December deeds
Ah December. When the temperatures actually drop in Texas, when Starbucks sell their Gingerbread cake, and when my younger dog chooses me over my spouse at night to snuggle with. Technically, we are halfway in December but Christmas and December have such a strong association that everybody seems to be in a rush to get into holiday mode as soon as Thanksgiving is over. Christmas Trees are up, Lights are lit, Neglected Halloween decorations magically transform into Christmas decorations overnight, and even the radio hosts start talking about Christmas. December has more than 31 days and a never ending Christmas. This year went by quickly though. Must be a sign of getting older. As we grow old, time flows differently. The pandemic and the lock-down warped the feeling of passage of time. Life was standing still and suddenly time has materialized out of empty space and is pushing forward.
I finished two seasons of Foundation in one week so this imagery of space warping is still fresh in my mind. Reddit tells me that the series is way different than its written counterpart but for all its little plot holes and significant departure from the book, Foundation is a solid show. Eagerly awaiting the 3rd season. In the meantime, For All Mankind is satiating my thirst for space. Lessons in Chemistry is next on my list. I would watch anything Brie is in. Its shocking and wonderful to discover that the book on which the show is based was rejected 98 times before it was published! The way the book came to be is also not any less inspiring. Fueling anger into constructive anger. Lemons to lemonade.
Speaking of books, I received my copy of Things become other things early this week along with a copy of Kissa by Kissa authored by Craig Mod. The book, the paper, the photographs. Everything about TBOT and Kissa is such a pleasure. An art in itself. Craig's photos have a certain je ne sais quoi and a calm that soothes your soul. Hoping to pick those two up as soon as I am done with The complete works of Dieter Rams and Slow Horses.
On the personal computing side, I switched to Thunderbird from Evolution. There was a brief period of Geary in between but that didn't last a day. Evolution and Geary, both seem to get hiccups from time to time and refuse to fetch emails. With both being tied to the Online Accounts in Gnome desktop, I cannot tell if its the client or the Gnome desktop stuttering in doing its job. Thunderbird is resource heavy but so much better in handling emails. No more crippled search results. Did you know, static charge can interfere with your desktop and knock out WiFi and Bluetooth? It happened to me twice this year. Once when this desktop was 1 week old back in July and yesterday. On both these occasions, powering down and holding the power button for 10 seconds drained all the static charge. I don't have a permanent solution for this yet. Between the copious fur my dogs shed and the lack of humidity, this might be something I have to live with. The desktop is flawless otherwise. I get my ass handed to me in CS2 by kids but hey all the Steam games run great on this AMD build. I am gonna have to upgrade the storage if I want to install any more games. Makes me wonder how many terabytes or petabytes of storage does an average gamer use. In the meantime, I am left with making more space by deleting existing installations.
Until next time.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.