to the new writing place. The theme already submitted to the official themes page, let’s see how that goes.
• 🥘 The weekend routine made it to the new year as well: lunch with mom&dad&brother, then move to the countryside and spend the rest of the day, and Sunday, with the in-laws. tinyMovieStar has a blast on the weekends, and so do we. This time we had the company of some cousins we hadn’t seen in a while. My father-in-law had prepared a nice, Thai-inspired, noodle dish, it was delicious! We watched movies by the fireplace, the whole house is as Hygge-compliant as they get. Hot chocolate also available.
• 😓 This is the week most people get back to work. movieStar’s holiday is over, she’s back at it. I haa a pretty empty schedule this month, but then I got a call and now it seems I’ll be working harder than I expected. Kindergarten opens again next week, not a day too soon. Having this toddler home full-time is not easy, no one gets any work done. She demands attention at all times. Sweet, but exhausting.
• 📷 Small assignment of the week, out to the countryside to visit a winery. Even though I’m not a wine aficionado (I don’t even drink the thing), these are quickly becoming my favorite assignments: short, iPhone only, fun, out of the city. I’m even doing small video shots, and don’t mind that at all. I did break the Røde microphone’s Lightning port on the first day, but…
• 🔪 I need a new knife for the kitchen, so left the house to get that, and a couple of other things we needed at home. Somehow, some shops are still closed, so the knife will have to wait a little longer. I did get a couple of new stickers for sticker spotter, and went by the countless guys selling hashish at the Rossio square. It’s incredible that they keep peddling their fake drugs at this place, year after year. This time, they vastly outnumbered the people walking by.
• 👶🏻 One of our best friends had a baby, and they’re now dealing with everything that comes with that. We’re trying to help, offering advice when requested, and also our services when needed. They’re in for a rough ride, but having a support network is great. We did, and are now paying it forward. Happy to do that as well.
• 💸 I posted a list of the subscriptions I have going at the moment. I didn’t even have the courage to find how much each of them is costing me, as that would surely make me gasp. I need to do something about it, as it’s getting out of hand. I hate this model, but it’s not going anywhere, so it’s up to me to trim the list.
• 🥰 Managed to finish the post about Laos for dinkiwinkiminkiwinki, and I’m about to start the one about Japan. I can already feel my mouth watering!

Note: Earlier than usual, but the weekend is going to be crazy and I would have trouble posting it then 😊

• 🎄 Christmas dinner at my parents, as usual, then we moved to movieStar’s parents after that. One-hour drive, and we’re set for the night. Ready for Christmas Day with them and movieStar’s brothers. The little one didn’t get much sleep, so she was a bit cranky. She did love the present opening, and she left some cookies and milk for Santa, and a carrot for the reindeers before going to bed.
• 🎄 Christmas Day lunch. A big family event, at the in-laws. Cousins show up as well. There’s just too much food. Too much.
• 🍿 Don’t Look Up. Hmmmm. Tough one to review. Liked it, but not enough to give it over 3 stars on Letterboxd. Too long, not funny enough. Get the message, agree with it, but… something didn’t quite click. Also saw Les Mythos, Death to 2021, and The Equalizer 2. We are also back on the The Morning Show train.
• ☺️ I like the DayAfter. Dec 26th is the day for me. Less confusion, less stress, lazy day.
• 🤒 Health-wise, it was a shitty week: after the tonsillitis, I came down with a gastroenteritis. We’d heard it was going around town, and of course, I had to get it.
• 😃 The sickness has gone away though, hopefully for good, and we did enjoy a great day outside. Since the year will end in no time, we declared that our own New Year’s Eve party, and we’re almost done with the celebration.
• 💻 Tried Craft for a while, but I think I might actually be going back to Notes for that, as it seems good enough for what I need. Also gave a shot to Fantastical Pro, but my grandfathered features are also working great and are plenty, and ended up on Ulysses again for longer posts with many photos. Less copy and pasting is something I’d love to have in the next year, and I’d love to write longer posts again anyway. That’s the plan, at least.
• 🍼 We had one last thing to do before the year was done: take a pile of tinyMovieStar’s clothes to our dear friends who just had a baby.
• 🎉 That’s it. We’ve made it to the end of another one. See you on the other side.

• 😴 I took a pill for the cold, and I believe it was one of those that come with a “Do not operate heavy machinery” warning. I was struggling to keep my eyes open on the highway, driving as slow as I could. It’s not far, so no one was at risk. But fell asleep as soon as we got to my in-laws.

• 🦠 When we got to my in-laws, feeling pretty bad, and right before I nodded off on the bed, movieStar had time to do a covid test on me. My mother-in-law had one at home, so why not? It’s something that we are now doing on a regular basis. People take them before going to a dinner party, or office Christmas gatherings, football matches, you name it. We can get a few of them for free at the pharmacy, or just buy them and take them at home. Mine came out negative.

• 💊 Woke up on Sunday still feeling in pretty bad shape, despite taking a few pills, and trying other methods. I guess this will turn into a depressing thingsThisWeek edition, full of disease and throat pain (it hurts!)

