Saturday, 23rd May, 2026

This site is like a broken record - I wonder what a modern equivalent of that is…a gif? - here am I, moaning about things, 1, 2, 3, 5, … year later and nothing has changed. Buy a mac; don’t buy one, spend too long on the computer, don’t do anything useful, want a new blog (actually I don’t want a new one right now, I just wish I could write in the one I have), oh yeah, actually write in the blog.

It’s hard to break my habits of a lifetime. Sit down on the computer and “do stuff”…or mostly don’t do things. I want to get rid of the computers. Maybe just has a single laptop. But then that would be annoying for everyone else. The kids used it today to do their homework. It’s really just me, who needs to do something else. In the summer time, it’s easy to think I could go out for a walk, or finish cutting the hedge in the garden in the evening instead of sitting on the computer - but I don’t - whereas the winter, that’s not going to happen.

I don’t even write in the family DayOne journal. I haven’t even loaded the photos I took on the camera from last weekend onto the computer yet. The camera is just sitting right next to me by the computer. A friend at work bought a X100IV and that kickstarted me into using my XE4 again, but that didn’t last. I reinstalled Proxmox on my server, which is what I had a while ago before two drives failed and I started again with just a Debian install. This time I wanted to make a docker LXC, so it would be easier to backup vs. Installing docker on the host. I’ve started that but not quite finished. Installed Home Assistant again as the vendor who made our solar inverter and battery went bust, and I want to make sure I’m in control via home assistant. But also not finished setting that up. Was also going to install immich and get rid of photos on iCloud.

I mostly just don’t want to do these things. It’s not exciting configuring a server, or dealing with photos, or really using a computer.

It’s a bit like people who don’t want to have a smart phone because of social media, but then struggle without one as everything else assumes you have a smart phone. The computer stays where it is though, and, again, it’s me who needs to do something else.

I’m writing this on my tiny setup - the Apple Bluetooth keyboard and a small iPhone stand I printed. I like it, and haven’t used it in a while. I had to make myself use it. I like the focus of it, and I like that I’m not sat in the desk chair. Plus when I sit at the other side of the room, I’m behind the door and so no-one thinks I’m in here!

I have been using the 3D printer again. So that’s a plus, vs. It sat there doing nothing.

We have a “new to us” car. It’s pretty fancy, but once you set it up and put most things on auto, then you can just get on a drive. It’s quite nice not having a dash behind the steering wheel. Means we have three cars for a couple of weeks before the other one goes back. So a bit of driveway juggling.

I’m still amazed by myself, when I think that “it’s good to get away from the computer and type here”, my next immediate thought is “so therefore I should get a mac Neo, or maybe a mini and monitor, or maybe an iMac.” “Yeh an iMac would go nicely just here, the small 24” would actually work quite well. I like this keyboard, use a Bluetooth mouse and get on with things. In some ways I would like to replace everything I have with a single iMac, for the simplicity.

I learnt the Epson V850 pro scanners are now discontinued, because they couldn’t source the camera/scanning part anymore. Makes me think I should try and get one, as I’m not sure what else is out there that’s equivalent. In case I finally develop my own medium format. Perhaps worthwhile if I actually took any film photos.

It’s easiest if I just do nothing and leave everything as it is. Complain some more on here later and then carry on.

Keep coming back to should I have a separate email host and what domain should I use for email - sort of don’t want it to be what I use for blogging as I want to keep it spam/scam free. Spam filters work fine but I want something for banking and insurnace and proper accounts without being polluted by the internet. Whilst then it doesn’t matter what it is, I still cannot decide. Mostly I want it to be a .com or .net just for ease of saying over the phone (should that occur) and maybe for reliability. Something short and snappy, but of course that’s very difficult, unless I use numbers. Like fxb5.net. Not checked that but along those lines. Oh course I over think it and wonder if people automatically assume 5 or five?

It would be good to go through my password manager, log into old accounts and delete them. I must have 300+ accounts in it from the past 15 years.

Oh yeh, maybe I should just not bother with blogs.

Time to play Diablo 4 and see if my friends are online.