I basically figure that I am old and anxiety-ridden now, because my big, exciting delivery from Amazon contained a Withings Thermo and a pulse oximeter. I need to have things on hand in case I or anyone in my family needs them.

🎵 There’s a new EP by Norah Jones.

“Apple Music 1” is not nearly as fun to say as Beats 1.

I very much enjoyed listening to Antony Johnson’s interview of Dan Moren on the Writing and Breathing podcast. I am reading through Dan Moren’s Galactic Cold War series now, which is a fun “spies in space” space opera.

📺 I finally watched “Picard” this week. Overall, I enjoyed it, but I thought the ending was a mess and a cop-out. I was king of hoping for the “Logan” version of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (something dark and elegiac and serious from start to finish) but “Picard” started that way and retreated into magical Star Trek silliness. I’m not sure I’ll be on board for season 2.

I am reading on the porch, during a steady, soothing rain, after a large meal with my family. It is nice to relax sometimes.

The Good Sudoku game has really grown on me. Despite some early bugs, which were quickly fixed, and some night mode colors that really don’t work for me, I find the app very appealing. The gameplay choices really streamline the game and make it easy to focus on the logic rather than the busywork of solving.

We are getting a ton of rain today in New Hampshire. I enjoy the rain when I am out in the woods a lot more than I do at home.

If I had a NY Times crossword micro blog, my posts would consist solely of the puzzle date and “blerg!” or “hmm…” Tuesday, December 21, 2010 definitely merits a “blerg!” from me.

I am on vacation with my family, enjoying simpler things like walking outside.

I was amazed this week to learn that my Game Boy Advance, which is nearly 18 years old still holds a charge and works perfectly. (The screen sure is dim, though, but maybe it always was.) My Sony PSP, which is nowhere near as old, is completely dead.

Apparently, iPhone 12 price leaks are suggesting expensive prices in line with what we have today for the iPhone 11. My phone of choice would cost about $1,200, and I’m not sure it’s worth it. Wait till October when I buy it with cash. 😂

I am astounded by the sheer number of keyboard shortcuts I have memorized, and how I can keep them straight across applications and devices.

The best tech thing I did all week was to create a PowerShell script that opens the most recently created file in a particular folder, and then map that script execution to a keyboard shortcut via AutoHotKey. I’m using it to quickly launch the reports I am generating for work.

My work computer is generating data extracts in Excel via a PowerShell script, and I’m afraid to use it for anything else right now!

I’m working really, really hard this week. (Sigh.) I’m hoping for a chance to take a breath later this week.

🎵 Orville Peck has a really cool voice.

I just noticed that the analog clock widget in the latest iPadOS beta does not display the correct time. (It is half an hour slow for me, on New York City time.) But the sweep of the second hand is beautiful. 🙄

Two of my independently hosted WordPress sites were down for several days last week due, I presume, to DDOS attacks or something. I’m grateful that I’m not on the hook to makes sure my Micro.blog hosted site stays online. 😀

🎧 My speakers and headphones sound so clear and exciting again now that I’ve got my equipment stack up and running again!

My favorite piece of Schiit came back to me in the mail today. Now that my Magni 3 Heresy is repaired, it is as good as new.

I spent some time today preparing for my family’s vacation—about a week ahead of time. Unfortunately, I expect to work a bit while I’m on vacation, which is disappointing. To make things easier, I scrounged up and tested a setup with some B-level home-office equipment (my old monitor, keyboard, and trackball). Bringing that stuff with me will make whatever work I end up doing much easier.

Hmm…I don’t mind them myself, but I think the swears on Taylor Swift’s new album might be too much to expose my 8-year-old daughter—our family’s resident Taylor Swift fan— to. I don’t mind the f-bombs in “Hamilton,” but the meaning there is different.

I noticed something strange on the latest iPadOS developer beta. The Fn key on my Apple Magic Keyboard (the old Bluetooth one, not the expensive new iPadPro peripheral) now has two new functions that kind of conflict with each other.

First, Fn-Backspace finally works as “forward delete” as it always has on the Mac. (That not being supported on iOS has long been a source of occasional frustration for me.)

Second, Fn, by itself, calls up the emoji picker, which used to be only called by Control-Command-Space.

Unfortunately, using Fn-Backspace calls up the emoji picker, which means I have to dismiss it (via Esc) if I want to forward delete. That does not save a keystroke, and makes “forward delete” not worth it.

My daughter is going to freak out when I tell her that a surprise Taylor Swift album dropped today. It’s getting rave reviews.