thingsThisWeek

May 12, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #48

🥳 I’m back! After a crazy couple of months, I’ll try to keep these weekly posts going. Missed noting down what’s going on. This week I have a smallish update, just trying to get back to it…
🏥 tinyMovieStar got a couple of infections, and won her first trip to the hospital. We never thought we’d make it to the ripe old age of 3 without a visit. Congrats, all. We called the hotline, they told us our gut feeling was right, we should take her to the children’s hospital. They sent them a message letting them know we were on our way. We drove there, and spent three hours getting her checked. Exams were made, medication was taken, needle was jabbed. They were wonderfully sweet with the little one. In the end, not a single euro changed hands, praise the SNS. Coffee while I waited was the largest expense. We went back a couple of days later, with not so great results. Triage flagged her as low priority this time, and we had a two-hour wait until we’d be able to see a doctor. We left.
🚬 Smoking, such a nasty habit. I know. And yet I’ve been doing it for 35 years, happily, I might add. Trying to quit now, but it’s been quite the ride. I’ve had great moments, met some really nice people, and got some cool photos, because I am (was) a smoker. Anyway, time has come. I’m giving that up. Not talking about this a lot now, I don’t want to jinx it.
📺 Sanctuary. Not a lot else, as I’ve been busy with work (it even feels odd saying this)! The show is not great either, but it’s Japanese, and I’m willing to put up with a lot in exchange for that. Silly, yes, but…
📷 Pretty busy, all things considered. The agency, the newspaper, the other agency… Everyone thought it would be a great idea to call this week! Betting I’ll be without work for a month now…
👯 Since we last met here, I’ve managed to get an invite to Bluesky (and 50 others to give away after that), and also got an account on Nostr (that I don’t use at all). I expect a longer post about these to show up in the future. Anyway, if you’re on bsky, feel free to look me up. I’m @maique.eu over there.

Mar 31, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #47

☀️ Celebrating the fact that tinyMovieStar has battled, and won, the fever (she now has a cough and running nose, yay), we had lunch at my parents, and then made our way to my in-laws. Joking, of course, this is the usual weekend routine, as I’m sure you’re well aware by now, if you follow these weekly updates (and I’m assuming everyone does, of course)! An aunt (my mother-in-law’s older sister) has moved next door, and now we have a couple of new cats, and another uncle (mother-in-law’s brother). This one, in particular, is a very special person. He has a severe disability, and he’s over 80 years old. His relationship with tinyMovieStar is incredible, and she’s gotten used to him over time. It was not easy at first, as he mumbles, and yells, and has serious issues to move around. And the little one always takes 15 minutes to get relaxed around new people anyway. But, after that initial period, it’s really cute. This was also the weekend when she had a full meltdown when the time came to leave, and that was not cool. At all. We were all pretty tired from spending a full week with her at home, sick, very demanding, and having this at the end of Sunday was just the… what’s the opposite of “cherry on top”?? It took her a couple of days back at kindergarten, with her routines, for us to have our little one back.
🕺 On Thursday we attended a dance class at kindergarten. It was great exercise, but the best part was the look on tinyMovieStar’s face the whole time. We knew we were in for a happy moment when she, for the first time in ages, jumped out of bed as soon as she woke up, and couldn’t wait to get dressed and out the door. I carried her all the way to kindergarten on my shoulders, we walked in, took off our shoes, and it started. She was laughing, and looking at us the whole time. We had a blast. At the end, there’s a song called “Doing Nothing”, we’re all just lying on the floor, relaxing. She opened her arms, mom on one side, myself on the other, and she held us for the longest time. It was awesome. Of course she cried a bit when she figured we were leaving after that.
🍿 We managed to watch an entire movie. But it was Paw Patrol: The Movie.
📺 F1: Drive to Survive is ongoing, finished Vice Principals, and started The Night Agent. This one is kind of meh… I’m now going through Schitt’s Creek at a slower pace, as I don’t want to finish it too soon. I’ll miss it.
🎙️ The Naked Emperor, a new show, and the usual suspects. Not a lot of time for podcasts this week, I spent some of the allotted time listening to music instead. Nice change of pace.
📷 In Micro.blog Photo Challenge news, I was unable to keep to my original idea, and had to resort to the archive for some photos. This week was the last one, and the missing photos were posted. Uff… it was hard to keep up the pace on this one. Days 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31. Already looking forward to the next challenge. These are a lot of fun. And we did get a LOT of great photos to look at. I believe this was the best one yet. Not for me, but as a whole. The community really stepped up. And, in the end, I did include a photo of the movieStars, something I tried to not do throughout the whole month. I guess they’re unavoidable!
📱 Hipstamatic, Fiery Feeds, and TV Forecast. Enjoying all of them. It’s been fun to get reacquainted with the fun photo app that started the whole iPhone photography craziness. The new Hipstamatic X is far from perfect, true, very glitchy and slow at times, and all around buggy. But I managed to get a three month trial period, so I’m using it for a bit longer. I still have issues with over-processing photos, and still want to keep the originals available, but, at least, I can shoot with the normal camera, and apply the filters afterwards. If you’re in there, feel free to say hi. As far as Fiery Feeds, I thought I might give it a try, well aware that Reeder will probably, again, win my heart in the RSS reader apps. I cannot find another app that works as well for me as this one, and I’ve tried a few. Fiery Feeds is cool though, and has some nice touches. The yearly subscription price was low enough to get my money. I’m on week 1, let’s see how long that lasts. Lastly, TV Forecast, another app I heard about on AppStories. I’ve said if before, but here it goes again: the guys at MacStories are responsible for me spending a LOT of money over the years. They did it yet again! I’ve been using TV Time for a while, to track my tv shows, with trakt.tv as syncing service. I went through a few apps that connect to it, but none felt great. I was satisfied with TV Time, but not enough to pay the subscription price. This new one clicked almost instantly. Simple, thoughtful, design and feature set. Not an expensive subscription fee. I’m in for a year.
💒 We attended a memorial service for a friend’s family member, and it turned out to be a lot less depressing than we thought it would be. Also present were some old friends, ones from decades ago, since high school, and we had a great time talking over beer. There was also a playground in the area, so the whole family was happy. I still wish these events were, like in some other cultures, happier, with food and drinks, celebrating the life of the ones that left us, instead of the somber thing we have to do here.

