Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
The Murano was charged again by this morning, but it was so nice out that I decided to take the bike to work. It was cool in the morning, but not uncomfortably so. I predict bugpocalypse in the spring and summer.
I felt pretty good about the things I got accomplished at work. Then I took the Murano to AutoZone to replace the battery after I got home. I had forgotten how much of a pain in the ass it is to replace, but I managed.
That’s enough for today, I suppose.
Are we still on this?
It’s a little weird changing my phone charging routine. I hope it makes a difference in battery life over the lifespan of the new phone. I got a promo email this morning offering $100 credit to purchase a Pixel 2 and activate it on Fi, so I have an email in to customer service to see if I can get the credit.
I spent the rest of the afternoon there playing catchup and blasting mad bass tunes after setting up a scrapped subwoofer in my office. After work, I stopped by my parents’ house and munched on some leftovers, but left because I needed to get a replacement car battery. By the time I got home, I didn’t feel too smurfy, so I settled in and watched the rest of Valerian and just put my car on the charger. Tomorrow should be nice anyway, if I hate to take the bike.
Ay, you getting too skinny, you gotta to eat. Ay, mangia, mangia!
I caught up on sleep last night, and managed to wake up before noon today. I spent most of it playing Oxygen Not Included, but did manage to get a load of laundry done in the evening. I started Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, but didn’t have time to finish it before bed after I spent forever trying to get PowerDVD to output proper 3D to my television. I with one of my existing media players would recognize the content properly so I wouldn’t have to use PowerDVD at all.
I’m too old for this shit.
I had a bit of trouble falling asleep last night, so I got up when Jennifer wanted to come hang out for a while. She made me watch Salt while she mostly fell asleep on the couch. I finally got back to bed around sunrise and managed a few hours of sleep.
When I awoke again, I had a tremendous knot in my neck and back that I carried all day long. Clint texted me when he and his friend got to town, and the came by to visit for a bit. Afterward I played some Oxygen Not Included that I picked up yesterday on Steam. I had just started to get the hang of it when Bâc Ván called with a craving for Ci-Ci’s.
After I ate too much there, I came back home and continued my game for a while until the sleeplessness and back ache got to me.
I’d heard about nervous breakdowns due to flan depressurization, but the fact that Houston would lump me in the same categories as those intergalactic amateurs was both hurtful and suspicious.
I was surprised how much it warmed up today. I wasn’t expecting it after this past cold week.
My Pixel 2 XL finally came in today after like a month of waiting. I finally split my Google Voice number off from my Sprint number and used it to sign up for Google Fi to compare coverage and quality of service to what I’ve been getting on Sprint. I figure it’s time to look at options now that there’s no incentive to stay with any particular carrier. The Pixel 2 uses an eSIM instead of a physical SIM card for service on Fi, so I was able to sign up and jump right into service without any trouble at all. I’m a little nervous about losing my account history from Google Voice, but hopefully it will all just slide right over. I get to continue using Hangouts with SMS, which will hopefully also eliminate the weird issues I had with group SMS and certain emojis or text strings when combining Google Voice with Sprint integration.
The first thing I noticed on the new Pixel 2 XL was the color shift when viewing off-axis. I kind of wrote it off when listening to reviewers complain about it because I thought I had a similar color shifting issue with other phones and didn’t mind it, but WOW this is bad. I absolutely would not have expected this quality from any flagship device even a few years ago. I heard others make similar remarks, but it honestly didn’t look that bad in videos. In person, you get blue-shifting almost immediately off axis when looking at a white screen. It’s not nearly as noticeable when looking at a photo or something darker, but anything super white is painfully obvious. So far I haven’t noticed any issue with image retention or burn-in, but it may be too early to tell, and I haven’t been watching for it super hard either.
I’ve tried to just use it as I normally would, and my biggest complaint aside from the screen is the size of the phone in conjunction with the indistinct texture of the power button and its placement above the volume buttons. The size of the phone requires that I completely shift my grip to reach the power button that is way up in the top right to turn the screen off. While shifting my grip again to put it away, I find that I often accidentally unlock the phone again as I graze the fingerprint reader. On top of that, all of this grip-shifting leaves me more prone to dropping the phone, which is terrifying now that I’m not getting them for free with a one-time damage replacement from HTC Uh Oh. I’m not even sure if I’m still eligible for an ADH plan from either Fi or straight from the Google store, but it hasn’t been offered to me anywhere yet.
