No smoke, Bluetooth!

I got the new smoker up and running Friday night (wifi config, software update, bluetooth pairing for the induction burner, seasoning process, all good), but by then it was too late to cook anything.

Then I didn’t get to use the smoker Saturday morning, because the weather forecast suddenly changed from “partly cloudy” to “brief thunderstorm”, and then I got distracted with some shopping errands.

Saturday evening, I decided I should at least pair the Bluetooth temperature probes that came with it, which I hadn’t done Friday because they needed to charge for several hours. I woke up the smoker and successfully paired the first one, and then I told it to search for the second one.

It beeped once, and the screen turned off. “Ah, it must have crashed due to some stupid Bluetooth bug”, I think to myself, so I power-cycled it. The screen stayed blank. I tried again. Then I shut it off, unplugged it, gave it a good 60 seconds, and tried again. The power light comes on, the induction burner’s light pulses that it’s searching for Bluetooth, but there’s nothing on the screen, and the app can’t see it on wireless.

It had bricked itself.

First thing Sunday morning, I called Traeger’s customer service 800 number, and after some brief issues with address/phone conflicts between their different databases, we went through the same troubleshooting I had, and then they instructed me to crack open the case and look at the boards.

One of the screws on the side stripped out, but I found a bigger screwdriver and got it open, checked for damage and loose connections, and confirmed that both boards showed power lights.

They’re shipping replacements out by two-day air, and they’ve already sent me the how-to video. All I need is a dry day late this week.

With apologies to Wayne

Sometimes when a song comes on, I find myself changing the lyrics just a bit. Watching the video, I always thought Rachel Hunter would be a bit too sophisticated for that boy…

🎶🎶🎶🎶
(Stacy’s mom has got a strap-on dong)
(Stacy’s mom has got a strap-on dong)
(Stacy’s mom has got a strap-on dong)
(Stacy’s mom has got a strap-on dong)

Stacy, can you come save me after schoo-o-o-ool?
    (after school)
In the hidden room by the poo-o-o-o-o-o-ool.
    (room by the pool)
When your mom got back from her business trip,
    (business trip)
She knocked me out while I was trying on her sli-i-i-ip.
    (wearing her slip)

You know, it’s been almost a week since she captured me.
I’m all tied up, now,
Baby, can’t you see?

Stacy’s mom has got a strap-on dong
It’s thick and black
and it’s over a foot long.
Stacy, can’t you see?
Your mom’s too much man for me.
Untie me while she’s gone,
please save my ass from your mom’s schlong.

(Stacy’s mom has got a strap-on dong)
(Stacy’s mom has got a strap-on dong)

Stacy, do you remember when she mowed the lawn?
    (mow the lawn)
And showed it off with just a towel o-o-o-on.
    (towel on)
She could tell I liked it from the way I stared,
    (way I stared)
And the way I begged
to put my finger in the-e-e-ere.
    (finger in there)

And I know I said pegging’s a cool fantasy,
but since your dad escaped
it’s been non-stop abuse for me.

(chorus)
🎶🎶🎶🎶

(there are related pictures on Pixiv, but I block all of those keywords, so…)

The Maid I Hired Recently Is Mysterious

(late start in the season, for no apparent reason)

The only thing that interested me about this show was the character design for the titular maid, who shares many elements with the adult Jahy-sama by the same artist. Sadly, he’s also the writer for both, and I dropped Jahy-sama very quickly.

Unfortunately, I checked the credits on ANN, and it’s heavy on voice actresses I like, so here goes…

TL/DR: this is not bad enough to be good. It’s just bad.

Our Boy Hero, voiced by (Yor, Yun-hua, Ryu, Visha, D), spends most of the first episode shouting out the title, and when he’s not overreacting to her, he’s loudly proclaiming all the ways he’s overreacting to her. In return, Our Busty Maid, voiced by (Megumin, Mashu, Emilia, Sagiri), spends most of her time feeding his delusions and blushing like a schoolgirl watching her first tentacle porn.

