Tag: blogging

Topic-Free Post

June 2021 is about to end. I’m sitting at home watching MST3K. Jen is killing bad guys in World of Warcraft. Bellana is in Vermont and Harry is at his dad’s house.

I feel like I should be doing something impactful but instead I’m sitting here typing this and I can’t even think of a topic to write about.

We have about 28 hours left in the month and I was just looking at the stats for this page and, well… We broke the account’s record for most page views in a month. Thanks, dear readers. I have also set the account’s record for the most posts in a month. In both cases, again with a full day left to go, I broke the records by a lot. So, do I have more page views because I have more posts (yes) or do I have more posts because seeing the higher than normal page view numbers made me want to post more (probably)? I guess it’s like some sort of viscous cycle. I should probably calm down a little with the posting over and over again but… well… it kinda helps me. You know, I keep saying playing guitar is kinda like therapy and I guess in some way so is this page. Also, how am I going to slow things down when 50/90 is about to start? Oh well.

The movie they are riffing on this episode of MST3K has Cesar Romero in it. the movie is in black and white and he’s playing an Air Force pilot or something. Probably an Army Air Corp pilot. I don’t know if there was an Air Force yet. Whatever, Romero is most definitely not playing a deranged clown, but every time I see him on screen all I see is The Joker.

Oh well, what can you do.

Clear That Cache

Addendum to the previous post. I cleared the cache in Vivaldi as well as cookies and a few other pieces of data and now I can write posts again! It’s such a gift. If I were half the analyst I claim to be, I would have done that first because… duh. Of course it was cache. Sign out and sign back in? What are you, an idiot? Clearly it was a little piece of corrupt data lying around.

Change of subject, we have reached the point where we are planning how to pack up the cars to drive to Vermont to help my step daughter move into her apartment. I am so happy for her and I am so sad for me and Jen. The conflicting feelings are really tough to deal with. I’m trying to look outward though and just be happy and excited for Bellana. She’s amazing and this is just one more baby step toward her taking over the world. Well, taking over the world figuratively speaking. I’m not being literal when I say that… or am I?

Okay, back to work, red head!

Dirty Water

As I was wrapping up in the shower this morning the water pressure dropped way down. Huh? Then the water turned brown. Ugh. Every tap in the house was giving dirty, ugly brown water. I sent a tweet to the city’s twitter account, but it was still not even 8:00am yet so I didn’t expect anything. I checked the taps in the kitchen and the bathrooms every 15 minutes or so for about an hour and now they are looking back to normal. I figured that would happen. Someone somewhere near here was having work done and something minor happened and it just took a while to clear out all the dirt.

I just re-read that paragraph and I think it does a good job of making me look like I know what I am talking about when I honestly haven’t a clue. Good work, Robbie.

What the hell is up with my work computer? Everything I need for work is running 100% perfectly. Everything else is running 100% perfectly too with the exception of the very page I am typing this post on. The WordPress.com post editor page comes up blank when I access it from the Vivaldi browser. Not always, only when I am logged in through a non-private window. I tried another tab. Nope. I tried another window. Nope. I tried logging out and logging back in again. Nope. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Vivaldi (without deleting my browsing data). Nope. If I log in through a private window it’s fine. That’s how I am bringing this life saving post to you right now, through the glory of the private window which still works. Now c’mon guys, I don’t want to have to uninstall again and delete all of my browser data and start from scratch. I can never remember my sync password. Don’t be a jerk like that.

I wonder if it’s a cache thing… can I clear the cache? How do you clear your cache in Vivaldi? To the Google I go! (Later. It’s 9:00. I have to work now. I’ll ask Mr Google later.)

Lunch Break

Ready for a lunch break post?

I still can’t get to the editor on a Vivaldi non-private browser window on my work laptop. It works in a private window and it works on Vivaldi on every other computer in my personal computing universe. What up?

I’ve had a couple of good nights sleep lately, but I still feel tired. I think the Covid is finally wearing my out. I put all new parts onto my breathing machine last night, which was nice, and I slept like the dead for over seven hours, which was nice, but I’m still tired today.

Did I mention the Bruins advanced to the second round? I think I need to start watching the Penguins/Islanders series. I don’t like either team, but the Bruins looked like world beaters in the first round so I’m cautiously optimistic about all possible opponents.

Music, right? I want to do car music tomorrow morning, but I don’t have anything written. There are two songs from this month that are ready for lyrics, and three more from the past couple of months too. I have to write ’em before I sings ’em though. I’m hoping that tonight before bed I’ll be able to sneak some writing in. I’m doing a challenge to record at least one song every month and I have one for this month that’s ready to mix. I just don’t know if it’s as good as some of the other things I’ve worked on this month. We’ll see.

Also music: The recording nook right now has the Vox AC15 plugged into the normal channel and the pedals are a Klon Klone, a Rat klone, and a Muff klone. I think I need to swap out the Rat for something else, and I’m not 100% sure I like the AC15 on it’s own. Maybe it’s time for the Bassbreaker 15 to come back. What I really want is my Deluxe Reverb, but it’s still at the band’s rehearsal room at our bass players house. What to do, what to do. Tone, am I right?

The kids are at their dad’s for the next couple of days. I miss them already. Harry went to school this morning and Bellana just left a minute ago. I am sad. I want them here 24/7 because I am greedy and selfish. Crud.