I still find myself trying to unlock the phone by touching where the home button was on my HTC 10. The fingerprint reader on the back isn’t the worst placement, but I definitely felt better about gripping the chin of the phone to unlock it than I do finding the right spot on the back. Hopefully a little bit of time will get me used to most of these things, but the texture of the power button being indistinguishable from the texture of the volume button is going to be a thorn in my side. Things like this really show the attention to detail that I’m used to from HTC. Without tactile differentiation on the buttons, I keep fumbling the simple locking of the device, which is something I have to do literally every time I use the device.
The volume and clarity of the speakers is actually pretty disappointing for it to have dual front-facing speakers. I really expected more in this area. It sounds okay, but it’s no HTC Boomsound. While playing with the ringtones, I found that sound was only coming out of the bottom speaker. Music plays out of both, but the bottom speaker is clearly louder and harsher than the top speaker, giving you an unbalanced feel when watching videos with stereo sound. I also wish the Now Playing feature that shows the title of ambient songs playing in the background would work with songs being played on the Pixel itself. Seriously, why the hell would it show me song information for something I’m not playing, but not show me information for something I’m actively playing on my device? That’s just stupid.
Voice quality on Google Fi seems to be lacking quite a bit compared to Sprint. I’m willing to make that sacrifice since I rarely make phone calls, but it’s worth noting. I’ve never found a carrier with voice quality as good as Sprint in this area. I haven’t really done any speed tests yet because I’m paying per megabyte, but I guess I should spend a few cents to compare service while I can.
Overall I just need to spend some more time with it to see how I really feel. Next week back at work should be interesting. I really hope I don’t drop it, because I’m going naked. #YOLO
After I got the phone set up, I took a shower and headed to the theater to meet with Jesica to watch Murder on the Orient Express. She finally texted right before the movie was set to start to let me know she was just finished getting her hair done, so I abandoned ship and went to my parents’ house for a while. I ended up eating some leftovers there, then came back home to play with the Pixel some more.
Fulfilled Plans: 2/5
At least there’s a Steam sale.
I woke up super late today with a massive headache after a long night. I didn’t actually get out of bed until the afternoon. I wasn’t really clear on what day the family would be cooking for Thanksgiving, so when Mom texted that food was ready, I still had to get out of bed and shower.
I guess Julie’s still in Florida, so it was just us with Bác Vân and Doug, and Dad invited a college friend. I showed up just as everyone else was finishing up their food, then left after all the guests were gone.
I guess I’m doing some things tomorrow, so I can forgive today being worthless.
Even though I really should, I knew that I never would.
What?
Today was bad projector swaps for old, questionably good projectors. On the way back from lunch, I was cut off by a cop who immediately stopped in front of me to block traffic for a funeral. I couldn’t have been too upset if he had his lights on, but he cut me off in the middle of traffic with no lights on, then turned them on after he parked just as he got out of his vehicle. A braver version of me would have slammed into him instead of slamming on the breaks, because there is no way he had enough room to safely pull out in front of me.
After lunch, we encountered one room that had a perfectly good projector but the PC had a bad VGA port, so that was a little upsetting too. The afternoon wasn’t looking good. We got to leave an hour early again, so that helped a little. The dumpster from the roof job was removed from my driveway first thing this morning, so I could actually park at my house when I got home.
Jennifer wanted to hang out in the evening, but it was late and I was tired by the time she was ready to do anything, so Bradley and I went to her place for a while for Netflix and pecan pie.
Why, do you need to cool off some pies?
After lunch, Ryan and I hung some new WAPs at the junior high, and then they let us out an hour early. I came home to the roofers on my house and a giant dumpster in my driveway, so I had to park next door. I’m not stoked to get into a cold car in the morning, but c’est la vie. Once I got inside, I spent the rest of the evening fighting Cinavia on my HTPC so I could enjoy The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Tryhard
I forced myself out of bed before noon this morning so I wouldn’t be completely unable to sleep tonight. I then wasted the entire day in front of the TV, watching nothing of any substance, or anything even longer than about five minutes. I mostly measured time with food. I did wash my socks, so at least I’ll be prepared for work tomorrow.
It helps if you remember to press “Publish” before you go to sleep…