Mar 24, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #46

🌻 We had planned on changing our weekend routine, but ended up in the same spot. There’s some construction work going on at my in-laws, and family moving into the house next door to them, so things are a bit hectic, but the little one would miss her grandparents so much, we just went. It was a good as the ones before. Brothers-in-law visited, the little one loves it when they do. Having a full house is something she lives for.
👨‍👩‍👦 Father’s Day. A couple of presents from tinyMovieStar, and all the love a father could wish for. It was awesome, our baby is, and I’ve said it before, the sweetest.
🌡️ tinyMovieStar has a fever for a couple of days. She’s not one to complain, so it’s a bit harder to figure out what’s going on. She just gets a bit hot, and when asked if something hurts, or feels odd, she says “No, everything is fine”. She gets to spend the whole day at home, playing with us and napping, and she loves that. If the thermometer could be tricked by a three year old, I would suspect foul play.
📺 Yes, Schitt’s Creek. It’s a long show. On the YouTube front, Hot Ones, with Pedro Pascal. Also some Seth Meyers, and a few clips from The Daily Show. Vice Principals, saw a few episodes, and will come back for more. And we did manage to move along with F1: Drive to Survive. We watched 2 1/2 episodes, not bad!
🎙 Hacked, Really Specific Stories, with Gaby as guest. Swindled has a new episode out, and it’s also a good one, as they usually are. Dynamite Doug still going. Still have a few waiting around, but it’s harder to listen to them when tinyMovieStar is home, not going to kindergarten.
💴 Actively trying to find more work, now that one of my clients went out of business, and the rest of them are having a lot less assignments. Inflation is a bitch, and I also decided to play fair with the apartment rent, and kept the old rent for the new tenants. So, not an ideal situation.
🛒 The Shop is open. Don’t think I’ll get a lot of foot traffic, but it’s on. Later, if things work out, I’ll get a domain for it, and pay for a tier where the platform keeps no commission on sales. Would be great, but can’t afford that tier now. If you’re looking for a photo to hang on your wall, feel free to visit. If there’s one you’d love to have, but it’s not available in the shop (still working on setting things up), get in touch, I’ll add it. Trying to figure out how all this works, but I think I might have done this a while back. So far, not a single one has been sold, so… maybe I was right.
📷 Micro.blog Photo Challenge is on the second half. Some hard ones this year, since I’m trying to get them for the challenge, and not pulling them from the archive. Quality, on mine, is lower than on previous attempts. Photos for days 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24, have been posted.
💬 ChatGPT. I had to play around with it. Everyone is talking about it, even family members who usually pay no attention to tech stuff. It is fun, I’ll say that. And they seemed to have a lot of use cases for it, including replacing them on a few of their work task. It’s great when you actually witness people making themselves obsolete.. Will probably mess with it again, it’s fun.
📷 Newspaper conferences. Got a call late in the evening, and it only came through because my editor is on the vip list, that bypasses the notification ban of my sleep focus mode. Anyway, a full day shooting the yearly conference the newspaper organizes on its birthday. A couple of other things to do later in the week, for the agency, so it turned out pretty good in the end. Hopefully these will become regular, as the struggle is real.
🥰 tinyMovieStar’s godmother visited, from the UK. It’s always a thrill when she’s back, we miss her a lot, even though she’s been living there for quite a while now. Thankfully she flies back often, but of course not as often as we’d like. The little one loves her, and she get all sweet and cuddly when she spots her coming after months without seeing her.

