thingsThisWeek

Jul 21, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #58

🧸 Pijama Party for the little one on Friday, I thought I had managed to escape this one, so I went out and had a beer with my best friend, the one I was supposed to be driving north with for work. And then we had another beer. And a couple more. We got hungry. Went to the nicest pizza place in the area, like we always do. We are very predictable. I then went home, got ready to sleep, and got a call from the movieStars. Party turned into a mess, as the other girl was acting like a little diva. I went and picked them up. tinyMovieStar had told her mum “Maybe we should go home and sleep in our beds”.
🌴 Pool Day on Saturday. Friends (I’ll just say this because the exact relationship would take forever to explain) invited us to visit their new place. They live in a really nice spot, and sold their previous house on the spot to someone who walked by and made an offer. They took the money, built another one, one street over. It’s a lovely place, they are a cool family. The house looked a bit like a showroom, but there is a pool there, and tinyMovieStar is our boss. We went. Great lunch too. Delicious food.
🌳 We drove back to my in-law’s place, a very fun drive in itself, with a couple of stops along the way. That’s when we found out the car was leaking diesel. Next morning, a few cousins joined us for Sunday lunch, a fun weekly event. Some of them we hadn’t seen for months.
📝 Monday came. We’ve been postponing filling out the forms for tinyMovieStar enrollment in kindergarten next year. She’s in, mind you, it’s just that we have to find SO much paperwork! This Monday, a slow work day, I decided to take care of it. Took forever, but it’s done.
🚙 Our sweet car (Bogas) was left behind on Sunday, and we drove my father-in-law’s Beetle back to the city. That one is nicknamed Waterlily. tinyMovieStar named it, and does not love riding on this one. She was cool with it this time. We told her Bogas had to see a doctor. The verdict came a day later. The issue was in a filter, it was replaced. Total cost: 35EUR. I was as surprised as you probably are, to find out there are still things that can be done to a vehicle that cost this. Impressed.
📺 A few more episodes of Ted Lasso, Jack Ryan is done with. Hijack (sorry, Alex!), and The Righteous Gemstones, ongoing. Giving Acapulco season 2 a try.
🍿 The Greatest Beer Run Ever. Meh movie, and only found out it was based on a true story after the movie was over.
💻 App Tamer was suggested to me on Mastodon, after I complained about the 24/7 fan noise that comes with two Photos.app being always on. It works! It’s been years since I started trying to shut them down, and the solution has been found.
✂️ Head Lice! Took them long enough, but tinyMovieStar has finally caught them. Now taking care of it, as we enter another weekend. I’m working all day Saturday, so will miss part of the fun.

Jul 13, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #57

🧺 Friends who live in Denmark came to town, so the gang (this is movieStar’s gang from her Paris days, mind you) got together for their yearly picnic, complete with a lot of kids. It was FUN.
🌳 Weekend fun. Water balloons. We had big plans, but did absolutely nothing instead. Strawberry pie.
🎹 Chaves trip. The N2 festival is getting close. There’s always an unveiling day, when the lineup is presented to the media. I usually make the trip up, spend the night, and back down again. It’s a rough day, as Chaves is all the way up, next to the Spanish border. A lot of driving. This time I decided to take the bus. Flixbus does not stop in the city, so I had to take the regular bus. Damn, that is one very boring ride. And, most crucially, a very long one to take on a bus with no toilet. Trying to balance your water intake so you don’t dehydrate, but also taking a chance with overdoing it, and then having to hold it for hours. Not easy. Not at all. One of the buses had no USB plugs, or sockets, and the other one had both. Same company, same route, very different experience. Both had Wi-Fi, but one almost unusable, and the other one allowing movies to be streamed. Anyway…. Once I got there, though, it was really nice. Meeting the gang is always a thrill. We met, had a party, had meals, had beers, had laughs. Slept, repeated, and back to Lisbon on another ride from hell.
📺 Smartless On Tour, episode 2. Jack Ryan, ongoing. Hijack, ongoing. The Righteous Gemstones, ongoing. Ted Lasso, season 3. Finally.
🍿 Bolt, this time in English, as tinyMovieStar quickly lost interest. Sleeping Beauty, also without her after a couple of minutes, as she found something a lot more interesting to do. The Out-Laws. Meh.
🐉 Kali and stuff. Not a lot more to say. Except the fact that I’ve been dealing with web apps, and not minding it a lot.
🦺 Beta time! I jumped it, and installed iOS 17 Beta on the iPhone, and the corresponding watchOS on dickTracy. More about this later, I’m sure. Just started using it, too early for thoughts.
🏦 I had to visit the bank again, as the clerk that I spoke with before incredibly missed the need for a document. In fact, the only document that was needed. Anyway, I went to a different branch, this nice new clerk figured out what was missing last Thursday. I went online and requested said document. A couple of days later I had it. Got on an electric scooter, and we filed the request again. Hopefully this time things will work out. I’ll then be able to close that account, and move my banking needs to the farmer’s bank.

