November chitchat

[agate]

I'm not sure how it got to be November already but here we are, if those goblins and other scary individuals who were out on Halloween didn't gobble you up. (Do goblins gobble people up?)

My son has decided that they already live in a haunted house because there is a ghost in it. One of their cats is named Ghost. He took my grandson out to show off his costume in the neighborhood--and collect quite a haul of bad-for-him treats but this happens only once a year.

I spent Halloween with a Glatopa shot that didn't go very well. I don't know when one of those shots has hit me as badly as this one did. For about an hour afterwards I was pretty incapacitated but it did pass. I took a couple of Tylenol on the offchance that that might help. The pain was considerable.

I'm now very glad to be feeling halfway human again.

Instacart brought a bunch of groceries today, and that was nice because they did an excellent job and arrived promptly.

What is up with you? I hope we'll hear from everyone. What have you been doing? Reading anything interesting? Embarking on a new activity?

I took up an old activity recently when I replaced a zipper. I haven't done a zipper in quite a while but I still remembered how. I don't know how to use a sewing machine and so it was a long process but it got done, and I've now rescued a garment that had a broken zipper.

Not much of an accomplishment, I'll admit, but I hope people will feel free to talk about even tiny achievements.

This space is here for you to talk--about yourself, about whatever is on your mind, about your pet peeves, whatever.

My pet peeve increasingly is people's addiction to cellphones but I've nattered on about that in the past. At least twice I've found cellphones here on the first floor of this building, forgotten by someone and just left lying there. Because these phones are obviously very important to people, I get concerned if I see one lying around. One neighbor found hers because she had "Find my phone" working on her phone but I guess it didn't provide her with a very exact location.

[flatcap]

Agate, time does fly, doesn't it. It will be summer again before we know it.

I think it's the zombies that gobble people up, but I'm not sure. It might be aliens.

I am sorry to hear of your issues with your Glatopa shot but glad you are recovering. MS is such a PITA sometimes. About all the time, actually.

I wasn't able to eat anything on Monday, so I went to my monthly fancy dinner on Tuesday, which is usually at the local Outback steakhouse and where I went last night. Had a full steak dinner featuring a 9-ounce filet. Sides were a salad and seasoned rice. Hit the spot just right. Finished everything but a little of the rice.

Went out for a full breakfast this morning to further make up for Monday. Finished everything but the 'taters. They give you a ton of them. Otherwise, I needed the calories, protein, vitamins, minerals, all of it. Fruit was in the form of fresh-squeezed OJ. Had a glass of milk to go with the meal. The OJ was the intro.

Other than medical appointments and my upcoming haircut, I don't really have any plans for November. I basically have no family and now no friends, so Thanksgiving is shaping up to be the usual deal. I will be alone that day, restaurants will be closed, and I will be eating a microwave dinner alone and by myself if I can eat anything at all.

I really don't like the holidays. They only amplify for me my loneliness. It always seems like everyone else is with their family and friends, even though I know that isn't true. A lot of normies are lonely and isolated, not just me. People think those of us with Asperger's aren't much into socializing, but the truth is, we just have a lot of trouble pulling it off. Everyone needs people in their lives. I think many if not most of us starve for contact with others. I think it hurts for all of us Aspies. I know it does for me.

It's getting really cold out, particularly at night. Low temps have been in the 20s since last Friday. I tell people I see in the elevator or in the halls I am ready for summer.

Still need a summer cap, though. I guess I have some time to think about exactly what I want. I will have to think about the cost, too. I have spent a lot of money on caps these last few years, and I still need a good pair of shoes.

Along that line, I decided to try another brand of shoes in lieu of the one I am still waiting on to come up with something I like. Unfortunately, these new off-brand shoes aren't quite right for me. They only come in full sizes, and I wear 12.5s, so I decided to go with 13s, which the reviews said run small. Really too big for me, but I wore them outside to fully test them, so now I can't return them. Yet another package headed for Goodwill. Man, it is frustrating, this search for new shoes. I have been trying to find a pair for months now.

Have an appointment with my PCP on Monday. Going over blood tests and that sort of thing. I have about ten items on my list of things to discuss with him. I will be happy if we get through five of them. Twenty minutes isn't much time.

I also have an appointment with my optometrist on Tuesday next week. I am having intermittent focus issues with my right eye. Sometimes it works, sometimes everything looks fuzzy. Things also look darker. I hadn't ever noticed that before. I found out when exploring the focus issue. Looking at the tiny print on a white eye drop bottle under bright lighting and switching back and forth between my left and right eye, the relative darkness through my right eye was immediately apparent. It is also persistent; it does not vary with the focus issue. My guess is, it is the cataract. I say "guess" because I don't know which eye it is in. That is probably my main question: which eye?

