I’m a serial mind-changer

I sometimes change my mind (about any number of things) for reasons like better information, the price of something, or any number of other reasons. Every once in a while I’ll change my mind about something several times. Like about breakfast.

Back in June of last year, I wrote about bran cereal, because I tried a new (to me) one, but decided not to switch brands. However, I later decided that I would switch to the brand, and I talked about that in a follow-up post last November. I’ve now switched back to my original bran.

The fundamental reason for my switch back was the taste: I never actually liked it—it’s more more accurate to say that I tolerated the taste because of the cereal’s somewhat better nutritional profile. As I said last June:

There’s an irony here: Many people I know personally have screwed up their faces at the mere mention of All-Bran, declaring, "it tastes like cardboard", which made me wonder how they knew that. As it turned out, once I tried the Woolworth’s cereal, I understood: It’s not necessary to actually taste cardboard to get the sense that something must taste like cardboard would. To me, the High Fibre Bran was exactly like that

Irony maybe, but the taste never grew on me—in fact, the only actual flavour was the lemon yoghurt (maybe I should say the only pleasant flavour?). I recognised from the very beginning that “Just as I like All-Bran, which many people I know don’t like, it’s logical that other folks may love the High Fibre Bran cereal. To each their own.” Exactly.

In the November 2025 update post, I said:

I decided to continue to buy it—for now: If history is any indicator, it probably isn’t forever, because Woolworths has a habit of dropping it’s own home-brand products, though for all I know, they may just stop exporting them from Australia to New Zealand. In any event, it may not be around forever, but, for now, it’s my choice.

Woolworths has not (yet?) dropped the cereal, but I was nevertheless correct in guessing that “it probably isn’t forever”. I could get all philosophical and say “nothing is forever”, or wharever, but this is actually just about me changing my mind, then changing it again. Like I said: I'm a cereal—sorry, serial—mind-changer.

Important Note: The names of brands/products/companies listed in this post are all registered trademarks, and are used here for purposes of description and clarity. No company or entity provided any support or payment for this blog post, and all products were purchased by me at normal consumer prices. So, the opinions I expressed are my own genuinely held opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the manufacturers, any retailer, or any known human being, alive or dead, real or corporate. Just so we’re clear.

Unexpected updates

Apparently, I sometimes do Updates posts. Who knew? At any rate, there are a couple posts that have updates, and both of them were totally unexpected.

The big cover-up

Of my many (many, many…) conundrums (mostly about food), there’s one that has kept popping up: The best way to cover may patio table. Part of the reason I wanted a roof over my patio was so that I wouldn’t have to keep my table and chairs permanently under a cover, but even after it's installed I’ll probably still use a cover in the winter, when it rains a lot and I’m less likely to use the table. However, until then a cover is required at all times.

On May 23 of last year, I talked about needing a new cover for my patio table and chairs, and how I wasn’t sure what I’d do. In the end, put the old patio cover on top of the one that was wearing out, and just taped over the holes. It functioned well for quite awhile, but a few months ago I noticed it was starting to fall apart, and several storms with winds started to shred it. I needed a new cover.

I went to the big box hardware and home centre store where I bought the two old covers, and then I noticed that a higher quality one was on special, and it touted its resistance to UV light, which was the main culprit in the old covers’ deaths. So, I bought the more expensive option (pictured in the photo above, but it’s actually a very dark gray, not the silver gray the photo suggests).

The new cover is the best yet: A kind of heavy vinyl, it doesn’t get whipped around by the wind like the old ones did, and, being a dark colour, it dries quickly when it gets wet in the rain. Had I known, I’d have bought this cover in the first place. When I put it on the table, I put it on top of all the old covers, mainly because storms were on the way. Then I looked around and found chunks of the old cover that the wind had ripped off and thrown into the weeds at the edge of the patio. When the new patio cover is installed, I’ll permanently get rid of what’s left of the old covers.

I changed my mind about food. Again.

Back in June, I published a post called “Cereal selection” about high fibre breakfast cereals I tried. I was pretty dismissive of the Woolworths own-brand, “High Fibre Bran”. However, one thing in that post stuck in my mind. I wrote: “The bottom line for me is that [High Fibre Bran] was better than All-Bran in all the things I monitor, however…” and yet I chose to not switch. I later decided I may have been too dismissive, and I recently tried the High Fibre Bran again precisely because it is healthier for all the things I track, things related to my particular health needs/problems.

So, I decided to continue to buy it—for now: If history is any indicator, it probably isn’t forever, because Woolworths has a habit of dropping it’s own home-brand products, though for all I know, they may just stop exporting them from Australia to New Zealand. In any event, it may not be around forever, but, for now, it’s my choice. [March 31, 2026: This update has an update. Follow the link to see it.]

I probably don’t update posts as much as I “should”, but sometimes updates to old posts surprise me so much that I need to do updates. Both of these two topics are definitely in that category.

The weird holiday weekend

Today is Easter Monday, a public holiday in New Zealand, and the conclusion of a four-day holiday weekend. It’s also the weirdest holiday weekend. Still.

