tmo

I slept in late, awoke at 1:00 PM. Then I got a soda, started the day, had lunch, and BS'd around for a while. Now, I am making camp coffee (as I am out of instant), and packing a bowl of Gambler Red pipe tobacco, and awaiting more rain to head this way. Tomorrow, at 6:00 AM (or thereabouts), I will do a load of laundry.

Budget has been (for the most part) finalized, and the only “extra” (yet still necessary) thing I will be purchasing in August is a pretty decent Rossi tobacco pipe from ThePipeNook(.com). The rest of the moolah goes to “life stuff”.

This coffee is hitting the spot, and is another very necessary thing in my life. Luckily if/when I run out of instant (happens all the time), I have something like 4 or 5 pounds of Folgers Classic grounds that I got from Costco just sitting in the pantry.

That's all for now

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

Building-shaking thunder, lightening, torrential downpours – we have it all here in St Louis today. And it is a bit freaky (but I love warm rains, just not the flooding that accompanies some of them).

Also, hello to Misofrost, and welcome to W.a. I love van life/overlander blogs, very interesting. I think I remember ER from The Verge Mobile Show a million years ago, miss that show.

Now, coffee. That, and a pipe of Gambler Red pipe tobacco, while the rain drowns out the sound of the neighbors TV (thankfully).

On with the morning!

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

Someone shared somewhere that Mark Zuckerberg wants to be a part of the “Metaverse”, and I didn't get into it but I am assuming he meant like the Scuttlebutt Network and decentralized web and all that.

OK

But it makes me think: “what is the technology behind social media called, anyway?”

Think about it: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Mastodon, Pleroma, Pixelfed, etc. – they're all (for the most part) referred to as “social media” – but shouldn't there be a name for the whole process/method/way-of-doing-things that warrants a “term”? Like “P2P”, or “download”, or “stream”, or something like that? I mean if someone says “send a friend request”, isn't that just FB terminology?

Some people call them social networks, and that works. But if everything went “decentralized” or utilized ActivityPub or/and the Scuttlebutt Network (which is an actual technology – not a website), wouldn't we just refer to it as a “meta network” (as in like “the metaverse”)?

I mention all this because I realize that networks (social or otherwise) on the Internet are not really going anywhere, they're here to stay. I have friends, and people I correspond with, and people whom I've exchanged e-mails with on the W.a “blog network” (for lack of a better term), and I like simple blog networks. They're more like people visiting from a distant house in a surrounding neighborhood, stopping in for a “hello” – they have their own lives and activities (or blog), as where social media is like someone who brush past you on the street, not to be remembered or referred to again (you or the other person) – just fast exchanges of...whatever. People in a blog network “know where you live” on the Internet, everything is more real and relevant, because there is (usually) more credibility at stake, or, more “skin in the game”.

I am not saying I will ever join a “social network” again, but if there were some sort of Scuttlebutt Network technology behind W.a (it already employs ActivityPub), then I may use it. Just sayin'.

Back later

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

10:00 PM, I have all the lights out in the apartment, except for the sconce wall light (which is off the wall and sitting atop a speaker). Has a cool, eerie glow to the living room – very regal-looking, Victorian-feeling – sort of like how people would do everything by candlelight at this hour before central electricity became a thing. Of course candles (or even a fireplace!) would be much more romantic. An electric fireplace is something I've been meaning to get for a while, and it would be ironic to buy it in the middle of Summer when my apartment barely saw below 75 degrees due to the 95+ degrees temps outside. But, it would be a nice thing to have for the Winter, indeed. In the meantime I am cheating, and I turned the oven light on in the kitchen, which looks kinda/sorta fireplace-esque, but let's face it, I need an electric unit for the living room.

Anyway, I am having coffee and trying to think of how to pass the time now that I am not doing dev for the next week. Gotta be something to do at this hour, right?

