February plans

Hey y'all! February is here! Oh gosh!

My big thing this month will be making as much music as I can for Strawberry Jam. February and November are my two big music-making months (November being when I do Novembeat normally, although this year it was taken up with other things).

I’m also hoping to do a second season of Transformative Meditations, also for Strawberry Jam.

I also have a couple of concerts lined up, one tomorrow and one next Friday.

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Are you having COMPUTER PROBLEMS?

As I mentioned on Mastodon and Bluesky, my gaming PC got infected by malware/ransomware, particularly Azov and Expiro. I’m not sure how my computer got infected but this was the push I needed to switch it over to Linux, now that VRChat and SteamVR run pretty well on Linux anyway.

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Vertigo progress

Today I finally had an appointment with an ENT and an audiologist, as part of trying to figure out what’s going on with my vertigo.

The audiologist didn’t find anything wrong with my hearing and said it’s normal for someone of my age. (She also told me the correct pronunciation of “tinnitus.” It’s like TIN-nit-iss.) She didn’t have any idea what might be underlying my tinnitus but I’ve had it my whole life and it doesn’t seem to be relevant to anything going on now.

The ENT didn’t see anything particularly out of the ordinary with my sinuses from what he could see in this basic exam, but he wanted to bring me in for a more focused CT scan, especially since my previous cranial CT scan found sinus polyps as being a thing, and I have such a long history of chronic sinus issues. So that’ll happen in a month. In the meantime he also referred me to a physical therapist that can do vestibular rehabitation, and he thinks the prognosis for that is really good.

Hopefully I’ll be able to feel comfortable driving again soon, because gosh do I not like being stuck in my little bubble.

I don’t have a whole lot to say right now

I knew things were going to be bad, but I wasn’t expecting just how out-loud bad they’ve been starting on day 1.

Erin in the Morning is a great site to follow. Also What The Fuck Just Happened Today?

I have deactivated my Facebook. Not that I was very active there anyway but it’s clearly not the place for me, per the CEO’s own missive.

I’m flying my pride flag high. Soon I’ll be hosting someone who’s escaping from a deep-red state for a couple weeks, I hope to do more to help my local community.

Everything important in my life feels like it’s either under attack or has become a shouting match.

I hope I can get in a good headspace for working on music. I have a game jam coming up this weekend and a month-long one in February.

Tomorrow I have a small show in VRChat and then I have my appointment with the ENT which will hopefully help me find a solution for my vertigo, and after that I have the first night of choir practice for this season, and I’m holding on to what I can.

⭐️ Seeking trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas Notes

Bookmarked: Seeking trans-friendly employers who sponsor visas

If you are actively hiring for positions in a company that is friendly to transgender people, in a country that is safe for transgender people, and you are willing to sponsor visas for people seeking to emigrate for these positions, I would like to hear from you.

Ben is good people and an excellent ally. If you know of anyone matching the description above, please get in touch with him.

Yet another TODO list

Stuff on my plate right now, for the immediate future:

  • Have some lunch
  • Finish reorganizing my bedroom
  • Laundry
  • Get around to editing and posting my VRChat concert recordings
  • Tidy up my recording studio

Longer-term things:

  • Get around to replacing the failing security camera on my studio entryway
  • Work on some music, gosh darnit
  • Gather and donate/sell all the disused crap treasures I don’t want anymore that could do others much more good
  • All the other stuff

SOMA Connect + shairport-sync

I’ve reorganized my bedroom and as part of it I decided to finally address the ongoing issues with my audio setup in there. I have an old AirPort Express which I was using as an AirPlay receiver so that I could play music and podcasts and such on the (rather nice) hi-fi speakers, but it’s been super unreliable as of late, and even when it does remain connected, it generates random popping noises on the speakers — not great when I’m trying to sleep!

So anyway I was looking up various aftermarket AirPlay receivers, and most of them are pretty expensive, but then I realized that there’s probably a way of receiving AirPlay on a Raspberry Pi, and yes, there is, and then just as I was about to look for used Raspberry Pis to install this on, I remembered I already have a Raspberry Pi, in my bedroom, in the very same nightstand I would be putting a new one in: because I have SOMA’s older smart shades which use a rebadged Raspberry Pi as their Bluetooth-to-HomeKit bridge.

And the SOMA Connect image is just running Linux (specifically Rasbian 10) and some proprietary software.

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