Well, the Mash Kyrielight Circus Version kit isn't happening...

Hopefully good news!

Finally logged into my e2046 account after a long time to see what was up with the Mash Kyrielight Circus Version kit I had accidentally pre-ordered TWICE. Only to find out after 6 years of waiting any orders for it have finally been cancelled as of May 24th 2025. Which means now they were holding a "Cash Coupon" of $67.50 of MY money for 6 years. I tried to get half of that refunded early on but they're like "oh no, we'll hold it here & you can use it on things.. "

But with this development & me contacting them it hopefully looks like they're willing & going to return my money via PayPal!! I haven't been excited for any other kit since then & I held out hope it would get made. Plus it's been awhile since I made a kit & I've still got 3 sitting here unmade. I explained I live where space is limited & I have to watch what I bring in. Gave them my PayPal email & thanked them & looking forward to blah blah blah.

$67.50 is not chump change. I wonder if I can get that transferred back onto my card as a payment. I dunno.

May 21st...

Went downstairs yesterday to pay my last 2 bills for the month & was treated to a free supper. Someone left a thawing vacuum sealed Barbecue ham & rice thingy on a table along with a cluster of celery, 2 cans of something I did not pick up because sodium, 1 cup packet of dried milk, & 2 honking huge potatoes which in hindsite I should have grabbed 1. I ended up cutting up 1 rib of celery to heat with the ground ham (didn't see any rice) & with a baked potato cut in half (they were HUGE!!), would have served 2 people with a nice tasty filling meal. But no. Ate the ham & celery in dejected silence. But it was free & now I can cut up 1 rib of celery per serving of the crockpot recipe I got ready now. And maybe even in stuff I got sitting here. Had a good toilet moment this morning so that's good.

Placed an order for delivery today because I have needs & cat litter is one. Held off getting more eggs, apples, chocolate syrup, tomato sauce, ketchup, & the stuff for Arroz con Gandules. Among the stuff I wanted to get. A number of products showed price drops of which Walmart proudly said I saved $5.66. I think I saved more than that by not ordering a few things I still needed but can wait.

And as for Maika? She got to go home but I like to think she moved in with Cyana (as sisters!), who debuted a new look & promptly did a subathon & demonstrated just exactly how talented she is! Maika will pop up now & then... 🌴🍍

🌴🍍Ⓜ🅰ℹ🇰🅰 Ⓜ🅰LL🅾🇼🍍🌴 IS MY OSHI. ALWAYS.

Seriously sad because my favorite Vtuber streamer Maika Mallow suddenly dropped an announcement Saturday night she would be graduating from streaming & would explain things this Friday at 8 p.m. & she says it would be her last.

I really hope she auditioned or got scouted by an agency or something & she has to put this one "to bed" as the saying goes. She mentioned a Voice Reveal & I'm like what? I heard her on Ayuki's stream a few times when they rented rooms in the same house (Ayuki also streams). Because her voice & sweetness deserves more of an audience & I hope she will continue to find it.

I really hope it's not health related as she has Epilepsy & about a month ago (she's had things happen only a few times during a stream) she started a stream while playing Stray (which sadly she hasn't finished) & for about an hour she had to wait out a slight seizure to pass. It affected her concentration while reading chat comments but the fog cleared & she finished the stream just fine.

I discovered her & her friend Nyana 2 years ago during their Henya Debut watchalong on May 13, 2023. She was the only YouTube streamer covering the event so Fate seemed to have made it happen. Since then I watched her sub 1K subscriber count grow to monetization & now has over 4K on YouTube & her Twitch has at least 1,000 there, along with paid memberships both places. When she hit 1,000 on YouTube, I suggested she write a song - and finding copyright free music on YouTube, she did just that. It's become a fan favorite. I don't think I missed many streams. She became a part of my routine. Even when she moved back home & eventually started fewer daily streams.

I guess on Friday I'll find out what's been troubling her. I wish I had found her sooner but then would it hurt more now? I hope she's going to be with an agency. & then she'd return.

Not what I planned to do but all right...

So.... A friend was having problems getting his outdated WinXP netbook to connect to his Wifi & came up today to have me show him... And then I struggled with it because THANK YOU ONLINE GUIDES FOR BEING UNHELPFUL. What I was having problems with was not being able to enter the security password... As it turns out, you can if you choose WPA2-PSK. Yeah, had to learn that nugget on my own because NOTHING else I was reading mentioned that.

