Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1417
New Plex up and running, neurotic pantry completion, snow day, cold, 70's erotica films, modern spy tv shows
Good morning, friends. Snow snow snow. So much snow. So sick of winter. What is it? Nineteen degrees out there? For funsies let’s just check the temperature in the arctic city in which I was raised: Oh, cool. It’s 22 degrees there. It is colder here than in Alaska. This is, to put it politely, BS.
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Jane is sick and has no school and it would have been a snow day anyway so, you know, triply absent from school. I slept in till 8 AM and she texted me 569 times on Telegram. Most of them were the dice roll, with an occasional heart emoji or the words “poopy butt” thrown in. I am very glad I put my phone on silent and do not disturb last night. She has come downstairs now, she is sitting next to me. I have just taught her that I write to my friends every day. She is sitting on my desk, with Hayden, one of her Cabbage Patch children. Hi, Jane.
We are working on the “To Investigate” playlist this morning. We are listening to a Jazz album. Spotify does that weird thing now where all the artists on an album are listed in comma-delineated order in a playlist, so I am not sure exactly who this album is by, but I think it’s by Jeff Parker. Maybe also a person or entity csalled ETA IVtet. Maybe also Anna Butterss, Jay Bellrose and Josh Johnson. The album is called The Way out Of Easy. Pitchfork gave it a rave review. Well, it got an 8.4. This is, I am now remembering, why I put it in the queue — that and Jeff Parker played guitar for Tortoise from time to time. It is, however, very very Jazz. And not in the freak out! kind of way I like my jazz: psychedelic and messed up. It has some charming moments. The songs, however, are all over 17 minutes. Which you would think I would like. I dunno, man, I am trying to get more into Jazz because it feels racist that I do not like it much. But it is hard. And I do like some jazz, oh god, I sound like a New Yorker subscriber talking about hip hop.
I have big news in this dark world: I have finished the rice ramen noodles. There were about thirty packs in the pantry. I started the project in… November? There was a Christmas break in there. The longtime, eagle-eyed GMHHAY readers will recall. Reader Suzy wrote in that she, too, finds deep satisfaction out of clearing out some mis-purchased food out of the pantry. My wife is not like this. She believes you should enjoy the food you eat, she is not overly concerned with letting disliked foods sits, and thusly our kitchen and pantry are riddled with disliked foods, as she moves on to more pleasant ones. But not I! If I have 30 packs of crappy rice noodle ramen in the pantry, I gotta eat all of it before I enjoy the good ramen. Self negation, living in a perpetual state of crappy food, it does not make a lot of sense, I know. But it is my way.
Anyway, I am done! And now my home concoction of shoyu-meets-tom-yum ramen that I have been eating for lunch every day gets real noodles in it and oh my god it is so delicious. Muy delicioso!
Jane made me write that. She has left me, though, to go do her cooking camp via zoom since North Carolina is terrified of snowy roads. Farewell, Jane.
Shit I shoulda taken a picture of the ramen that would have been content. I will take one today. And, you know, it’s quickie ramen — boxed broth, not like I’m braising pork at lunch time or anything.
The new Plex server is up and running and in beta testing with a single friend not in this house (thank you, Cassel) and everything seems pretty solid. I am going to migrate all of the friends over from the old one in the next day or two. The new one is called WebblesPlex, as opposed to just Webbles. Very innovative naming don’t you think?
Anyway. The new Plex runs on a new M4 Mac Mini, stock except with the upgraded 10g ethernet adapter. The 10gig ethernet goes into a Unifi Aggregation 10 gig SFP+ switch. (Trying to get everything server-related, between the houses, and to mine and Emma’s main work computers onto 10 gig). The Mini is connected to a 1 rack-unit Thunderbolt 5 hard drive array, provided by OWC: the Flex 1U4. I am using SoftRaid to make a RAID 10 on the Flex 1U4, using 4 old-school spinning SATA drives, 24TB each. With the RAID 10 configuration, this makes for a 72TB volume, with one disk redundancy. It will, eventually, be backed up to a Unifi UNAS Pro, but that is backordered. So right now I am still keeping my old backup on my QNAP, and I am still keeping my Backblaze backup. I will probably bite the bullet and pay the $300 eBay surcharge on the UNAS Pro because that is less than one month of Backblaze so it’ll be cheaper to just buy it. It is somewhat astonishing to me that Ubiquiti so vastly underestimated demand for the UNAS pro. it is an awesome product (I have one already for our Time Machine and Cold Storage).
