We took Byron outside to play in the snow yesterday. He got very excited, but he really wasn’t sure about the snowman some kids in the building made. It got woofed at last night, and peed on this morning.
Author: admin
Dear Santa, I has been a good boi
ree is up. Now let’s see how long it stays up without being eaten.
Phone says screw you, hard reset!
My phone has been iffy for the last few weeks, with random freezes or reboots. Yesterday, I got a notification for an official OTA software update. I hoped that it might fix the situation. I did, but in the most f’you way possible. The update caused the phone to get stuck in a perpetual reboot cycle. The only way out of it was a full, hard, reset.
Now this was something that I’d been thinking of for a while, but still, really bad timing. Although I had a full backup of my phone and most of it was already synced to Google, it’s still annoying as fuck to have to re-download and restore everything. The devil is in the details – how your app screens were setup to the point where muscle memory could open a particular app – which isn’t 100% back to normal.
I have all my music, but all my playlists got borked.
I have all my photos, but the timestamps didn’t restore properly so now they’re all mishmashed.
I have to get a new activation code for my online banking, because Switzerland.
The most annoying thing – one of my go-to stress-reliever/time-waster games got removed from the Google play store!! Happily, Katy still had it on her phone, so with a bit of ingenuity and USB debugging, I was able to extract it from her phone and sideload it on mine. Note to self in case of future need, the magic mantra is this:
Determine the package name of the app, e.g. “com.example.someapp”.
adb shell pm list packages
Get the full path name of the APK file for the desired package.
adb shell pm path com.example.someapp
The output will look something like
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-2.apk
or
package:/data/app/com.example.someapp-nfFSVxn_CTafgra3Fr_rXQ==/base.apk
Using the full path name from the previous step, pull the APK file from the Android device to the development box.
adb pull /data/app/com.example.someapp-2.apk path/to/desired/destination
Bumpy shiny pointy cutty thing
In the latest installment of Richard tries to make a knife, I wanted to work on the handle tonight. Instead, by trying to fix a small section of scratches, I managed to completely cock up my flat grind on one side of the blade because my freehand grinding skills still suck. I ended up chasing a small issue into a giant pile o’ shit. I found a good way to pivot out of my predicament though by using a dremel to texturise the top part of the blade and mostly cleaning up the edge before buffing it into a matt finish. I’m actually really happy with the end result. Now that all the grinding is done, all I need to do is put a handle on and the final sharpening (not to say that the blade isn’t already sharp enough to slice part of my palm open – happily only superficially).
Time: truer the older you get
Halloween done. Ben birthday done. Automnales and dog show done. Next stop Katy’s birthday then Christmas, then lean January then hopefully things start to settle down for a bit…. Except there’s always something else. Like February relâche. Then Easter. Then summer holiday. Then… Then…
A real retirement worry
My plan is to either never retire, or find a nice sturdy cardboard box underneath an overpass.
Lord congeniality
It was Byron’s grand dog show début today.
We made it bright and early (!) to the Automnales and got setup. We met Frédérique, the breeder we got Byron from, and she was very happy to meet the boy.
She was supposed to show him for us, as we have no idea what we were doing, but Byron had other plans. He got a little bit nervous when he couldn’t see us and decided to splat and nope, so I had to be brave and show him.
In the end, the boy placed last, but with an “excellent” mention. The comments were generally positive, except that he’s possibly too tall and his babines a bit too floppy. His bones, ears, eyes, nose, teeth and gait are all good, but his knees are apparently still a bit wobbly.
I’m the end, he didn’t hump anyone and was super zen around all the other dogs. He didn’t seem fazed by all the noise and commotion, everyone loved him and heaped lots of praise on him and his behaviour. We always said we’d get him a miss congeniality ribbon, but Anna had the best idea when she declared him lord congeniality.
[recipe] 5min Brownie in a mug
45g unsalted butter
3 tbsp packed light brown sugar
3 tbsp whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
40g all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
Pinch salt
1 tbsp dark chocolate chips (optional)
Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Place butter in a large, microwave-safe mug. Microwave on high until fully melted, about 1 minutr. Swirl to coat the mug with melted butter, then pour the butter into a small bowl.
Add brown sugar, milk, and vanilla extract, and whisk until smooth. Add all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, salt, and stir until combined. Fold in chocolate chips if desired.
Scrape the batter back into the mug. Microwave on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds. The brownie is ready when the center is slightly gooey and the edges bounce back when pressed. If not ready, microwave for 15 seconds more. Top with ice cream and enjoy!
Hello, this is dog support
Have you tried barking at it?
Cuddle bug
The flip side of bed hog is cuddle bug. Several times a night, and every morning, the chonk will come on the bed and flomp on us – sometimes just to check in, most often he’ll stay for a while until we either push him off or he goes on his own. Morning cuddles are a bit different though. He knows we’re awake so he’ll come on the bed, flomp, and sigh contently. Big sighs. Then he’ll start snoring.