As soon as I had that figured out, BAM! his netbook logged on my Wifi & connected. Next was him wanting to get into his Gmail on that (I don't know why) & I told him his Google account would work. It should, right? So we eventually get the login info & password paired & try logging in on the netbook... And no bueno. Not letting us / him in. Maybe Gmail does have a separate password? I mean there was that problem of Youtubers getting malicious emails & then their channel got hacked so maybe..??

But anywho, once he has his own wifi name, security, & password from home figured out, I can get that figured in & hopefully working. After that he might have to change his Google password again...?

Hopefully when he picks up a "new" computer at a pawn shop, it's got Windows 10 at least, decent specs & a solid state drive of some type. Right now, I'm tasked with cleaning the keyboard because otherwise it works reasonably well & needs a currently WinXP supported browser.

Corn Grits (Polenta) Bread is Not Easy

Tonight I made a loaf of Corn Grits Bread from the recipe book I got so long ago from friends. This was not an easy loaf to pull off.

1st, I had to cook the grits aka Polenta. I could do it traditional Southern way in just water but I thought why not add 20 grams of dry milk powder (enough to mix 1 cup of milk) & see how it goes. And it was fine. Only thing is I used the pot I had used for Spanish Rice & it had dried out sitting around unwashed & the grits picked up the flavor (& cleaned it off!).

Medium loaf used 1.5 cups of freshly cooked (warm) grits. Then I adjusted the rest. 1.5 tablespoons margarine was reduced to 1 tablespoon vegetable oil (saved from a fresh mozzarella container) since the grits already had added margarine at the end. I wasn't going to add more salt since the grits had some added when it was cooked but after a kneading I added 1 teaspoon. 1 tablespoon sugar & then only 1 teaspoon yeast.

Flour was supposed to be 2 & 1/4 cups but after watching it knead up & needing 1/2 cup of warm water & then still hadn't set up a dough ball after the 1st kneading cycle, I kept adding small amounts & restarting until I got minimally tacky (like pizza dough) & probably would do well. I had to restart at least 4 more times. So maybe this recipe needs 2 & 3/4 cups? These recipes always seem to need more flour.

And I was right! Went out to check & got a dense loaf perfectly shaped & didn't collapse. Since the grits & oil had extra seasoning, I'm interested in how this loaf tastes.

Sailor Moon Cybercel Cards

JUST ARRIVED practically MINUTES AGO!!!

SailorMoon Cybercel Series 1? Cards!!! Practically overnight shipping! Got a great price on them, too, as a Pre-Order after waiting a bunch of months. Unopened for now but I plan on getting video...

I saw places charging $7 a PACK & $120 for a BOX & I'm stingy - I certainly paid Nowhere Near those prices! The place who did me a solid will get future business from me. This is up there with my $115 Hatsune Miku Stomp pedal!!

While there is one Hyper Rare card, I don't expect 1 box to get one. I don't have the money to buy a case. I love collecting Sailor Moon cards & even have a few cards from 1 translucent set I can't seem to find more of... I hadn't collected any in seems like 15 years. And then there's that one cancelled Topps set from 1997... 

とにかく, I waited for this & it kept getting pushed back until FINALLY!!

Productive "Computer Shtuff"

I finally sat down with Altirra, the Atari 8-bit Emulator for Windows & managed to manipulate files & disk images & now have it as a booting system loading up the sequencer software I used years ago on my Atari 8-bit for songs from Pocahontas. 

With the help of SpartaDOS, I finally got a directory listing of all the songs I put on that jukebox disk so you can see what songs I did with it. They all have lyrics synchronized to the music & NOW I CAN FINALLY DO STEREO MIXES! A stereo mix of Colors of the Wind is already in the works (mostly just separating a sound channel or 2 into left & right) because now I can choose which POKEY sound channels to play. So when I finally plop those tracks in Audacity, I can figure it out. I'll be checking more floppies because I want to see how much of my efforts from 30 years ago I can recover. 

HOWEVER, I got Antic Music Processor set up for a special project I wanted to do - though I'll need to refresh my memory on how to use the software! I nearly completely forgot! It has been 22 years since I last did this (Mom losing the house to a 2nd mortgage foreclosure in 2003 really put a cramp on things & I never managed to get it set up again...) so I have some information to find. But I have the sheet music I need already!