Anyway, that's a lot, so I will get off my soapbox and let others chime in. I hope everyone is doing well.

[Ikoiko]

Many restaurants are open for Thanksgiving. We have a reservation at our “club.” It sounds so fancy, but really it is just the restaurant at our over 55 community. They do make good food.

[agate]

Good food isn't always so easy to find. Glad you know of a place and will be going there, Ikoiko.

That is so true, flatcap, about the way we get the impression that "everybody" is observing the holidays with family and friends but we probably look at too many magazine ads and see too many commercials and movies. I've been alone for 95% of the holidays for the last 40 years or so, and have got to the point where I'm glad to have a quiet day with no mail and no appointments just to catch up on things I've let slide. A day of peace is welcome.

[jingle]

Around here on Thanksgiving many restaurants will be closed and a few open. My favorite, a Chinese place, will be open and I hope that's where I'll be.

[agate]

Some communities have really outstanding Chinese restaurants, and often they're fairly small and not well advertised, but that's where you'll get the best rice and everything else you hope for in a Chinese restaurant. Right down to the almond cookies.

I hope your favorite place will be open, jingle.

[flatcap]

Thai food is the thing around here, which you can order to taste (level of spiciness). The more 'stars' you ask for, the hotter it gets. The usual scale is 1 to 5. I normally order 2 stars, or sometimes 1. One star is pretty mild in most cases, which is called for in some Thai dishes. Curries are usually pretty spicy as-is.

Unfortunately, the Chinese restaurants in this area are uniformly bad. I sometimes wonder if they have meetings to make sure they are all using the exact same recipes, then agree to screw them up to the same extent so their dishes all taste the same to ensure they all get equal slices of the pie. Whatever the case may be, it's a sad situation. I love good Chinese food.

Japanese falls in the same category. They all taste the same, and all of them are bad. I have given up on that, too.

[flatcap]

I saw in the news that YouTube is cracking down on those of us who run ad-blocking software when playing videos on their site. It will be interesting to see how this affects embedded YouTube videos like those I have posted here.

A while back, I asked if anyone was seeing ads when playing the embedded videos, and Agate said she didn't. I was wondering because the ticker on my ad blocker shows ads being blocked when playing the embedded videos.

This issue might well make it impossible to post YouTube videos here that don't show ads. It might also drive me off YouTube altogether. Without an ad blocker, navigating the site is a real PITA, and you might not believe how badly the 'advalanche' affects playback.

I will be looking for a workaround and might have found one already: I might try the Chrome-based Brave browser with its built-in ad blocker. This differs from running an ad-blocking browser extension or a standalone app to block ads. Commenters on the Ars Technica article below indicated this works, but we'll see. That would at least make it easier for me to find videos than it is without an ad blocker. We'll have to see whether users here without an ad blocker are assaulted with a plethora of YouTube ads in the embedded videos.



YouTube’s ad blocker crackdown escalates, aggravating users

Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register...

[agate]

How annoying if there are now ways of making sure viewers get exposed to ads! I've noticed this trend and will be sorry if YouTube videos are no longer viewable without ads because they're quite annoying and I don't feel like sitting through them.

Some years ago I was playing some solitaire card games using a Microsoft site. I could do that while waiting on hold on the phone or at other idle moments. It made tedious times less tedious. But then they changed things and I was having to put up with ads, no matter what. I haven't been back to that card game site but have found another with no ads (yet). Maybe there will be some adfree alternatives to YouTube.

[flatcap]

Vimeo and Dailymotion exist to compete with YouTube, but neither has gained much traction. Like Google search, YouTube overwhelmingly dominates the market (YouTube is owned by Alphabet/Google). Both sites also run ads, but I don't know how good or bad the situation is compared to YouTube. I don't spend much time there.

I don't know of any other alternatives. YouTube is still the place to go. I have a feeling it will be for some time, perhaps 'forever.'

[Virginia]

I have no big plans for November. Thanksgiving has been my Holiday to stay at home for the last 7 or 8. It doesn't bother me usually because my SIL has her family. There are only a few left and they do invite me but they eat at 12:00Noon and not a minute later. It is too far for me to go and be there before 12 in order to speak to all her family before time to sit down.
I am fine with staying home.

