Media | Handcrafts & Hobbies | Projects | Personal
For those who missed the Mastodon announcement… I misconfigured my previous blog’s email, so I created a WordPress blog on my site. All past posts have been migrated and musings.otherryn.com is the only working blog link for my random braindump of the week. Please update your RSS feeds or inform your appropriate carrier pigeon. At least the new blog is in a setup I don’t mind working with. (Look! 👆 There’s anchors! I love anchors. Oh my god, LOOK! There’s foot/endnotes 👇… oh wait, well, you’ll get there. I LOVE BEING ABLE TO NOTATE. Excuse me while I have a moment of Chicago Style Citation memory love.)
– Media –
Books
I’ve abandoned Iron Gold once again, but look, it’s not my fault. There’s 24+ hours of Dungeon Crawler goodness that can go in my earholes, thank you very much. Also, Iron Gold’s narrator shifts weren’t working for me. I don’t mind if there’s multiple narrators, but don’t spring the change on me on the 4th book, please and thank you.
Goddamnit, Donut! — Carl
So, back to Dungeon Crawler Carl for This Inevitable Ruin. I also very much appreciate the in-universe recap at the beginning of the book. It fits, it works, and it saves my poor brain from having to try to remember what happened. Also, Jeff Hays is delightful and does such a great job with distinct voices… “Now go out there and kill, kill, kill.” is a catchphrase for one character but it’s very much THAT character’s phrase and their voice is so unique that I can’t hear anyone else say it. That’s my next week or two of book-listening sorted. It’s popcorn reading, it requires very little thought and it makes a nice mind-movie (sorry to my aphantasic folks!) while cooking or doing other things that don’t require me to listen. Is it a little juvenile sometimes? Sure. But honestly, it tracks with the story and we’re talking about a story that takes place in a reality TV show and an AI with a foot or crushing fetish (maybe both?).
Movies
This week was my watch partner’s pick and they chose R.O.D.: Read or Die. I can’t remember if I’ve seen this or not, but it is firmly in the heyday of my hardcore anime watching era. Now I intersperse anime with other shows but in the late ’90s/early ’00s, probably less than 10% of what I watched was live action. I don’t know how I missed this one, because it seems right up my alley: Girl loves books. Asshole takes books away. Girl goes ham on asshole. Girl gets friendship which is… as good as a book? Slight issues in the dismount, still… 8/10.
Television
We’re doing TV Shows a little differently… You can click on the titles and it will expand the section. This way if there’s spoilers or things you don’t want to know, you can just skip over that one. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s watching experience and until I switched to WordPress, there was no option to do so. Hopefully this takes care of my desire to talk about it and other people’s desire not to be spoiled for shows that might be new or old.
The Expanse, Season 6: (click to expand)
It’s weird, but I love how tired all of our cast looks. Like the war and chaos has just been wearing on them. And I love how Bobbie comes in to take over and Holden has to deal with all of that and he’s just tired. Also, that he calls Clarissa Mao “Peaches”, like Amos. Like that’s a different person than the one that wanted him dead and was willing to do whatever it took to make it happen. (For anyone that is going “why Peaches?” it’s because her fake name was Melba Koh and there’s a dessert called Peach Melba. Now, that causes me to ask the question… How does Amos know about Peach Melba?)
And it’s not just our ‘good guys’ who are looking tired. Marco Inaros (holy shit, what a stellar casting choice of Keon Alexander) looks worn down, too. The only person I can think of that looks the same is Drummer, but that’s because Cara Gee is amazing and a perennial badass. I think after this is done, I’m going to have to re-read the series to get our final conclusion again. And this time I won’t be standing in my kitchen at 2 am with tears streaming down my face because they did what?!
Severance, Season 2, Episode 5: (click to expand)
I don’t even know where to start with this one.
First, holy fuck I feel for Helly R. Imagine going from a gala where you get to proclaim what’s happening, to being drowned by a coworker who then comforts you, your best friend won’t talk to you, and everything has changed. It’s like being that kid who goes to the ‘wrong’ summer camp and when September rolls around you’re an outsider, where before that everything was great. It was perfect. And now it’s horrible and ruined.
I’m not sure if it’s the reintegration or the massive issues about consent and bodily autonomy or him trying to impress Helena-Helly, but Mark S has turned into a massive knob-end and while I’m sure it’s earned, it feels a little weird. I’m trusting the process, but there’s a lot of “what’s going on here?” (I am still wavering between it being iMark or oMark for the line “the bullshit gazette”… That entire elevator exchange felt very scary.)