Mar 17, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #45

🎂 Birthday celebrations extended into Saturday. At my parents (late lunch due to work), and then at my in-laws (late due to late lunch at my parents). It was good, happy, and then I had to rush back to the city, leaving the movieStars behind. I needed to get to bed very early, waking up the following morning at 5:30AM.
🥇 Sunday was the last day of my assignment for the week, with the main event taking place. I was shooting some photos for one of the main sponsors of the Lisbon Half Marathon, and Sunday finally took us to the finish line. Sports are not my favorite subject, but this one has a particularly sweet cherry on top of a rather bland cake: we get to cross the 25th of April bridge, with no traffic. It’s one of the main reasons for people to take part, as it’s the one day of the year that cars are not allowed in there. 30000 took part. Epic, as expected. But I do have to say that hanging on for dear life on top of a roofless double-decker bus, on a bridge as tall as they come,… not too nice.
👨🏻‍🔧 Monday was Drop the Car off at the Mechanic Day, for the yearly check, and inspection. If everything goes according to plan, I drop it off, the mechanic does his thing, tells me everything is fine, the old car is ready for another year, and takes it to the inspection, saving me the trouble of doing it myself. I then get to drive around in my father’s car for a couple of days. It’s nice for a change, and tinyMovieStar is also happy to see the “Holiday Car” again. On Thursday the car was picked up, having gone through the usual maintenance routine (oil change, new brake pads,…) and the yearly inspection. Dad paid for it, too, as a late birthday gift. Very much appreciated. We’re ready for another year, as long as gas prices don’t spoil it even further.
📷 Micro.blog Photo Challenge is in its third week, and it’s been a great one so far. Photos for days 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 have been posted.
📺 Schitt’s Creek (yes, again) has turned out to be a huge surprise for me. I’m loving the show, and this week’s episodes were sweet. Cried a couple of times! Talking about surprises, F1: Drive to Survive still keeps us entertained, even though both of us couldn’t care less about F1. And we’re saving Ted Lasso for later, when we can binge it.
🍿 No book reading this week, but looking forward to Jake Adelstein’s new book, Tokyo Detective. Comes out on the 29th. Can’t find any info on the English version, hopefully this is not a French-only edition… I remember him talking about how easy it was to publish in France vs. the US.
🎙 Unexpectedly I listened to a couple of episodes of Danger Close with Jack Carr. I’m blaming Jake Adelstein, as he was a guest on the show. And always looking for the next episode of Dynamite Doug. It’s a great show.
💖 One of our friends had a late birthday present for me, and we met for the delivery. She thought about turning it into a 2-in-1 situation and, since she’s one of tinyMovieStar’s favorite people in the world, she joined us when we picked her up from kindergarten. We then moved to the playground, and the ice-cream shop, and then we needed to get some play-doh, and some snacks, and then home to play, and bath time, and dinner. She left at 10PM, tinyMovieStar wouldn’t let her go, but we all needed to sleep. She cried her heart out, and only relented when D told her that she would be in her dreams, and maybe she could do the same? The little one understands love. That’s her favorite thing. First thing she said when she woke up the following morning? “I wonder if I was on D’s dreams”
📱 some.pics (have I talked about this one before?) is a cool new service that was added to the omg.lol empire and, no surprises there, it’s sweet. You get your own domain for the photos you share, with a cool looking page (mine here). On top of that you can use those photos on your weblog.lol blog. Nice. The upload is mostly done on the website, but Gabz asked for a shortcut to do it. Gabz gets what Gabz asks for, so I rolled up my sleeves, and did it. The shortcut is not the nicest one, but it gets the work done. If you’re part of the omg.lol family and want to give it a try, feel free to get it here. Instructions and such available on discourse.lol (yeah, that’s also a thing, we now have a Discourse server too).
👰🏻 On Friday we celebrated the second date of our wedding, the religious one. Since I’m posting this very early in the day, I’m still unaware of what we did to mark the date. I can, however, tell you (again) that I feel I’m the luckiest man alive.