I wasn’t originally going to say anything about it this year, especially because I pretty much said all I wanted to in a post on Easter Monday last year, especially my criticism of the wacky and very confusing trading ban rules (most shops are supposed to be closed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even though Easter isn’t a public holiday, and no TV ads can be broadcast on either of those days, or Christmas Day, not until after noon on Anzac Day and every Sunday. There’s since been an update to to something I said in that post last year, especially about the ad bans. I wrote:

The current broadcasting minister, a former TV show host of dubious ability as a minister, has blandly promised a re-write of the [Broadcasting] Act (written way before the Internet or streaming services were a thing), but given the chaos under our current three-ring circus coalition government, I doubt it’ll actually happen. I think that ending the ad bans ought to be done as quickly as possible: They make absolutely no sense, deny NZ broadcasters revenue that foreigners still get, and has nothing whatsoever to do with New Zealand workers and days off.

The first update is that the Media Minister I wrote about was sacked only a few weeks after my post (apparently I’m very influential…). Then, in December of last year, her replacement as Media Minister announced that the government would introduce legislation to allow TV advertising on Sundays and public holidays, because the ad bans don’t apply to streaming services (like YouTube) or to radio, meaning broadcast TV is losing money that other media providers can still get. The Minister told RNZ in the linked article,"Traditional media outlets are operating in an extremely difficult environment and as the government, we must ensure regulatory settings are enabling the best chance of success." Indeed. He also said it “could generate approximately $6 million for the industry” which doesn’t sound like much to me. Even so, I think that’s absolutely the right thing to do—though the government hasn’t yet actually passed the bill.

I still think the trading bans should be removed from Good Friday and Easter, not the least because New Zealand is now majority “no religion”, but mostly because those holidays don’t have the same sort of traditions like family gatherings that Christmas Day does (the other all-day holiday with a trading ban, plus Anzac Day morning has a trading ban, too). So I’m fine with keeping the ban on trading Christmas Day, but the trading bans on Good Friday and Easter Sunday seem silly to me. At the very least, the TV advertising bans should be ended, and maybe they finally soon will be.

Intended updates

There are many (many, many…) posts I’d planned on doing this year, but never managed to get done, and for lots of reasons. In several cases, I began rough drafts that never went anywhere—again, for lots of reasons. One of the ones that kept popping into my head was doing an Updates post. It turns out, the last time I did a post with multiple Updates was in July 2023, though I’ve done more specific posts with that tag/label—and it’s entirely possible I did one after that but forgot to tag it properly. In any case, here we are.

The ongoing peanut butter saga

Back in April, I published ”Kitchen experiments abound” about a variety of food items I’d been trying, but one of them was just buying the peanut butter I prefer in a large jar. That wasn’t a success.

The jar lasted much longer than the ordinary (small) jar I’d been buying, but it lasted a bit too long—months, I think. The problem was that by the end, the peanut butter at the bottom of the jar was too hard to spread, probably because I didn’t properly stir it when I opened it. At any rate, that wasn’t what I wanted, so I’ve gone back to the small jar I’d been using.

One day I was in a supermarket and saw the smaller jar was on special. The unit price per gram was lower than the unit price on the large jar (ordinarily, when neither is on special, the unit price for the large jar is lower, as I’d expect. I realised that if I buy a small jar when it’s on special, and before I need one, it’ll be a good compromise, giving me a somewhat lower cost, and helping me ensure I don’t run out. Hopefully, this is the end of my peanut butter saga.

Tabling a change

On May 23 of this year, I talked about needing a new cover for my patio table and chairs. In the end, I chose a third option: I took the old patio cover and put it on top of the one that was wearing out, and just taped over the holes. It’s functioned well ever since. In fact, in one way it’s been much better: Whenever the breezes were strong, the cover would billow and make a lot of noise, but when I put the old cover on top, that pretty much stopped—maybe it was the added weight? This isn’t a permanent solution, of course, but it at least gives me more time to figure out what I want to do without spending a single cent to buy that time.

This topic has been updated. Follow the link to see the update.

Some unusual updates

In February 2019, I published a post called “A kitchen failure” in which I talked about unsuccessfully using a plant-based chicken substitute from a company called “Sunfed Meats”. I next tried their beef mince (hamburger) substitute in October 2022, and that was somewhat more successful. Finally, in November 2022, I tried their bacon substitute, which I thought was boring.

I mention that to underscore that I was both utterly surprised, and also not at all surprised, that in April of this year, it was announced that Sunfed Meats was closing down. According to RNZ:

Sunfed’s CEO, Shama Sukul Lee, said the "plant-based bubble" had burst. She also said Lee said Covid, staff shortages, supply chain disruptions, and skyrocketing costs had left the business "pretty battered and bruised" and in need of a cash injection, which they couldn’t obtain.

The second part is undoubtedly true, because it was for many companies in various industries, but the first part? There are more plant-based options now than ever, so if the bubble has really “burst”, it didn’t destroy the entire industry. When I first saw the news alert, my first thought was how unsurprised I was, based on my experience using their products. Still, I’d moved on not long after my final experience with their products and I not longer use meat substitutes, making meat-free meals instead.

It turns out, I also have an update about a meat-free meal without meat substitutes. Back in July 2018, I wrote about a lentil-based bolognaise recipe we’d tried, and I mentioned where I found the recipe, the BBC Series Eat Well For Less. At the end of November of this year, the co-presenter of the series, Gregg Wallace, was accused of "inappropriate behaviour" that allegedly rises to the legal definition of sexual harassment. That caught me by surprise.