Back later

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

I'm probably a very obvious, simple-thinking person. I see what is immediately in front of me, and I'm like, “hey! Let's write about that thing now”. And that “thing” is always a hot cup of coffee (usually). So, I start a lot of my blog posts (and title post titles) with coffee-centric jargon. I could try to “experience” coffee, try a bunch from around the world, or even around this immediate region – write about them and be a coffee blogger; a clogger! LOL! But that isn't going to happen. I think the difference between themed/professional blogging and just “logging” is expectations. Expecting a blog post to “do well” (get traffic), or get a lot of shares, or go viral, or have some form of impact somewhere, with someone or some thing – that's more akin to “professional” blogging (or, pseudo journalism). But just writing, about life, about whatever, jotting the days as they go by, and taking note (literally), and enjoying life at a slow pace (or perhaps fast, too) – that's more or less what I would consider “logging” (or just journalING). I prefer the latter.

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

By me putting web dev down (until Aug. 1), I can pick the laptop up, because I do not need the external display for anything for a while longer. This means sitting in the easy chair, and being directly under the AC vent, which is necessary because it has warmed to a toasty 74F in my apartment due to the heat outside, and the apartment being in direct sunlight all day. I miss Winter.

I re-re-did the budget a bit ago, taking care of some loose ends for stuff that is needed for around the apartment. In fact, with the budget being tight for August, I am not buying anything “extra” other than the bare necessities of life for the next 30+ days. I am fine with this, but it will be nice when things go back to normal in September.

Haven't had all that eventful of a day here today – stayed in, made coffee, made a bell pepper quinoa dish, organized notes, ate tons of fruit – the usual for a passive Saturday. So, not much to say about today, but I suppose I don't have to write “about” the day, I could just write about some idea, or some aspect of life, or some subject matter, or whatever. Doesn't seem like my cup of tea, though. Not today, anyway.

OK, that's all for now. Be back soon.

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

Oddly, I went back to bed after a while this morning. I was up until 5:00 AM, though, the night before. So, I guess I was still a bit tired.

So some Intentional Writing words – the coffee is picking me up great (as mentioned), and I had two apples with peanut butter for lunch. I would go and fetch the mail but according to USPS online, I have no mail to fetch, so I will just stay inside and avoid the heat.

Hell, I cannot even think of things to write about when doing intentional writing this morning. Maybe I don't feel like typing? Maybe the coffee isn't as strong as I thought? IDK.

But, see ya later

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

I figure I would take some free time this AM to organize, clean up, and clean out some of my accumulating notes in Standard Notes. I stay on top of the notes I keep there, and don't let anything pile up (usually), but over the past 1.5 weeks, stuff has built up.

One (priceless) note/file I keep, I call “jot pad” which is pinned at the top of my first folder. It is what I am messing with, working on, referencing back to that day. At the end of each day, it all gets deleted (unless there is a resource there that is worth saving (elsewhere)).

The other (priceless) note/file I keep is the “Master To-Do List”, which is a stacked list of all my Completed ✅ tasks + one or two tasks that I need to get done next. I also keep recent/relevant resources separated below in reverse chronological order, but that is a thing I am moving over to a different folder called “Web Dev Resources” in a few minutes here. Future plans for Thanx are on the Master To-Do List, as well :)

So, onto the organizing!

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

81F and increasing from here. Rain is in the forecast, as well. Looking forward to a warm rain. And yep, the coffee is delicioso, as well.

Not a Hustle Hero™

There is a small part of me (about 10% of me) that wants to jump straight back into where I left off last night with web dev stuffs – and that is very much so NOT going to happen. I swore off dev until August 1 and I am sticking to that. I have a bunch of stuff happening between now and then, and I will be plenty busy, so, that's all good, too. Self-imposed, forced labor is not my bag, at all.

I believe this is all I have in terms of updates for this morning, as I just woke up a little while ago (was up until 5:00 AM!). Be back shortly.

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now

What I took my side projects/hobbies, and I combined them all into one, big project?

• web development
• zine-making
• weird noise music
• blogging

all of it, and just made a website for it?

Yea, I'm not up to the task, either

... Issue. 5 of The Zine Around The Corner ready for download now