Mar 10, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #44

🎙 Dana Carvey on Smartless. What. A. Funny. Episode! Craig Mod on Japan Eats! is also a good episode. I wasn’t even aware of the podcast but, since Craig was a guest, I decided to give it a try.
📺 A few more episodes of Schitt’s Creek, a show I started watching after another episode of Smartless. Predictably, the one with Eugene Levy. I have to agree with him too, his son is awesome in it. He created, wrote, and even directed it!
📱 Looking into Footpath, as it seems like a cool idea. As I’ve said before, MacStories and AppStories offer endless opportunities for spending money. I will probably skip the Elite tier on this one though, as I tend to walk a lot, but know my way around the city by now. Gentler Streak is still keeping tabs on my walks. The two of them work wonderfully together though.
⛓ I’ve been sharing links on mrBatsu, and it’s about time I credit some of the sources that routinely bring those links to me. On top of a few others (newspapers and such), this is where a lot of the things I read come from: Daring Fireball, Kottke.org, NextDraft, SoraNews24, Spoon and Tamago,… On the side, Craig Mod, and Chris Arnade, with their walking journals. I thank them for their work. Twitter used to be my main source for almost everything, and I’m still getting used to not having it around, relying more on RSS and Mastodon. Not the easiest of things. I’m using bird.makeup to follow a few accounts that haven’t moved over, and still getting used to the change. Not perfect, I know, but that’s where I am at the moment…
👩🏻‍🏫 This was also the week when we had a meeting with tinyMovieStar’s teacher at kindergarten, the half-year report time. She’s doing great, as we expected, and the teachers think she changed a bit, for the better, after the trip to the islands. We, of course, proud as hell, can’t get enough of this. And Friday was just starting…
🍺 Next on the list was a play date, with our friends P and D. D went to the same school I went to when we were just starting our lives, and he’s a great guy. Didn’t know him at the time, as I’m a bit older, but it was great meeting him later in life. P is a terrific person as well, and she’s been friends with movieStar since they were toddlers. Their daughter is around a year older than tinyMovieStar, and they have these play dates regularly. Usually there’s another friend, complete with daughter, that has also known movieStar for decades. The girls play, we eat and drink. Not a bad way to spend our time. The hard part is leaving. The little ones are SO tired by then, but just want to keep going. There’s crying when we step outside, it lasts for two minutes. Then it’s a 15-minute walk to our place, singing all the way.
🏖 The beach cabin & the birthday party. A friend of ours had a birthday party at a beach cabin, one you can rent on Airbnb. We had lunch at my parents before crossing the river, and making our way to the beach. It’s a 15-minute drive. We spent the whole afternoon, and it turned out to be a great day.
📷 Micro.blog photo challenge goes on, with some really nice photos being posted by members of the community, and also a few coming from Mastodon. I’m trying to keep up. Days 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, and 10 have been published.
👨🏻‍🎨 The Mona themes page is still getting updated, albeit slower than I’d like. Plenty other things going on, but I have a few more getting ready. Also added a link to my BuyMeACoffee thing, just in case someone LOVES the themes a lot more than I expect them to.
📷 The agency called, I’m working this week, and through the weekend. Good thing they remembered, as I found out on Sunday that one of my most loyal clients (and I use “loyal” very loosely), basically went out of business. I suspected as much, from the long silence, but the day on the beach cabin also served this purpose, as one of the people attending is a cameraman who worked for them as well. So, all things considered, still a bit stuck, but better than last week. Still, I have to work today, on my birthday, and that is something I have mostly managed to avoid all through my adult life. Also did on Thursday, and will tomorrow (Saturday), and on Sunday. You’ll probably hear about it on the next thingsThisWeek.
👨🏻‍💻 I did this thing, a Drafts action to post to weblog.lol. It was a cool day.
🎂 Oh! And my birthday. I’ll post something about it later today. Probably.