Jul 7, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #56

Long week, plenty of things happening around here.

👩‍🏫 We had a meeting with tinyMovieStar’s kindergarten teacher. Annual report on the table. I feel my heart explode with love when I read these reports! We know she is awesome, but seeing it all on paper, written by someone who’s not a family member, is just the best feeling ever. Next year she’s moving up to another class, and she’s already planning how to still be able to meet with this year’s teacher. The teacher, super cool, gets her really well and, when figuring out which teacher she’d have next year, and what little friends would move with her to that class, made all the right choices, according to us. Very well played!
🏖️ A little after that meeting, we picked up the little one, and drove to the beach. It’s so close that’s hard not to do it. It was super windy though, so we could only spend an hour or so. We then moved to a place nearby, a house bought by one of movieStar’s friends. A French lady, living in NY. She bought a place in the last place you’d imagine someone like that being interested in. We had drinks, some food, and left well into the night, the little one asleep as soon as we got to the car.
🎂 Next day: Saturday. One of tinyMovieStar’s friends from school had a birthday party. We attended. She’s two years older than our little princess. We actually met her mom on the island, while she was shooting a movie there (she’s a camera person), pregnant. It is a very small, small world! Now she’s living close to us, and they attend the same kindergarten. Anyway, she decided to have her birthday party an hour outside the city, and a place with a pool and a special breed of donkeys. We did not see the donkeys a lot, but enjoyed the pool for hours! Again, as soon as we got in the car to drive back to the city, tinyMovieStar crashed.
💖 On to Sunday, and what was probably the craziest thing of the week: Cinderella! There’s a famous theatre producer in the city, known for very colourful musicals. He decided to give us his version of Cinderella, and it was a huge hit. Yesterday was the last performance, and movieStar’s oldest friend managed to get her hands on some VIP tickets (she’s an actor, and knows the guy). Also, her daughter is one of tinyMovieStar’s best friends, and, of course, she’s in the same class at kindergarten. The four of them went to the show. At the end of the performance, since it was the final one, they had a celebration, a party fit for princesses. tinyMovieStar got to meet the cast but, obviously, as far as she’s concerned, they’re the real deal. She hugged and kissed Cinderella, she ate cake with Cinderella, she met the prince, she… Well, she went CRAZY!
🍛 On Tuesday, we got a call from the in-laws, letting us know they’d be in town, and would have dinner with us. A surprise family dinner! We messaged a brother-in-law, the one who lives in town, and invited him as well. Aunt Marta would come along, of course, and that is always a treat for tinyMovieStar. We’re not used to host that many people at our place, but managed to entertain, and feed, everyone. tinyMovieStar missed her grandparents after a weekend without her usual visit, and that was fixed.
🏊‍♂️ We enrolled tinyMovieStar in swimming lessons. There’s a pool really close to home, so we’re taking her there. The pool belongs to a well know club here, one we used to compete against decades ago, when we were swimmers. My brother and I swam in competitions for many years, from very young kids, well into our teenage years. No sure I want her to go through all that, but swimming is obviously a skill she must have.
🏦 I know I’ve complained before about this, but the bank that holds my mortgage for 30 years has an inordinate amount of imbeciles working there. Thursday was the day when, supposedly, the money would be gone from my account, and the mortgage would be paid for. So, when I saw their closing time approaching, I decided to visit a branch, and make sure this was happening. It was not. The clerk that handled the whole thing forgot one document! How does this happen, when all they do is handle loans? No idea. I did, however, and quite surprisingly, managed to walk out of the bank without any threats of physical violence. I did end up telling the nice lady that her bank is really a shitty one, and this issue was yet another proof of that. Will be back next week.
🍭 Special shoutout to Vincent, and the new Tinylytics service, now with Kudos! Whenever you’re reading a post on the blog (not often, I know), and just want to let me know you’ve liked it, you can tap the lollipop. I won’t know it’s you, of course, but the lollipop count will increase, and my heart will sing.
🧵 And Threads! Even though the app is not available in the EU, I did remember I had a dormant US App Store account, and used that one to get in. I’m in there, if you’d like to follow. Not sure where this is going, but I had to give it a go. Instagram is still the network where I have more friends and family, even though most of them can’t join at the moment. The app feels a bit beta, but nice. Photos look nice there too.
📺 Jack Ryan’s new season is available on Prime+, with a couple episodes ready to view, so that’s done. Hijack, on TV+. I don’t even care if it’s good, for I’ll watch anything with Idris Elba in it. Since I had to pay for a month to watch it (as this is the streaming service we don’t have a yearly sub with), I watched an old favourite’s second season: Slow Horses. I want season 3 right now, I’d forgotten how good this one is. To top it off, nothing like this week’s episode of The Righteous Gemstones.
💈 It was time, so a new visit to the barbershop. I now use these to make a few new photos from the shop, and offer them to my barber, so he can use them on social media (Instagram). It’s been a couple of days now, and the photos remain unedited. Told ya, busy week!