I should do some sunrise pics soon. I don’t know what my nana-sitting schedule is like off the top of my head, but there is a holiday weekend coming up. There’s also a wedding anniversary for someone coming up too. I wonder who?

Okay, fat boy, back to work.

The CPAP Helped

I went to bed a little before midnight last night with my alarm set for 6:00. I woke up before it went off and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I had the CPAP machine on the whole time. I figured it would help, but I was still a 6.5 foot tall guy sleeping on a two seater couch and looking like a full sized person living on dollhouse furniture. How do my sleep numbers look?

Five hours and 25 minutes of sleep.
83% of that being restful! Holy Crap, that percentage is gigantic for me!
32% Heart Rate Dip! Holy Crap, that percentage is gigantic for me!

So I guess using the machine was a good move, for last night at least. The only downside is that I had to wait an hour before I could pack it up because that’s how long it takes to upload all of the data to the server. I can deal with that.

For some reason, I cannot get to the wordpress.com editor on my Vivaldi browser on my work laptop. I can do it if I open a private window and re-log in, but I can’t get to it from the main window. Weird. Maybe I’ll try logging out and logging back in again.

Sunday night television… one of the infuriating things about hate watching Fear the Walking Dead is that every once in a while they put out an episode that doesn’t suck ass. Last night’s was okay, assuming you ignore the idiotic coincidence of that character meeting that other character out of the blue. For the most part it wasn’t so bad. I almost wish it had been terrible. It’s like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. Uh.. uh.. we’re getting good again… here it comes… we’re getting good agai… Nope. Back to the same old awful.

Okay, it’s Monday morning. I have to finish packing up the stuff I had out last night that I don’t need during work, get my mother her 8:00am pills, and punch into work.

Have a good one, folks. May your Monday not blow chunks.

The Spammers Found Me

I wrote something a couple of weeks ago about getting a whole bunch of followers on this page who all had the same profile picture. Spammers on wordpress.com… why?

I noticed the other day that all of those accounts had been removed from my followers list. Busted. Justice served.

Over the last two days I have gained a whole new crop of followers. They all have the same picture again. At least this batch has a different picture than the last batch.

I guess we’re back to the lawless frontier again. Yippee ki yay, pilgrim.

Sunday Morning Thoughts

I’m up and showered and ready to face the day and all that. I went to sleep at about quarter to one am. I woke up a couple of times before waking up for good at about quarter to five am. My AppleWatch tells me I failed to reach four hours of sleep. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t do it. Early to bed tonight, I guess.

Two WordPress.com items of note:

  1. I have recently gained a handful of new followers here. That’s nice, right? They all have the same profile image. Well… that’s not good. It doesn’t appear to be porn spam, which is nice, but it does appear to be spam of some kind, which isn’t good.
  2. What’s up with stats? WordPress.com has a stats page that keeps all sorts of information, including page view counts and unique visitors, sorted by days, weeks, months, and years. There is also a page called insights which is supposed to be like a summary page. I noticed last month that the view counts on the insight page were off. Not just for that month, but for a whole bunch of random months over the life of this account. I found this off putting because the analyst side of my programmer/analyst brain likes digging through the stats. I was hoping it was just a bug in the calculation and WordPress.com would fix it. Nope. It seems to have gotten worse. Yesterday I checked the stats just before midnight. I had a healthy number of views for the day (thank, folks!) and given that it was the first of the month the day and month counts matched. I went to insight, which defaults to monthly counts, and it gave me a big goose egg of a zero. Huh? Sometimes it takes a few seconds to update, but it never did. I checked the stats again just before starting to write this post and I had one view for the day. I checked insight and it showed one view for the month. It basically skipped yesterday. What the hell, bro?

What else is going on? The Bruins won yesterday, They are a point away from clinching a playoff spot (I think) with five or six games left to go (I think). Color me cautiously optimistic. The Red Sox lost last night. They play in Texas again this afternoon. I thought the Rangers avoided day games at home, but I guess it’s still early enough in the spring that they won’t bake the players and the fans in the afternoon heat. Speaking of fans, the stadium was full for last night’s game. I guess Covid’s over, right? Texas says so. I hope they have contact tracing available for the thousands of folks who went to the game as an outbreak is pretty much inevitable.

Dad called a few minutes ago. He’s hooked up to an IV. Antibiotics, I’m sure. He said he thought he was going to have physical therapy this morning, but how can he do that when they have him plugged in? The hospital has limited visiting hours and you have to make an appointment ahead of time and you can only make one appointment per week. I’m going Wednesday. I haven’t seen him since January. I’m looking forward to a visit. Once again let me put my vaccination to work.

Happy Sunday, everyone. Can’t wait to go home and see Jen and Harry. Until then, I’m trying to make the best of it by writing really long, boring, uninformative blog posts. Cheerio, all.

More Social Media Birthdays?

Yesterday was this wordpress.com account’s birthday. I had no idea.

Today is, apparently, my twitter account’s birthday. I also had no idea.

The bloggie is in preschool. The twittah is in middle school. I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding creating this version of the blog. I just remember being tired of medium. Twitter is different. I signed up for that during a lunch break while I was working in Framingham on the third floor by the front window before they moved us to the mini-desk section on the second floor. Jen and I opened Facebook accounts together at around the same time, but I think I setup the twitter on my own. I can’t remember if she created hers before me or not. We were dating and we were kinda social media cool back then. If you can ever believe I was cool based on the dumb stuff I post here. Like, cool people don’t celebrate twitter birthdays, right?