Mar 3, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #43

😫 A couple of rough nights while taking care of the chickenpox situation. Very rough. For all of us, but of course tinyMovieStar was the one doing most of the suffering, if not all of it. We just missed a few hours of sleep, she spent the whole time feeling so itchy she couldn’t sleep. She cried a lot, and nothing is as painful for us as the sound of the little one crying. It slowly got better, and by the end of Sunday she was almost feeling like herself.
💖 This was also the week when we celebrated another year together, if we consider we married on the day we actually signed the papers, versus when we had our day at the chapel in Principe. Feels like a lifetime ago, but only 5 years have gone by. In a good way, as I can’t remember how my life was before this.
👨🏻‍⚕️ Doctor Tour. We had a dentist appointment for both grownups, and tinyMovieStar’s pediatrician had an opening on the morning of the same day. So that’s all we did on Tuesday, as far as daily chores. Driving to the south side of the river, over the coolest bridge in town, with the brilliant morning light keeping us company on this very cold morning (temperatures have been, again, chilly). Everything was checked, and it was time to get back to town, and have lunch. A quick bath for the tiny one, and off we went. She couldn’t wait! She has grown to love these visits, and today we were all very happy, as she’s was over the infectious part of chickenpox, and able to go back to kindergarten. She loves us, and we love her back, but she was missing her school routine a lot already. I fear she finds us boring already.
📷 Last Friday I got a call, late in the afternoon, asking if I could cover a concert in town. A B Fachada gig. I drove back to the city, got the cameras ready, and off I went. Lisbon being Lisbon, I walked to the venue. 30 minutes, mostly downhill. It felt great, and odd. I’m not used to this anymore. Loads of people out, mostly foreigners, a TON of new places opened too. This is a route I do often during the day, but it looks, and feels, so different at night. Not so long ago night time was a time when I’d find myself out and about, but not anymore. Felt old.
📱 I have a new subscription for Gentler Streak. Saw a post about it on MacStories and, like so many times in the past, I downloaded the app. I liked the idea so much, they were having a 50% discount on the yearly plan, I just signed up. So far I’m enjoying it, the stressless approach works for me. Pretty well designed too, and I’m a sucker for that. I will probably review it in a couple of days.
🍿 Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, Salt. That was it as far as movies this week. Not a brilliant one.
📺 Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Season 3. Also a couple episodes of the new season of Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm. Schitt’s Creek was another one I watched.
🎙️ Hemispheric Views, Underworld, Smartless, The Sound, Spy Cast, AppStories, and the new Dynamite Doug, from Project Brazen, where so many of the ones I listen, and like, come from. Maybe I should stop writing these down, as they’re mostly the same, week in, week out.
🗞️ Reading is something that I (as most people, I suppose), do regularly. Not enough books at the time, sadly, but plenty of things that come to me via RSS, or Mastodon. Some are shared back with one of my Mastodon alter-egos, mrBatsu. All kinds of stuff. I was using GoodLinks to save them, and share later, but, as one does when happy with a service, I went looking for another one. Readwise Reader quickly showed up on my radar, but the pricing is quite expensive for what I need it to do. It’s beautiful, though, and I would love to keep using it past the trial period. That will not happen, I’m afraid, but Omnivore is pretty good as well, and still under very active development. Where will I land? No one knows… In the meantime, since so much of the trial period with Reader went unused, I started another one. 30 days to see how much I use it, for real. Then I remembered Raindrop was something I could use for this same task, and went back looking at it, a day after I had cancelled my subscription! Crazy. In the end it was all for nothing.
📷 The March 2023 Photoblogging Challenge Prompts on Micro.blog is upon us, and I thought it would be a good idea to stop relying on the archive this time, and actually go out and get some fresh photos for this one. Not sure how wise that decision was, or how long I will last, but I’m doing it. First entries have already been posted. Days 01, 02, and 03. I’m enjoying the walks, and always find a few stickers as well.
🦣 More Mona themes. I just kept going for a while, and did a couple more. I’m sure others will follow, these are fun to do.