Jun 30, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #55

🌴 Weekend Routine, Summer Edition. We are trying to arrange things in a way that allows us to take tinyMovieStar to the beach on weekends, and still enjoy the company of her grandparents (both sets). To get there, we had to make a little adjustment to our weekend schedule: we are now moving to the in-laws on Friday, able to go to the beach all day on Saturday, and moving back to the city on Sunday, with dinner at my parents. Let’s see how this works out…
🚌 This first weekend was a special one too, the moving about weekend. Drove to Cascais, dropped movieStar, drove back home, picked up tinyMovieStar from kindergarten, drive to in-laws, back to Cascais the following morning, pool day, picked up movieStar, back to in-laws, slept, and finally back to the city. Darn. Lots of time spent on a car, with crazy heat outside. That was the theme of the week too, as I wasn’t done with driving yet…
🏊‍♂️ We did get to spend a day at the pool, and what a treat it is. tinyMovieStar is getting so comfortable in the water, full of confidence. We do our best to build up her confidence, but she does most of the work herself. She’s really strong.
📷 Then I had to leave the city on the hottest day of the week, and travel to the hottest part of the country, to shoot outside, on the worst hours of the day. Of course I did. Worth it, though, as I was shooting an architect, on two of his creations. Loved it. To make things more interesting, I’m now actively avoiding highways whenever I can, and pick the regular roads, the ones we used back when I was a young boy, and highways were not available. Feels so good, a true trip back in time. Those times are like a dream now, as the country is covered with highways. Most of the time the trip will be a few minutes longer, of course, but not as much as one might expect. And I get so much in return. I get to see the country again, the little villages, the abandoned restaurants by the road, the industrial areas around the bigger towns, people going about their lives, …
👹 Toddler-sitting. I love my baby girl. I, unsurprisingly, believe she’s the most perfect kid on earth. I’m biased, of course. But, truth be told, some of the other kids are just assholes. There, said it.
⚖️ Now that I believe I can say smoking is behind me (54 days, and counting… fingers crossed), it’s time to get back to my fasting routine. I tried to keep this under control, but not smoking turns out to be a hell of an appetite booster! I have gained around 6Kg by now, time to let them go again. I was/am aware of how poorly I controlled my appetite for things I shouldn’t eat, and how I kept postponing the end of that behavior. Now is the time to get that app working again, and take care of myself.
📺 As far as TV goes, and I should call this TV/iPhone, as a few of these are watched on the run, on the smaller device, it’s still season 3 of The Righteous Gemstones. And we got to the end of The Diplomat, again. Now we’re eagerly waiting for season 2 of both this show, and The Bear. August 2 is the date when we’ll be able to say “Yes, Chef” again. And I managed to watch Taking the World Stage (Full Episode) | North Korea: Inside the Mind of a Dictator (YouTube link) while I was on a very long editing session at home. I also got to the end of episode 1 of Smartless: On the Road, and still not sure if I’ll even watch episode 2. How is the podcast so funny, and the TV show so painfully boring? And, finally, I got the courage to watch the final episodes of Schitt’s Creek. I will miss this one, a lot.
🚀 New app for the laptop: Rocket. Bought the Pro version. Not spending a lot of time with on the Air but, when I do, emoji picking took a lot longer than it should. Not anymore. Another great find by Mr Matt. I can now do this (͡ ° ͜ʖ ͡ °) too, easily!