Speaking of TV presenters, back March of 2018. I talked about a trick to make a bitter cup of coffee better, something I’d learned watching the BBC Two series, The Secrets of Your Food with presenter Dr. Michael Mosely. In June of this year, Dr. Mosley died while on a hike in Agia Marina, Symi, Greece. Following an inquest into his death, the coroner said that the cause of Dr. Mosley's death was "indeterminate" and "unascertainable", and that it "was most likely attributable either to heatstroke (accidental) or non-identified pathological cause". I still use the coffee trick I learned from him, but never the intermittent fasting he also advocated. Mostly, I was surprised by his unexpected death.

So, there was an update to several older posts that didn’t surprise me, and two updates to even older posts that did surprise me, and all of those updates happened this year. I can’t remember such major updates to old posts happening in the same year before.

• • •

There! I finally got around to to the updates I wanted to get done this year. The Update backlog is now clear for the new year.

Onward.

Changing Memories, sort of

Well, well, today I was served up a Facebook “Memory” (at right) that was full of things that have changed. Clearly that’s never happened before, I mean surely! Still, it’s a good opportunity to revist those halcyon days of yesteryear, November 15, 2022. Let’s go!

What I posted on Facebook that day later ended up in a blog post, ”The day ended with less than at its start”, and that post included the photo in the "Memory". That blog post was much more detailed than what I said on Facebook, as is often the case, but because it was shorter than my blog post, I’ll quote from what I wrote first, my Facebook post.

I said, “I bought a cultivator (that claw-like thing I’m holding) and a new hammer,” and I was actually holding both in the photo, which I used first on Facebook, then at the bottom of my blog post. I went on:

I hope the cultivator will help me removing weeds from the bank (when the weather permits…). I misplaced my hammer, and I know from experience that the best way to find a misplaced tool is to buy another one. Actually, we noticed some years ago the old hammer’s head was getting loose, and we needed a new one. Never got around to it. Today was as good a time as any.

It turned out that the claw thing has been very useful, though the weeds on the bank completely grew back (and then some…) after all the relentless rainy weather last “summer”. And we’re in the midst of more rainy weather right now—for awhile, anyway: A drought this summer is still possible/probable. Also, within days of the Facebook post a year ago today, I did find my old hammer. It was, not surprisingly, in plain sight all along. I now have two. And, I no longer sing, “if I had a hammer,” unless the next line was something about in addition to the other two…

Next up, I talked about my project to add storage to my laundry area:

I also got some storage containers for the shelves in my laundry area (and filled two of them so far)—but that project has actually stalled, because once I was done hanging the shelves, I didn’t like the result. I’m working on some changes, so The Reveal will be further delayed. This was supposed to be a simple little project, LOL.

A short time after that post, I finished the laundry project and shared the results on Facebook and in a blog post, and, again, the blog post was much more detailed. However, two of the containers I mentioned a year ago are still empty (!), and a couple others could easily be empty, too—but, why waste my time/energy sorting them out when I don’t need them, right? Actually, right now I’m in the midst of plotting changes to that area, and I may repurpose the containers elsewere—and whatever happens, it’ll end up here (and probably Facebook…).

I made that Facebook post after Leo and I got home, because I was doing some shopping while he was being groomed. I said about that:

Still, Leo looks good and he sometimes just stares at me—because he can actually see me now that his fur is trimmed away from his eyes. This evening, I let him outside after his dinner, and I watched him through a small window in the lounge, with the blinds tilted open. He raised his head and froze, looking directly at me from around 10 metres away, then came running back to the house and came back in through the door. That’s never happened before. The lighting must’ve been just right.

This year, Leo isn’t shorn, but over the past several months I’ve been slowly working on grooming him, mainly getting him used to it, and also taking my time to learn how to do it properly. However, I never let his fur get long over his eyes, so that staring at me in wonder thing doesn’t happen. Instead, he just stares at me until I give him treats or let him outside. I think it’s mind control. He may have forgiven me last year, but this year I’m trying to avoid the need for forgiveness.

None of these updates are important, obviously. I just think it’s kind of funny the changes that have happened since then, especially that I really did find my original hammer as soon as bought a new one. Mostly, I suppose, it’s an opportunity to point —especially to myself—that my life really doesn’t stay the same or stand still, not even unimportant things, no matter how it may sometimes seem. It's good to remind myself of that.

Another personal victory today

Today I had a major victory, but first a reminder: Back in July, my Ethernet switch (which is kind of like a traffic cop for my wired home computer network) failed. I had to do troubleshooting I’d never had to do before (such things were Nigel’s role). I worked out that the problem was a failed power adapter, but there was also at least one port that had failed.

Next, I mapped the ports in my network so I could tell which ones were most important. I then connected the most Important ports to my wifi router, and I could again watch streaming video.

Meanwhile, I knew Nigel had used a different unmanaged 16-port Ethernet switch, and I knew exactly where it was—and I don’t say THAT very often! However, I didn’t know where the power adapter was (that’s much more common…). I spent time, off and on, searching if could buy a replacement.

Now you’re all caught up.

Last night I decided to search for a replacement again, and I still couldn’t find anything. So, I went to the maker’s website to look at the manual for the version of the switch I had. Then, it finally sunk in: There IS no power adapter (which is why I couldn’t find one). The label over the power connection clearly said that, but I had a blind spot because I’d convinced myself the power connection wasn’t a standard AC power cord connection, even though it was.

When I first looked at the switch, I thought it used a power cord just like all my former PCs used, but Macs haven’t in years, and that’s why I didn’t really recognise the connection, and convinced myself it was a proprietary cord. I know now that this was stupid, but at the time I wasn’t really working with full information, or understanding.

