Category: Tech

Detailed Spam

I have received a bunch of spam text messages today. They’ve been pretty good. One in particular was very good. Almost good enough for me to consider thinking about maybe possibly considering to think about responding. If I did respond it would have been with something along the lines of, “who the fuck are you?” but it wasn’t actually good enough to get me to respond. It was close, but not that close.

It seemed to be coming from something that may have been a property management person or company or whatever, and it asked me if I needed help managing the property at my parents address. Except it didn’t say “parents address.” It gave their address. Just the street, not the town. It had to have dug that up somewhere. I can’t quite figure out where.

The phishing attacks are definitely getting better and better with time, but this one was much more detailed than I’m used to seeing. It was pretty annoying.

Don’t fall for the spam, folks. In the immortal words of Mad Eye Moody, constant vigilance!

Attenuation

Usually when we go up to Vermont we leave as early as humanly possible so that we can spend as much time there as we can and still get home at a non-ridiculous hour. Today is a little different. I have to time my arrival to match up with his class schedule. That means I have another hour or so before I have to leave.

I was thinking about playing some guitar before I go, but Jen is working and a few minutes from now she’ll be in a meeting. Better for me to keep quiet. It got me thinking about gear though. The amplifier I am going to use for November is a Vox MV50 Clean. There are a ton of MV50 models, but the Clean is the only one that comes with an attenuator. The others have a master volume. Blah.

It’s supposed to be a 50 watt amp and the attenuator has three settings; Off, 1/10th power, and 1/100th power. So it can be 50 watts, five watts, or 0.5 watts. At 50 watts it is loud. Great googlymoogly it is loud. At 0.5 watts it’s not. It’s a nice, useable at home volume. Well… still maybe a smidge loud, but not bad. I keep it at 0.5 all the time.

But should I? I was complaining the other day about it caving in when I bomb it with signal out of one of my overdrive pedals. Maybe I should set it to 1/10th power and just keep the volume control really low. Hell, maybe I should turn the attenuator off and see if I can use the volume control to keep things manageable. It’s doubtful, but maybe worth a try?

Huh… we’ll see.

Change of subject: Last night I don’t know what I was thinking. Two nights ago I had a memory lapse and got into bed without putting my CPAP mask on. Dumb ass. I realized the mistake before my head was on the pillow and all was right with the world again. Last night I missed two things. I forgot to top off the CPAP machine’s humidifier tank. Oops. It didn’t run out, but it’s close to empty.

I also forgot to charge my friggin’ watch. I finished my 30 minutes of exercise and just forgot to put it on the charger. Next thing I know I’m dozing off and my battery is at 30 something percent. Crap. Well, if it dies it dies. What’s a red head to do? I went to sleep. When I woke up today it was at 12%. It’s good to know that I can go 24 hours without a charge. The downside of course is that it’s been on the charger for about 90 minutes and it’s only back up to 52%. It’s probably not going to be fully charged by the time I have to leave. That’s okay. It’ll be charged enough.

I still need to top off the gas tank (it’s about 190 miles each way. In my hybrid Kia, if I start with a full tank I can get there and back and still have about a quarter of a tank left. I friggin’ love science) and pick up some caffeinated beverages for the ride. After that the only question is music or podcasts? If it’s music I might go with the new live record from The Pineapple Thief. I first stumbled across them a couple of years ago and it’s all good stuff, just nothing that sets the world on fire for me. Their new live record (they couldn’t tour last year so they did one show in an empty room and webcast it everywhere. The new record is that show) does it. It sets the red head’s head right on fire. Great album. I was seeing all this potential and waiting for a record that lived up to it. The last one was close. This new one nails it. Having said that though… I’ll still probably go with podcasts. That’s just kinda where I’m at this morning.

Happy travels, folks!

Road Trip on the Books

It’s official. I’m Vermont bound in the morning. Three hours up, drop off a laptop, three hours back. Sounds like a fun day to me.

