lisaviolet's diary

Wednesday, December 04, 2024

catstuff
10:58 AM - 12/04/2024

The topic: Sad news
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I don't have much energy right now to post much about it.

We said goodbye to Fury last week, the day before Thanksgiving. (November 27) and goodbye to Jingles on Monday (December 2).

jingles goodbye fury

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Friday, November 15, 2024

otherstuff
06:52 AM - 11/15/2024

The topic: It’s been an interesting couple of weeks
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The election, we got our vaccinations, the dog's not doing well, Fury is eating baby food again...

I want to do something fun, not stress over life and things I have zero control over.

I guess I didn't react well to the vaccinations. I got both the flu shot and the latest Covid vaccination. The flu shot? The needle was dull. That wasn't fun. I felt fine the days after, but Sunday, I almost passed out.

Brian made a new (to us) dinner, chili cheese fries. They were really good, but my stomach didn't agree. I got really light headed and sat on the sofa for a while then felt like I was going to puke. I didn't but I did rush to the bathroom.

And I was really tired. Like I said, most likely stress and my immune system working to build the immunity to flu and Covid. I'm feeling much better now.

I paid for a third party app to delete all the stuff on my Twitter account. I'd been there since 2010 and looking at my old posts, most of them were fun and cats and pictures and stuff, but what it's become is abhorrent to me. So much hate and anger. And then the new thing that anything I post can be used to train Elmo's AI? Nah. Not gonna happen.

So, stuff all gone, account deactivated.

Back in 2023, I bought one of these little monitors. It's portable and can be used with any of my devices. I got it to help me when I was generating invoices since I had to jump back and forth between the UPS site and my accounting software for tracking numbers. It ended up not being as efficient as I'd hoped, so it just hung around my PC in the office.

Well, when I upgraded the router from a Netgear router (too many problems) to an ASUS, for some reason I couldn't get the machine I used for generating UPS labels recognized. I ended up getting a different model that works. It's not as clean as the official UPS machine, but it does what I need it to do. But I have to have it set as its own printer and change the settings every time I do the labels. I use the laser printer for the receipts (that are attached to the customer paperwork) and this machine for the labels. I use a different browser so I don't have to keep switching printers and settings.

Well, this thing works great for that! I use Firefox to generate the labels, I use Edge to print them out. I have the Firefox browser open on my LG monitor, Edge on the KYY monitor and it works like a dream! I also installed switches so that I can change what's on the KYY. My media machine or the weather machine. It's pretty nice.

I really want to take little videos of my automata toys and share them on Youtube. That's next on my list.

No holiday cards this year because my mood is bah! humbug.

I'm seriously considering selling all of my stock that I've had since the 80s and buying a new car before the new tariffs hit (the car I want is manufactured in Mexico, even though it's a Ford). It will likely be our last new car.

Anyway, that's about it for now.

Have a great day!

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Tuesday, November 05, 2024

entertainmentstuff
05:43 AM - 11/05/2024

The topic: Our big entertainment expense is television
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We have good cable, all of the movie channels, Gigabyte internet and a ton of streaming channels that I've subscribed to.

I also have a lifetime license for Plex (a couple of times a year they have a pretty decent discount for a lifetime license) and a mini PC to run the Plex server (eBay has great deals on these mini PCs). On this little PC, I also have a NAS setup.

I have software to download programs from the Internet. One is Playon.tv, the other is StreamFab. Both are so that you can be logged in to one of the pay services and download them to a hard drive. Not all streaming services are available. Some services will let you save in HD, others will not. I have some software that will "upgrade" the lesser-quality videos to a better version with AI. These saved movies are accessible on all televisions here via the Plex app. We have two Roku televisions and Roku devices for televisions that aren't Roku TVs. I also have one Amazon television (with an additional Roku device). And an Amazon FireCube for the main TV, a Chromecast device, and an Amazon stick for the TV that hangs on the fireplace. So I can cast the screen of an Android tablet to that TV (I did this to watch the security cameras.) That TV was originally to run a slideshow, using the Plex app and have music in the background (it's a sweet setup).

The problem has been that there are some television shows and movie channels that are not available to be downloaded (MGM+ is one). Our cable company now charges for recording programs. Five dollars a month for the capability of recording one show at a time. Since there aren't that many shows that we watch that we don't have access to on streaming (Fox shows run again on Hulu, MAX, and Peacock have the same relationship with some network shows), I saw no reason to pay an additional amount of money. The two shows that come to mind that I would record are Skinwalker Ranch (alien stuff) and Yellowstone. Skinwalker is available the next day on the streaming History Channel (comes with our cable service), but it has commercials. As far as I can tell, Yellowstone won't be available on streaming until the season is done.

Four years ago, I bought a universal remote thingy from Amazon. I was trying to get one device that would replace all of my remotes. It turned out to be a little more complicated than I thought and there was no way Brian would be able to remember what needed to be done. This stuff is MY deal and I try to make it as easy for both of us as possible. And I never really did much with it.