I have a box I put all the cables I’ve found into, so I went to it today and found two power cords in there. I plugged at the Ethernet cables into the switch, plugged it in, switched the power on and, of course, it all worked perfectly. My entire wired network is now up and running again, and it’s because of my own efforts and sweat (literally—it was HOT in the garage today!).

Honestly, it was all far easier than I can convey, but the specifics aren’t really the point. I was faced with a challenge because of a technology failure that I had to fix on my own for the first time ever. I focused, breathed, and persisted until I succeeded. Yes, I should have realised the power cord thing immediately, but I didn’t, and I don’t care: I DID figure it out and I got there in the end. I’m proud of myself. What I’m happiest about, though, is that this sort of success is becoming more common. I really am slowly finding my way forward, and I think that’s worth celebrating.

Updates happen

I’ve been unavailable for the past nine days, which isn’t to imply I’ve been busy all that time, though I’ve been busy some of it. There were also a few times I had or made time to sit down to work on blog posts, but that didn’t go anywhere. All of which happens from time to time.

However, my absence means that there are a lot of things that I haven’t talked about that I otherwise would’ve, and some of those are updates to things I’ve already posted. Because of that, a good old fashioned updates post seemed like a good way to update a bunch of those posts all at once.

Switching to progress

Wednesday of last week, I published ”Frustration and investigation”, a post in which I talked about having to deal with a non-working ethernet switch, a device that’s essentially the traffic cop for my wired computer network. Since then, several things have happened, including finding workarounds for now.

In the days after I published the post, I found the multimeter I was looking for, and I tested the power supply for the non-working ethernet switch. It appears it may be faulty, however, I can’t know for sure until I find a compatible power supply to try it with, and right now I don’t have one. Also, this possible evidence doesn’t mean that the switch itself isn’t faulty, as my next discovery showed.

I also found the special gizmo for testing ethernet cables, and I used it to test the wall outlet that failed some weeks back. It was fine. The fact that wall outlet didn’t seem to work (even though the wiring in the wall was fine) could actually be evidence that the ethernet switch has a bad port, or it that it was beginning to fail compeletly.

Whatever the realities of the devices, I decided to disconnect the non-working switch from my router (which is also used for wifi), and instead connect the wall outlet behind my TV to it so I can watch streaming TV again. I also connected my office’s wall outlet to it so I can use my computer on my wired network rather than wifi (not the least because the wired network is so much faster, which is especially noticeable when upload a podcast episode).

This isn’t a permanent solution, however: My file servers aren’t connected to anything at the moment, and, at the moment, only two of the eight ethernet wall outlets in my house are connected to the router (I plan to try connecting one more). So, I need to get the original switch working or to find the power cord for the old switch Nigel got us. However, for the moment, I finally figured out a “good enouigh for now” solution.

Update – October 10, 2023: This Ethernet switch story has been updated again.

Road to somewhere

Back on July 7, I talked about the opening of the new road connecting my area directly to the rest of Hamilton. Since then, I’ve been over the road many times, and it’s been everything I hoped it would be I’ve driven home from my mother-in-law’s place twice since the road opened, once in the daytime and once at night. In the daytime it took around 14 minutes, and at night half that—pretty much as I’d expected. I haven’t used it as much as I eventually will, and for a lot of reasons: School holidays ended this past Monday, and, as I’ve said before, I avoid The Base shopping precinct during school holidays. The ongoing and unrelenting bad weather has played a part, too, but that’s too common and ordinary a thing to bother updating.

Bloomin’ good thing

At the end of June, I published a post about some photos I snapped, and at the end of that post I talked about two peace lily plants that were blooming. Of the two, only one was in full bloom, and the other was getting ready to. That’s all different now.

The photo at the top of this post is a closeup of the peace lily in my en suite, which at the end of June had one "almost bloom". Now, it has six blooms, only one of which isn’t fully open (in the centre of the photo at the bottom of this post). I was surprised to see so many flower stalks shooting up after my post in June, but it’s really nice to see the plant’s current exuberance.

• • •

There we have it: Some updates to recent posts that might well have had their own posts had I been making posts over the past nine days. I still have other posts I need to finish or edit, plus other ones I haven’t even started yet, including posts that add on to other recent ones—not updates, but more of an, “and another thing,” perhaps.

Onward.

Updates March on

Six weeks ago, I resurrected update posts, which are blog posts in which I update older blog posts. I had no specific plans or schedule for doing more updates, but I think I’ll try once a month, and the first of the month is as good a time as any. And so, here we are.

First, an update about these updates.

These posts aren’t exactly easy to do. First, because I didn’t do them very often, there have always been a lot of posts that could use an update, most of which never got one. Life happens, and all that. The bigger issue is about how I do these: Every update includes a link back to the earlier post I’m talking about, of course, but then I add an update to that older post with a link to the specific part of the new update that talks about it. Linking to previous posts is something I do all the time, but not everyone sees posts in chronological order, so and update to that older post is needed. It’s mainly for the convenience of those out-of-sequence readers that I provide a link to the specific part of an update, but it also helps me when I’m doing a new post on that topic—it’s a quicker way for me to get the updated information. Yeah, sure, but it’s really just the sort of unimportant blogging mechanics I do all the time, but seldom mention. And probably a bit anal.

