Year of the Dragon (Weeknotes
Happy New Year!
🐲 Saturday was the Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year. 2024 is the year of the Wood Dragon, which last occurred in 1964. According to People magazine my “blessed couple of years” starting in 2022 and 2023 will continue in 2024, but I may start feeling growing pressure at work. They go on to say I should visualize where I want to be in 2025 and start taking steps to get there this year. Isn’t that what everyone is supposed to do anyway?
📊 I created an account on updown.io to monitor my website. They gave me enough “free trial” credit to last almost a year!
🖼️ I got GPT4v-generated image descriptions working on my Mac using this shortcut. It was easier that I thought it would be, and using it on a dozen or so images it seems to be working well
🎺 I also set up an auto-tooter on MastoFeed. So I guess it should automatically create posts on my Mastodon account when I publish new blog posts. This post will be the first one since I set it up so I guess we’ll see!
💰 It’s time again for everyone’s favorite ritual: tax season. I took my bag full of loose papers to the very patient woman who has been preparing our income tax returns for 24 years. She’s a bit of an odd bird but friendly enough and extremely good at what she does. And the best part of it is that I. do not. have. to do it. myself! Also good news: looks like a modest refund coming our way. Hoot!
🍪 It’s Girl Scout Cookie season here in the states, which means it’s time to get out their and support the kiddos. My personal favorites are Samoas (also known as Caramel deLites in some parts) and gluten-free Toffee-tastics.
🔀 I added a picture to my colophon showing all the DNS names in use for this site and where they go. Most are here in what I call The Omglolverse but a few direct out to “other worlds.”
📷 I sat down and wrote out my lessons learned while in the Galápagos post.
📸 I splurged ($98) on a new lens for my X-T4. I haven’t had too much time to play with it yet, but I think it’ll be fun. It also happens to be the first manual-focus lens I’ve bought for this camera so that’ll take some getting used to.
Media Highlights
🔔 I enjoyed listening to Do We Still Need The Pips? from BBC Radio 4. It reminded me that a few years ago I wrote a Chrome extension to play the pips every hour.
👑 After a lengthy pause, I finished watching the final season of The Crown. I gotta say I’m glad it’s over. It wasn’t nearly compelling at the end as it was in the beginning.
👮♂️ Caught up on Criminal Record, although I can’t say I love that show. Aside from being a slow burn it’s just not that interesting. I’ll stick with it though.
📖 “Why Are We Talking About Books Like This?” by Molly Templeton (Reactor)
🔪 Finished season 3 of Only Murders in the Building. This show remains entertaining, and I’m excited for the hinted-at west coast reset coming in season 4.
Stay weird.