Happy New Year!
Or not.
I woke up this fine New Year only to find that Apple's HomeKit HomeShit had shit the bed... yet again. Most of my devices were non-responsive and half my Automations were missing. I'd say that this is a bad omen of how my 2026 is going to go... but this happens at least twice a year (it happened four times in 2025, I kept count)... which means this is likely just a coincidence. As always, no fucking clue why this happens or how to fix it without resetting everything. And rewriting all my automations, since Apple doesn't bother to back up anything despite these failures being a regular occurrence. Holy fucking shit I wish I hadn't moved to Apple for my smart home. But my previous gear was discontinued, so I did it. And should have gone with something else. Anything else.
In an inexplicable turn of events, a shocking number of fireworks went off last night. An insane number. They started at 7:30pm and ran constantly all night... traumatizing my cats. And I don't get it. We didn't get this many fireworks for the 4th of July. Perhaps people are so sick and tired of 2025 that it seemed appropriate?
Though why they think 2026 is going to be any better is a mystery.
There was no white Christmas where I live this year.
When my mom was a kid, the snow got so deep that they used to jump off the roof of a two-story house into it. When I was a kid, the snow got so deep that we used to tunnel under it from yard to yard. But this year? Nothing. No snow, last night it was just bitter, bitter cold. It was so cold last night that I double-bagged my feet with wool socks. Something I never felt the need to do when I was in Antarctica. I also asked Siri to "make it warmer" in my house, at which point I was told "Your thermostat is already set to 71°, and it may take some time to warm up." Very helpful. Thanks so much. Not a great night to have no working electric blanket.
But maybe I'm getting a white New Year?
As I type this, it's trying to snow. A light, loose powder, but enough to cover my back porch and that's something.
Not enough to stave off drought this Summer, but... something.
More tech drama. Have I mentioned how much I loathe Apple HomeKit HomeShit?
If I haven't (let's be real, I definitely have) then you should probably know that my hatred is very real, and has now reached such depths as to send me into a rage just thinking about it. As I wrote yesterday I awoke to find that on the first day in this Year of Our Lord, 2026, 3/4 of my "smart" home devices were offline and half my Automations were missing. Now, when this happens I can usually get most of those devices to come back online if I power-cycle all my hubs (nothing can be done to bring back the automations). It's for this reason that I have non-HomeShit power plugs on all my iPod minis and AppleTVs.
And so, before I left on an errand I had to run before work, I sat in my car to power off all the hubs. Then, when I finished my errand and made it to the office, I turned them all back on. Three hours later as I ate lunch, I pulled up Apple's HomeShit app on my iPhone... and... there were stil six devices which hadn't recovered. Which means I'm going to waste time removing them then resetting them so I can re-add them before re-writing the Automations that got trashed somehow.
Easy.
Just time-consuming.
And here's a new wrinkle... the re-written automations do not work!
No idea why. I can test them. They test as expected. But they don't work.
For exmaple... I have it so when one of the lights in the guest bathroom is turned on, the other light turns on too. Turn one off, they both turn off. It's incredibly basic, but important because otherwise it's not light enough in there.
Absolutely no idea what I do now. After dinner I'll delete them all and try re-writing one more time. If that doesn't work, I guess I have to try removing devices and re-adding them. If that doesn't work, then I guess I have to completely reset absolutely everything and start over from scratch.
If that ends up being the case, I can say goodbye to my weekend.
Which brings me to a decision I have to make...
I gotta tell you... Option #3 is looking very appealing to me. If I waste two days and the shit is still broken, I'm going to be angry and never get over it. If I trash HomeShit and start over with something else which ends up broken, I'm going to be angry and never get over it. If I just end up giving up completely on having a "smart" home, I'm totally going to be angry.
But I'll get over it.
I just have to go back to remembering where all the light switches are and figure out and possible have to re-think some lighting in a few places. Like the guest bathroom.
In other tech drama, I'm slowly getting all my data transfered from my QNAP NAS to my UGREEN NAS.
This is taking a while because I have a metric shit-ton of photos to copy. I always took a lot of photos when I traveled. Then when the charity closed and I wasn't traveling as much, I ended up with Jake and Jenny and started taking a metric shit-ton of cat photos. You know how it goes.
My problem is (and always has been) that I don't sort through photos after I take them. I snap! snap! snap! snap! take them with the intent of keeping the best images and tossing the rest. Except I never have time to do that. Maybe I'll commit to sorting through 50 photos every morning when I wake up and see if I can whittle down the number of photos in my archive by half. Or, if I get serious about it, whittle down to a quarter of what I'm sitting on. Which should be easy because there's just so many pictures that are practically identical. There's AI software which is supposed to make the task easier, but I've not looked into it. And maybe I should.