Dylan G’s eulogy of Irving B was hilarious and heartbreaking. You feel like he’s the one who is probably most connected with his emotions down there and is probably the most socially connected to the others, though he constantly pushes them away. I think we all knew a kid like that in elementary school and it wouldn’t be any surprise to find out in adulthood that they went through a really shit home life and were desperate to make connections but didn’t know how to do it. I mean… “You tell her that Ms Casey is your wife yet?” was 💯 Dylan G lashing out, but also knowing that he’ll probably be forgiven… Until one time he’s not. If that comes, that’s going to break him.
Burt and Irv! Oh, I love them together. I’ve loved Christopher Walken for ages and I really adore his depiction of Burt. Finding out he got fired instead of retired is a revelation! (If they have unsanctioned erotic encounters at Lumon, are there sanctioned ones? Ohhhh Helena. Yep. Okay.) Now the ending of Burt’s retirement video feels like a puzzle piece clicking into place. I always felt it was a little odd, but I went with it because Lumon is a weird place. “When a man is screaming my name, I like to know who he is.” But the thing I want to know is… WHO IS IRVING CALLING?
Milchick and Huang. Holy shit, there’s a lot of conflict there. The entire thing where Miss Huang says, regarding her reasoning to deny the funeral of Irving, “it makes them feel like people.” She is small, savage, and scary as fuck. Milchick … whooboy. The painting presentation really was the straw, it seems. And having Miss Huang give him shit about his performance review coming up when she’s the one who lodged most of the complaints? Yikes. However, Milchick did have the best line and I need to pop it in my back pocket. “A little sugar, to go with your usual salt.” Loved it.
Also, Milchick, what the actual fuck? Of course they haven’t.
It looks like next week will be the start of The Good Place rewatch. I’m looking forward to that as I haven’t rewatched Season 1 … ever. Well, that’s not accurate. I did rewatch the first season but I hadn’t finished it and it was months between.
Board Games
On Saturday night, we decided to crack open a game in our collection that still had the plastic wrap on it. Trailblazer: the John Muir Trail is a worker placement game (I really like worker placement games) with a theming of Yosemite National Park. The way the game addresses the “but what if I already have the piece I’m supposed to get as a reward?” The secondary track (the tent) makes you balance getting new inventory items that you might need for progress through the primary track and increasing your consumable inventory, increasing your number of workers, and getting end-game victory points. Also, the artwork for the location cards is amazing.
Overall, a stunning little game that took a bit of time with the instructions handy, but by the time you reach the 4th map, it should be pretty intuitive for the turn pattern. There was some discussion as to whether Field Cards acquired by the draw from the top of the deck icon went into your hand (Augs felt it was an OP mechanic, I argued that if you didn’t get to keep the potential point score from it, you weren’t gaining ‘all benefits’ as stated in the booklet). The confusion, I suspect, came from the instructions saying that there’s a discard pile, but we didn’t have one because there was rarely a leftmost Field Card.
This one will be in the keep pile. If Yosemite isn’t your vibe, then there’s a follow up coming out called Trailblazer: The Arizona Trail that takes you through the various parks and environments of Arizona.
– Handcrafts & Hobbies –
Knitting
Last week I did a bit of organising in the shed (I call it a shed but it’s about the same area as a double car garage, but if it were a single car wide. I should really start calling it the workshop, but I haven’t started making anything in there yet!) and found some (vacuum sealed) yarn that will be more socks for Augs’ Soxstravaganza this year. Probably. But this also leads me to believe that I need/want to do some organising for my yarn and fabric. The yarn has an existing inventory system and just needs to be vacuum sealed against beasties and then it can go into the shed workshop shedshop.
The Scraptacular blanket is on hold because I need more fingering weight yarn to incorporate. I’m sure I have another mass of it somewhere, but I need to unearth it. Until then, it’s on hold and I’m knitting a sleep hat to go with my green pyjamas. Do I need to match? No. Is it fun to match? Yes.
Sewing
Oh no. Oh no no no. A friend sent me a link to a sale for cotton jersey in France (where she lives). So I might have ordered 15 meters of medium grey cotton jersey. 210gsm. (It was a great price – €2/m.) Do I have plans for this? Of course I do! Do I know what they are? Of course I don’t! (That’s not entirely fair. I think I’m going to make at least one dress and one shirt out of it. I will also likely make some pyjamas as well.) Next week I’ll go through my patterns and see which ones need to be traced for the plans. Regarding the storage of said fabric (and other fabric), I have a pre-existing solution for that. I bought a load of IKEA storage cases last year and they weren’t quite what I wanted for clothes. They might do well for fabric in massive amounts of meterage. I will report back upon completion.
