Rick's b.log - entry 2024/11/20

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FYI! Last read at 10:45 on 2024/11/21.

Uh-oh...

I wasn't planning on charging my car this evening (and it still sounds weird to say I'm charging my car rather than things that normally get charged like phones and credit cards) but I took a look at the weather warning and, ummm...

From vigilance.meteo.fr.

It's a warning for neige/verglas, which means snow/ice. It has been raining and it's going to turn bitter and it's supposed to snow tomorrow morning and then maybe rain later on. Hopefully it'll pass after I have gone to work, so by the time I'm done it'll just be wet and chilly.

Anyway, with a forecast like that, I can imagine I'd need to use the heater so I'm charging my battery right up. No chances.

Speaking of which, I have prepared something to take with me tomorrow. A sleeping bag. Inside, a coffee-in-a-can (sorry, I can't stand the taste of water), three Twix, and a clicky-lighter.

Unnecessary preparation is better than needing and not having.

It's going to be even colder on Friday, but no snow that I can see... and then 18°C/19°C over the weekend? What!?

UV bug basher

I came home yesterday and saw the bug basher was flickering. The tube was blacked at each end. It looks like I last changed the bulb on September 28^th last year, so I guess a little under 14 months isn't bad.
I don't know if this bulb will last as long as that, because it took a lot of flickering (and glowing white at the ends) to get the bulb going. The circuit inside this lamp is literally the absolute minimum that will get a fluo tube running, and as such it is rather harsh on the poor tube.

Mouse quick fix

My mouse's red light (it's an optical one) kept going off. A problem with the cable. My pasta will be cooked Real Soon Now, so I don't want to mess around with stripping wires and soldering. So I simply opened it and pulled some extra cable inside. It is now no longer pulling on the stress point so it's fine.
But I noticed this. ☺

*USBDevices
No. Bus Dev Class Description
  1   1   1  9/ 0 Synopsys DWC OTG root hub
  2   1   2  9/ 0 SMSC USB 2.0 4-Port Hub
  3   1   3  9/ 0 SMSC USB 2.0 4-Port Hub
  5   1   5  0/ 0 ELAN Microelectronics ActiveJet K-2024 Multimedia Keyboard
  6   1   6 FF/ 0 SMSC LAN7800 USB 3.1 gigabit ethernet device
 31   1   4  0/ 0 PixArt USB Optical Mouse
*

Extracting urine

The new price is about 233% more.

Advent calendars

It may be that 2024 is the last year I will be doing my advent calendar videos.
This is due, primarily, to two reasons. The first reason is that I didn't find a Playmobil calendar that interested me, so I only have some daily chocolate.
The second reason is that I have a very small viewer count (usually single digit) and, honestly, it's a lot of effort for so little engagement.
Okay, fair enough, it was just me musing on whatever crap went through my head while opening my advent calendars, with practically zero production values (though the opening animation I had last year (and might recycle this year if I'm lazy) was intentionally "Stylistic Suck"), but still.

Anyway, don't be surprised if I don't do this next year.

But that's next year. For this year, you'll get to appreciate twenty four equally crappy videos. What I have this year is this:

Two Celebrations advent calendars.

Somebody (David, was that you?) said that the calendars have the same things in the same places inside. While I have no particular reason to doubt the veracity of that, through the magic of buying two (thanks Alec!), this can be put to the test. I will also be recording what was where in case they are not placed randomly.

Actually, them being no-random would suck. Probably much easier to produce, but some degree of randomness would allow for surprises, particularly if you have multiple calendars ~~because you're a pig~~ because multiple children...
...but, we'll see. ☺

There may be an extra calendar or two if something takes my fancy and/or is on at a reduced price. But, honestly, it was all a bit meh. Mom and I always used to get a cheap cat calendar "because cats", but this year it was stuff like Pikachu and Minions. Like I said, meh.

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