Yodeller

Last Friday I faced an unfortunate situation: my car was completely dead. The first suspect was a dead battery (the 12V one, not the big one). One thing with the electric cars is that such situations are a bit more tricky to solve on your own than with the traditional ICE cars (I've had my share of those issues in the past).

Luckily the manufacturer offers a free complimentary roadside assistance service. I called them and after telling them I was not in a hurry they promised somebody will be there in a few hours. My past experience has been that the "few hours" is the promise I get when the situation is urgent. It was less than two hours when the guy arrived, prepared to do anything he could to get me "back on the road".

After a short assesment it was clear there was noting he could do on-site so the car had to be towed to a dealership for further investigation and repairs. Another thing included in the free service. Only thing was that I was left without a car. They do provide substitute cars (or accommodation) for these kinds of situations, but only if you are actually on the road. Luckily my car insurance covers that part so with another call I got that one covered as well.

Due to the weekend (and Friday being a bank holiday here) it took a bit longer for the dealership to do the investigation and repairs. But still the car was fixed and ready yesterday already. The problem was indeed the 12V battery that had died. While not great news it was at least covered by warranty. And when I went to pick up my car, not only was it fixed, but they had also charged the drive battery full!

It's always nice if the things don't have problems or break down, but there is no perfect system. Those mishaps will happen eventually. It's more important how those cases are handled.

One reason why I did my latest ad hoc music project instead of finishing any of the other unfinished ones was the latest update on the service I use to create generate the music. While it promised (and delivers) better quality and more complex tunes it has this flaw that almost every song it generates has an annoying background noise, a discord that is barely audible, but drives me mad when I hear it.

But that gve me an idea - I have been planning to make an album inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. What would be more fitting to the insanity of those tales than a maddening background noise that carries throughout the whole album.

As it was soon to be Christmas time I decided to combine those two and create a twisted version of some popular festive songs along with a few original ones and of course some poems from the master himself.

Only flaw in this perfect madness was that I could have released the album on Friday the 13th. Would have fitted the theme, but I was too eager to get it out as soon as I was finished that I couldn't wait a few more days. Besides, it's probably going to be out around Friday anyway as it usually takes a couple of days to actually get it out.

Just finished my second album (well actually it's 3rd, but the first one I never publicly released). This one wasn't as serious project as the last one and for example I used a lot more the help of the A.I. for lyrics writing as well. Falls more on the "for fun" category as well.

This one also went ahead before my three other projects I have been working way longer. The ones that are more on the serious side. It's just that for that kind of projects it is becoming harder to deem them good enough. I just want to keep working on them to make them perfect and I'm afraid the perfectionist in me has gotten a hold of me preventing me from finalizing them.

This one was also somewhat time critical as it's a (kind of) Christmas themed. Wouldn't make sense to release it after Christmas and I didn't want to wait another year to finish it off. It's also way more experimental and further from the mainstream than my previous one (even though that was already quite far from it anyway).

I finally got around to start listing my extra LEGO sets I have managed ro pit together from the hauls I have acquired. Until now I have only sold a few sets here and there when I've had something I know is more valuable and sought after. But I have been piling up more than a hundred sets that I need to start getting rid of too. They are just raking too much space.

I'm not even a half way through listing them all. It takes time to take all the pictures, finding a suitable price and then writing the listings. At first I thought I would list those less desirable sets with a reasonable discount from the overall selling rates, but decided to begin with the reasonable market prices first. And it seems to be paying off. Might be the season just before Christmas, but the sales has been pretty good already. Sure there has been some low ball offers, but given time it seems there are buyers for everything. I'm also not in a hurry to sell those, so I can wait. And if they don't sell I can always drop the price just to get them off from my hand.

Despite all the jingle bells playing in stores and radio over a month already and stores stocked with Christmas products it still surprises me that the it's only just over two weeks till Christmas.

There is always plenty of preparations needed before. Not the least are the presents. It would be bad if I'd had to start thinking about those at this point. There is still time, sure. But it could be stressful if I wouldn't have everything already sorted out on that front.

So it's just the ordinary preparations: cleaning up the place, setting up decorations and doing all the rest of the shopping. Plenty of time still for all that.