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)

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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)

Google doesn’t seem to celebrate Moa Metal’s birthday properly: the logo colors are all wrong. 😁

Fireworks!

In my dishwasher! Glad I ordered a new one back in May! Now it just needs to be delivered and hooked up!

Fortunately it had just finished the wash cycle before the sparks flew and the blue smoke escaped, so it wasn’t full of water. Also, remember that wall switch controlling the power to the dishwasher, something I’d never seen in a house before? Kind of glad it’s there now, so I didn’t have to run down to the basement and figure out which breaker to flip.

Why, yes, I did get a home warranty when I bought the place; since I already ordered the replacement, they’ll give me a credit toward the price.

Actual fireworks!

If I could get up onto my roof, I’d have the best view in town for fireworks, based on Saturday night’s show. As it is, it was still pretty impressive.

I presume the larger official shows were Saturday because the 4th is on a Monday this year.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Surprisingly, this doesn’t suck so far. Except maybe for the hair, which seems more Millenial than Regulation.

Having skipped Discovery, I was not aware that Anson Mount (who I had only previously seen in Mr. Right) had appeared as Captain Pike in that show. Reading a few episode summaries suggests that I will continue to skip Discovery, and not feel like I’ve missed anything worthwhile.

Unrelated: “Wide base to prevent loss”

Shield Hero 2.13

Story time! After last week’s big, messy finish, they even skipped the opening credits this week so they could spend time having multiple characters reminisce, suggesting that they really couldn’t figure out how to get more than 12 episodes out of the roughly 3.5 books they covered (Ost shows up about 2/3 of the way through book 6, and book 9 finishes off the other-other-world story). So that’s 5.5 books in 25 episodes versus 3.5 in 12, which explains part of the problem.

Looking at the descriptions and chapter titles of the upcoming books, for October’s season 3 they pretty much have to either do books 10-12 or 10-14, and while the latter would be far more fan-friendly (13-14 are heavy on the Raphtalia content), they’d have to butcher their way through it even more aggressively than they did for season 2.

Turns out…

…what liberals really want is to abort fetuses right up until the end of the 360th trimester, especially if they’re on the Supreme Court.

New children’s book!

Soon to be required reading in school districts across America: Hunter Hired A Ho

Skeleton Knight 12

Oh! Look! The loser backstory of a cackling villain is revealed just before he gets his ass handed to him! It’s been so long since I’ve seen somethng like that!

Oh, wait, no, that happened Wednesday, too.

I was highly disappointed by the frequent close-up shots in this one that revealed that they couldn’t afford gainaxing, just CGI hip turrets. You think they’d throw us a bone in the final episode…

They listed off all the uncashed plot coupons, but it doesn’t look like they have a second season coming any time soon.

Demon Girl Next Door 2.11

Back to school, setting up a big event for next episode.

Komi 2.9

Most unrealistic episode ever. I mean, three high school girls fed the deer in Nara, and not one of them got mobbed or mugged by the greedy beasts.

Oh, and Komi made two new friends, The Chessmaster and Sukeban Deka.

Next Friday seems to be the day for the summer shows to start showing up. Nothing that looks good to me yet.

Umbrella Academy, season 3

Apart from the gender roleplay affirmations that take up a fair amount of screen time in the first few episodes, this was pretty good. I think I nodded off for a bit in the middle while watching the entire thing in one sitting, and there’s plenty of filler I’d skip in a rewatch, but on the whole, not bad.

Yes, the show explicitly writes in El Page’s decision to LARP manhood, which is enthusiastically embraced by the other characters. Yes, in a season about erasing people, they erased straight Vanya from season one and lesbian Vanya from season two, so she could become the he she always was but just couldn’t see until it was trending. No treatments of any kind, just the haircut and announcement(s) were sufficient.

If you can get past that, though, season 3 also delivers characters that are fucked up in entertaining ways. As usual, Klaus and Five are the standouts, with Dad close behind. The rest are a mixed bag, although Gravity Barbie was an amusing and highly decorative addition. Diego was less interesting than in previous seasons, thanks to his daddy issues being replaced by daddy issues. Only a few of the Sparrows were fleshed out, making the rest obvious redshirts, and they left Grace’s unusual behavior a complete mystery.

The ending pretty much closes off the possibility of another season, which is probably for the best.

Restauranting

A few days ago we went to the Chiapas in Moraine because my parents like the Chiapas in Centerville. That was a mistake.