• 🏥 Time to move the circus to the hospital. movieStar thought I might be better off with some antibiotics, since the other medicine is clearly not working, and you need a doctor for that. A short drive and I went to the closest hospital.

• 📺 We finished The Great. Huzzah!

• 😷 Tonsillitis on top of a cold. Great. Just what one needs during Christmas week. Now on antibiotics, waiting for them to kick in. No alcohol for a week, that includes Christmas Day. Oops. It’s been a long while since I’ve been sick like this, and there one thing I surely didn’t miss. Hate feeling sick, unable to do much besides staying in bed, falling in and out of sleep.

• 😭 tinyMovieStar had her first big tantrum. The first one. She didn’t want to leave her grandpas on Sunday, and come back home. Probably because she gets to do everything she wants to, compared to home, where she gets to do everything she wants to.

• 🧚 tinyMovieStar’s godmother came to visit. Back from London, it was such a pleasure to see her. These are quick visits, but always a great time. One of the people I miss having around, sadly she had to move abroad to look for a brighter future.

• 💯 Top client award goes to: The one where I can do everything with the iPhone, have fun while at it, takes me out of the city whenever there’s something new to shoot, and gets new add ons for the phone when we figure we need them. Yup, I got really lucky with this one. This is the one I’d work for pro bono.

• 😓 Managed to finish everything I had pending one day before Christmas Eve. No more editing for me. Have one assignment right after, but it’s one of the cool ones. And I guess that’s it for this year, as far as work goes.

• 🎄 Merry Christmas, everyone!

• 💊 Pharmacies are everywhere, at least in the city. We have a 24/7 pharmacy close to home, three minute walk away, so we never give this a second thought. If we need something, we go get it, that’s it. Not the same in the village. A couple of pharmacies in town, but not one open after 10PM. You have to drive to the next town, a bigger town, to get your pills. What happens if you don’t own a car? What happens if you do have one, but can’t drive?

• 🤢 This conjunctivitis/gastroenteritis mix is awful. A couple of days in hell. Following that, a cold. A plain cold, still managed to make me feel miserable.

• 💻 Testing Craft, wondering if it’s worth paying the subscription. Not too expensive, not too cheap, but not sure if I’ll still be using it in two months time. I LOVE Drafts, and I use the hell out of it. Will this infatuation with the new app hold? Will I find a way to actually use it? Do I even need it?

• 🎅🏼 xMas party at the kindergarten. We went. We chaperoned. We came back alive. It was actually pretty sweet. Most parents had spent a night a week rehearsing four songs, for a while now, and they were all waiting for us (kids and chaperones) at the big garden close to school. When the kids showed up they thought they were going to listen to the three musicians that were already playing, and suddenly all the parents moved from behind the trees, singing. Beautiful moment. It’s a great school, we’re lucky tinyMovieStar is part of it.

• 📺 Succession Season 3 has ended! What. A. Show! What are we supposed to watch now? This one had us hooked. We had our Monday nights to look forward to, after the great craziness of the weekends. Now we’ll have to find something to replace it, but are well aware of how difficult that will be. My string of shitty movies is ongoing too. Maybe [The Great](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_(TV_series) can help us, we loved the first season.

• 🍺 It was probably the last time we managed a late afternoon beer with the gang this year. Or what’s left of it. One went to Paris. Another one is days away from becoming a father. Only one is left, the one who’s always there. It was good, albeit short.

• 📱 13 Pro. Still looking at you!

• Sublime Ads. It’s worth saying again, this is an AMAZING service. I added a few more ads to my thingsILove list. If you need to serve ads, pick this service. You won’t regret it.

• 👀 The last thing of the week was a meeting for a new client, visiting the place where I’m supposed to shoot, if I get the job. Still feeling miserable (is this a cold?), but I had to go. Thankfully we’re all wearing masks, so the risk someone will catch it is very small, but would have liked it better is this one had been postponed.

• 😢 Weekend was cut short again, as I had work starting very early Sunday morning. Had to drive out to the Alentejo region, an hour and a half outside Lisbon, for a shoot. Girls stayed back in the village and my father-in-law drove the car back with them while I was away. Thankfully the family Network is strong, otherwise this would be a lot harder to juggle.

• 📷 Sunday shoot went pretty well, even though we had to leave the city at 5AM, and drive for a while. Got to the location before sunrise, and got to it. This show has a really cool premise, and the end result looks very nice. A couple of lawyers explaining concepts in layman’s terms, and a rather clever wordplay for the title. Pão de Law. If you’re a Portuguese speaker, you might want to give them a follow, and hit the subscribe button, or whatever kids do these days.

• 🎨 stickerSpotter is back on! After a long intermission, the hunt has resumed. This time it will be more challenging, as I’m not walking nearly as much as when the project first appeared, but I’ll try to find some interesting ones to share. I know they’re out there, maybe this will get me out and about again.

• 🇸🇪 IKEA morning. We had to, there’s no way to avoid these twice a year or so. Trying to avoid the Christmas rush, or the possible, probable, closure of the store when new lockdown measures show up, we got everything we needed. Some stuff got tinyMovieStar, some others for the bigger movieStar, a few for the house. Lucky me I have a new fantastic pillow as well. See you next year!