In the meanwhile, I guess I save my money for a new pair of hard drives, given the ones I have are all older and probably not very reliable. They will likely be giving up the ghost soon.
Like myself.
Or like my patience with HomeShit, which has now evaporated.
Last night after work I went out to eat because it had been a very long day, I was too tired to cook, and I wanted breakfast. And it was wonderful. Perfectly cooked. Perfectly seasoned. I couldn't have made it better myself. It was so good that I was able to overlook the cost, which was expensive. But no more expensive than anything else out there now-a-days, which means it was actually a fair price.
Tonight when it was time to go home after another very long day, I was seriously wanting to go out for breakfast again, but didn't want it to get weird, and furthermore didn't have the money to be spending two nights in a row.
Instead I went home and had cereal with toast. Followed by apple sauce and crackers. Followed by freeze-dried strawberries and more crackers.
And I ate all that in the cold.
Can somebody please explain Apple's thinking when Siri's response to "Hey Siri, make it warmer" inevitably ends up being "It's 70° in here and could take a while to warm up. Are you sure you want to make it warmer?"
When I'm cold and want it warmer, what the fuck difference is telling me a number going to make? Is their thinking that I'm going to hear a number and think "Oh. I guess I'm not cold after all! Never mind, Siri!"... because what kind of stupid shit is that?
Likewise, what good does telling me that it could take a while to heat up going to do? Do they honestly believe that I'm going to hear that and say "Oh, if it's going to take a while, just forget it then!"... because that's even more stupid.
JUST MAKE IT FUCKING WARMER LIKE I ASKED! DON'T WASTE MY TIME WITH THIS NONSENSE THAT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE MY BEING COLD!
This kind of idiotic shit drives me insane. But when it comes to Siri, about all you get is idiotic shit. Siri is 14 years old but, due to how smart everything else is getting smarter while it stays the same, Siri seems to be getting more and more stupid. We were supposed to get an update well over a year ago, but it still hasn't shown up.
What has shown up is a headache, so I guess I'll grab an aspirin and call it an early night.
Assuming my cats don't wake me up because they're cold.
I may be in desperate need of sleep, but don't you fear about your weekly smattering of bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Seek Shelter! This squirrel got lucky during a storm...
Adorable. But animals usually are.
• NEWSFLASH: Young Wisconsin man dies from asthma attack after price of inhaler skyrocketed nearly $500. BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD, PEOPLE!
• Fuzzy & Buttered! Am I the only one who freaks out over how sage is fuzzy before you cook it? Delicious delicious sage...
Can't beat it on butternut squash with browned butter poured over the top! Except now my home is going to smell like buttered popcorn for the next two days.
• Eight! Eight Dollar Foot Long! Subway is advertising their new "Sub Club" where you buy three foot-longs and get the fourth for free. So I go to the app to find out how much they’ve increased the prices to cover this promotion. A Veggie Delight is $10.69 now. With a free fourth sub, the price ends up being $8.00. This is for a veggie sandwich with extra cheese (because their cheese is whisper thin now, and they stopped putting double cheese on veggie subs years ago). A bun, cheese, and veggies is $8.00... but not now... eventually. — Remember $5.00 foot-longs, which you could get with pricey meat options if you wanted? I wonder how much those subs cost now? This kind of "deal" is such bullshit. I’d rather eat at a place that just gives me a fair price at the start rather than holding my money hostage until I buy enough to get a fourth sub. Yeah, I know a lot of places do this to encourage repeat visits, but $10.69? My burger meal card has initial lower prices which earns you a free meal after ten. That seems a smarter deal because you don’t face sticker shock every time you eat there. $10.69... for a cheese sandwich? Really?
• Techflation! This bullshit is getting out of hand...
And here it is in action...
I'd like to know how asshole corporations are justifying this. Assuming they feel the need to. It's all monopolies and collusion from here on out. We've got a government that doesn't give a fuck. On the contrary, the government is being paid to look the other way.
• Apple Macintosh Hot Take: It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons. And indeed it is very hard, because it's fucking sloppy. But that's Apple now... fucking sloppy.
• Cinematically Real! This is the video that nails it. This is why the Avatar movies work when others abusing technology in film fail...
These movies are pure cinematic spectacle. I cannot wait to see Fire & Ash.
And now back to your regularly-scheduled Sunday...
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