The best part of this? In a blog post providing updates, I forgot to give it the “Updates” tag, something I only found out when I started this post. Oddly enough, it’s not the first time I’ve fixed a mistake in an earlier post. Hard to believe, I know.

I am Mister Clean

A week ago today, I had a Solatube skylight installed in my kitchen, as I wrote about last Saturday. I said in that post, “Unfortunately, all this brightness has allowed me to see how poorly I’d been cleaning my kitchen up until now—I missed a lot because I simply couldn’t see it.” On Sunday (because I was busy before then…), I started the cleaning job, and it was a job: There was a bit of fine dust on the bench and everything on it from cutting the ceiling to put in the skylight lens. And, I had too much on my benchtop.

So, I put what I could into the dishwasher, wiped off or hand washed what I couldn’t, and then wiped down the benchtop in sections. This also allowed me to clear stuff away, mostly by putting things “somewhere” (most of the stuff was out in the first place because I didn’t have a “somewhere” for it to go, so I had to finesse things a bit). It took me a couple days (because I only worked on it when I felt like it had time). That job’s done now, and it turns out I was right in my post last Saturday: Being able to actually see the kitchen, and the cleaning I needed to do, actually was a sort of benefit.

Leo’s ritual

Early last month, I wrote about hanging Sunny’s collar so Leo could sniff it, and there’s been a change since then. I said in my post, “I plan on leaving [the collar] there until he stops sniffing it, and I have no idea how long that will be…” At the time I was thinking maybe a week or two. After all, Sunny’s ashes and collar had been home for nearly a month at that point, and Leo had sniffed it (at first, with my help).

Not long after that post, Leo developed a ritual: Every morning he wakes up when I stir, stretches a lot, yawns, then hops down on the floor—and walks right over to Sunny’s collar to give it a brief sniff. To me, it’s as if he’s saying a little “good morning” to her, but it could be as simple as making sure it’s still there, and/or that he’s not smelling her without seeing her. Whatever the truth is, he clearly still wants to sniff the collar (Jake sniffed it this morning, too, when I went back there for my shower), and I’ll leave it there until he stops. Looks like that may be awhile, and that’s okay. I’m trying to make sure he’s okay, after all.

Error: My success not found

In the middle of March, I published a post, “To err is human, the choice is mine” in which I talked about needing to try to do things, and even fail at them, in order to find out what my limits truly are. I said in that post that, “I’ve already made several” mistakes. When I wrote that, I was thinking about several, but especially a recent thing that I was beginning to think of of as another mistake: A garden shed I bought at the end of February, but that had a frustrating delayed delivery in early March. I began to feel that it was too small for my needs, and I considered sending it back. There’d be a cost, of course, but what held me back was more indecision, this time, of “what if it is okay?” I had to move the box when we brought back the stuff from my storage unit later that month. The box, it was clear, had never been properly sealed, and it started to fall apart when I moved it.

By then, I’d already begun to feel that I needed to own my mistake and put the shed up, anyway (though I’m fairly certain there’s great doubt that I can do it). I could try to sell the unassembled shed, but I know I’d never get anywhere near the (too high) price I paid for it (especially without the original box), so keeping it is probably the best option. I’m now taking this as a learning opportunity—a reminder to not be so damn impatient/impetuous. I absolutely sometimes take far too long to decide things because the fear of making mistakes, as I said in the post that began this update, paralyses me. I should have remained paralysed just a little bit longer. Live and learn—and err. It’s all okay.

• • •

Maybe I’ll do this again on May 1. Maybe I won’t. Either way, there will be changes to things I say on this blog, just as there have been from its very beginning. Change itself is one thing that doesn’t change.

Updating again, again

In July of 2019, I published a post updating earlier posts. It was my first such post in about three years, and today I’m bringing them back again. This is nothing new for me: I have a long and cherished history of starting and stopping series of posts, and sometimes re-starting them again (sometimes again and again…). These updates are to recent posts, from newest to oldest. Sometimes they’re quite minor updates, but changed enough to warrant an update. In my opinion.

Reminders do their job

This past Saturday, I wrote about using using an App to remind me to take my prescriptions. This has turned out to work really well. What I said about it in that post is still true, namely, that I take the doses roughly 12 hours apart and that “I don’t have to rely on my memory to make sure I take my prescriptions,” which is important (and the whole point, after all).

Since that post, I’ve noticed that my watch does tap me on the wrist when it’s time to take my pills, however, I don’t always notice because other alerts are coming through at the same time. That, and it’s quite a gentle tap, so I often miss them.

There’s something that doesn’t work as well as I’d expected, but it’s actually okay: It’s about the way Reminders’ alerts are shared on my various devices. I usually mark that the alert is completed using my phone. However, that doesn’t show up to my laptop (which is my main computer at the moment). I think that may only be happening if the device was on at the time of the alert, in which case the pop-up has to be manually closed. Still, having to click “completed” isn’t exactly a burden—in fact, doing so gives me the same sense of accomplishment I get crossing any task off my list. So, I get a sense of accomplishment twice from the same action. That’s a bonus, in my opinion.

Smoothing it out

Last month I wrote a post about aging as shown by my birthday selfies over the past several years. In that post, I mentioned using moisturiser on my face. Since then, I remembered that Nigel bought a similar one a few weeks or months before what turned out to be his illness first emerged. It turned out to be a different version of the same men’s product I’d bought, and that he’d never used it (it was still sealed). I’ve decided I prefer his because it seems to do a better job. It also claims to be “24 hours”, which, let’s face it, is always a better option for me when I forget everything all the time.