SO. Watched a ton of Youtube videos on using the M4 Mini for a Plex server, and you can pretty solidly get 20 or so 4k streams with transcoding going on the puppy, which is more than enough for our little lot (Room with a View deep cut there). If you are a Plex nerd, you will enjoy this guy he is a real character:
The big thing is that there are two types of 4K films up there — the ones I have, erm, gotten from friends, that are somewhat compressed, maybe 10gigs. And the ones I have ripped from purchased UHD disks, completely uncompressed. Those are abotu 50 gigs. I played one on my Apple TV and it worked fine, but I noticed that Plex was transcoding the audio and I don’t know why? That feels like a problem. Will need to investigate. But it plays fine, Cassell said he had no problem with it on his Fire stick and in-TV Plex app so I think we’re good?
Recent additions include Eggers’ Nosferatu, most of the Lynch films in 4k, and a lot, just so much bad 70’s “sensual” films. Last night I watched 1971’s I am a Nymphomaniac about a very prim girl who fell down an elevator shaft and turned into a nymphomaniac and got thrown in with France’s party and orgy set before turning to the church and conditioning herself to not like free love and finding true love in the doctor who helped cure her of nymphomania. Quality stuff. Next up, I am going to finish Spermula, a movie about alien woman bringing free love to the patriarchy of 70’s France or something. I swear to god, I am like halfway through and it is so boring. How can a movie filled with nudity and sexy aliens be so boring? Really is an accomplishment.
Also watching the US version of The Agency, which is better than the US version of Coupling, god, that was a disappointment. The plot is a tad too contorted at this point seven episodes in, but I like it. Been watching a lotta spy stuff because I miss Slow Horses so I’ve watched Day of the Jackyl (not bad but boy did they deviate from the book), Black Doves (terrible guncraft) and this one. All of them insist on inserting family members into their spy shows which is tedious and really ruins the Tinker Tailor impact of them. We do not need spouses in spy thrillers, maaaaaan. Also The Agency now seems absurd because of the current administration it is absolutely absurd to imagine the current administration competently running a spy agency, or actually caring about the geopolitical events in Belarus, Sudan or Ukraine. Kinda a bummer.
Reminder that is girl scout cookie season is upon us, and you can order cookies from Jane! Here is the link. Thank you to all that ordered. Did you know you can also donate cookies? Now, I think that the donated cookies mostly go to soldiers? So, there’s that, but maybe not! I need to find out who. Hrm. It says “women and men serving in the armed forces, essential workers, and community-based organizations” so not just soldiers. Will try and get more clarity on that one for you.
And let me just tell you that the interaction between Ozempic and Girl Scout cookies? Really is something. Could write a whole essay about that one. Topic for another time.
All right, good talk. Talk tomorrow.
Jane says “Poopy butt.”
Justa mix for you today. Yesterday I listened to Apple Venus by XTC for the first time in, like.. Um… 25 years? I was obsessed with that album when it came out, but I didn’t buy it, I copied it from my roommate Dave, and I lost the copy not long thereafter. Aug mentioned it in his newsletter the other day and I realized it was now on streaming – it wasn’t, the last time I looked about ten years ago. Oh my god, it is so good, I missed that record. Love the new Sheila Divine, love this band Ceres, don’t know anything about them. Cautiously optimistic about the new Doves, happy I pre-ordered it before my vinyl moratorium. New Sharon Van Etten is very exciting. Finally checked out the Marias, they’re okay. Don’t love the new Lauren Mayberry but it has a few hot jams on it. Don’t know anything about this As Tall As Lions band but that’s why I listened to it and it was… pretty good! Had them in the Walk The Moon camp in my mind. They are better than that.
All right talk tomorrow, friends. Or in the Slack chat. Come join the Slack chat! It is working! We are successfully replacing Facebook! We’re not quite there yet but it is going in a great direction. If you’re an email reader, reply to this email and I’ll get you the link.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.