Finally getting to do "Computer Stuff" today was productive. I found out my A8 Pi Pico cartridge survived my best efforts to kill it when I soldered it together weeks ago & thanks to videos I found was able to set it up & looks like the onboard flash memory is working.  While it has 16 megabytes for that & the entire Atari 8-bit library could easily fit on there several times over, its main use is as a cartridge emulator. So even any size single load binary file game would run with it. Disk images not so much.

So anywho, I hope I have more data recovered in the coming weeks. I need to read up on configuring SpartaDOS X 4.50.

1st post for 2025

I'm glad I got out yesterday & did stuff while temperatures were above freezing which made it tolerable to do so. Officially placed the Previews order for 4 books & then got Groceries at Walfart so I could use the measely $25 United food card...

Eggs were decimated. This is what you get for not vaccinating chickens for the flu.

 

Also the cheap canned Boyardee pasta was nearly sold out... I watched a Vtuber from Poland try a taste test of Boyardee products & she was not impressed... & in fact sickened from the flavor... Oh my. I bought 3 sample products to check if my tastes have changed & even got my favorite Beefaroni.

Also found Hawaiian Punch changed the Piña Colada White Water Wave name to Coconut Wave? Ummm this isn't a change anyone asked for or needed made. SO WHY?

General Mills seems to be doing Old Throwback cereals & they dug out from 1961! the designs for Twinkles cereal. This reminds me of Remilia Nephys' favorite Honey Stars which I had been trying to get but haven't found anything cheap enough to consider. And in the Markdown shelf I got a $2.50 box of Extra. Extra what? I don't know.

The Cat Sand shelf was also nearly empty!!! WHAT THE HELL. So I had to settle for the Lightweight fragrance free stuff. It costs more & doesn't last as long as the regular but I needed more right now.

Couldn't find catnip & forgot the little can of sliced olives for making Puerto Rican Rice..  among other things but mainly covered my list. I didn't buy any Valentine's candy (no special KitKats) nor kids class Valentine's cards (no Monster High).

Everything went mostly as expected from taking out my trash & cat crap to getting an electric cart some selfish asshole took outside the store & left it in the rain!!! for me to swipe off the water collected in the seat so I could sit on it. YOU BET I SAT ON THAT COLD WET SEAT. 100% charge & I took it in.

Also found I could buy 2 Imperial 15 ounce tubs of margarine for 30 ounces & save $1.09 by not buying the 45 ounce.

Also Maintenance left notes asking people to drip their pipes & open the cabinet doors for under the sink because of the cold for the next few days. I also hope the heating doesn't go out.

Paying rent is pain & suffering

I went out yesterday to pay rent & I regret my actions.

Various things happened. 1st I decided the 3rd was best because it was going to be 34°F & partly sunny. I was concerned the heater in my van - more specifically the fan - wasn't going to work. But somehow it did until it warmed up. Then sheer force of will got outside air in through the vent & heated inside.

I got the cat pan waste out & 2 little thingies of trash. I think 1 of my tires needs more pressure but it held up. I will try to check it before using it again.

2 envelopes in my mail from J&FS just let me know things were continuing without change. I was expecting them. Bonus to checking my mail was free foodstuffs on a table. I claimed a deboxed bag of Coco Puffs cereal, a thingy of Rice, a bag of 4 oz juice cups (still cold), a sliced in half baguette bread thingy, 1 pound bag of macaroni, & a thingy of spaghetti. Woo!

Get down, out, & to Disney Drug Mart. Red chariot awaiting me having been just used but still charged enough.

Drop off my request for refills - 5 pills. This will be important later.

Get my payments, some shopping, recognize what I can't get there. FRISKIES CANNED IS IN STOCK!! I prefer getting the Tasty Treasures Turkey paté for Poofball because it's filled better than regular Turkey canned. I made a mistake & forgot to check treats.

Checked seasonal candy hoping to find a Special Flavor of KitKat instead of just special shapes. And to find more Cherry Cordial Kisses but not here.

I saw but did not buy the special cookies & wafer cookies. The special popcorn from last month seems to be gone. But I did find Holiday Roasted Peanut M&Ms!

So I get paged by the pharmacy & my refills are done. (Oh and my lottery ticket from last month won $4!) I now have a standard question for "Any questions for the pharmacist?" - Were there any pills you did not fill? Because 1 pill I asked for was Digoxin because I'm likely to run out before next month comes around - AND THERE WAS NO DIGOXIN REFILLED & no explanation as to WHY. And my $3 Vitamin D3? It was $8. I really need to look at these things before paying for them. All my other refills were $0!! Ehhhh?

