This week is attempt #2 at getting my passport back with my residence permit. (It was supposed to be last week, but there was a bureaucratic snafu with a new computer system that confused one of the cops.) This means I get my residence permit back a minimum of two days after the previous one expired. 😅 💦 (Two days if I get it back today, finally.)

That sounds nightmarish!

Well, it came! Woohoo!

I swear I'm gonna clean up my desk! It's covered in so much junk lol.

After that, I'm gonna finally start working on doing Linux From Scratch (my goal is to learn how to set up a basic Linux OS, and then try to figure out how one might swap out the kernel with the NetBSD one).

I'm going to schedule something I've been procrastinating for months, then I'm going to go outside.

Hell yeah! It's beautiful outside and that phone call is easier than you think :)

Learning Linux seems so daunting! I'm impressed!

It’s the most special time of year in my household - PRIDE!!

My city celebrates in July and our big parade and fest is coming up this Saturday!

So I’m deep cleaning and decorating and getting ready for all of my friends to party and gossip and dance at my place all weekend. I’m very excited :)

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Happy LGBT Christmas to you and yours

It depends on tbe distro you choose. Debian, Ubuntu and Mint are simpler and easier to use, whereas Arch, Void, and NixOS are more complicated.

If you have the time, I highly recommend experimenting with it, and maybe switching over. It can be a lot of fun, and in the end, your computer will feel more like it's your own.

Also I chickened out of building my OS from scratch because I don't wanna handle security myself :/

I’m painting my nails again today!! I have not been able to for the last 2 weeks because I fell in the backyard and sprained the thumb on my dominant hand pretty bad, but not bad enough to require a trip to the doctor. Today is the first day I can actually grasp things without pain! Except for my pencil, writing still really fucking hurts.

I’m going with a deep red color. It looks good on me and it’s not another green, which I wear 2-6 shades of green per day lol. My partner always compliments the color when I wear it 🥰

I gotta start more plants for fall. Onions, zucchini, and squash are done. Still gotta do lettuce and herbs. Should probably do some baby asian cabbage and flowers too.

What color, which brand if I may ask?

I may have an absolutely unhealthy amount of nail polish. And now I'm curious which ones you like most haha.

I finally made the switch away from Microsoft (as part of my personal contribution to "elbows up") and into Linux Mint. And to be honest, it's ... OK. Fortunately I live with my technical support so when (not if) things go bad he's there to curse low key under his breath while he fixes it, but those incidents aside Mint has been pretty good.

Working on my novel AND my ordination.

These are my primary ones at the moment.

The Essie green on the left is one of my favorite colors, it’s super pretty, I think it has a top coat that sets it like a gel, but it works really well with my mini nail lamp. I like OPI because it’s pretty inexpensive and the red wine looks great on me, but the bottle is old and not easy to use anymore so I’ll probably be replacing it for the same color.

The middle blue is Sally Hansens Miracle Gel line, it’s a base coat, color, and top coat that is supposed to set like a gel manicure. The polish itself is great when I take the time to let it set.

The right two were a gift from a friend, they are limited edition colors. The yellow Bees Knees is called Cowabunga and it’s gorgeous. I thought it would look good as a top coat, but I wore it as a color and the chunky sparkles just shimmered in the sun, really pretty color. The green is Night Owl and the color is Turtles in a Half Shell (can you spot the theme here? 😁). It’s not as shimmery as Cowabunga, but it’s a really pretty green.

I have a problem with green and I’ve kind of banned myself from buying more because I usually have a few shades on a daily basis lol

My contribution to elbows up is to degoogle, demicrosoft, and defacebook (I didn't use apple or amazon to begin with), and eventually, I'm gonna move out of the country (the ultimate boycott).

My counter-argument to the whole "windows just works" thing is "no it doesn't". Like, it's slow, bloated, and it just updates whenever it feels like it. /endrant

It can be really helpful to have someone to do linux tech support. I lwk wish I had someone to do that for irl.

The only real trouble I had was with WiFi. When it installed it saw that I had a "broadcom" and asked if I wanted to install the "drivers". I said yes and it did so, no problems.

Then it immediately did a huge system update (which it told me in advance it was going to do, so no surprises). But the update broke the WiFi. After a few hours of cursing my tech support and bed warmer got it working again, but I would not have been able to do that myself.

There were problems with one of my Bluetooth devices, but I rarely use it with a computer anyway (this was more a test) so it didn't matter.

I'd de-googled, de-facebooked, and de-twittered a long time ago (like before Melon Husk took over Twitter time frames). I've dropped bourbon (😢) and Diet Coke from my drinks rotation and when I want a Snickers I eat the Russian "Input" or "Sprint" bars instead: I think they're the same thing, but I can get boxes of 18 full-sized "Sprint" bars at about 6-7 bucks, so that's what I go for, then eat them sparingly over a few months. The penultimate step was removing myself from Windows at home, and the ultimate step will be when my phone outlives its usefulness (I've owned it since 2021-ish, so I've got a few more years left) and I switch to a phone that runs HarmonyOS.

I recently got a Fairphone with /e/os, and I'm pretty happy with it. Now, the only time I ever have to use a proprietary OS is when I (very occasionally) need Secure Boot to get past anticheat.

Honestly, the only American companies I'll struggle to boycott is videogame distributors. I think the only non-American company that sells videogames (digitally; obviously there are physical retailers) is Nintendo, and I'm not buying a Switch, because they're pretty frickin' expensive.

Congrats on your progress toward digital sovereignty thus far; it's honestly quite impressive.

I'm immune to the charms of video games, thankfully, so it's easier to get rid of American products. For social media, I shifted to Mastodon and Pixelfed.

I never really used social media (I lurked, but I didn't sign in), but then I found the Fediverse. I particularly enjoy this lil corner (the Threadiverse).

I suppose I could just play FOSS games, but at the same time, I don't think Steam is making much money off of me playing the games I already bought.

Same status as me and Android. The damage has been done. But Alphabet isn't getting another cent out of me.

I mean, Alphabet makes most of their money by selling user data, but switching to a new phone simply takes time.

Ah, but my phone is an HONOR and is not part of the Alphabet soup. I have Chinese companies spying on me instead which is much better! 🤭

I mean, it kinda is better. Chinese companies won't rat you out to Uncle Sam.

I'm a (rightfully) paranoid trans woman, and I don't trust the big tech companies to not rat me out if the government escalates to full-on genocide against us trans folks.

This is a great stash! Love the color range you've got and WOW that limited edition Bees Knees is a fun color. There's so many fun names for nail polish hahaha

Yeah, my friend got those two limited editions for me because I’m a big TMNT fan. The picture does not do justice to how gorgeous that Cowabunga color is!

I have an unhealthy obsession with the color green lol I should just tattoo my whole body green and get it over with 🤣

This one from ILNP is my very favorite green! Have you tried magnetic polishes yet? They're fun.

Such a lovely gift from your friend! They know you well it seems!!

Oh my! That color is amazing and I may have to break my “no more green” promise to myself!

I played a little with magnetic polish a long time ago but I never had good wands back then. One of these days, I’ll pick up a quality wand and try again.

First full week of the month so we deep clean the rooms. Between cat emergencies and work we've been kinda slacking off so it's turnd into a friggin' nightmare. The before and afters are nice though. And with the rugs pulled up the kittens went apeshit barrelling down the hall