🍿 In honor of Glynis Johns passing a few days ago, we watched The Court Jester tonight. It was an absolute riot, a musical comedy that spoofs elements of Robin Hood and had us laughing the entire time.
★★★☆☆

Finished reading: Astral Threads by David North 📚
★★★☆☆

I finished reading this last night (woke up with the kindle on my chest)… 🤭 It’s the fourth of the series and progresses nicely but leaves you with a giant cliffhanger. 😱 That said, each book is better than the previous.

Whilst out walking on my lunch break, I saw some winter lettuce. 😀 🚶🏼‍♂️ 🥬 📷

It was good to get out of the house for some fresh air; I really need to do more of that this Winter.

Tried out the Copilot app but this isn’t going to work for me. I want to love it (it’s so pretty) but it’s missing fundamental features I’ve seen / used in other app (bulk-import, transaction renaming rules, the ability to import Apple Savings transactions). 😭

I didn’t get nearly as much reading done in 2023 as I’d planned but that’s just the way the cookies crumble. I plan to do more reading in 2024 and spend some of my reading time focusing on books outside the fantasy / sci-fi genre.

Note: I only started using Micro.blog’s bookshelf feature midway through the year.

I always find it ridiculous companies (in this case a gym) make it so easy to sign up for services but if you want to cancel your membership, you have to go do it in person. 🤯 (The backstory: I want to move to a cheaper gym.)

I don’t really put much stock in the whole “New Years Resolutions” thing everyone else in the States seems to do…but I do like to set some overarching “goals” for the year. Last year, I only had two goals, one of which I succeeded at and the other was a miserable failure. So, this year, I’ve decided to be a little more ambitious.

Yes, I realize calling them “goals” instead of “resolutions” is a silly semantical quibble but it’s how I prefer things. 🤣

Goals

• Be Healthier
  • No junk food in January ¹
  • Start building better eating habits
  • Restart my fitness journey ²
• Continue Tracking Finances ³
  • Commit to a single financial aggregator ⁴
• Be More “there” For Family and Friends
  • Be a better Partner
  • Spend more time with my family
  • Reconnect with old friends, rekindle old relationships ⁵
• Work On My Career
  • Stop treading water
  • Regain my “senior” title (long story) ⁶
• Be More Organized
  • Clean things up as I’m working on them…or better yet, just don’t make a mess in the first place
  • Don’t go to bed with a dirty kitchen
  • Finally clean up and organize the basement…and keep it organized

I suspect I’m going to struggle with more than one of these goals but a new year is a good time to start improving one’s self. 🤞🏻

Aside from two events, the year hasn’t been too shabby…but those two events wreaked me. I’m very much looking forward to another go ‘round the sun, see everyone in 2024! 🥳🎉🎊

Finished reading: Moonlight Relic by David North 📚
★★★☆☆

In third of the series, the main character (Sam) really starts coming into his own…with a remarkable and rather unbelivable number of twists. Parts of the story are rather predictable but others, you never see them coming. 🤣

Last working day of the year for me and wow, I really need more coffee. ☕️🥱😪

🔗 So You Just Found Out Amazon Is Greedy

There won’t be mass cancellations of Prime over ads in Prime Video because it is too integral to your life.

I guess I’m one of the rare people who doesn’t have a Prime membership…? They try to hook me in with free trials from time to time but I always cancel it just before renewal. 🤷🏼‍♂️ We just don’t like the waste that is Amazon’s shipping practices… 😮‍💨

Finished reading: Aster Fall by David North 📚
★★★☆☆

The second of the series, this picks up right after the first and the main character (and secondary ones) progresses (it is LitRPG after all) nicely, setting the stage for bigger progression in the next book.

Merry Christmas everyone! ❄️🎄🎁🎅🏻☃️

🍿 For our last movie of the night, we’re watching Make the Yuletide Gay. As with most LGBTQ movies made in that era, it isn’t the greatest of movies but it is our Christmas Eve tradition. 🏳️‍🌈🎄
★★★☆☆

🍿 For the second viewing of the night, we’re watching the Holiday, one of my absolute favorite holiday movies. 🥰🎄
★★★★☆

🍿 This movie has grown on me since last year, Spirited is kicking off the movie viewing experience of Christmas Eve. Three stars…but that might change once this movie is over. 🎄
★★★☆☆

Happy Festivus! 🎉🎄
I hope every enjoys the airing of grievances, I know I will. 🤣

(Side Note: I’m only awake at this ungodly hour b/c I took a friend to the airport. ✈️🌺)

Migrated 18TB of data from one server to another and even though the “new” server has redundancy, I’m still hesitating to click ”delete” on the old server… 🤣

Dear Apple
I’m pretty darn sure you know that I keep marking emails with “Payment Completed” as spam, esp when they contain image attachments and ask me to contact the support team (with a very odd URL) if I have concerns. Perhaps you could just block them moving forward?

Thank you,
Unhappy Geek

So, I did a thing last night…I finally moved to a new server case. 🎉📷

It took far longer to get started than I though it would and I ended up with a bloody hand (it’s a very nice case but that metal is sharp 🤣)…and I haven’t installed case fans yet but…the server is back online and running!