The last time we went up there we took the kids to lunch. Covid dictated we get take out and eat it in the car. Someone, I’m not sure who, did not finish their lunch (it wasn’t me, I scarfed my sub down like the universe depended on it). I went to get something out of the car this morning and… oh the smell was powerful. I cleaned out the food and opened all of the windows. I think it’s okay now.

I mentioned before that I started a time lapse video with my iPad before work this morning. It’s still running. I’m going to stop it soon. It’s been over 10 hours. That should be a pretty good chunk of data for the iPad to work with.

I was thinking about time lapses and the road trip that’s coming and trying to figure out a way to have a time lapse running out the window of the car for the whole way up and the whole way back. Can I do that? I’d have to figure out a way to either aim out the window, or balance the iPad against the window. I think it might be more trouble than it’s worth. I wish I still had that little iPod Touch. If I could keep it plugged in that would work. Too bad it died.

Oh well. Probably not worth the effort.

Okay, I need to go blow out the candles. Talk to you later.

Unplanned Road Trip

I may be making an unplanned drive up to Vermont this week. Possibly soon.

Harry’s laptop has suffered a tragic accident and may be on laptop-death’s door. There is a strong possibility that I might have to run a replacement up to him. Not sure yet, but I gave work a heads up I might have to bolt with little to no notice.

If only his school let Freshmen keep a car on campus. He would have already been here and been halfway back by now.

Oh, the webs the universe weaves.

What’s Up for Sunday?

Jen has to get up early for work tomorrow so I should get up early too and do some car music. What do you think? Then when I get home I should put leads on anything I manage to finish during the car music. Sound good? We have something going on in the afternoon that’s going to pull me away from things for an hour or so. That’s cool with you, isn’t it?

After that… Halloween. Covid-19 Halloween. Covid-19 Halloween The Second Coming. Shit. Last year the city canceled it all. This year it’s going off as usual. We won’t be playing along. We’ll be hiding in the back of the house. I’ll probably be mixing something. I think you’ll be okay with it. I hope you will, at least.

So should I install Parallels on my MacBook Pro so that I can play Windows games? I had been playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic a little. I can’t play that on my Mac. If I get Parallels I should be able to play it. I wonder how much the software costs. Would you think less of me if I got it?

The Bruins are playing The Panthers tonight. They kicked our ass the other night but it was overshadowed by something to do with the sexual abuse scandal that came out of Chicago recently. I don’t know the details, I just know that a lot of people got the sack. I really need to learn the details of this story but I am still really furious over the fact that the catholic church overlooked the sexual abuse of children for decades and any time I come across a similar story I just want to fucking vomit all over the people responsible and I do not want to vomit today. You know what I mean, don’t you?

Now I am pissed off. I didn’t want to be pissed off.

To make matters worse, it’s pouring rain out. Shit. I am so sick of rain.

Feels Like Friday

It feels like Friday.

It’s not Friday.

It’s Thursday.

But it still feels like Friday.

I spent the time I thought I would be waiting for the furnace installation to start to move my desk back to our bedroom and give Harry his room back. My chair is still there. So is the little clock I bought. I need to find a new home for that puppy.

I didn’t do it because there is a heater in our bedroom. I did it because I had a handful of meetings over the next couple of days that I need to be contributing too. The bedroom happens to be about as far away from the furnace as you can get and still be in the house. I did not do it for the heat. I did it for the quiet. Also, because spending my days in my kids’ room felt wrong. When the Covid scare required me to quarantine myself it was one thing. That was almost two months ago. It was time to go back to my own room.

Who would have thought that I would have so much influence? Last night I logged into facebook for the first time in a month, just long enough to tell people I was taking a break. After about five minutes I was gone again. I will re-evaluate on November 27, 2021 but it’s looking like I might want to make this final.

Then, thanks mostly to my crusade, Zuckerberg changed the name? Jen just told me that Zuckie is changing the name from facebook to Meta. Ugh. You’re so meta, markie. I told her that he should have renamed the company Metal. That would have been so much cooler. So much… cleaner.