Jun 23, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #54

🏦 I’d been avoiding the trip to the bank for well over a month. I hate going to the bank. Hate it. So, when the gentleman on the other side of the telephone call (also something I dislike) said I would have to go in, in person, I was not pleased. I needed to show up with documentation, as the ones they had on file had expired a (very long) while back. Anyway, came back from this first try almost empty-handed. Documentation was updated, now on to the rest of the issue… It was only half a week later that things started moving again. I have no idea how banks still get away with “x business days” type stuff. Things happen instantly now! Anyway, the ball was rolling, and it led, in the end, to the most wonderful surprise, and solution: my dad decided to end this whole shitty bank nonsense, and offered to pay what was left of the mortgage! We went, again, and got the ball rolling. It will roll into next month, when everything will be behind us. Can’t wait.
🤽🏻‍♀️ Last weekend was, as normal, spent at the in-laws. We had the usual normal time, enhanced a bit by the portable pool for the kids, and a visit from a couple of young cousins. Company for tinyMovieStar. Happy kids, happy parents.
📷 Work wise, not a lot to say. Or, better, nothing to say. I had no work at all this week.
📺 The Righteous Gemstones Season 2 went by, and the 3rd season has begun in this household. It sometimes gets a little crazy, but still watching it. Smartless: On the Road. Meh so far. Episode 1, but it’s taking me forever to finish it, and that’s not a nice sign. We’re still doing The Diplomat, whenever movieStar has time for it.
📚 Books were returned to the library. tinyMovieStar did not fully understand the whole concept of the library. So, before I return them, I went and bought the favourite of the bunch. We now have the Pink Monster book as well. tinyMovieStar wanted to come to the library with me, but we kept postponing this one. We did it so much that I had to walk there alone in the end.
🎁 While at it, I got something for movieStar as well, and she liked it. And a new case for my iPhone, and a new hip pack to go with it. So, everyone got something. Yay. I’m now rocking a Chalk Pink case. Like it.
🥺 And, to finish this one off, something that is happening later today, and tomorrow. I don’t usually talk about the future, but this is a big one. movieStar is going to a birthday party today, and another event tomorrow, and we’re not going. This is completely out of the ordinary, and I’m looking forward to tinyMovieStar’s reaction. We’re driving to my in-laws, cousins are coming over tomorrow, but… no mom.

Jun 15, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #53

Very, VERY, full week! A few days were holidays in the country, both national and local, meaning no work for movieStar, no kindergarten for tinyMovieStar. We moved around a bit.