Gas was $2.79 where I got some before going home. Guy who came out to pump for me - many thanks for your customer service in the cold.

That might have been the end but... Wal-Mart had $129 laptops on Black Friday. On Monday. I think I need one. Windows 11? 14 inch HP laptop. Let's get one & hack it. Price isn't bad. It's not a Chromebook. Maybe I can dual boot with Linux. I dunno. Expand the RAM & a bigger boot drive? I need to figure out how to clone an SSD or whatever it has. And get an external optical drive to boot Clonezilla. Might need USB thingies to connect a 2nd SSD. People make all sorts of things.

I sorta didn't feel all that great walking to my vehicle after Disney Drug Mart (who for once had decent pricing on 7up 6 packs [$4 in a deal], $2.50 on JIF peanut butter, $3.50 for a bag of honey puff Malt o Meal), but deciding to drive to Wal-Mart was possible anyway. Less than optimal parking spot but I didn't have to wait long for a chariot - #10 has some funky & busted steering but will work well enough.

Get back to Electronics & wait for an available associate. Tell them what I want. She goes into the stock room to check because there's none on the floor. And eventually returns with 1!

Okay. I took extra $$$ I saved from last month for this. I still need some SanDisk USB 2.0 64gb Cruzer flash drives... I try to buy them (last time I did from Amazon) in 5 packs. But Instead I decided to shop... SWISS MISS PEPPERMINT HOT COCOA. Bought. Got a ham for Xmas. Cherry Cordial Kisses for more of Maika Mallow's Piña Colada Cookies. I forgot the Evap Milk & Creme of Coconut... for Coquitos.

I was wanting to both get stuff so I didn't have to get anything for the rest of the month & at least the stuff I got only at Wal-Mart... And I was hoping to get back before my pain relief completely went & started getting dark.

And Get Back to find - MORE FREE FOODSTUFFS on the table! Yay! My cart was full so I stuffed my backpack clipped to the handle.

Oh - did I mention the phone call from my building manager while at Wal-Mart? She asks me about the printout of my medication expenses she asked for last month, the 2 sheets of yellow paper I enclosed in my rent envelope in the box last month. Yeah. She lost it somehow. She wanted to know if I could get (another copy) like soon. & I'm like well I could but it will be a while but the amount I saw was $147 for the period you asked about... It needs to be over $200 for consideration. I should have copied that for myself. Dammit.

And before I even LEFT the apartment FedEx North Canton called to let me know the driver who left my Wal-Mart order that one Saturday has been fired for numerous complaints about his performance. If it was to be delivered to my front door, that's where it should have been. That's their goal.

So after all that yesterday... & getting told Oh it'll warm up this weekend - 47°F and sunny... I'm in a LOT OF PAIN.

Kidney stones (again) & Smart Heal bandages

With what I saw in the toilet this morning & the incessant pain I felt last night, I am done with this kidney stone business. I lived most of my life without a single problem & here in these past 6 to 9 years I've experienced enough of this shit.

I had a horrible night. I thought it began with pain in my lower left back & it just kept going. And then I had discomfort in my gut like 3 days of Thanksgiving leftovers lead to a mutiny in my colon or something. I almost didn't get any sleep because of having to adjust my position to get comfort. At one point, I enlisted the presence of a big Lysol can to press on my back for relief. It was Very Hard to get sleep with all of this crap going on. Somehow I did.

Wake up & do things & take the morning pills. Have to pee. Barely poop anything for what I felt. Peed as expected but I take a look... And there's red in there. And it's not like the amount I saw 2 weeks ago, it's like "oh hey we made a thingy & this is proof." So yeah. Kidney stone. It's happened before as I recall. The pattern of suffering & discomfort is accordingly the same.

On a positive note, a patch on my right leg shin area which formed a blister which I popped, drained, picked the dead skin off, then was having a hard time healing & was just red from blood on the surface & not really stinging or irritating me... at least for a couple of weeks prior... I got 2 boxes (not cheap) of Equate "Smart heal" hydrocolloid gel bandages. Ideal for large areas, drug free, & helps reduce scarring... I put 1 on there & covered it last Sunday. Had to change it today & took a look. No longer bloody! Skin has regrown & healing cleanly.

If I compared this to anything, it would be those burn patches I used to get at Walgreens.