The A-line view of the Encore Skirt has been traced and the pattern has been cut out, the original pattern pieces are trimmed down to that design, and I have resewn the pieces back to where I was when I went “ew, I don’t like this.” Next up: waistband, zipper, hook and eye, side seam, laser level of hem, finish! Hopefully I will have a working skirt by the end of the week. To encourage me to sew faster, I’ve ordered a bunch of 80 and 120 denier tights so I can wear them comfortably.
In sewing-related acquisition, I’ve ordered some pattern hangers and hole reinforcers so I can keep the patterns all together. Not sure where they’re going to go but being able to get them corralled will be nice. (If I fold the traced patterns, I have to iron them. And I rip them getting them in or out of the sleeve. This should work.)
– Projects –
Home Automation
I was really hoping to have a full post about the Carport Light home automation setup by now, but I ordered the wrong DC to USB-A connector. Am I keeping the wrong ones? Oh yes. Do I have a use for them? Not yet. But you never know!
What I do need to do is figure out what my next steps are, if any. I need to list what I’ve done to know what more I would like to do. Keeping in mind, of course, that the overall aim of this is to be an invisible butler and to notify us of things the humans forgot.
Completed/In Progress Automation
- Radiator smart TRVs – house ✅
- Window contact sensors – house ✅
- Window contact sensors – office1
- External door contact sensors – house ✅
- External door contact sensors – office ✅
- Laundry plug and status notification ✅
- IR remote training2
- Plant watering schedule with NFC tags ✅
- Window cleaning schedule with NFC tags ✅
- Button for evening dog walk ✅
- Carport lights3
Planned Automation
- Water leak sensor – dishwasher4
- Camera set up
- Webcam to IP cam for seed starting area
- IR remote for driveway gate
- Expand dog walk button to incl. gate closure
- Human presence detectors for kitchen, dining room, and bedroom (will Basti trigger this?)
- Wifi repeater for outside use/driveway light replacement that acts as router
- Gate contact sensor
DIY (Destroy It Yourself)
Back in the summer I whacked the sensor for the gate and I think that might be why it’s not closing now, so a new sensor set is ordered and I’ll be getting that installed when it comes in. Not being able to close the driveway gate means that Basti hasn’t been able to be off lead since that happened and he really enjoys being able to run around and I enjoy being able to do other things in the yard while he runs around. We may end up fencing off a run area for him and other dogs in the future, but for now, this is what we need to do. If that doesn’t work/isn’t the problem, then I need to replace the gate motor.
Our new light fixtures (that we ordered in December) have finally arrived, so that will be this week’s after-work project. I have bulbs for the kitchen light and the bulbs for the landing and under landing fixture are on order. Apparently we’re going with aged brass for the look and I’m not mad about it. We also have the dining room pendant to put in and that one should be pretty easy but I am not looking forward to how much has to move out of the way for that first. After that, the only fixtures left to replace are the smallway, the laundry bathroom, the master bedroom (we want to put a ceiling fan in, which we will probably have to order from Spain or Portugal), and the living room/library.
The company images of the fixtures that arrived are below.
I also have an idea for my office, but I’m going to have to figure it out a bit more. The room my office is in has slanted ceilings where the roof comes down. My thought is to be able to close those areas off with a sliding wall… of bookshelves. Under one of the roof sides is a daybed and a small closet that houses most of my lego to build. Under the other is my sewing area. I will probably try it with the daybed side first.
I’m also thinking that if I do it on the daybed side, I could close the bookshelves to nap or watch some TV or something. Many possibilites!
Unfortunately, the ADHD is real in my world and I have misplaced ALL THREE spirit levels. Now we are presented with the forever ADHD conundrum. Do we:
1) Wait 2-6 weeks for the area where it might be to get tidied up and one to three spirit levels to be discovered, or
2) Purchase a new spirit level and have one to three of the old ones appear the day after the newly purchased one could be returned.
I need the spirit level to make sure the floating boxes I’m putting on the wall are, well, level.
And finally… I HAVE A CROWBAR! We’ll have to take a moment and see if we can sort out that cord that’s catching the dishwasher and being the bane of my existence. If we can do that then one of this week’s pressing projects is cutting down the OSB and creating the platform that gets the dishwasher level with the tile. And to address the cord problem, I might cut a groove in the OSB to give the cord a place to sit without being in the way for when we remodel the kitchen.