No other recurring characters appear this week, so I don’t know what (Marika, Rebecca, Fels, Sanae, Oboro)’s character is like. Or (Emma, Crim, Melty, Kizuna, Chiyome, Rizu)’s. Or, most importantly, (Belfast, Coorie, Jens, Millhiore, Toru, Olivia, Excel (no, not that one), Nepgear, Wiz, Makie, Honey)’s.

By their voices, I am doomed to watch another episode of this turkey.

Smokin!

The new smoker arrived Friday, with curb-side delivery. The driver was willing to try to back his truck up the steep 70-foot driveway, but his lift gate simply didn’t have the clearance. Since it was on a pallet, he was willing to pull the pallet jack uphill while I pushed from behind. Given the heat and humidity, he didn’t object too strongly when I tipped him $20. I could probably have managed it myself with my four-wheel dolly, but It Would Not Have Been Fun.

I still needed to get it to the back patio across 50+ feet of grass, and there’s a neighborhood teen who’s been dropping “will work for car money” notes in mailboxes, but before I had the chance to call him, the HVAC guys returned my call for an updated air conditioner quote, and showed up an hour later with the big-wheeled dolly they use to move things like… air conditioners. They also gave me a 5% discount on the new unit, because they like my realtor.

After that, the unboxing and assembly went well, thanks to Traeger’s impressive packaging and instructions (measured in beers), and I’m looking forward to breaking it in this weekend before next week’s five days of rain.

(well-lubricated robot girl is unrelated)

I can’t go hog-wild with it right away, though, because (yippee!) all my new appliances arrive Wednesday morning, so I have to empty the fridge and freezer by Tuesday night.

Unrelated

There seems to be a slight wiring problem with my new elliptical. See if you can spot it. 😁

The vendor will be overnighting replacement parts to Tiger Joe’s, who’ll send someone out to fix it as soon as they’re in. Great unit, though, apart from the glitch.

Power Ring: Activate!

Is it just me, or does Young Sauron look like he has a Tumblr profile listing half a dozen self-diagnosed mental illnesses and a set of invented pronouns?

I have a feeling the big reveal is going to be that he’s just misunderstood.

(via)

Also, the in-your-face diverquiclusion suggests that faithful storytelling was not a priority.

House selection: validated

When moving back to Ohio, I rejected houses that didn’t have a decent dry spot outside the front door. I was amazed how many houses had been built in the area without even token eaves, much less porches, allowing rain and snow to come right up to (and with wind, into) the front door. Even before the days of ubiquitous package delivery services, this didn’t make sense in an area where it can rain at any time, but these days, where are they supposed to put your Amazon packages?

Today, which was supposed to be sunny, was interruped by a quick-but-fierce thunderstorm. My covered front porch is eight feet deep; more than four feet of it was wet. The two lamps that arrived today would have been soaked if I’d bought one of those houses.

Speaking of invisible handcuffs…

…Anon’s got it goin’ on.

(via; NSFW! Disable Javascript!)

Vermeil In Gold

This show is almost bad enough to be good. Almost.

Fingers crossed there will be some decent fan-art, at least, because the girls are cute, although Our Tsundere Childhood Friend’s breasts change size quite a bit from scene to scene. At least Our Not-Kelly-LeBrock Summoned Magical Girlfriend has the excuse of being a shapeshifting succubus. Also, the background art is a bit odd.

Uncle From Another World

Two-week delay because Netflix. Also, nope.

(Miss not-from-this-show doesn’t want to hear it)

“Automatically closed as stale”

I really, really hate the common practice of automatically closing bugs unless the reporter keeps responding to a bot and confirming that it still hasn’t been fixed. It’s not like bugs just go away on their own. I just happened to revisit a bug I’d filed on Joplin’s sync code, having gathered new information that could be useful for getting rid of it, and discovered it was closed in May.

This nonsense not only discourages people from reporting bugs, it trains the developers to just ignore anything that looks difficult or uninteresting. “Yeah, the verbose log file that never gets rotated eventually fills the user’s drive, and the leftover lock files fill up the temp directory, but check out this shiny new thing I added!”