Researching the internet and forums for a device to record shows from the cable box took a lot of patience. I finally found one that had great reviews, would do what I wanted to do and, even though it was pricey, we'd be using it for years to come. So, I got it.

Of course, this is where I have my most fun - it can be frustrating at times, but what a sense of accomplishment when I'm finished. I'm 71 years old and I can get lost in equipment setup. So many rabbit holes to go down, so many "okay, how can I get it to do this?" We'll be watching something and my mind will be spinning, looking for the most obvious way to implement my idea. Will it work? Will it be a waste of time? Will I learn from my mistakes? Let's find out!

The device worked! Getting used to the setup isn't really intuitive and it seems I have to reset the time more than I should, but that's probably because I don't use it enough. Now, how to set it up to record from the television. I didn't like the idea of leaving it on all the time, but if it was off, the Contour signal didn't get through to the television. An HDMI splitter took care of this. It sounds a little complicated, but it really wasn't. And it recorded nicely to a little external hard drive, so it's all cool.

Now, how do I get the Contour box channel to change on a schedule? See, that's another thing that ended when the latest cable boxes came out. Used to be you could set the channel to change at a set time. No more. Yes, there's a reminder, but you have to be watching when that comes up, it won't just change the channel.

There has to be a way to do this. And guess what? That little universal remote I got four years ago? The one I didn't play around with? Yep, that guy will change the channel at a scheduled time! You program it using a smartphone or tablet. All I had at the time was a smartphone and I absolutely loathe having to do anything on the phone. I have sausage fingers and the screen isn't the most responsive thing I've ever worked with and the frustration can be overwhelming. But wait! I wonder if the Android tablet I got this past summer, the tablet that I use to cast the security cameras to that television...I wonder if I could run the remote software on that.

Yesterday, I installed the remote software and oh. my. gosh! Programming the remote is so much easier now!

I set the Cloner to record at 3:00 pm and stop at 5:00 pm. I set the remote to change the channel to 2-5-0 at 2:57 pm, about a half hour from the current time.

And it worked!

I've provided links to what I used in case anyone is interested in how they could do the same thing.

My first attempt at doing this without babysitting it will be on Sunday when the newest episode of Yellowstone drops. Yes, it will have commercials, but when I transfer it to Plex, then watch it, there's an option to skip opening and closing credits and skip commercials as well. That will be a new thing for me, I'm not sure how it will work.

But I'll find out. (All this to save five bucks a month...am I nuts?)

television plex broadlink

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Friday, November 01, 2024

otherstuff
09:05 AM - 11/01/2024

The topic: Okay, let’s not repeat weeks like this
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Well, as of this morning, the dog has seized/fainted Wednesday, Thursday and today. He had an appointment yesterday, his heart is 40% worse. Vet was concerned because it's been such a short time since his initial diagnosis. He was a little dehydrated, so they gave him 100mm of lactated ringers and we're supposed to give him another 100 next Thursday. His furosimide (diuretic) was upped to twice a day. I say "seized/fainted" because the vet said he's fainting, not seizing. Most likely because of the pressure on his heart from the fluid retention. But it sure looks like seizures to us. Especially when he pees during one.

She did mention having a cardiologist check him out since there are drugs that can help, but the dosage is critical and she wouldn't feel comfortable trying anything. The problem is we don't have a lot of money. Sales are down, property taxes are due and we don't have a thousand bucks just lying around. Add to that he recently turned sixteen. We're at that point that practicality has to be considered. Just like if it were one of the cats, we weigh their age, their current physical condition, how long (and comfortable) would their life be. So, we're passing on the cardiologist. We just can't justify it.

Then Wednesday morning, there was knock at the door. Brian answered it. It was the neighbors delivering a notice from their lawyer that they want our liquid amber tree gone. That if we didn't take care of it, they'd have someone come in and cut the branches back to the property line. And they'd sue us to pay the folks who cut it back.

Honestly, we were blindsided. I didn't speak to them, it was all done outside. They took the nuclear option. No beforehand discussion. I could go into detail what bullshit the letter was and how chickenshit they are for taking the road they took. But, it's done. The tree will be gone by the end of the year. Brian and his brother will do it.

I asked Brian if he can take care of it all from our side and not have to step on their property. He's pretty sure he can. But they just burned an already rotting bridge. All sorts of fun petty things I'd love to do run through my head, but that's where they'll stay.

Well, maybe except for the part where when they had the garage built in their backyard, they requested that they could put the retaining wall on a few inches of our property. And part of the landscaping in the front of their house encroaches on our land. There's always that...

So, have a good day, y'all.

jingles asshole neighbors

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Sunday, October 27, 2024

geekstuff
11:22 AM - 10/27/2024

The topic: Slider test
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Fingers crossed...it was working, then I couldn't save anything, so I had to figure out why and now I have it figured out, let's try this again.

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