Garden
I’m getting the seed starting area set up, slowly but surely. It’s on my bookshelf to-do board. I have the shelves, lights, reusable seed starting trays, the drip tray, and an overabundance of seeds and confidence. I also have a small hydroponic setup that I might start some chiles in because I don’t think they’d do well in our climate (though I might try under glass for the 2026 growing season).
(Also, a friend made me that magnet of Basti on a gourd. I don’t know why he’s on a gourd, but he looks adorable and I love it!)
This week, I need to go through my seeds and start making choices. We’re definitely doing tomatoes this year, but I haven’t decided which ones and what past that. Definitely some flowers.
As for getting the raised beds going, I have a lead on the hinges that are used for pallet raised beds and a local supplier of rough sawn larch. It might not get all done this year, but it is now much closer to possible. While yes, I could continue with the plan of posts and metal roofing, I also want to have some lower raised beds and I don’t want to have to cut metal and then fold it over.
– Personal –
Cooking
We’ve been trying out a lot of new recipes lately, so I figured I’d give a review of how we liked it!
White Chicken Chili 8.5/10. This is going into the rotation while we have green chiles in a can (hopefully we can get a greenhouse in next year and have that as a chile-growing option. If not, I’m converting the bathroom we rarely use into a hydroponics room. I used quark instead of Neufchatel or cream cheese because that’s what I had on hand. Do not use a smaller dutch oven for this. I used my 2.4 liter brasier and I had to stir carefully, it was practically at the top. Perfect use for home or store canned chicken.
Spicy Black Beans with Cous Cous as written, 3/10. Adjusted, 8/10. Another that’s going into the rotation but it needed some serious adjustment. Add salt. Add pepper. Add seasoning. As written, it’s bland. If you season it up (swap green chiles for bell peppers, or cherry tomatoes in a can for the diced tomatoes), it’s quite nice.
Marsala Chicken 10/10 no notes. First, it’s a Budget Bytes recipe, which means that it has been tested and made sure to be solid. Second, the gravy turned out perfect and while mashed potatoes is always a winner with it, I think I’d go with salt potatoes (I prefer this Instant Pot/pressure cooker recipe, I find the potatoes are creamier). This is doable as a weeknight meal but it tastes like a weekend meal.
Random
The migration to self-hosted/self-owned is slow going but progressing. Sure, I’m not going to be able to do everything, but getting further away from someone else being able to read my shit is better. And I’m never going to be able to completely divest from the Google or Apple infrastructure unless I want to lose a lot of personal conveniences, the most notable being my insulin pump that is integrated with CamAPS FX. But I can choose what aspect of my digital life I utilise a major company for, and I think email, storage, and creation (where possible) are good ones to self-host where possible.
Thanks for joining me on this week’s journey into holy crap, that’s a lot going in the brain and some going out the hands. I hope that everyone had a decent week, that you were able to do things that soothed the soul and made your brain feel like it was getting pets.
Take care of yourselves and one another, and we’ll see you next week for more organised chaos.
All my best,
Ryn
Endnotes
- This is incomplete. The sensors are in the office but not installed. I am waiting on more small adhesive magnets to replace the larger ones that the setup comes with. ↩︎
- I hit a block with this until I learned more about how IR codes work. I now have the IR remote working for watching things with the projector, but not yet for shutting it down when we’re done. Possible weekend project. ↩︎
- This is waiting on the aforementioned connector to the solar panel for power. After that, we’re probably dealing with a few working hours of getting it to work as planned. ↩︎
- This is ordered and on the way. ↩︎
@musings I had no inkling I'd enjoy DCC as much as I do. I binged 1-6 end to end after chancing the first and had to wait almost a year for 7 but it was just what I expected, and wanted.Top notch pulp reading/listening.I read the Red Rising books myself so I'd recommend them fully but I can absolutely understand an audio book style change putting you off. That'd kill my enjoyment as well.
Dungeon Crawler Carl was recommended in the same breath as someone singing the praises of Project Hail Mary (which I loved and think is superior as an audiobook), so I figured I’d give it a try and honestly, for as massively long as each DCC book is, they don’t seem like it. By The Bedlam Bride, I was able to tell who was who and even if I didn’t remember everything, I remembered enough because Hays does a great job of it. (And the production and editing is top notch!)
I might come back to the back half of Red RIsing when gardening season gets underway. I get through a lot of books when it’s time to get out and garden.
Given that very short list of ‘books I like’… any suggestions come to mind?
@musings based on the fact I read and loved all three of your referenced I'd recommend anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky (@aptshadow though he now is mostly on Bluesky)I really enjoyed his Service Model recently and am listening to Cage of Souls now. Alien clay is also great and his Children of Time series is excellent.