• 🚗 Another national holiday this week. Darn! We used to love these. This time we had lunch with my parents, and then drove north a little and met a friend at a nearby city. She had a baby a couple of months ago, and we hadn’t seen her yet.

• 🗺 Busy week working in the city, and still another drive out to the north, this time Aveiro. We drove there on a Tesla Model X, a great ride. We did have to stop twice, to recharge. The assignment was lovely, a couple of girls making artisanal chocolate. Had some while there, and bought five different kinds to bring back home to movieStar. I was worried about tinyMovieStar (see below) but feels great to be on the road, I miss it.

• 🌮 Got over the stupidity, and celebrated movieStar’s birthday, a month later. Had guacamole, tacos, churros and a couple of Modelo. Pretty happy.

• 👁 Hello, conjunctivitis, not nice to meet you. tinyMovieStar wasn’t able to attend kindergarten on Friday, the day I had to go up north. movieStar took her to the doctor, and it’s official: the little one can add this to her list of diseases! It’s been a busy couple of months, she caught a few already. What’s next?

• 💖 Missing the girls. On Saturday evening, after the day’s work was done, I was supposed to ride my father-in-law’s motorcycle back to the village. movieStar thought that was not a great idea. It was late, I was tired, and it was VERY cold. She said I should stay at home, they would drive back the following day, and her father would ride the motorcycle home, something he’s always looking forward to. I did just that. Slept for 11 hours, but missed them so much! Still debating with if it was worth it, but I don’t think so.

• 📷 Working during the weekend is something that is more common that I would love, but can’t really afford to say no these days, especially when the pay is not too bad. So I did, again. I spent the weekend away from the girls, and I’m now ready to start a new week. A week I’ll spend editing photos from this last assignment and the one before that (yes, still haven’t touched them), and I didn’t get any rest, except those 11 hours of sleep. Not the nicest way to do it, I’m sure. Next Sunday? Also working.

• 🍿 Saw a couple of movies in the evenings, but nothing worth talking about. Succession remains the only show we’re watching on a regular basis at this point.

• 💨 This week went past in a flash. Not sure where it all went. It’s strange, because I did the same things as usual, but it just flew by. The holiday on Wednesday helped, I guess, since having tinyMovieStar around just keeps us busy all day long.

• 😰 Tired. When are we supposed to get our energy level up? There’s no way we’re getting as much sleep as we need to, and our waking hours are spent either working, or taking care of tinyMovieStar. I get it that this is normal, but…

• 🍿 Red Notice. That was fun and light. Managed to watch this over a couple of days, parts of it on the tv and others on the iPhone. That’s how I can do it these days. Never enough time to watch a movie in one go! Nevertheless I now have a Letterboxd account! Everyone at Micro.blog seems to have one, so why not?

• 🍺 Met Mansinho for a beer, finally. It’s been forever since I’ve been able to do it. Talked a bit about the newspaper, and sometimes I do miss it. Miss not knowing what I’d be doing next week, but there would always be a chance that it was interesting. Also miss the steady pay. Yup. Miss that.

• 📷 Was asked to shoot the kindergarten kids, and promptly said yes. I was a little anxious, kids are not my favorite subject, but everything went smoothly. Would have loved to spend more time there, but we were shooting outdoors, it was pretty cold, and no one wanted to have more sick children. Looking forward to next time.

• 💖 Our blog is coming along nicely, a couple more posts were added. We’re now in full honeymoon mode. I’m enjoying the trip a lot, going back, great memories, looking through the photos again. Happy times then, happy times now.

• 🛵 We spent friday night at my in-laws, an hour away from the city. Slept there, but I have work in the city during the weekend, so had to drive back. Better, ride back. My father-in-law was kind enough to let me ride his Harley, and I was looking forward to the time I’d spend pretending I’m still a rider. Turns out the weather was lousy, raining and windy as hell, but I sticked to the plan, and did it anyway! Riding back late at night won’t be as “fun”.

• 💖 We kinda took Friday off, and went on a city tour without tinyMovieStar. Went shopping, ate out, enjoyed the sun, we had a blast. We should do this more often, but work gets in the way. And, now, maybe the new omicron will too. Damn!

• 🎙 Sway, Kara Swisher & Jaron Lanier. Listened to this one on the way to work this week, well worth my time.

• 😰 Sunday. No work. But still a lot of work. There is never (and I’m still getting to grips with this), a day of total rest. Those are gone for good. Can’t say I don’t miss them.

• 📺 Almost no time for TV this week. Waking up so early in the morning means going to bed at an unusual hour as well, so all shows have been put on hold. Only Narcos Mexico survived the working schedule, and what an amazing season that was. Want. Season 4. Now!

• 📷 While work is great, and I mostly enjoy the time I spend doing it (especially these assignments for Warner Bros), I miss being at home with the girls. A LOT. And I can’t help feeling guilty for leaving them behind, with movieStar dealing with everything on her own. It’s not easy keeping things running smoothly, even as a team, and I can’t imagine what she goes through with no help. I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to do it. Thank you for keeping everything together, movieStar! Missed you.

