• ๐Ÿฟ Decided on a second movie tonight: The Holiday Sitter. ๐ŸŽ„ It’s a silly Hallmark holiday movie but it’s rather adorable and kinda nice to see my people represented in the genre. ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ We’ll be adding this to our Holiday movie rotation.
    โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†

    Movie poster for the Holiday Sitter.
  • ๐Ÿฟ Full of mac ‘n cheese, in honor of Kevin’s meal during the movie. This is my Partner’s favorite movie, even after more than 30 years, it has reviewability. ๐ŸŽ„
    โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†โ˜†

    Alternative movie poster for Home Alone
  • Finished reading: Second Hand by Heidi Cullinan ๐Ÿ“š
    โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†โ˜†

    This was a re-read, from many years ago (it was one of the first e-books I bought, this story is light and fluffy with a predictable ending…and an adorable puppy. ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ Book cover art for Second Hand.

  • I walked into the bedroom and he turned around to glare at me; evidently interrupting his bird watching wasn’t the best of ideas… ๐Ÿคฃ ๐Ÿ“ท ๐Ÿˆ

    Grey cat, with yellow eyes, on a bed, looking at the camera.
  • Follow-Up: The IKEA Sonos speaker is working perfectly (which is more than I could ever say of the HomePod Mini stereo set up) this morning; holiday music is flooding the room whilst I’m debugging some legacy Java code. ๐Ÿค“๐ŸŽ„ (Yes, I had a spare speaker lying around… ๐Ÿคฃ) ๐Ÿ“ท

    Christmas tree with lights and one ornament at the top (a photo frame with no photo for privacy purposes), in front of a record player, with the end of a lamp on the right side of the photo. An IKEA Sonos speaker is on top of the record player, with an 'Ella' record in the middle and a series of objects is on the left side of the record player: three Nintendo amiibo figures (Link, Bowser, and Bokoblin), a Lego penguin, a Jesus stature, and a N64 Lego cube. On top of the cube is a HomePod mini, along with two of the amiibo, and a dried pink rose.
  • I give up, it’s time to throw in the towel on the HomePod set up in my house and just go get cheap Sonos speakers from IKEA. ๐Ÿ˜ฎโ€๐Ÿ’จ It’s hilarious Sonos does a better job at implementing AirPlay than Apple, I’ve had so many issues trying to play to multiple speakers over the past two years. ๐Ÿ˜ฑ

  • Finished reading: The Unlikely Heir by Jax Calder ๐Ÿ“š
    โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†โ˜†

    Fun, light, fluffy…with just a hint of substance, this book was a fun read. ๐Ÿณ๏ธโ€๐ŸŒˆ

    Book cover for The Unlikely Heir
  • Follow-Up: The package was found in the bushes below my house, next to the sidewalk…completely soaked and disfigured from the rain. ๐ŸŒง๏ธ I’m guessing the steps were just too much for the delivery person, all ten of them. ๐Ÿ˜… Also, there is no way that box can fit in my mailbox, so again, someone lied.

  • ๐Ÿฟ Tonight’s feature film was an old family favorite: Christmas Vacation. ๐ŸŽ„
    โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†โ˜†

    Alternative movie poster for Christmas Vacation.
  • So, either Amazon is lying, the US Post Office is lying, or someone has taken my new Kindle from my mailbox. ๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ“ญ

  • Finished reading: Dead Tired by Ravens Dagger ๐Ÿ“š
    โ˜…โ˜…โ˜†โ˜†โ˜†

    A fun, if silly read, with a lot of puns. ๐Ÿ˜† It presents an interesting intersection between science and magic but I wish there was a little more details into the magic system.

    Cover art for Dead Tired
  • Pretty decent veggie burger, especially this far out of the City. ๐Ÿคฃ๐Ÿ”๐Ÿ“ท

    Burger on a plate with fries and sunglasses in the background.
  • ๐Ÿฟ Another favorite, tonight we watched White Christmas. ๐ŸŽ„
    โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

    Movie poster for White Christmas (1954): Four people in festive red and white outfits pose against a snowy background with the words 'WHITE CHRISTMAS' above them.
  • Currently Listening: A Holiday Carole by Carole King. ๐ŸŽต๐ŸŽ„

    Album art for 'A Holiday Carole'

    First heard Carole on Gilmore Girls and then bought her compilation album at University. When I went home over the Holiday break and I was listening to it, my mother expressed shock because she listened to Carole when she was my age. ๐Ÿคฃ

  • Default Apps and Services of 2023

    It seems like a lot of folks have been writing about the default apps / services they use and while I’m late to the game, here is my list…at least for 2023. ๐Ÿคฃ I did a little tweak to the format everyone seems to be using: I split up my home and work life, as I do my best to keep things separate.

    Assuming his site / page are working, you can go see a list on Rob Knight’s website or add your site to the list at Github.


    ๐Ÿ“จ Mail Client

    ๐Ÿ“ฎ Mail Server

    • Home: Fastmail & iCloud
    • Work: Exchange

    ๐Ÿ“ Notes

    โœ… To-Do

    ๐Ÿ“ท Camera

    • Home: iPhone 15 Pro
    • Work: N/A

    ๐ŸŸฆ Photo Management

    ๐Ÿ“† Calendar

    ๐Ÿ“ Cloud File Storage

    • Home: iCloud, Backblaze, & OneDrive
    • Work: Enterprise-hosted SharePoint / OneDrive

    ๐Ÿ“– RSS

    ๐Ÿ™๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธ Contacts

    • Home: Contacts / Cardhop
    • Work: Outlook / Exchange

    ๐ŸŒ Browser

    • Home: Safari
    • Work: Edge

    ๐Ÿ’ฌ Chat

    • Home: iMessage, Whatโ€™s App, & Signal
    • Work: Teams & Slack

    ๐Ÿ”– Bookmarks

    ๐Ÿ“‘ Read It Later

    ๐Ÿ“„ Word Processing

    • Home: Pages & Word
    • Work: Word

    ๐Ÿ“ˆ Spreadsheets

    • Home: Numbers & Excel
    • Work: Excel

    ๐Ÿ“Š Presentations

    • Home: N/A
    • Work: PowerPoint

    ๐Ÿ›’ Shopping Lists

    ๐Ÿด Meal Planning

    ๐Ÿ’ฐ Budgeting and Personal Finance

    ๐Ÿ“ฐ News

    • Home: Combination of RSS and Podcasts.
    • Work: N/A

    ๐ŸŽต Music

    • Home: Music & Plex
    • Work: N/A

    ๐ŸŽค Podcasts

    ๐Ÿ” Password Management

    • Home: 1Password 4
    • Work: N/A

    ๐Ÿค– Code Editing

    ๐Ÿ“š Books

    • Home: Kindle
    • Work: N/A

    ๐ŸŒŽ Blogging

    ๐Ÿ–ผ๏ธ Screenshots

    ๐ŸŒค๏ธ Weather

    ๐Ÿ“‘ Clipboard Manager


    1. Trying to convince my sister-in-law to use it instead of a series of external hard drives; she has an extreme aversion to playing for cloud storage. ↩︎

    2. I’ve been pushing my Team to use a common Wiki page for shared bookmarks. ↩︎

    3. I was using PocketSmith but as they recently raised their prices without offering anything new, I’ve moved on. ↩︎

    4. It took years but I was finally able to convince my Parents to start using a password manager, especially when functions on both their iOS and Windows devices. ↩︎

    5. I use Day One for my personal thoughts and journal. ↩︎