Last night, on the other hand, we ordered takeout from the CJ Chan’s that’s a few doors down from them, and that was excellent.

Everywhere a sign

Well, perhaps both dates were correct, since I completed my half of the closing Thursday with the mobile notary, but haven’t heard from the title company yet about the buyer’s signatures. Or money. Fingers crossed; also toes, eyes, arms, legs, and zombie assassins.

Oh, wait, that’s a crossover.

“When it’s over, YOU get ice cream!”

Joe Biden held up his meeting cheat sheet so that it faced the cameras, and someone got a clear picture. I’m less concerned about this particular stay-on-target reminder than I am that they have templates like this for structuring all of his interactions.

Shield Hero 2.12

It ended as it began: a jumbled mess. Except that there’s apparently a post-epilogue episode next week, in which they’ll do what, exactly?

Bonus Melty (who has a brief, silent cameo at the end):

RPG Real Estate 12

…and it’s done. They put you through more bullshit melodrama, despite telegraphing the happy ending in the episode title.

Bonus Beach Real Estate:

Unrelated, I rewatched the final episode of Endro! last night, which was better than this show in every way. I still liked RPG-RE, I just wish they could have skipped the plot and just kept the cute-girls-selling-weird-houses bits.

Today I Learned…

…that the Japanese title for the Karate Kid movies was ベスト•キッド = “Best Kid”.

Dear Joe,

Will you help retail employees find new jobs after Apple closes that store, or will you leave it up to the Machinists union?

Mixed messages…

This morning, the realtor asked for an extension to Wednesday the 29th while the buyer gets her wire transfer sorted out.

This evening, the title company scheduled a mobile notary for closing on Thursday the 23rd.

Kind of hoping they’re the ones who’ve got the date right.

(tumblr seems to have decided to restrict access to logged-in users after a very small amount of scrolling, but direct links still work. For now. What’s that sucking noise I hear?)

A fool and his bread…

$400 toaster that even includes “algorithms tailored to the chemistry of non-gluten ingredients”, yet still burns the bread if you try to toast more slices before it cools completely, according to the reviews. And can’t handle anything wider than a typical sandwich loaf. Glad I still have my 25-year-old Krups; the toaster market seems to only offer cheap crap and expensive crap right now.

Believe it or not, this thing isn’t even in the running for overpriced home toasters. That’s not counting the commercial units or the wide array of random-Chinese-brand basic toasters (1, 2, etc) that pollute Amazon listings with prices over $500.

Advantage: new house

Had my parents over Saturday to make gyros, using my pressure-cooker gyro meat recipe. I used to half-ass the tzatziki with Safeway’s tzatziki salad dressing and whole-milk greek yogurt, but I’m in Ohio now, with no Safeway. Kroger had two varieties of packaged tzatziki in the deli, but I’ve had poor luck with those, since they tend to have a distinct cardboard taste, and are too chunky for gyros.

Fortunately I found a printout from several years ago of the King Arthur Flour tzatziki recipe. Fortunately, because it’s not on their web site at all any more, and you can’t click any of the links on the Wayback Machine without being redirected to their current site. I had to guess the (sensible) URL structure to get the above direct link to the recipe. I diced the cucumber smaller than the recipe called for, added a bit of dried dill and some sour cream, let the flavors mingle overnight, and had plenty of tasty sauce for the meat.

That left the pita bread, and I’m delighted to say that the Middle Eastern grocery and deli down the street is also a bakery, serving up fresh pita every day, plain and flavored.

(foxgirl is at best tangentially related, since she’s the cook at a diner)

Tell me you live alone…

…without telling me you live alone:

Erased!

With the upcoming release of season 3 of Umbrella Academy, I thought I’d rewatch some of the better episodes in the first two seasons.

Turns out that actress Ellen Page, who played Vanya, no longer exists even as a historical curiosity. It looks like Netflix rewrote the credits for the first two seasons to show that actor Elliot Page played that female role before taking on the role of Viktor for the upcoming episodes.

Idol group: “We are not idols”

The most striking thing about Girls Revue Company Mimosane (site NSFW, pictures SFW) is that at least two of the members are visibly only half-Japanese (Sabera and Mwendwa). Other than that, despite the pull quote above, they look like a typical idol factory. Several of them are quite pretty, and a few of the older ones look good in bikinis, but damn they’re young (oldest was born in 2003, youngest in late 2010).