Earlier today I posted that tweet with the image that listed out how little each music streaming service pays for each play. Tidal was the second highest pay rate on the list (behind Napster? Napster?)
Now, by coincidence, I find that Tidal has just kicked off a free tier? Are the two things related? Will we ever know? Has this been a thing already and I’m just learning about it now?
Free tier.
I have spent the entire duration of the pandemic keeping a couple of spreadsheets with nearly daily data for Covid-19 infections and deaths. I had line graphs and everything. March 2020 through December 2021. One sheet for Massachusetts and one for the entire United States.
Last night I accidentally deleted them both.
Oops.
Dumb ass.
Always back up your shit, kids. Always back up your shit.
When you are as Apple obsessed as we are and you end up with HomePods all over the house, it lets you AirPlay a Christmas music playlist everywhere.
I finished seventh. Is that my best ever? I think so.
It was the last day of August 2019. Jen, Harry, and I had just played nine holes of par three golf and were out somewhere for lunch. Among the many things discussed were Flickr’s photo a day challenge (why?) and a scene in Family Guy where Peter takes a selfie a day for a year and turns it into a video. The next day I started a photo a day thing that has lasted for over two years now. I also started using an app to take a selfie a day and turn it into a video. I stopped that after one year, but a couple of months ago, while in my brief, ultimately unnecessary, quarantine adventure, I started another one.
The original idea behind the selfie a day app was that if I forget to take a photo one day, maybe I will have taken a pic for the selfie thing and I could use that. In the 2019/2020 photo a day thing it never happened. In the 2020/2021 photo a day thing it wasn’t an option, but it still never happened. In the current 2021/2022 photo a day thing… it happened yesterday.
I did take a picture of something but I deleted it. I think I took a picture of a letter where the text was too small for old people to actually read. I didn’t think that counted for the photo a day thing (why?) so I trashed it. Today I realized that I never took another pic through the entire day. But wait! Yes I did! I have a notification for the selfie a day app that posts at lunch time and I took that pic! I downloaded it, sent it to Flickr, and BAM! Back on track, babie!
I need to share this before I forget about it. It is stupid and childish and it makes me smile.
I may have mentioned this on the blog a few hundred thousand times, but I am an Apple guy. iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook Pro, AirPods, AirPods Max, HomePod, HomePod Mini…. the whole kit.
I’ll give a little back story for those who aren’t fellow Apple people. Apple’s digital assistant is Siri. All devices that run Siri have multiple ways to activate it. Anything with a microphone has a voice command. You simply say, “Hey Siri” and it kicks off. It’s kinda fun to be in a room that is filled to the roof with Apple devices (like the room I am in as I type this) and say that voice command and watch all of them light up, though only one will respond.
Anyway, before work this morning I was sitting on the exercise bike trying to get about five minutes of work in. At one point I raised my AppleWatch to look at the Workout app to see how much longer I had to go. While I was looking at my watch I belched (excuse me) and the sound of the belch activated Siri.
That’s all. I told you it was stupid and childish, but Siri responds to burps. That pleased me to no end.
That’s it. Back to your regularly scheduled, belch-free day.
Yesterday afternoon I kept the Find My app up on my iPhone so I could keep an eye on Harry’s progress as he drove home from school. Today it’s Bellana’s turn. She’s not coming home though. She’s driving a roommate home to the deep south. The app might be up all day today and tomorrow. I have no doubt that she and the group she’s with will be safe and healthy. In these uncertain and crazy Covid variant Omicron days though, I am also nervous. Be careful out there folks.
It’s Friday at 8:40am. I have to punch into work soon. I don’t want to. Harry has a remote final exam today. After he finishes that I am just going to want to hang out with him. I’m really happy he’s here. I don’t want to do anything else besides just enjoy the fact that he’s here.
Eight days until christmas. I have one gift to wrap and one more on route. I am going to be ready this year with oceans of time to spare. On the subject of christmas I feel that I should note that I have done a better job making sure the tree is watered than I ever have in any real-tree-year ever. Look at me, patting myself on the back. HoHoHo, babie.
Happy Friday.
ADDENDUM: Find My tells me that Bellana is currently driving though Saratoga Springs, NY. That brings two thoughts to my mind. First, I wonder if they took the ferry across Lake Champlain. Second, one of the best Rush concerts I ever saw was on July 5, 2008 when Jen and I road tripped all the way to Saratoga Springs to see them at SPAC. I was only in the town for a very short time, but I thought it seemed like a wonderful place. Someday we’ll go back.
This is my laptop, not my work laptop. Windows 11, kids. Will I like it? Will it be awesome? Will it annoy me?
My step son is coming home tomorrow. Have I mentioned that? Do you/they know it’s christmas time at all?
Jen just came into my bedroom/office/work nook and said that to her, today feels like Friday. It was a great minds think alike moment because I had been thinking the same thing all day. It’s only Wednesday but it totally feels like Friday. That’s going to make the next two days suck. I checked my work schedule tomorrow and it’s blank. I don’t have any meetings booked at all. It’s almost creepy.
My christmas wrapping is almost done. Did I mention that? I’ve still got a couple of things on the way (package delivery, a symptom of ‘Covid Christmas Too’) but as of now, everything I have to wrap is wrapped… and there are still 10 days left until christmas. That is also almost creepy.
I was going to do car music this morning, but I didn’t. I did a couple of errands instead. I snaked the drain like a faux plumber. As it turned out, I was able to sneak in everything I had left to do during lunch. You may have noticed that there wasn’t a lunch break blog post (no you didn’t. No one did. No one should). Two songs need both rhythm and lead guitar parts. Four just need lead guitar. Two more are already ready to mix. Music, ya know?
Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden has a podcast. World class fencer, airline pilot, novelist, metal god. The dude has range. It’s called Psycho Schizo Espresso. It’s Bruce and a psychologist talking about stuff. Okay, I’ll give it a spin.
Four minutes until the work day ends. Fingers crossed nothing comes my way during those four minutes, because I am cooking dinner tonight and the oven is already pre-heated. Chicken and Quinoa. They should call Chicken and Quinoa, ‘The Robert’ because it’s pretty much the only dish I am capable of making.
Three minutes to go…
Okay, clicking Publish now.
Want to know something that would make me really happy?
It would make me really happy if the damn spam filter in Gmail would actually do it’s damn job.
I can’t tell you how many junk emails I get over the course of a day that I have already, on multiple occasions, marked as spam. I know I’ve already marked the from addresses as spam because when I send the new emails to the spam folder I don’t get prompted with the unsubscribe option the way you do when you send something to spam the first time.
It’s not the end of the world or anything, but it does get on my nerves. It is something small and annoying that really pisses me off when it happens.
Come on Gmail. I’ve been a user since 2005 for crying out loud. Do your damn job.
Inside the Red Head's Head 