Feb 23, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #42

🤡 Carnival weekend started with dinner on Friday, with friends coming over, and their daughters. All dressed as princesses. All girls, all daughters of girls who were movieStar’s friends when she was tinyMovieStar’s age. It’s priceless. They all lived at the same village outside Lisbon, and now all living at walking distance in the city. I was not told about dinner up until the very last moment, so cooking was a challenge. We had fun, beer, and a lot of talking. Pretty good.
🍿 Tangled Ever After. Wish this one was MUCH longer. So fun, we had to watch it three times in a row. The Flying Sailor. Meh.
📺 A few more episodes of the same series as last week: Collateral finished, Cunk on Earth when I remember it. Undercover is still playing, but almost forgotten. Jack Ryan, Season 3 is nearly finished as well. This is the one that kept us busy this week.
💸 Also the week when our decision had to be made regarding Netflix. We moved to another account, a family one, with extra users added. Just like Netflix wanted. We knew we couldn’t survive without it, but others in the family left. We’re also consolidating our Disney+, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime accounts. The only service left out is Apple’s streaming platform, as we all think it’s not needed on a permanent basis, and will just turn the subscription on and off individually, if we have something to watch over there.
🦣 Made a couple of themes for Mona, the Mastodon client I’m spending my time with. It’s fun, so why not? It keeps the app looking fresh, and someone else might enjoy them. Also available at GitHub, if that’s your thing.
🤒 Chickenpox! Yes. It all started when we went to the most depressing Carnival party in town, and tinyMovieStar just couldn’t get her spirits up. Some of her friends were there and, still, her mood was not great. Not even an ice-cream helped, and god knows that always works! We then went to the beach, and saw the first red spot. A few more later. We were expecting it, as her best friend in kindergarten came down with it a couple of weeks ago. So far it’s not dramatic, she’s strong. Complaining a little about the itching, but she’s good.
🌳 Our weekend started earlier, on Wednesday, when we moved out of the city. Extra help is something we appreciate, especially when movieStar has to work, and the little one can’t go to kindergarten. So we moved to our usual place: the in-laws. Plenty of space, tons of extra toys, and two sets of hands on top of that.

Today, and tomorrow, I don’t expect things to change a lot, and nothing worth reporting will probably happen, so this one is posted a day earlier.

