this week and the next, i am house sitting for my friend ashley. she and her family are traveling, and i am staying at their house and taking care of their two dogs while they're gone. they also have a number of chickens (enough that i'm not sure exactly how many there are), but those are pretty low maintenance.
one of the dogs is the sister of thor, my dog at work. so i've been bringing her over to play with her brother when i'm working. she isn't as well trained as thor, but they keep each other occupied and seem content with spending all day outside in the yard. the other dog i'm watching is an old yellow lab who seems relieved to be left alone during the day without her younger roommate there to annoy her.
last night, i went back over to my actual house because andrei was hosting an open studio type thing in our garage (as seen in the attached photo). the idea was that since our home studios aren't really big enough to host in, they set up some video art equipment in the garage instead. this involved running an extension cord out there, since our garage is just an open, free-standing cinder block structure with no power (or even a door that closes). a few people came over and were playing with the video equipment, but then i had to leave to go feed the dogs.
what else is happening? in no particular order...
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i finished playing cyberpunk 2077. since i played most of it over the winter and then came back to it again later, it took me like 11 months to finish. i don't normally spend much time playing video games, but i do enjoy them. last year, i played baldur's gate 3 over a similar amount of time, and before then, i re-played skyrim (which i first played when it was released). i have some lists of other games i'd like to play in my media diary app that i built the other week, but i'm giving it some time before i start a new one.
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i also haven't really started a new book, besides a book of short stories in spanish, which hasn't really captured me.
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i am watching the tv show la casa de las flores, also in spanish, which is kind of dumb, but also quite entertaining, and definitely good for practicing spanish. i'm watching it in spanish with spanish subitles, and while i can't understand every word people are saying, the overall story is easy to follow, especially because of the overdramatic nature of the show. i've been chipping away at the first season quite quickly while house sitting.
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i've had some longstanding issues with sending video signals between my modular video synth and my computer, which i think i've finally solved. this unfortunately involved spending a chunk of money, which violated my "no new gear" rule that i've otherwise followed pretty faithfully for the past few years. i ironed out my signal flow between multiple converters to get from hdmi to analog component and vice versa, and i got a new encoder module (lzx esg3) that has a built-in proc amp that solves a compatibility dilemma i had. it's a long story, but when working with external video signals in the modular, i no longer have to choose between having the levels be way too hot or having my image wiggle back and forth horizontally due to sync drift. and next time i perform live video, i'll no longer need to carry a full size video mixer (roland v4ex) with me just to convert from component to hdmi.
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i'm working on another digital snippet for AV club, to be shared this coming weekend!
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every time i think i understand everything there is to know about setting up email accounts, authenticating domains, and sending and receiving emails, i learn something new. most recently, this resulted from some stuff i had to do at work, but i was able to improve my own weird, bespoke email setup based on what i learned. i'm quite happy with my personal setup, since i've de-googled as much as possible as of this year. it may seem arbitrary, but i passionately hate the gmail web app UI.
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andrei and i went to see a new movie, hot spot, in theaters. it was divisive; i enjoyed it, andrei did not. i wouldn't say it was good necessarily, but i thought it was cool that a film like that was actually playing in theaters. it was sci-fi/fantasy, stylized, surreal, atmospheric, Polish, and had full frontal nudity and a very thin plot. i think it's worth a watch, though parts of it move slowly. i was surprised andrei disliked it as much as they did, since we both liked watching art films like after blue (2019) at angelika when we lived in brooklyn.
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the mosquitoes have been pretty brutal due to all the rain we've been getting, but i've still managed to get some hiking in. i am starting to feel an inking of autumn coming on; it's even been kind of chilly here some nights.
that's all i can think of for now. since i'm house sitting, it's simultanously busier (feeding and managing these animals) but also less eventful than usual. i'm having a good time here, but i also will be glad to be back in my own house when the time comes.
