🔆 Doc 🔆 @doctorsidrat@fandom.ink

Hello mastodon people! I'm Doc, 30-something librarian in SoCal. Same username on Dreamwidth/Twitter, if you'd like to visit or follow me there.

Looking at RVs to purchase & am like “do I ACTUALLY want to spend $$$ to live in a tin can?” Not really, but I also don’t want to buy a cheap older model and end up spending $$$ anyway on repairs 🤔🤔

I wrote a #bookreview! It's for a 1928 #mystery book, the first in the Miss Silver series. GREY MASK: https://books.doctorsidrat.com/grey-mask-by-patricia-wentworth-1928/

(Let me know if anything's broken; I just got the site up today.)

Anyway, partly this came up because I just read two books this weekend and I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEM. Normally I'd just put them on my Dreamwidth account, but I like adding personal things to my own, self-hosted webspace. Easier to back-up, for one, and I can use plugins to make it look fancy.

So I've decided that it's time to let my old book blog go. I haven't blogged there since, uh, 2016, and every time I think about starting it up again I start feeling anxious.

Instead, I'm going to close it (as in, actually delete the blog) and start a NEW book blog as an subdomain to my "fandom and whatnot" website. Meanwhile, I MIGHT turn the old book blog domain into a Shopify store, perhaps? It's a good domain name!

I think re: the TV it’s because I have an older Samsung model that can’t be updated any more, and that network bug has a fix in the newer software versions. (See: https://forums.plex.tv/t/bug-plex-for-tizen-just-stops-playing/239303/7?u=littlebro) But the iPad app should work fine, as it mostly worked fine with the Laptop!Plex server.

Update on old desktop: The CPU kept overheating so I redid the thermal paste. Installed #Plex and tested it out— some major buffering problems when streaming to my iPad, and streaming to TV didn’t work at all. Network problems, or hardware problems?

I could upgrade the CPU/motherboard/RAM, but that wouldn’t fix the network problems. The TV had network problems with my laptop as well. 🤔

Found the new Kindle AND I found the two older ones!! Yay! Good start to Friday. 📚

Kindle is still missing after 1+ hour of searching. I have also lost my two older Kindles I was keeping as backups. I REFUSE to buy another Kindle until I locate at least ONE of these suckers. 😤

I've been working on ways to trick myself into reading books more, so I've deleted (most) social media apps off of my phone. Now, instead of scrolling endlessly thru four different timelines, I open my phone, go "oh, right" and then close it.

Unfortunately I have also lost my Kindle, so step two has not yet happened, but I'm getting there!

My entire family is just a gang of pack rats; our house is basically one step away from a hoarder situation (not good). Once I get my clutter under control, I’ll start working on the parents to cut back on theirs.

Problems: dad is super sentimental, mom hoards “useful items” for crafts (aka trash she can upcycle). Not necessarily all that bad, but we are NOT organized and the house is piles on top of piles. 👻

#dsdeclutters

Currently working on a hardcore decluttering of my living space. Pictured is about half of what I’m donating this week. 😱

My clutter: previously precious items no longer wanted, bad eBay buys, things I rescued from the dumpster, worn out or obsolete items. Things worth selling online will be sold, all else needs to be donated or dumped.

#dsdeclutters

Did some late-night digging into my old (self-built) desktop from 2011, & it still works! I just need to install some new (bigger) HD and maybe more RAM later (only have 4 GB at the moment). Yay!

I forgot I installed this old media server program 🤔

“Bad: a cishet author writing a queer-coded villain for a cishet audience for homophobic reasons
Good, sexy: a queer author writing a queer-coded villain for a queer audience for horny reasons”

https://twitter.com/dakotaweulf/status/1124412291116601351?s=21

#fandom 👍👍👍

"The “Real Linen Jacket” is manufactured by Banana using linen from surplus Irish mattress covers and the “Parachute Bag” is quilted from black and white nylon parachutes. Firefighter jackets are turned into handbags, pant liners into vests. Throughout the catalog are mentions of importing piles of surplus materials, journeys through the Panama Canal. These people were working their asses off to create this product and bring it to their shop in Mill Valley."

https://www.secretfanbase.com/banana/banana-republic-catalogue-no-2/

#fashion

One of my favorite things is when people make really specific, in-depth websites dedicated to an unusual subject.

Like, for instance, this site dedicated to the pre-Gap Banana Republic, back when it was an army surplus resale store aimed at international travelers: https://www.secretfanbase.com/banana/

Could NOT get #Hexchat to work for d/l because it kept saying permission denied to every single folder on my HD. Turns out it's a known issue with Snap 💀

To fix it, I uninstalled Snap!Hextchat and installed the legacy!Hexchat version, and it works perfectly. 👍

Why is federated timeline so horrible and how do I find more cool people to follow without just joining another instance and looking at THAT local timeline

Finally watching a movie via #Plex on my TV, and I somehow turned on the previews feature?? I remember trying to get that set up on Windows, but it never worked. Yay, Linux!

I mean, I’d like it better if it played a preview in the same genre as the movie I’m watching, but whatever.