Elf with a shelf

Partial Ordering

My plans for the yard include a fair amount of hardscaping, most conspicuously in the form of doubling the size of the patio, adding some rain cover to it, and building in a Traeger electric pellet smoker and perhaps a natural-gas grill as well. I’ll be talking to the landscaper about the preliminary design on Wednesday, but I just ordered the Traeger, which will arrive well before they build out the patio, so I can use it for a while.

The good news is that this model doesn’t need any complicated assembly; you basically tip it over, add the wheels, and stand it back up.

The bad news is that that means I have to drag the 300-pound box a good 50 feet across the grass to the back patio, and then open it up. After convincing whoever delivers it that they have to back their truck up my steep 70-foot driveway, because there’s no way in hell I’m dragging it uphill. 😁

(Kiki does not accept delivery orders of items larger than she is)

Belated Christmas present report

Many years ago, I found myself in Ohio for Christmas, and discovered that the gift exchange would include my step-sister’s three young daughters, whom I’d basically never met (I’d seen the oldest a few times when she was a toddler). On very short notice, I had to come up with something that they might like. I went with the DVD box set of Kaleido Star, about the only age-appropriate anime series I could find in a quick trip to the mall in the snow. (three girls, three discs, perfect!)

I had to cross my fingers on “appropriate” because I knew they’d watch the dub, and I’d heard that Fool’s dialogue had been cleaned up at least a little. I figured that anything left would go over their heads, and nothing in the visuals would upset their parents.

On Sunday, I went over for dinner with my parents, and one of the three, now age 20, was there learning recipes from my mom. After dinner, she asked if I was the one who’d bought that for them Way Back When, and I found out that they adored it, and still watched it together at least once a year. When one of them moved out of state, they fought over who got to keep it.

So that worked out.

(picture is unrelated, but does include a star…)

Dark patterns…

A vendor I recently did business with sent me an email asking me to verify my email address. This is not an unusual practice, but usually happens before you can use the account you created with them.

Sure enough, if you click on the “verify email” button, what you’re really doing is verifying that you want to receive more than a dozen types of marketing emails.

Nailed it!

In which Michiko Hada absolutely nailed my invisible-handcuff fetish. 😁

(the UPS package that was supposedly held up while the address was “corrected” arrived without any difficulty, on time)

Komi 2.12

White Day, in which Our Hero solicits advice from his sister for a return gift for Komi, while pretending that it’s for Katai (the only other person who gave him chocolate), which doesn’t fool her a bit.

A bit too angsty for my tastes, and I found myself wishing that he’d just break down and confess. And yes, Our Psycho Lesbian Stalker’s return gift to Komi was as disturbing as expected.

And finally the moment we’ve all been waiting for, as the new school year begins, and… they’re still working on it. Good luck, kids, it looks like you’re going to need to be locked in a love hotel by Najimi before you admit that you’ve fallen for each other. Hopefully that happens in season 3, which is not yet confirmed, but highly likely.

Just store it in the cloud!

As part of moving back to Ohio, I built up an extensive collection of saved locations (restaurants, shopping, services, etc) in the Maps app on my new Windows laptop. Yes, using my Microsoft Account to sync them to all devices.

They were there yesterday. All but one of them are gone today, disappearing while I slept, and swiftly synced across all devices so I can’t get them back.

Good thing it wasn’t anything important, eh?

No double votes for me!

I received the official notice that California has processed my request for my voter registration to be cancelled. I of course had no intention of voting twice; I just wanted to make sure that Benito Newsom didn’t illegally mail out a ballot to my old address (again).

Also, it’s additional evidence that I’m no longer a CA resident for tax purposes, which is important when extracting yourself from California.

Go home, Amazon, you’re drunk…

…on cheap wine!

Quad9 outage!

I have my Pi-hole set to use 9.9.9.9 as the primary DNS. When one of the servers answering at that address goes away, the failure mode is peculiar. Lots of partial failures as things time out and fail over to another, and some total failures depending on how name resolution is cached on things like iOS devices.

It was annoying to figure out, because it looked like some pieces of the Internet were completely unreachable (including many DNS servers) and other pieces were half-functional. For instance, Amazon’s web server worked from a browser, but not from the iOS app, and Prime Video played normally from my FireTV Stick but not from my iPad. Meanwhile, the customer-service site for my ISP reported that their customer service itself was down. It all depended on which DNS lookups they were making, and when the results had been cached.