Feb 17, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #41

😎 The weekend was very different from our usual programming. We didn’t visit my in-laws this time, as I had a work event in the city. And the movieStars had a party to attend. Mine was also a party, so we had a theme going for the whole family. I did my thing (poorly, I might add), went to pick up the girls, and the little one threw a HUGE fit. She just didn’t want to leave. At all. The following morning the weather had turned, it was grey, dark, depressing. We did have a visit from a friend just arriving from Vienna, and my brother-in-law and wife also showed up. Good. And, still, spending a whole day at home with tinyMovieStar does not get easier, she has a LOT of energy!
📺 Finished Madoff, Represent as well, and some That ’90s Show, but I believe I’ll stop watching this one. It’s just not up to the level of the original, or maybe I just remember that one wrong. Also Collateral, another police show from the UK. We do like British TV. A couple of episodes of Cunk on Earth too. It has it’s moments, but can’t seem to find it as funny as some of the reviews made me believe I would. I do laugh, and it is clever, but… Undercover will probably be dropped too, can’t see ourselves watching three seasons of a show that is moving so slow for us…
💝 Valentine’s Day came and went, we had lunch at the usual Mexican place. We love it, so why not keep the tradition going? Love & Tacos & Margaritas. Sitting right next to us was a very young couple, sweet kids. They were worried about the bill, taking their time carefully adding up what they’d like to have. The restaurant isn’t cheap. I would have loved to pay for their bill, but this is not the month to do it. Sadly.
📷 Work has been slow. Very slow. Weeks go by without a single assignment. I haven’t done a thing for tv in a while. Not that it’s a particularly well paying job, but it was ok to get one of those from time to time, mostly from foreign crews. I believe some of my contacts have left the game as well, and I did tell them a couple of times before I wanted more money to keep doing it, so… I still don’t like/can’t really sell myself, so it’s only natural that I’m working a lot less than I should.
🍲 We drove to my brother-in-law’s and had dinner with them, and my in-laws. tinyMovieStar missed them a lot, so we thought a mid-week meet-up was perfect. It was. Poke bowls for everyone, and the usual crying session when it was time to leave. We didn’t stay too long, as they had theatre tickets, but it was good.
💻 I’ve been thinking about a new computer for a long time, as my laptop is now very old. I’m surprised by how good it still performs, all things considered, but it’s a 2012 machine, so I’m not sure how long it will keep on ticking. Still runs Lightroom pretty well, but I’m finding out I’m missing on a lot of apps because it’s stuck in Catalina forever. Or is it? I’ve seen people talking about OpenCore Legacy Patcher for some time, but I’ve been too scared to try it. If something goes wrong with it, I’ll be left with no computer to do my work. As previously said, it’s not a lot these days, but still… Reports are encouraging, though, so I keep considering it. Having no funds to get a new one if something happens is the biggest issue. Maybe I must fix that first!
🛒 With everything money-wise in mind, I’m thinking about setting up an account somewhere, and sell some prints of a few photos. I’m trying to find a place that offers a good balance between quality, affordable pricing, and delivery options for both sides of the ocean. I’ll pick a few photos to get started, but hopefully will be able to offer whatever photo people might want. So, if you’ve been thinking about a particular one, you could have that hanging somewhere. Neat? Hopefully so. God knows I have a ton of them lying around.
🤖 Inspired by Jay Holler’s automatic posting, I thought about trying to build a Shortcut that would post to a Mastodon bot. Something is not working though. I can get it to post manually, but the automation is not working as it should. It has location and weather data in it, and always comes up short, throwing errors while trying to post. Hmmm…
🎙 Podcast listening took a back seat this week, but a surprise was waiting: Darknet Diaries is pausing for a few months, and an episode of Spycast showed up instead on their feed. Liked it.
🧚‍♀️ Carnival at kindergarten happened on Friday, tinyMovieStar went as a princess/fairy mix, all pink and make up on. She was having mixed feelings as we left home too, wanting to go, but also wishing she could just stay home and play with us. Those went away as she got there, and saw everyone wearing their masks.
🏁 All things considered, it was a strange, and long, week. Glad it’s over.