The important thing is that I think, as marketing for such products usually puts it, it “reduces the visible signs of ageing”, or “reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles”. The reality is that no ordinary lotion or potion can actually “reverse” ageing, but they can reduce how obvious it is. The products generally work by helping to keep the skin hydrated, and that, in turn, make those “fine lines and wrinkles” less visible. I mentioned in that post last month that my skin was dry in places, so, at the very least, it’s helping with that, which is reason enough to use it. As for whether anyone else can see the difference, well, that’s still an open question.

Spilling the tea

Also last month, I thought I found one partial solution to my lack of good sleep and I wrote about that: A chamomile hot beverage before bed. Since then, I’ve had mixed results (as I even mentioned in that post). I also had one total failure: The tea in the photo I shared with that post.

I didn’t try it until some days after that January post, and instantly regretted buying it. I’d had a very similar brand (maybe the one I referred to in that same post), and thought it was pretty disgusting. I think this one is somewhat less disgusting, but I’d definitely prefer an ordinary yucky chamomile hot beverage. Live and learn.

One thing I haven’t been able to find out is why all the labels say to not add milk. I tried looking it up online (of course), but there was nothing beyond admonitions to only put milk in “black tea”—and with an undercurrent of “if you simply must”, but maybe that was just my perception. In any case, it struck me as being like the declarations that one must not drink red wine with fish or chicken, nor white wine with steak. Yeah, nah (as we say in New Zealand): I’ll make up my own mind about such things, maybe including milk in a chamomile hot beverage (many years ago I tried it and thought it made the drink somewhat less yucky).

Trolley dolly

I’ve been talking a lot about projects lately (with more to come), but last month I wrote about a minor one, my “Garden hose trolley project”. In that post, I wrote, “I know I have some [hose] connector bits somewhere, but nowhere I could find easily (and garage was way too hot to spend any effort searching), so I don’t want to buy new ones just yet.” I got impatient and bought some, anyway (it’s okay—they were cheap). That means I’ve been able to use the new hose reel, and found that the “pulley on a threaded rod thing” does help “keep the damn hose from tangling” sometimes. It has an annoying tendency to just stop, which means the hose winds all in one spot, just like the old one did. I don’t know if it’s just not equal to the task for some reason (like the weight of a hose with water in it, or if it needs silicon lubricant so it moves more smoothly, but I noticed that the problem seems to be that the wheel thing stops turning sometimes. A subject for a future update, I suppose.

• • •

As I said in my last Update post back in 2019, “Time doesn’t stop for anyone or anything”, and that includes the subjects of previous posts. At least some have been updated.

Learning from a TV

The image above is of a “Facebook Memory” I was served up this morning. It tells a tale that turned out to be much more involved than it seemed at the time.

Eight years ago, our TV blew up. It was repaired in the end, something I talked around ten days later, in what some might argue was one of my better blog posts (and by “some”, I mean me), before the repairs were actually completed.

I still have that TV. However, as recently as last year Nigel was saying that he'd just never seen a TV with as good a picture (and for many years he'd looked, believe me…), so he didn't want to replace it. For anyone who knew Nigel, this would seem to be out of character for him—he always wanted the newest, bestest technology. But he wanted the best technology most of all, and he felt the TV we already had was exactly that. So, for him, keeping that TV for so long was the perfectly logical thing to do.

I was thinking recently that I'll inevitably have to replace it, and how such things tend to happen when one can least afford it (like, after I retire in a few years). But TVs are so much less expensive than they were when we bought this one (and they don't even make plasma TVs any more, as far as I know), so it wouldn't be a huge burden—though the new TV might not last for 9 years and counting, with or without repairs. But, then, I might not, either. If I've learned anything over the past year, it's that. I'll just enjoy what I have now, and plan for the future without taking its existence for granted.

See? You really CAN learn a lot from TV…

This post is a revised and expanded version of something I posted on my personal Facebook, which isn’t public.

Updating again

Time doesn’t stop for anyone or anything, as we all know. The subjects of posts on this blog have changes, but most of them go unnoticed (not the least because most aren’t all that important). Still, there are regular readers who are along for this ride, and for them it may be useful to know when something has changed so the story this blog paints makes sense.

Back in 2015, I began a series of posts to give those sorts of updates, mainly to posts about my life and things I’ve been doing. I figured that posts about stuff in the news are easy enough for readers to check on, if they want to, but that’s not true, or as easy, for some posts. The Update states were meant to take care of that kind of post.

I have no idea why, but I stopped doing that after only four posts, the last in May, 2016. As it happen, there are two updates to that post: The first item is something that I stopped using not all that long after writing about it, going back to hair dye. The second item talks about things that haven’t changed much since then, except that I now also use Apple’s Reminders App because it sends alerts to my phone and watch.

But this post is actually about updates to much more recent posts.

Let the music play

About a week and a half ago, I wrote about the loss of our free-to-air video music channel (near the end; the link goes directly to that part). At that time, I had no idea where I’d find out about new music, let alone the videos for the songs. I have part one of a solution for that.

I had a hunch and clicked on the link for “Official NZ Music Charts” in the “In New Zealand…” section of the righthand sidebar (near the bottom). There they have a number of official Top 40 pop music charts, along with—and this was my hunch—a Spotify Playlist of the songs for that week (in this case, the Top 40). This gives me a chance to listen to the most popular songs in New Zealand—with the occasional ad, usually for Spotify Premium).