• 👶🏻 Stroller duty, my favorite! Back at it, and so happy! Love taking tinyMovieStar to kindergarten in the morning, and picking her up when the day is done. We talk all the way there and back, and it’s amazing how much she talks these days. New words showing up all the time, and the way she uses them is just perfect.

• 💖 Back on dinkiwinkiminkiwinki duty, and happy I am too. Posts are coming along, movieStar still loving her gift, and I’m thrilled to be going through the photos and memories of what we’ve done so far. Still a lot of ground to cover, enough to keep me busy until our next trip.

• 👶🏻 The week ended with another feverish couple of days. Out of the blue tinyMovieStar’s temperature started rising like never before, and no amount of medicine seemed to do the trick. She felt better, a little, the following morning, but Friday’s kindergarten day was very short. Picked her up again after an hour and a half, and she’d spend the rest of the day at home with us.

• 💾 On the server side of things, the tinkering is ongoing. Without a real purpose, I’m trying different VPS providers, figuring out which one I’ll stick with. Can’t keep moving around every couple of days, can’t I? The offer is staggering, everyone seems to be providing VPS services these days. I have now YunoHost running on Linode, with a Ghost blog that’s chugging along quietly, with one tiny post, and a couple other apps. Still have to try Hetzner, but Linode seems really nice. For now.

• 😩 A week and a half getting up at 6AM, going to bed at 10PM. Followed by a couple of days still up at the same time, even though I didn’t have to, but couldn’t fight it. Sleeping from 10AM to 1PM, simply because I was too tired and needed it. Then came tinyMovieStar’s feverish nights, not able to sleep before 4AM, and god knows I needed rest. My sleeping schedule is SO messed up, I have no idea what comes next. I’m falling asleep all day long, crashing when I sit for 5 minutes.

• 💻 Moved to Ghost.org. I knew I would end up doing this, the anxiety of something going wrong with this blog, and me not being able to fix it, was keeping me up. It’s a gift for movieStar, and I can’t afford to have it turn bad. So, exported what had been done already, took care of the DNS things, and it’s now hosted with them. The dinkiwinkiminkiwinki is live.

• 🎂 movieStar had a birthday this week. I heard it went well. Sadly I was working, so I only got a brief glimpse in the evening. It’s not a great for a party, or anything else really, but she’s handling it gracefully. Congratulations, movieStar!

• 🐶 tinyMovieStar had a dog by her side when she came home from the maternity, and that dog has been a constant on her life. She has no fear of dogs because of that one, and she loves that dog!

• 📷 Back at work for the Finnish tv, this time most of the week spent outside. First day went ok. The rest of the week as well. It’s been exhausting, but fun. There’s not a lot else to add to this report because nothing else happened. Just work.

• 📷 October Photoblogging Challenge. We’re done. It was a hell of a month. So many great photos from everyone, and so many memories visited on my photos. As usual it was great. Thank you Jean for another awesome month. Hope you’re resting a bit now.

• 🏥 We didn’t go to the hospital, but it was not a pleasant couple of days. Two thirds of the household feeling sick, that leaves a third to take care of things. Being the third left, I did what had to be done. And we did get Mom and little brother sick as well. I felt a little woozy, but managed to hang on. I feel very lucky that we have a great family network, and also an amazing health service, always a phone call away with competent professionals on the other side, and handy hospitals if we need to visit.

• 💻 VPS adventures. Deploy servers, delete servers, deploy them again. I did try a few things on DigitalOcean this week (more below), and I found YunoHost quite nice. You install the thing, and then pick from the dozens of apps. No need to go about installing one by one, manually. Just click, wait, and you’re done. They also have a nice touch and supply a domain you can use, and get it certified. Again I have no need for any specific app, so I just went and tried a few. Ghost seems nice enough since the last time I visited. But what I’d really like to have is…

• 🏔 Tanzawa!! I wanted to try James Tanzawa, and I did. I was finally able to get everything running, and it was as cool as I expected. Not only is the blogging engine amazing, but getting it running on a VPS server felt awesome as well. Thanks again, James, for making it, and for taking the time to help a total newb getting it to work.

• 📺 Finished Squid Game. Took me a while, but I’m glad I did it, I enjoyed the show. movieStar did not watch it in the end. After that, while lazily browsing Netflix, trying to find an episode of something before going to bed, we picked Stuck Together. We thought it was a series, that’s how tired we are! Anyway, we ended up watching the whole thing. We cried, we laughed, we even missed the lockdown. Silly, maybe, but true. Also, and this one is great, Narcos Mexico’s season 3 is out! Yay!

• ♨️ Heater on. First time this year. The rain has come, and cold weather along with it. What comes next? The HUGE bill!

• 🚶🏻‍♂️ I miss walking. Nowadays my walks are mostly to and from the kindergarten, pushing tinyMovieStar. Not much else. And I miss the long walks we took, the way we could watch the city beyond the very limited area we now cover. Somehow we went much further when the lockdown was in place. We had all the time in the world, and took advantage of that.