Feb 10, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #40

☀️ Weekend programe was accomplished. We got to relive, yet again, the weeks in Príncipe, as my parents needed to hear the stories from us. Well, mainly from tinyMovieStar. Back at the in-laws, the stories were told another time, some had missed last week’s party.
📺 Fauda, season 4, is finished. It ended with a bang! Now we need season 5. Next week, please. Also Treason. Liked it. Started Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, and Undercover. Not sure if we’ll make it to the end of either of these. Next on the list was That ’90s Show. Feels nice to get back to this one. Not this this, but you get it. I also had time for one of my go-to YouTube channels, Paolo fromTokyo, Behind the Counter at a local Japanese Poisonous Puffer Fish Fugu Restaurant, and Day in the Life of a Japanese Game Designer. I still find these glimpses of daily life in Japan very cool, and a great way to take a look at so many different jobs in the country. Also time for some Late Night with Seth Meyer, and Matt’s own A Better Computer, some episodes that were left behind.
🍿 On the movie front, it was up to Tangled, and Bao. That kept us entertained.
📚Still reading Don’s book, but I have to confess it felt much nicer when he was there with us. The stories are amazing, but it was more rewarding when I could talk to him right after reading them. Once in a lifetime opportunity.
🏖️ We decided to skip the Algarve for our usual August break, as it’s just too chaotic to handle with the toddler, even if we had a pretty good situation down there. We are looking for other options, but things are already heavily booked by now. It’s February, and we’ll have to figure out something quickly, or risk having a lot of trouble finding a decent place to spend a week
🎨 Finally decided to check MidJourney out, and it’s crazy! Still unable to figure out how to get the results I keep seeing online, but my mind is blown already!
🥩 Lunch with friends, something I don’t think I do often enough. On Tuesday we had scheduled one such event, postponed from Monday. It was then moved to Wednesday, and again to Thursday. That was, impressively, impossible to do as well. It didn’t happen, as one of them was stuck with work the whole time. Bummer. This is one of the things I loved when I was working at the office. Every day we’d have lunch together, instead of the once a month routine we have now, if it happens at all. Really miss it.
💈Time for another barber visit, and boy, was I in need of one. Hair (and nails!) seem to grow much faster on warmer climates.
🎙️ Added a new podcast to the list and, right on episode 1, I was hooked. The Sound: Mystery of Havana Syndrome.

Feb 3, 2023 ∞

thingsThisWeek #39

🏙️ Back in the city. Can’t say I’m too happy. It’s always hard when we return from the island, this time it’s no different. I wouldn’t call it depressing, but it’s definitely not a great feeling.
🥶 It’s COLD! It’s very very very cold! We knew what the situation would be like, but still… it’s COLD!
📺 We’re done with The White Lotus, and what a ride that was! Hopefully there’s more to come, but can’t imagine how they’re pulling it off without you know who. Next on the list is a totally different thing, season 4 of Fauda. Doron is back! Also still watching, very slowly, Treason.
🍿 Watched The Lake House, Rio 2, You People. Not a great week, movie wise.
🎉 Mother-in-law’s birthday party on Sunday. Full house again. Yummy cake, and a lot of time talking about Príncipe. Everyone wanted to know how the little one handled it. She, of course, is always thrilled to hear the stories. Can’t say we hate reliving it as well.
🎩 On the “MrLandlord” front, I’m relaxing a little now. Finding a new tenant, even with the neighbors from hell on the upper floor, wasn’t too hard, and they are moving in as we speak. I met them again at the apartment, and they do love the place. Not knowing if I’d be able to find someone to move in quickly was stressful, glad that seems to be solved. Let’s see for how long.
🎄 As promised, the tree came down. That’s what one has to do after spending a few weeks pretending regular life does not exist. Back to dishwashing, laundry, cooking dinner, kindergarten drop offs and pick ups,… Leaving the tree longer than it should made it VERY dry, and a mess to clean up afterwards. Done, but next year I’ll try to remember the experience, and do it like a normal person: earlier, as in right after Christmas.
🎨 It also means that I’m back at sticker spotting, and I’m sorry to say I haven’t been finding as many new ones as I thought I would. Usually there are dozens of new ones after a couple of weeks, as they tend to get replaced often. Maybe January is a slow month for this activity, less people in the city. Foreigners, I mean. We do have a lot of people leaving stickers all over the place, but the presence of the outsiders makes up a huge percentage of the ones I find.
✏️ Fonts! That’s not something I change often, but since I’ve seen Matt’s post about Atkinson Hyperlegible, I’ve been changing it all over. First I did it for the blog, then Drafts on the iPhone, then also on the laptop and, to top it off, following a tip from Carlo, it’s now being used on my omg.lol profile as well! Also from this same tip I found out bunny.net also has a font directory, one you can use instead of the usual Google Fonts, and it’s even GDPR compliant. Awesome!
📷 Also back at work, on the last day of the week, with another wine-related assignment. I did get a call for a regular one, meaning politics, something I would have loved to shoot. But the time was all wrong, as I had previous arrangements. Sad, in a way, but I’m sure others will come. I do miss the newspaper life from time to time, and this would have been great, after a month away from home, and months away from anything not, at least, wine adjacent. Anyway, as long as money keeps coming in, I guess I shouldn’t really be complaining.