📷 #mbjune Day 5: Reflection A View from the Liberty Belle at Walt Disney World in Frontier-land in August 2024. You can see the reflections on the water.

📷 #mbjune Day 4: Nostalgia Simpler times and childhood memories.

📷 #mbjune Day 3: Shadow Me and Mine

📷 #mbjune Day 2: ⤴️ Curve Life is full of them 🫠

📷 #mbjune Day 1: 🌳Tree

Finished the second one tonight—just as good as the first and third. A really solid series overall, and you don’t have to watch them in order (though it helps with one part of the overarching storyline). Denzel Washington does a great job bringing his character to life.

It’s been a movie weekend 🎬, and this was the last one. No spoilers, I promise 🤐.

The Equalizer 3, starring Denzel Washington, was great—just as good as the original 💥. I haven’t seen the second one yet, but you don’t need to watch these in order. Denzel does a fantastic job in these movies 👏. I’ve enjoyed almost all of his films, except Flight, which I personally think was his weakest ✈️😕.

No Spoilers. Not bad for a film based on a true story. I liked the story and the music—it was engaging and covered something I never knew about. Worth a watch if you aren't looking for an action movie or comedy.

This wasn’t a bad movie. It was family-friendly and, according to the end credits, apparently based on a true story.

No spoilers — not bad at all. The characters were solid across the board. Jason Bateman played against type — it was interesting to see him in a different kind of role. Taron Egerton is a versatile actor and delivered a strong performance here too. Not bad for an on-the-fly choice.

I woke up early today, determined to finally get Nostr up and running and join the network. After all, ChatGPT—my AI guide for most things—told me everything would be fine and estimated it would only take 30 minutes to an hour. You're probably thinking it should have taken 15–20 minutes tops. Well, I’m self-hosting everything.

Little did I know what self-hosting everything really involves.

Remember, I’m not a coder, network engineer, or anyone working in the computer industry. I have some basic computer knowledge and skills, but I’ve been branching out more with the help of AI. I’ve written about it many times on my blog and social media. I’m learning, but I have to be careful—not to get too absorbed. Before I know it, the whole day is gone. Like today.

Today came with its share of challenges, because when I start something, I want to finish it—and finish it properly.

I like using Portainer with my Raspberry Pi, along with Docker and Docker Compose, but that setup seems to come with some unique hurdles. For example, it took me quite a while to get a simple verification file—just 12 lines long—working the way it was supposed to. Then came the relay setup, which took up the rest of the day.

After some trial and error, I got it running on my setup. I even had to compile a version myself to work with my environment—something I’ve never done before. Definitely a first for me.

In the end, it’s up and running. ✅

The last piece I’m working through is understanding why Amethyst for Android shows everything as verified and functioning, while Snort.social and Iris.to don’t reflect that. Also, my private relay doesn’t appear online on those platforms yet, so I still have a bit of troubleshooting ahead.

The Nostr network shows promise—it reminds me of Bluesky and the early days of Twitter. Two days left in my long weekend… let’s see what I get involved in tomorrow!

#SelfHosting #Nostr #RaspberryPi

I use Google’s Blogger as a backup for my main blog. I’ve had that Blogger account for over 20 years, and since it’s free and supports custom domains, I figured — why not use it for archival purposes?

I used to rely on IFTTT to automate this. When I posted something on my main blog, it would trigger a webhook that sent the post to Blogger via IFTTT. It worked — most of the time. But lately, IFTTT has become unreliable. Since they use a shared API for Blogger across all users, even my modest 3 or 4 posts a day would sometimes fail to go through due to quota limits.

So, I decided to take control.

I set up a self-hosted automation workflow on my Raspberry Pi to do exactly what IFTTT used to do — but using my own system. It works like a charm.

Here’s the twist: in Google’s eyes, to make this work, I had to create an “app” — just to post to my own blog. That was fine, except that in "testing" mode, Google only issues OAuth tokens that last 7 days. After that, you have to manually reconnect. And of course, this always seemed to expire at the worst possible time.