• 📷 Shooting for the new assignment will start next week, but I got a tiny thing to shoot on this one. It’s incredible how much work, and how many people, one needs to get a single shot sometimes. The photo in question was of a prop for a game, the actual shooting took less than five minutes, but a whole hour to set up. Two production assistants, two people from art department, and a lighting assistant were needed. Team work.

• 🍺 It’s been a while since we’ve been to the beer place, and we had setup a visit this week. Sadly I couldn’t make it, father duties took over when the time came. My friends decided to bring the party over, and brought beer with them. A crazy IPA from Barcelona, very tasty. I prepared dinner, and we all stayed home. tinyMovieStar loves them both, so the whole family had a great time. She almost cried when they were leaving. I almost cried as well. It felt great.

• 🎉 Saturday was crazier than a regular Saturday, and those are already pretty intense anyway. We had lunch at my parents, and mom did a really silly thing, a dangerous thing, with the stove. It was the first time I noticed, and I spent most of the day thinking about that. I know I’ll be worrying about these things from now on. We then moved the gang to my in-laws, and were surprised: there was a party going on, with friends and family. Still feels strange, Covid is still around. No matter how many reports come out, the scare is not gone yet. Endemic Covid-19 Has Arrived in Portugal. This Is What It Looks Like.

• 🛸 UFO. After the party was done, we finally managed to get some sleep. tinyMovieStar went to bed at 11.30PM, not the usual 8.00PM. We were pretty tired as well. I was woken up at 4AM, with the strangest sound I’ve heard. It sounded like a very cool UFO had flown by, lovely sound effects. Very clear too. When morning came, and we were up, I asked movieStar if she’d heard the UFO, and she said “Yes, yes I did”. She didn’t think it was a crazy question, she didn’t say it was something else. We just agreed, no discussion, that a UFO had flown by. Also, we don’t actually believe in UFOs, but it sounded like one to both of us.

• ☕️ Coffee time again, this time @mpmilestogo! Surprise, surprise, surprise again! And thankful.

• 👶🏻 Mondays also have a new tradition now. It’s the There’s a New Sick Kid at Kindergarten Day™. A new case of Hand, Foot, Mouth this time. Considering I hadn’t even heard about this one a couple of weeks ago, it has risen to #1 on my list of diseases I wish tinyMovieStar doesn’t get. This week we even took her to the doctor, as the snot keeps coming. She ok. I guess we’ll have to learn how to live with snot in our lives.

• 📺 No big news on the TV front. Most of the time it’s just playing Peppa, or a marathon of Simple Stories, and we’re now waiting for the week’s Succession episode. It’s worth the wait, but goes by too fast. I’m still trying to get to the end of Squid Game. Not easy when I’m the only one watching it, and the time is so limited.

• 🎙 Swindled, new episode.

• 🎂 Mom’s birthday, A Success Story. Mom turned 82 on Wednesday, and we went out for lunch, as we usually do. This time around my father picked a restaurant from his long list of hidden gems, and it was great. After we made our way back to the city, movieStar had a sweet idea, and we all went and picked up tinyMovieStar from kindergarten. Boy, was she happy to see the whole family when the time came to leave for the day!

• OMG icon on Mastodon. This one is a nice one, and the mandatory OMG.LOL news of the week. I spotted a Penelope (that pigeon you see there at the beginning of this paragraphy) on their Discord channel, and thought it would look cool on my username on Mastodon, next to the one from M.b. Being on the instance managed by Mastodon’s developer means that he’s the one that has to enable custom emoji, and I hate to ask. He’s probably dealing with a ton of stuff, no time to add emoji every time someone wants one. And he had already been pretty cool when I asked for the M.b one. I decided to try again, and I got lucky: he did it!

• 😳 Sleepless nights are awful. I don’t know what’s worse: not sleeping at all, or sleep, wake up for some reason, and being unable to get back to it afterwards. Thankfully this only happens once a a very long while, and I’ve been able to get some of the sleep time back with a nap after dropping tinyMovieStar off at kindergarten. Not perfect, but does (part of) the trick. That and an extra espresso.

• 🌧 And now, the weather. Sometimes I forget we get rain over here as well. Well into October and people are still sending me messages from the beach, saying it’s great. That ended now. We’re in the middle of autumn, it’s shouldn’t be a surprise that things are about to turn. It’s raining.

• 😢 Little brother got married a couple of weeks ago, and now his wife had to leave, again. Making things a bit harder, tinyMovieStar grew to like her VERY much, and keeps talking about her. Wait until she finds out she won’t be able to play with her for a while… Oh! My brother is not that thrilled either.

• 🐽 I’m now we’ll aware that I can’t visit certain sites. If the site is cute (love kawaii stuff!) and the service they provide is not expensive, I’m toast. This time? Porkbun! Cheap domains + cute pig? I now own maique.eu, my first .eu domain, and another one I didn’t really need. But the site reminded me, a little, of the fun I had when I briefly moved into HEY. Something boring gets a bit more exciting. And I was a little bored with DreamHost, even though I never had an issue with them. I went ahead and moved everything to the pig site! Smoothly. Following up on this I also moved {micro maique} to the new domain. Perfect.