I guess Zuck just couldn’t deal with my exit. Sorry, hoodie man. Start treating nazis like bad guys and maybe I’ll come back. Get on that, bro. Cleaning out the nazi filth would be so meta, bro. It would be pretty metal too.

Gone for Good?

I just installed the Facebook app on my iPad, left a super lame goodbye post, and deleted the app again.

The anti-Facebook crusade part deux is officially underway!

Oh, and of the 106 notifications, exactly one was actually for me. No one there will even notice I’m gone.

So long, bookfayce!

One Month

Today at a little before 2:00 (the end of my lunch break) will mark one month since I started my personal anti-facebook crusade. How many of you fine people have jumped on my little spartacus wagon and left with me? I’ll wait a second for you all to sound off.

(insert sound of crickets chirping here)

Anyway, At some point tonight I may pop in and actually tell everyone there that I’m pissing off. That and clear the 106 notifications (got another email today). I still have Messenger on my phone so folks can find me there, and there’s always twitter (@RobJ_).

After that? Will I be gone for good? I don’t know, maybe? I’m getting to the point where I’m not really missing it anymore. I don’t find myself tapping the spot on my phone’s home screen where the bookfayce app used to be. I take that as a good sign.

Outside of the facebook boycott, today is the day we get to ride out a nor-easter without having a furnace in the house. We have a space heater in Jen’s office and a the wall mounted heater in the bed room. I’m still planning on working from Harry’s room today. If the temperature starts bothering me I’ll move to the bed room. I really don’t think it will though.

Watch me as I eat my words.

Facebook Fights Dirty

As we enter the fifth week of the Facebook boycott, Facebook starts fighting really dirty. Low blow, bro. Right below the belt.

Last night I got an email telling me I had 102 notifications waiting for me. One Hundred and Two. It’s not the first you-have-notifications email they’ve sent, but the last one was after only a few days away. Those bastards saved them up and threw them at me all at once. Assholes!

Okay. Wednesday is the one month mark of this fun little romp of social media defiance. When I left I didn’t think about it, I just did it. I didn’t leave one of those stupid I’m-taking-a-break posts, I just went away (and bitched about it here, over and over and over and over again). Maybe on Wednesday I’ll log in, clear the notifications, make sure there isn’t anything important, and then leave one of those stupid I’m-taking-a-break posts. Then I’ll go away again. Maybe forever. Who knows.

I’m working a half day today. My mother needs a ride to a doctor’s appointment so I am leaving early to take her. I haven’t been over to see my parents in a couple of weeks so it’s time for a visit as well. I’ll be masking up and hittin’ the road around lunch time.

Our house has been a battle ground for a long time now. Two opposing forces fighting to dominate the terrain.

Alexa

Siri

Both are stationed in strategic places throughout the house. Both are able to control the lights and some other things. Both play tunes. It’s been clear for months now that the house cannot sustain both forces. One needs to eliminate the other. In the end, there can be only one.

We bought an amazon echo before Apple’s Home app was really a thing. After having everything in the house routed through the echo for a while, I got all hot and bothered over Apple HomePod Minis and when we got one for the bedroom Jen set up everything through Home as well.

I have slowly but surely found myself using the echo less and less. I can get to Siri through my watch so when I need something I just hold down the digital crown for a tick and ask for it. The only thing the echo is really doing these days is working as an alarm clock in the bedroom. Siri can do that too, but echo somehow handles it a little better. Also, the echo we have in the bedroom is one that shows the time. The HomePod doesn’t do that. It’s a small edge for the echo but a noteworthy one.

Over the last couple of days Jen has been making a conscious choice to start using Siri instead of Alexa. It is clear that finally the war for control of our house is coming to an end. Siri will be victorious. Long live the winner of the personal digital assistant wars.

Now if we could just get Google to let Apple run our Nest thermonstat.

Okay. Time to go to work. Happy Monday, everyone.

ADDENDUM: I got another Facebook email. It’s 106 notifications now. Ugh.