In some ways, this is a huge improvement because I hear songs that wouldn’t be played on the old music video channel. The web page often has direct links to the video for the song, but I can also double check myself (if I like it well enough) when I know what the song is called and who it’s by—two things that aren’t always obvious to me. In the past, I usually noticed the video if I liked the song, although sometimes it was the other way around. In that sense, this method isn’t all that different.

On the other hand, I don’t think I’ll be doing this every week, because it’s a lot of extra work to listen, and then search for the video, and then decide if I like it enough to share (and, generally speaking, that often took several views in “the old days”). Even so, I can see opportunities to mix it up a bit when I prepare one of those posts.

In any case, the next Weekend Diversion post will have one of the leftover videos I mentioned in that post a week and a half ago, plus others I didn’t write down before the video channel shut down. Whew!

Still teatotalling

Back in June, I talked about how I was teatotalling to try to reduce the risk of liver damage, which one of my prescription drugs, amiodarone, can cause. It turns out that I basically stopped having it after that post, but for a simple reason: Calories.

People don’t drink wine or other alcoholic beverages just for the taste, even if that’s one reason. If we’re truly honest, most people drink it—at least in part—because of the pleasant effects that come from it. However, those drinks are also empty calories, providing little or no nutritive value. The alcohol-removed wine I tried is the same—empty calories—but without the payoff of real wine. I never really thought about the empty calories before, and it took this substitution for me to do so. I’ll still have it for social occasions, of course, but I’m now aware of the empty calories as I never really was before, and so, I’ll have less of it.

Meanwhile, the café nearest to our house has now added the brand to their offering. That means that if we go there, I can have a glass of that while others have their real wine. I like that.

• • •

As I said in my last Update post more than three years ago, “That's it for this update. Maybe the next one will be sooner—or, not…” So far it’s been “not”, but maybe that’s just changed?

Update time again

When I started doing dedicated update posts in September of last year (more formally in October), I knew they’d be occasional—probably every other month, I thought. But it was four months until the second one, and now it’s been a little over three months. Well, I guess that’s still occasional.

Colour tests

Earlier this month, I wrote about using ControlGX to wash that grey right out of my hair. Since then, I’ve experimented to see how it works, and how often I need to use it. The dye stays in my head hair quite well, so a re-shampoo maybe every ten days will take care of it for now. For my whiskers, however, it’ll need to be more often, maybe twice a week (because whisker hairs are harder to dye).

Since that post I’ve also had a chance to find out how it works (it’s a form of dye, which makes sense), and I found out they said most men will probably use it three times a week. So, my experience so far seems to be better than their average.

Once I’m settled on the frequency of use, I’ll do a post with photos. But I’m not quite at that point yet. As it happens, this first update also relates to something I talked about in the last update, back in February (second item).

Still searching

In March of last year, I wrote “Organising from my past”, about how I looked at my old organising methods to see if I might be able to adapt them to meet my needs now. I still haven’t done that, but I have done other things.

For starters, I’ve become pretty good about deleting emails that I know I won’t ever refer to again pretty much as soon as they come in. I could do more of that, but, even so, it’s a been really helpful way to pare down clutter, even if it’s only electronic.

Speaking of electronic, since that post I’ve also resumed using Wunderlist to keep track of our shopping list. It’s shared with Nigel, so he can add something to the list whenever he thinks of it, since we can both access the program from our phones, our iPads, and our desktop computers. I sometimes also use it for a to do list, but not very consistently.

I’ve also started using Apple’s built-in program Notes to keep track of things. I’d tried Evernote, but found it complicated, and To Doist, which was okay. However, for both programs, many useful features are available only on the paid App, which is fair enough, but Notes includes the features I probably need the most, and it’s available across all my devices without having to set up yet another online account.

Even so, I’m still probably going to go back to paper for some things.

Recovering

Last week I wrote about coming down with another cold. The cold lifted this past weekend, and I’m pretty much back to normal, so called. I made that update on my personal Facebook, so I thought I should make it here, too. Actually, this update is mainly so I can remember how long the cold lasted.

•  •  •

That's it for this update. Maybe the next one will be sooner—or, not…

Small parts of the stories

Just as I share things I run across that don’t make it to their own blog posts, sometimes I also post small updates to various things I’ve talked about. And, just as with the “Internet Wading” posts, these small updates are about things I might not mention otherwise, even if they can be necessary to fill the gaps in ongoing stories.

Repair Shop II

Yesterday I went to the dentist to have a small chip repaired in a front tooth. As I said after my last visit to the dentist, the chip was very old—easily 50 years, give or take. The results were good, and makes the gap and dropped tooth look not quite as bad; I think that’s because the chip made the space look even larger. At any rate, it’s a small step in this whole “Tooth Tales” journey, but still important. And, the whole appointment was about 20 minutes, most of which was spent waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect.

Living and dyeing

I’ve long said that there will come a time when colouring my hair will be “more than faintly ridiculous”; I may be reaching that point. I always thought it would be changes to my skin tone as I got older, but it turns out to be my hair itself.

Grey hair is coarser than normal hair and, apparently, more resistant to colouring. My head hair accepts dye, more or less, but my beard, which is where most of my grey hair is at the moment—is resisting. Beard hair is coarser than head hair already, of course, so the resistance of the grey hairs is understandable.