• 🥰 Internet love weekend. It started on Friday, when the amazing Adam from OMG.LOL sent me a message on Twitter, letting me know that he appreciated very much the kind words I had for the service, and decided to make my account a Lifetime account! For free! I’ve been so happy with the site, and very vocal about it (sorry about that!), but I was really surprised, and thrilled, to find out he had done such a generous thing. With it he also sent a few gift codes, and I already started giving them away. It’s a really nice, and very cheap, service, and I’m glad I have a few more giveaways in the near future. On Sunday, a day after I moved the domains to Porkbun, I got another message on Twitter, letting me know I could order some stickers from the shop, for free! It really was a nice weekend! Surprises like these are awesome. Random gestures of kindness, worth close to nothing in real money, but so valuable in so many ways.

• 💀 Weekends are also the death of us. After a long week, the weekend is no longer a time to relax. tinyMovieStar wakes up at the same time, gets a little frustrated when she finds out she’s not going to kindergarten, we try to provide entertainment, but that has a very limited success. After a little while she’s annoyed again. Toys, books, drawing, tv, food, nothing lasts for a long time. We end up having a couple of days of very intense, and long, hours. When Monday finally arrives, and I drop her off at school, I’ll start missing her immediately. But go straight to bed again, I have a few hours of sleep before the week starts.

• 🥰 The love is spreading into the week, and got a nice coffee from Canion, early on Monday morning! Thank you, it was delicious! I’m always amazed, and very thankful, when someone decides to offer coffee. And I got a mention on Hemispheric Views! Wow!

• 👶🏻 tinyMovieStar has always been a very healthy baby (knock on wood), never once did we have to worry. That ended when she started going to kindergarten. It’s been a constant barrage of illnesses, thankfully not very serious ones. She’s had tummy issues, running nose, cough, almost every single day since she started there. For the past couple of days she’s been fine though, and we were thrilled. And this morning, Monday morning, we got two emails from them, warning us about kids who came down with something. Not cool, and we’re again concerned she might catch something. She spent most of the week with a nasty cough, and even got a little hot on Friday. That lasted for a few hours, but enough to get us scrambling.

• 📺 Succession. It’s back. YAY. We waited soooo long for this one, and now we have to deal with the one-episode-a-week releases! Like we’re animals, back in the 90’s dark ages! Thankfully we still have a ton of Seinfeld episodes to keep us busy, and I’ll try, again, to get movieStar to watch Squid Game.

• ~ tilde.club is a site (?) I found this week. Seems like a couple of people on M.b were there already. It’s very different from what we’re used to these days, and that’s what’s cool with it. I never had to use UNIX, or SSH into a server, but seems like fun. A page is already up there, but this one will take a while to explore.

• 🙌🏼 We met an old friend of mine from high school on the way back from kindergarten. He was my closest friend at the time, and I hadn’t seen him in ages. We printed a fanzine back in the day, one that even helped our academic endeavours. His father also played a pretty important role in turning me into what I am today. He was a theatre critic, essayist and translator, and the first person I met that worked at the paper where I’d spend 20 years of my life. He had tons of books at their place, and would always have one ready for me, whenever I returned the one from the last visit. I always enjoyed reading, ever since I was very young, and he helped to keep that streak going at that special age when I could have easily found other things to do. My friend would turn into a DJ at one of the nicest places at the time, and did a lot of acting as well. We went our separate ways, but I always enjoy our random meetings. He’s been living down in the Algarve for almost a decade, and I found out he has a baby girl, one and a half years old. Just like tinyMovieStar!

• 😂 It would be a strange week if nothing happened on OMG.LOL, and this week something great was launched. We could already receive emails sent to username@omg.lol, and could set up DNS records to send from whatever@username.omg.lol but, this week, they partnered with Fastmail, and now we can send email from that address as well. It’s a cool integration, and free if you’re already a Fastmail subscriber. Took around half a minute to set up on my end, and I can now use maique@omg.lol! Much nicer than the old one. I love when companies that I use decide to these collaborations, and Fastmail is on a roll. A couple of weeks back they launched Masked Emails with 1Password, and now this! LOVE.

• 😰 It was a long week. A LOOOOONG week. Here’s to a crazy weekend! Of course tinyMovieStar had something up her sleeve. The result? It’s 3AM and this weekly report is being published. 9 hours ahead of schedule!

• 🎈There are still a few (a lot) of people in the family that tinyMovieStar hasn’t met. The size of both our families, the pandemic, our lives, all added up, it’s only natural. Even so, this Saturday she met a few more cousins, when we all gathered at my in-laws. It was a busy, hectic, afternoon. But I was reminded of how happy I used to feel when I was a young boy, and the whole gang got together. It was brilliant, and still some of the happiest memories I have. Hoping she feels the same.

• 🎈(Part II) Sunday brought another couple of cousins and a great uncle. We had almost forgotten how this house was, or is: always filled with people. Wherever my in-laws happen to live, that’s where the action is. The whole family gets together at their place. This stopped for a while, during the worst months of the pandemic, but now they’re back in business. Food, laughs, people all over.