🍜 Start of this new chapter/week with a visit to a ramen place (Portuguese review) that was on our bucket list for a while. A curious place: a Nepalese chef, with many years spent working in Japan, decided to open a ramen spot in the city. He didn’t change the decor of the place that much, so it looks like a typical Portuguese tasca, with yummy noodles on the menu. People rave about this place, ever since it opened, so it was time for us to go. We did not come away disappointed.
🏥 We then left the city earlier than usual. I was not feeling well, so I went to the pharmacy as soon as we made it to my in-laws. I needed to get my illness under control. The pharmacist thought I might have high blood pressure, from quitting smoking. We measured it, and it was quite high, but dropped after a couple of minutes. It was fine the next days, so no idea what caused the peak.
💥 June is the first month of Village Parties, a tradition in the country. Most villages have their party in August, when the emigrants are back for the summer, but the one where the in-laws live had theirs this past weekend. That means fireworks at all times, night (3AM) included. It’s stupid. Animals go crazy, kids won’t sleep, it’s wild.
🐟 Santos. Lisbon has it’s holiday in June as well. It’s a mess of sardines, beer, crazy dancing, and crowds. I go once every ten years. More than enough, as far as I’m concerned. People go crazy with this, I just don’t get it. It’s a mess, food is wildly overpriced (and mostly quite bad), beer costs the same as in Denmark for a couple of days! It’s just silly. movieStar insisted, the little one had to see it. We got together with my brother-in-law and wife, and went. Hopefully a decade will go by until I have to go again.
🏊‍♀️ Trip to Évora. tinyMovieStar loves pools, but it was still cold outside. We needed an indoor pool. movieStar loves hotels. We needed an hotel with an indoor pool. We ended up in Évora, a couple of hours outside the city. It was a really nice day. The road is beautiful, and the hotel is brilliant. They have an assortment of pools that will make everyone happy, nice food, and the most wonderful staff. Also an amazing hotel for kids, with dedicated areas for them, and everyone always looking out for them. Not a kid’s hotel, but one that has spent a lot of time thinking about them. tinyMovieStar got a tent in the room, special bath kit, robe, and her own tiny plush bear. She was thrilled. We as well. Bonus: the hotel’s manager is my wedding godfather, he used to be the GM at one of the island’s hotels!
🦄 Speaking of godfathers, tinyMovieStar’s Godmother came over for a visit. She’s in town for a couple of days, over from London and, as usual, she came prepared. This time around she carried a huge dress over, just so she could wear it when picking up the little one from kindergarten. It was awesome. The huge pink thing turned heads all the way to school, a few in there, and on the walk back to our place, with a stop at the ice cream spot.
🧸 Thursday night was also Pajama Party Day at the Library. Libraries have a ton of activities for kids, and today we experienced another one. Mask making, dancing, movies, and dinner. It was packed. It was, again, free. The little one woke up excited about the party, talked about nothing else all day, and had a great time in the evening.
📺 D.P. finished. Now I’d like to find some other Korean thing to watch. In the meantime, still trying (and failing) to finish Unstable. I’ll probably drop it. Started watching The Righteous Gemstones. Smartless On The Road was added to the list, as I love the podcast.
💻 Testing tinylytics.app, the new service from Vincent. Simple analytics, just getting started. If you’d like to have analytics on your blog/website, and don’t mind help testing it while in Beta, feel free to sign up. It’s looking good already, as everything Vincent does.

Jun 9, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #52

Busy weeks, again. No update last week, both have been condensed into this one. Sorry.

💈 I visited my barber, as the time to get another haircut had arrived. This time we went for a “Psycho”. And a request for some (very light) video work: Clips for the barbershop’s Instagram account. I said yes immediately, even though video is really not my think. I just can’t say no to this guy. Went back there a couple of days later, and we shot the clips. He liked them.
🍺 After leaving the barber, on that first visit, I walked by a beer place. One that is owned by another kindergarten father. Turned out to be quite the afternoon. We drank a few beers, I got to know a sticker artist who I’d met through his work, and ended up picking up tinyMovieStar a little later than usual. Fun. Must do again.
👨🏻‍🎨 New avatar week. Andy came through. So much, that I ordered again. I now have two avatars from the same artist. Or three? He’s taking over my timelines, a lot of people are now sporting one of his cute pictures. What about you?
🇫🇷 The French assignment. Not as successful as I’d like, but… Done. I wanted to have more time available for the portrait shoot, but they spent that time having lunch instead. Anyway, sent.
👰🏻 The TV Gang got back together. For another wedding show, no less. One of those 14-hour work days, with multiple locations. Lots of driving around, lots of waiting around, and a few shots at the end of the day. All day away from the movieStars. I did enjoy being back, as set photography is something I really like, but the amount of hours, vs. the pay I get, does not compute.
🍿 Blood & Gold. Meh.
📺 Unstable (meh US show), D.P. (fun Korean show). Finished Succession. Finally. Speechless.
📚 The yearly book fair is back. This is the big one, the one in the park. The one we visited as kids, decades ago. I still remember the thrill of going there, and getting a ton of books. I couldn’t wait to get back home and read them all. Obviously, I’d love tinyMovieStar to have that same experience. She does love books anyway so… what could go wrong? The weather. Hunger. Sleepiness. A lot of things, it turns out. She did have fun, for a little while, and we did get those books. But had to leave, face the rain on the way home, and get ready for Plan B: welcoming more kids to our home. By then sleepiness had turned into craziness, and we endured hours of what looked like kids on drugs. Uff.
💊 I can’t seem to find a way to feel well. I mean, 100% well. At the moment there’s mild ear pain, a sore throat, and something in one of my eyes. Maybe leftovers from all the things tinyMovieStar had last week. Nothing crazy, but annoying enough. I’m at 67%, maybe. I might have to visit a doctor.