With the help of my AI assistant ChatGPT, I figured out how to take the final step: officially publish my private app to Google’s OAuth system. That removed the 7-day token limit and made my automation stable and reliable — just like it should have been in the first place.

Honestly, this whole process made me realize just how neglected Blogger has become. It’s still a solid platform at its core — fast, stable, and with Google-grade infrastructure behind it — but it hasn’t kept up with the times. OAuth token lifespans, API limitations, lack of automation features — all of it could be improved with just a little attention. Blogger doesn’t need a full redesign. It just needs a few thoughtful updates to keep it usable in the modern era. Google, if you’re listening: please give Blogger some love.

#Blogger #Automation #SelfHosting #GoogleAPI

This review may contain spoilers.

This was my first time watching this. It started out pretty good, but overall, it wasn’t that great. I’m glad I never bought it or paid to see it in theaters. I know there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding Ezra Miller, and while he usually gives a solid performance, this one just didn’t deliver. The whole story was a slog and a snooze-fest to get through. I thought about turning it off, but this was also my first time using Tubi—and as I expected, the ads added another layer of distraction that I don’t enjoy anymore. The ending showed some promise, but the middle dragged on for far too long.

📺 This TV Week’s Watchlist:

From Disney+:

• 🎬 Andor – Season 2, Episodes 10–12 Season and Series Finale ⭐⭐⭐

No spoilers.

I finished Andor last night and walked away feeling unsatisfied. The characters were strong and interesting, and the actors and actresses who portrayed them were compelling and talented. The problem was the story.

While the season did provide some valuable background, explaining how we got to this point, the pacing felt uneven. Some parts were rushed, while others were overly drawn out. It seemed like they were trying to cram the content of four or five additional episodes into just three.

If you're going to do that, then each episode needs to be treated like a classic TV miniseries—back in the day, miniseries would run across three or four nights, and each episode would be about 90 to 105 minutes (to account for commercial breaks). That kind of format could have helped here.

Yes, technically (not a spoiler), the show leads into the beginning of Rogue One, but it didn’t tie things up in a satisfying way. Rogue One ends with a powerful, climactic bow. Andor, by contrast, left me disappointed and wanting more.

After over two years of waiting, we got about 8.5 hours of content total. For that amount of production time, it deserved either more episodes or longer, richer installments. I understand that the time spent producing, directing, and editing was probably five or six times that—but still, for two years of work, you better deliver great pacing, superior storytelling, and fantastic special effects.

This felt like it had so much potential and tried to hit the right spots, but it was more like scratching the surface and hoping you’d hit the itch. 🎬

#TV #Entertainment #Disney+

In my continuing battle with subscription fatigue, I’ve decided to drop my SiriusXM satellite radio service — they wouldn’t match the rate I had before, so I let it go 👋. For two years, I paid just $6.98 total (taxes included). It wasn’t the top-tier plan, but it suited my needs, especially since I used it two to four times a week. That subscription ends next month.

I’m also parting ways with my free Netflix access, which came bundled with a Verizon Peacock deal last year. That runs out in July, and honestly, I’m not sure I’ll pay for Netflix on its own. Lately, I’ve been watching more on Prime Video, Disney+, and my own Plex server anyway 🎬.

#subscriptionfatigue #SiriusXM #Peacock #Netflix

Finished reading: Who is Jesus– Really? by Josh McDowell 📚 Finally finished. Learned a couple of new ways of thinking and explaining things. On to the last book in the series.

📺 This Week’s Watchlist:

From Disney+:

• 🎬 Andor – Season 2, Episodes 7–9 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

No spoilers. I thought Episode 7 had a small pacing issue and dragged a bit, but Episodes 8 and 9 picked up nicely. Like I keep saying, I really hope they wrap this up leading into Rogue One with a satisfying conclusion. There are some tie-ins to Star Wars Rebels—might be time for a rewatch. 🎬

Tags: #TV #Entertainment #Disney+