• 🔐 Keeping my crypto investment safe is the new project. I was never hacked, or stolen, and the amount I have in crypto is laughable anyway. Still, a hardware wallet is a gadget, and I was curious about this one. The Ledger Nano S is not that expensive, and has been favourably reviewed a lot of times. It sounds like the perfect one for a wallet newbie. Ordered. There are a LOT of pages to read, a LOT of YouTube tutorials to keep me busy for a few days, or weeks, depending on the work load I have.

• 🧐 One thing that makes me slightly anxious about these technologies, YubiKey and Ledger, is the fact that I am in charge of the whole show. I’m a responsible person, as much as the next one, but the What Ifs with these is harder for me to embrace. If I let a company, like 1Password, or Coinbase, in charge of the whole security, I know I might get hacked. But that will probably never happen, or the chance is rather small. On the other hand, if I have the keys to the whole kingdom, I can’t shake the feeling that the probability of something happening, losing the key, or the seed phrase, is real. I also don’t expect this to happen, but do I trust myself more that the hundreds of engineers who devote their lives to preventing exactly that? Until I get a duplicate key, like I have for the car or house, I’ll tread lightly.

• 📺 Finished The Billion Dollar Code. Enjoyable. I have some thoughts, but they would probably fall under the Spoiler category, so I’m not writing them down. It’s time to pick another one…

• 🎉 I also topped my OMG.LOL account with an extra 2 years this week. It’s a 5USD a year service that provides so much, I couldn’t help it. The developer behind it is lightning fast on support, and I’m always trying to figure out new things to add to it. Easy fun. And organised a giveaway, trying to spread my love for it. Congrats to @r. I had a lot of fun with it, hope he enjoys the prize.

• 🛵 My motorcycling days are not as frequent as before. The bike is in the garage, the battery is dead, I don’t have the time to ride it. It’s not great. Sometimes I miss it, but on most days I just think about it when I’m trying not to hit it with the car when backing up into the garage. I thought about selling it, but then never did. This weekend my father-in-law asked me to take his motorcycle for a spin, as he hadn’t in a while. It was great! The roads around their village are beautiful, winding, plenty of trees on both sides of the road, not a lot of cars on a Sunday. Perfect for an hour. Looking forward to the next time we visit already.

• 🏝 This week we had a friend visiting our favorite island, and we were surprised one evening when he video-called us from my godmother’s place. It was lovely to see her after all this time. The following morning one of movieStar’s colleagues also called, and she had one of our dearest friends by her side. He grabbed her phone and went around the whole village. We got to see everyone, and everyone got to see us. They kept asking about tinyMovieStar (they haven’t met her in person yet), and it was one of the coolest, and sweetest, moments of the whole week. We miss them A LOT, and can’t wait to go back. Maybe in 2022. Hopefully in 2022.

• 🎉 (OMG.LOL Part II) After I finished the Giveaway (I’ll have to go with Original Giveaway from now on), the developer of the site got in touch, and filled my heart. He really is the nicest person, and so we are doing another giveaway. You’ll find out who wins this one in a few hours, but too late for this edition of thingsThisWeek.

• 👶🏻 tinyMovieStar is still getting to grips with the difference between week days and weekend, and now we have tantrums every Saturday morning, when she finds out she’s not going to kindergarten. She soon gets over it, when it dawns on her that we’re having lunch at my parents place, but it makes for a very noisy morning. Music seems to help, but only to a certain point.

• 💻 My short lived experiment with a newsletter ended even before it started. I saw the integration of Revue on a Twitter profile, and wanted to give that a shot. Saw no real reason to do it, as I have nothing to add to these posts, and the rest I publish on Micro.blog. Even so, I signed up. They had an Instagram integration that could be nice, but are using a deprecated API to enable that, so that’s not working. It’s been like this for months, they haven’t updated it on their end, and don’t reply to requests for help. Not a great sign, so I turned the thing back off.

• 🔑 Yubi News: still enjoying the geekiness, but I have yet to delete the TOTP codes from 1Password. The new 1Password for Safari extension makes everything even more convenient, as the codes are pasted into the proper field, as everything else. If more sites supported the keys protocol, instead of the regular TOTP, I’d probably feel the urge to use it more often. But, at this time, I only have the key working for Fastmail, Coinbase, Wordpress (and I don’t even use that account), GitHub, and Twitter. The other accounts have those TOTP codes, and those can be handled by 1Password, as well as Yubico’s own Authenticator. With 1Password you just log in, no hassle. With the key you’ll have to open the app, log in with username and password, get the key, go to Authenticator app, tap the key, copy the code, go back to the app where you’re trying to log in, and paste the code. How long before I just quit and stick with 1Password? The static password feature on the second slot is handy, I’ll tell you that much.

• 🎂 On Sunday we went to a birthday party, a children’s birthday party. I guess these will become more common as tinyMovieStar grows up, but at the moment we’re still getting away with the parties for our friends and family. We’re not yet at the school’s friends level. I fear those.