Jun 1, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #51

🛵 GreenDay, my lovely motorcycle, is gone. Sold it, at last. It had been sitting in the garage for way too long, and I really needed the money. So, farewell, my dear. We had good times.
⚽️ We moved away from the city, as we do most weekends, convinced we were super clever. The football championship celebrations happen very close to our place, so we expected things to get chaotic in town. By moving to the countryside, we’d escape the noise, the chaos. Of course we were unaware that the local countryside assholes would celebrate right beneath our window. It was a mess! Dog scared to death with the car horns, and explosions (why the fuck are these assholes always blowing up shit??), tinyMovieStar unable to sleep for the same reason. I dislike football in general, but I HATE these celebrations.
🗞️ The Bulls story was finally published, and made it to the front page. I was surprised with how happy I was, when I wouldn’t have thought about it for a second back in the day.
📷 One cancelled assignment, another one showing up right after that, and yet another one I had to turn down. This is the life of a freelancer, and I can only say I’m still not happy with it.
🚶🏻‍♂️ I went on a bigger walk this week. Taking photos along the way, going through some places I don’t often visit on my walks, prepping for the remote chance someone will take advantage of my new walkWithMe offer. I love going back to old places, and I did just that. Hidden streets right in the middle of the city are a favorite of mine. I went to my favorite bifana place, and found out my secret spot is not so secret anymore! And, for the first time in a very very long while, I did a 180, feeling a bit unsafe (or, a least not totally safe), when I went up a flight of stairs and found myself face to face with a half a dozen young dealers. Nothing would, probably, happen to me, but it was odd finding them, and having that feeling. Dead in the middle of downtown.
📺 Unstable. Another father/son show, but a very far cry from the genius of Schitt’s Creek (did watch a couple more episodes of this one as well). Succession, still not over for us.
🍿 Part of Blood & Gold.
🖼️ Finally ordered a new profile picture, from Andy Carolan. He’s a really cool designer, and all around great person. Can’t wait to see what he comes up with. This is part of a growing collection of commissioned profile pictures, a post will come, as soon as this one is delivered.
🪪 movieStar had a rehearsal for something she’s doing at kindergarten. She’s helping out another mom. tinyMovieStar and I were free for the morning, and decided to join the father and son couple of that other mom, and go to the local library. They were having a book reading session for kids. It was very enjoyable. Very. I came out of it with a library card, and books for tinyMovieStar. Sadly the library does not have an ebook service, but the card has a ton of cool perks attached, including access to PressReader. Cool!