The most interesting bit was that right-clicking to save a picture from Microsoft Edge was timing out, despite the fact that the picture had already been downloaded and cached by the browser.

Ayako Fuji, age 61

I don’t enjoy enka singing, but I’ll respect the singer in the morning.

(via, site NSFW!)

SSD lifetime…

The Crucial mSATA SSD that I put in my OpenBSD firewall in 2014 finally started to die. It’s actually failing gracefully, enough that I could boot it and have it stay up long enough for me to grab any data off of it that I needed.

Which I didn’t, because I ran full backups of it two days ago and stored them on my Synology NAS. I just needed enough of a manual network config so that I could mount the NAS, copy the tarball of /etc over to the spare OpenBSD box (that I had fortunately unpacked recently), and swap them.

I had originally intended to make them a failover pair with carp and pfsync, but I just never got around to it. Maybe once they run the structured wiring and some dedicated circuits in the new house, I can take the time to do it right.

The two Shuttles are starting to show their age in other ways, so maybe it’s time to replace them. I should see if pfSense or OPNsense has enough flexibility to replace my custom PF config.

Elliptical Amusement

I went to the local fitness store and bought a new elliptical. I was explaining to the sales rep that I wanted something more compact than the 20-year-old one I left behind in California that was 7 feet long with all the weight in the back end, and then I looked around, and saw that exact model in the store, used (LifeFitness 5500HR).

They’d recently reconditioned one and sold it for a good price. Not surprising that it was still in good shape; I deliberately bought a gym-grade model that was designed to survive heavy use.

By the way, I went with the True ES700 T9 Touchscreen; I paid considerably less at Tiger Joe’s than the price they sell it for on their web site. I’ll probably go back over there soon, because they have a large selection of premium rubber puzzle mats on sale because an order got canceled, and they look like they’d interlock with the ones I already have, so I could expand the workout area in my massive basement.

Definitely not in California any more…

It took me nearly an hour to buy a new handgun… because the guy in line in front of me was buying a suppressor. 😁

Fleming’s Steakhouse

Took my folks to Fleming’s to celebrate being completely out of California. The food was fantastic, our waiter Tyrece was terrific, and everything about the restaurant itself was excellent… except the music, which would have been more at home in a supermarket or convenience store.

(NSFW after the jump)

more...

Komi 2.11

Lots of short segments in this one, which went well, even though one of them involved Our Deranged Lesbian Stalker. Mostly because she managed to pull herself together and think about Our Komi’s feelings for once.

Lycoris Recall episode 1

Yeah, no. Let’s just say that the voice actresses for the two leads do a good job of bringing life to characters I want no part of.

(shivering Shamiko accurately captures my feelings about the blonde)

Closed!

It took multiple contract extensions and a lot of patience, but the house in California is officially sold. All that’s left is cancelling all the utilities so the new owners can start paying them. And taxes. Definitely going to be some taxing going on here.

Time to renovate!

ST:SNW season finale

I didn’t really buy the casting for a young James T Kirk, but everything else worked well.

(Pike cooked again…)

Haven’t watched any of the new-season first episodes yet. Still a few episodes of Komi left to go, I think.

“Yer a wizard, Harry”

A new Dresden Files novella came out this week…

(“yer a witch, Kiki”)

What’s worse than systemd?

Microsoft systemd. Lennart Poettering’s career move has made me fear for the future of WSL.

Special thanks to Pixy…

…for the LG monitor straightening tip.

Omelas and Aliens

I was a bit surprised that the producers of ST:SNW didn’t give even a little credit to Ursula K. Le Guin for inspiring the plot of episode 6. It was about as subtle as a chest-burster (episode 9).

The less said about episode 8, the better. Still, at least the moon didn’t hatch into a giant spider and immediately lay an egg the size of the moon. Which used to be the low-water mark for the modern Dr. Who series, until they decided that Ensign Sue Must Die didn’t go far enough.

One more to go for this season, releasing Thursday.

(picture is definitely unrelated, unless Pike cooks again)