It turned really cold here, all of a sudden. It was below freezing last night and due to be tonight. One day it rained all day long. I guess winter is upon us. After the blistering hot summer we had I don't think we should complain.

It is nice that Iloilo and Jingle are going out for Thanksgiving dinner. I hope both of you enjoy it very much. I went out for so many years and cooked for everyone for a lot of years, so it is my turn not to concern myself about either for a while.

We were discussing chili on here recently and one of my brothers happened to call. He asked how I was doing and I told him fine but that I would be better if his wife made a pot of chili and brought me some. She did make some earlier in the week and was already bringing me some when I see them Saturday night.

The family are all supposed to come over my way Saturday night. I got a telephone call from my youngest brother. His son who is the golfer is home for some medical stuff. His back doctor is located here and he is in the process of having 3 shots and then they will decide by MRI when he can get back out on the course again. So apparently his girlfriend who lives in Florida is flying in. The rest of the family have met her and really like her. I am the only one who hasn't. So they are coming over here so I can meet her. Everyone likes her and now I will get to see for myself.

[agate]

Virginia, I understand your attitude toward Thanksgiving--maybe "been there, done that" is the way to describe it? I've had some really lovely Thanksgivings in the past, some thanks to the efforts of family or friends, and some that I cooked myself. If I get hungry or wistful-feeling, I can just think back on those occasions.

It sounds as if your remarkable golfer nephew has had some health problems that are preventing him from playing just now. I hope it will be something fixable. I hope you'll enjoy meeting his girlfriend, as well as the visit with the family.

[flatcap]

I don't know if this belongs in this thread, or even on this board, or whether anyone else is interested, but I thought I would post it just in case.

As noted above, YouTube is evolving to prevent playing their videos if you are blocking ads. If you are, others report that you will eventually see a notice that basically says you can't block ads and watch at the same time. Your video won't play until you stop blocking ads. This will also be the case if you delete YouTube cookies, close your browser, then try and go back to YouTube to play your video. In other words, they will know who you are pretty much no matter what.

They do this by "fingerprinting" your browser, which in turn reveals quite a lot about you and your device. Once they have this record, your fingerprint identifies you when you visit sites like YouTube. The information is also frequently sold to third parties.

Blocking fingerprinting doesn't come with Chrome or Edge. Alphabet and Microsoft have skin in the game, and they very much want to have as much information as they can get about your browsing habits, history and more, including the details of your device (e.g., the specs of your monitor).

To get around all of this, I am now 'beta testing' Brave, which is a privacy-focused browser. It blocks fingerprinting by default. It also blocks ads and tracking cookies. In addition, Brave doesn't collect much less sell your fingerprint. They also have their own privacy-oriented search engine, so you don't have to use Google or Bing unless you want to.

It will be interesting to see whether YouTube eventually winds up blocking me from playing videos using Brave. I don't know whether they would have ever started with my previous setup, which consisted of Chrome and a couple of extensions to block ads and tracking cookies, so it might be the issue is moot but I decided to try Brave anyway for a while and see what happens.

I hope it all works out. If it does, I will probably continue using Brave. If it doesn't I will go back to using Chrome for play and Edge for business . If anyone wants me to, I will let you know how things turn out. If no one does, I promise not to post another long, windy tome on this subject.


PS: When running Brave early this morning to watch a playlist on YouTube, it blocked a total of about 500 ads and tracking cookies 15 minutes into it.

[flatcap]

My PCP ordered blood tests for me this week in preparation for my upcoming appointment on Monday.

For whatever reason, the system he works in is now striving to have all of its patients tested for HIV. As useless as it is in my case, I agreed to go ahead with it.

Well, I am pleased to report that I do not have HIV.

Sometimes, having no social life is a plus.

[Virginia]

Agate, I don't know the outcome of my nephew's visit to the back doctor this week. He had told him a couple of weeks ago that he couldn't play golf for a while, a few weeks to a few months. This may have been his 2nd shot. His girlfriend got in last night. She is staying at his sister's and he is staying a couple of blocks away at his parents. It was late when she got in and my brother and SIL have two dogs that bark if anyone they don't know comes in after they go to bed.

They were making rounds today. They had lunch with the golfing coach that has coached Grayson since age 9. Then tonight they were having dinner with his best friend. Tomorrow before they meet us for dinner they were to play golf with 2 of his friends. I don't know if this means he was told by the doctor that he could start playing or if it is just a one time thing, where maybe he doesn't put much power into hitting the ball. I think it is nice that she plays. I wonder if she has ever beat him?