May 26, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #50

🎂 Sometimes it feels like we’re always having a party on the weekends. That happened. Again. Both my brother and brother-in-law had anniversaries this past week, and decided to celebrate twice: once on the actual day, and again on the weekend. Fun.
😢 For the first time ever, we both spent our first night away from tinyMovieStar. I had done it before, out of town on work, but we had never done it together. She slept at my in-laws, and we drove to pick her up the following day. Instead of feeling super sad, missing us terribly, she did not want to leave, and tried to talk us into leaving her there, and drive back to the city on our own. That hurts.
👩🏻‍🏫 I had my first PTA meeting (even though we don’t call it that here), and it was a bit of a letdown. We’ve always been away when those happened, and this year I finally managed to attend. I had high expectations, and was a bit disappointed. Nothing came out of it, and the information shared could have been a (very short) email.
🦪 Work-wise, I had two of my regular visits to producers of items that are available at Comida Independente. On the same day. These are usually a lot of fun, and this time around was no different. Also an incredible idea from Rita, the owner. The staff, or part of it, rides with us, and gets to know a bit (a lot!) more about the product, the producer, and the process. We visited an oyster farmer, and a cheese maker. Delicious.
🖼️ And, believe it or not, Instagram is still getting me new clients. Smaller ones, for sure, and never sure how long these relationships will last, but I did go out this week, and got some photos for a new contact. Thanks, Instagram!
📺 A couple more episodes of Succession, on our night away from tinyMovieStar. Finished Kaleidoscope on my own. Nice enough.
🍿 I watched actual movies! Full length ones: Bolt (funny, entertaining), and Pirates of the Caribbean: bla bla bla. I hate Mr. Depp’s character, and really dislike zombies, or skeletons, in movies. But my father-in-law wanted to watch this one, so…
👹 Of course life can’t always be perfect, at least tech-wise. Micro.blog started acting up, again, and failed to push all the photos when crossposting, photos fail to show on the blog,… A mess. There’s always discussion about how we are left behind, over here in Europe, if something goes wrong, as the team is US-based, and it’s a small one. Most of the time it’s ok, but it can be a pain if you do have something you’d like to share, and can’t be bothered with how long it takes for the planet to spin. Add to that the absolute pleasure that some Mastodon apps are to use, and the fact that omg.lol offers very cool weblog hosting, on top of everything else, and sometimes I wonder why I bother. The answer is always the same: the people. But, then again, I do follow them with my social.lol account, and the ones that will never move to M.b too. Hmmmm… The yearly subscription showed up, and I signed up for another one. But I’m sure I can’t justify keeping stickerspotter going, for instance. The cost makes no sense at this point, and that one will be canceled when the time comes.
🎨 I finally got around to it, and changed the theme on the blog. I was using the same one for a long time (Thanks, Amit), but the time had come to try a new one. I went with Tiny Theme, by Matt Langford. That part works!
😩 What stopped working: a very long honeymoon with Mona. While I still think it’s the best app for Mastodon, we had Icongate this week. The app is still using the icon from Spring, the Twitter app from the same dev, and we’ve been asking for new icons for ages. It just feels wrong to have the same on both apps. This week we saw a mention of new ones in the release notes, everyone rushed to update, and we were all soon very disappointed. The “new” icons were, in fact, the icons from his other apps. Talk about a shitty move! There’s a Mona community, people spent hours developing themes, preaching the Mona gospel to folks, and this is what we got in return: shitty icons. Along with a “but I like it like this” from the developer. So, that’s it for Mona. Back to Ivory it is.
🚬 Still doing the “No smoke” thing. Day 19 as we speak.

May 19, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek 49

😔 This week’s post should have started out in the countryside, with a visit to a bio/wellness/holistic thing. Anyway, the assignment was postponed, so I did not get the chance to check it then. It was a disappointment, but then I got the chance to go back to the movieStars, and ride the motorcycle a bit more. I went back for seconds, on Wednesday, but it was really bad, it probably won’t make it to the paper.
🛵 I spent the weekend riding my father-in-law’s motorcycle back and forth. A joy, and a pain. During the day, even with the wind, it’s a pleasure. I had a very different experience in the middle of the night, on roads I’m not familiar with. The road I took to avoid the highway is the one used by every single truck driver in the land, trying to escape the highway toll. Awful traffic. But it made me miss when I rode my own motorcycle, now abandoned.
📷 Another event was shot for a local big brand, on Friday, and then again on Sunday. An athletics thing, always fun. Also exhausting. Then the thing for the newspaper, a colab with a street artist, and a silly thing on Friday, that’s not even work. A T-Shirt fashion shoot, for my barber. He calls, I go.
❌ On the NoMoreSmoke front, still going. Still not easy. There are so many situations that make me think “I could really have a cigarette right now” during the day. SO many. Still not willing to discuss it further, it’s hard enough without dwelling on it. Let me just say that my resting heart rate is already lower. Since the first day, according to the Apple Watch. It’s been well over a week now… Closer to two.
📺 Finished Sanctuary. Ongoing Succession. And wishing movieStar would find the time to watch The Diplomat. Also considering a second go at Giri/Haji. Loved it the first time. Watching Kaleidoscope.
🤒 We attended Family Day at kindergarten, with breakfast. Everyone was there, all the parents, all the kids, all the teachers. Fun. After a week away, we were back. It took us a whole week for tinyMovieStar to get over her sickness, and a week later she has conjunctivitis. Great! Parenting rules!