When I first noticed that some of the grey wasn’t being coloured as well, I switched to a lighter dye colour, reasoning that the poor coverage may not be as noticeable against a lighter colour. It turns out, I was wrong: The areas that still have colour take the dye well, the areas that are mostly grey, don’t, leaving me a bit two-toned-ish. There are scary-sounding methods for softening stubborn hair involving peroxide developers (not going to happen…) among other things, but the simplest solution long term may just be to stop.

• • •

Those are just a couple small updates to things I’ve talked about in the past, and will talk about again, no doubt. If I hadn’t done this update, I’m sure down the road I’d have thought I talked about them, anyway. At least now I actually have.

Updating

Ever read a blog post and think, “I wonder how that’ll work out”? Or maybe it’s an old one, and, “I wonder what ended up happening?” Sometimes updates are necessary to correct information or impressions, and sometimes it’s just kind of interesting. Whether necessary or interesting or not, this post is an update on several earlier posts.

The green water

Back in July, I wrote about how we’d started adding some green stuff to our furbabies’ drinking water to help them fight dental disease. I mixed them in empty (and washed…) 2 litre milk bottles, and that worked well for a long time. However, I recently noticed spots forming on the inside of the bottle, and from the outside the spots look like mould (photo up top). Looking inside the bottle, they don’t seem to be mould (it looks like reside of the green stuff), but I won’t take any chances.

So, I’m now changing the bottle generally every other week. This isn’t all bad: I’m reusing bottles before I recycle them. But, it did surprise me.

‘Red Peak’ is part of it all

The government moved to legislate under urgency to include the “Red Peak” flag design in the upcoming flag referendum. The design, which has had a groundswell of public support (and opposition, of course…) was included when the Green Party agreed to support adding it to the referendum, giving the government enough votes to get the measure through Parliament. The Labour Party insisted that a question be added to the first referendum asking if New Zealanders even wanted a change, the government refused, and the Greens moved in. Shrewd politics, really, and a popular option will be part of the first referendum.

Browser wowser

Last August, I broke my web browser. Since then, Firefox is better—but I’m still using three web browsers for different things.

Firefox apparently agreed with what I said in that August post and changed their settings to allow users to re-enable add-ons that were “unverified” (there’s since been an update to the password add on, so that’s all good, anyway).

However, one HUGE bug remains: I can sign into my Google account to post to this blog, but then Firefox immediately signs me out again. I can’t use Google’s Chrome because it won’t allow me to edit the HTML of a post (and Google owns both Blogger and Chrome…). So, I write and edit blog posts in Apple’s Safari browser, the only one that’s fully functional for using Blogger.

Neither Safari nor Chrome permit downloading YouTube videos (I’m talking, of course, only about downloading videos that are legal to download). Firefox does. So, I use Firefox for YouTube.

I’ve (mostly) solved the customisation issues with Safari and Chrome, but I’ve found that Chrome has weird performance issues that no other browser has: It becomes unstable at times, and web pages opened in it start responding in a choppy way. The only solution is to quit Chrome and re-start it. Chrome also has a few other performance issues that, while annoying, aren’t important.

Today things change: I’m switching to Safari as my main browser only because it’s the least troublesome one, and this’ll drop me down to two web browsers. I wish things were back how they were, but they’re not. This will have to do.

Spring may be springing

Early last month, I complained about the lack of Spring in our Spring. There are signs that now, as we near mid-Spring, the season may finally be arriving. We’re having more sunny days or, at least, parts of sunny days, and the daytime temperatures are finally slowly going up, though nights are still quite cool or cold.

Still, the way I measure the niceness of weather is by the laundry: If I put washing out on the line and it actually dries, we’ve moved into Spring, since washing hanging on the line for entire sunny winter day doesn’t dry. By that measure, Spring may finally be springing. And I am glad.

There: Now we’re up to date.

Electrifying update

After I shared yesterday’s post on Facebook, a friend gave me some more information related to the commercial video from a New Zealand electricity company. That, in turn, gave me an excuse to share another New Zealand ad as well as update that post. Because that’s what I do—I share.

Yesterday’s post included a very clever video ad from Energy Online, and I said: “As far as I know, all the electricity companies have quit door-to-door sales.” It turns out that not all have, as a friend reminded me on Facebook: “Nova still uses door knockers,” she wrote. “We ended up signing up that way!”

Of course she’s right, and I should have remembered that because Nova Energy’s TV commercial (video above) is based on a door-knocker selling power. In my defence, the ad has been on TV so often over the past year or so that I now just tune it out.

It wasn’t always that way.

When the ad first began airing, I thought it was clever: It’s use of repetition to drive home the company’s name so people remembered it was different, and it did it in a light-hearted and silly way that I thought worked. My favourite part was when the salesperson and the homeowner stop in front of a framed photo.

But maybe it’s true that familiarity breeds contempt, because like a lot of people I know, I’m kinda sick of the ad. Maybe a new version playing off the same theme would be fun at first, too, but I think that this is the kind of thing that eventually becomes annoying.

Still, I did think the ad was cute the first few times I saw it, and it shows that, yes, contrary to what I said yesterday, some power companies do still use door-knockers, and I do strive for accuracy in what I post. All of which are good reasons to share this ad.

Besides, I don’t think I share nearly enough of day-to-day New Zealand life, and not just the latest political outrage or big news story. Not everything has to be shocking or electrifying, I don’t think.