• 📷 Work wise, a busy week. Portraits, a food fair/market with yummy things all over the place, an art installation, and a beach cleanup. Busy, and varied, week. Lots of editing too, that’s the downside of the whole thing. Truth be told, the time I spent at the beach made my week, and I’ll edit every last one of those photos without crying. I can promise you that!

• 📺 Finished Fauda (and eagerly waiting for season 4 now), looking forward to a little Seinfeld binging, and trying to figure out if Billion Dollar Code is worth our time. Picking a new series to watch is always a stressful activity, as we don’t have a lot of free time, and must be enjoyable for both of us. We saw the first episode of The Squid Game. Everyone seems to be talking about it, but movieStar wasn’t thrilled. If I want to keep watching, I’ll have to do it on my own. I don’t see that happening.

• 👶🏻 We’ve been avoiding it for a long time, lucky us, but we knew it had to happen, sooner or later. It did this week: tinyMovieStar up at midnight, not feeling the urge to sleep any longer. She wanted to draw and, of course, Papi had to help. This lasted well into the night, up to 5AM. We’d draw a bit, I would then try to explain the difference between day time and night time, using the darkness outside to prove my point. She wouldn’t get it. We tried food, we tried storytelling, we tried everything we could think about. Maybe it was too early in the morning to come up with better ideas, nothing worked except exhaustion. She finally broke down and we managed a couple of hours before it was time to get up and go to work.

• 🌮 Eating out is something we’re doing again, albeit a lot less than before. We do go out to our respective Mom&Dad’s places, and movieStar has been meeting with her friends for lunch sometimes, but it’s still something out of the ordinary. I could probably count the number of times I’ve been to a restaurant in the past year with movieStar, and the number would be pretty low. This week, prompted by the constant tacos photos @mpmilestogo posts, we decided to have some at Coyo Taco, our local Mexican. It was delicious.

• 🤵🏻Right after I posted last week’s report we went for our regular Saturday lunch with Mom&Dad. My brother was also there, as on most of the weekends. This past couple of weeks he’s had his bride with him, finally, after many MANY months apart due to Covid-related travel difficulties. The news: they got married this Wednesday!! It was a simple event, but a sweet one.

• 📷 Sunday was election night and I was asked to shoot one of the mayoral candidates in a city next door to Lisbon. I hadn’t done an assignment for a newspaper in ages, and it felt great to be back at it. The excitement was short lived though, as the candidate I got assigned was a loser, and also one I did not care for. At all. We spent hours doing nothing, while she figured out what she’d say, locked behind a closed door with her minions. She came out after a LONG while and acknowledged her defeat. Home by 2AM.

• 👶🏻 It had to happen, sooner or later, and this was the week it happened: tinyMovieStar had a small fever. Teething is still ongoing, and it was not pleasant. A lot of crying, a lot of drama. She skipped a few days at kindergarten, and we spent them trying to make her feel a little better. Bonus points: we also caught something, so the whole family is feeling a little down. I’m sure it will go away soon.

• 💻 Revue. I saw someone with a newsletter on their Twitter profile and thought “Why not?”. I have nothing to write about in a newsletter, truth be told. I could repeat every little thing that shows up here, but that’s not really the intended use. I wanted to check how things would work. Found out you can integrate Instagram, but I keep getting an error. I guess I might turn that off in a couple of weeks. I’m not even sharing the link…

• 💻 Two of the services I’ve been using for longer sat on the proverbial tree, and K I S S E D… 1Password + Fastmail joined forces and started offering masked email. There are other ways to get a similar service, but this implementation seems really smooth, and was very quick to set up. Having it available inside two apps that I already use daily is just brilliant. Check it out here, and here.

• 🔑 Yubikey, oh, Yubikey, where are you? I still remember when packages came rushing home. It was not that long ago. Something would be ordered, and I’d spend the following days getting a ton of notifications, the package would go into an airplane, then the next one, hopping quickly from country to country. These days, at least with this DHL delivery, it seems to be doing a lot of walking, and a few slow bus rides. That’s the only way I can understand this. Leaving Germany and getting here four days later? How?? Right now the package is in the country, but god knows how long it will take to make it to my door.

• 🔑 Yubikey update: it’s here! Now to the fun part: using it.

• 💻 Something I wanted to do for a while: Install Sublime Ads on the blog. Taking advantage of the cool service developed by @Vincent, and the sweet offer he made to us Micro.blog users. I couldn’t get my head around the Hugo templates, and gave up. Woke up on Friday and felt this was the time to try again. I’d been testing the waters on a static page, and was so invigorated when I saw that working, that I gave it another try. Happy I did.

• 📷 This week was a multi-assignment one, as I was asked to shoot an event on Thursday. I hate doing these, but it was a very short affair, and so I did it anyway. Met a couple of old friends I had not seen in a few years, so that was cool too. Seriously doubt I’ll work for them again, though.

• 📺 Finished the second season of Fauda, and we’re starting the third one. Yesterday we figured out one of the things that we like about this one: the actors are (were) unknown to us, and that makes it so much more believable. They look like regular people.