Author: Erwin

When Sony announced the PlayStation 5, I had every intention of buying one. I have a PlayStation 4 Pro and that console provided me with countless hours of entertainment. I really enjoyed the PlayStation exclusives of that era, especially the remasters of older games that I had never played before. So, it made sense the PS5 would be on my upgrade list.

Well, 2020 rolled around and supplies were so low that it was either impossible to get one or it was available for what was obviously a price-gouging price. I was still enjoying my PS4 Pro and had my PC as well for gaming, so I didn’t feel the need to get a PS5 right away. The next thing I know, a few years have now passed and I still wasn’t compelled to get one. Now I’m thinking a PS5 Pro can’t be too far away, so it kinda makes sense to wait for that, just like I did for the PS4 Pro.

Sony finally announces the PS5 Pro but there’s a catch, it’s super expensive. In Canada, it’s basically $1,000 before taxes. On principle, I can’t justify paying that much for a console, especially one that doesn’t even has a disc drive for that price. Luckily, another option appeared. Sony has begun to release games that were previously PlayStation console exclusives on PC. Not only that, these games also have full DualSense PS5 controller support on the PC. This means that if you buy a PS5 controller, it will work on the PC for those games.

As of this writing, you can now play games like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West, and God of War Ragnarok on the PC. All of these games were first released in the PlayStation ecosystem, with no expectation they’d be playable elsewhere. Since these games are now available on PC, I don’t really feel like I need to buy a PS5 anymore. I bought a PS5 controller in November and I’m playing Horizon Forbidden West right now and it’s amazing. In the new year, Spider-Man 2 is coming to PC as well, so I’m looking forward to that too.

We’ll see what happens with the PlayStation 6. Hopefully Sony reels me back in with that one.

Yesterday was my last work day for the year 2024. I stopped work early and headed out to get a massage. Did you know the massage place I go to is just a five-minute walk from my home? I continue to live in an area with extreme convenience and I fear that has made me lazy as I expect everything to be in walking distance.

Anyways, after being kneaded into a loose ball of flabby muscles, I grabbed some takeout for dinner, and headed back home. I ate my butter chicken, watched YouTube, and fell asleep on the couch. Because it’s the holidays now, I even drank a coffee at 9:30pm because there are no rules for the rest of the year.

I don’t have a lot of plans for the holidays. I’m going to spend some time with my immediate family, play lots of video games, try to get some rest, eat reasonably, and workout. I do have a stretch goal of doing a deep clean of my apartment. This is a stretch goal because using valuable holiday time to do chores seems like a waste and I know my motivation will wane when the alternative is to not do chores. Nevertheless, I have floors, kitchens, and bathrooms to clean, though probably not plural of some of those things.

I thought I’d get a jump on my cleaning duties by doing some today but I slept in until 11am this morning. I think that’s a sign I’m actually quite tired and need to rest so I took it easy today. Maybe I start the cleaning tomorrow.

Tonight, I’m gonna watch some hockey, nap, play a new game, and probably workout. It’ll be fun.

Many years ago, during the very early days of the Internet, I made an e-mail address where I’d use that address for all my commercial and retail dealing. Things like when you have to make an account for home insurance, pizza delivery, hotel bookings, flights, content entries, e-commerce, essentially anything not to do with personal correspondence.

As you might imagine, as the online world grew, this e-mail address got used a lot. Through no fault of my own, the systems that this e-mail address were used on got hacked. I think MGM Resorts leaked my info in at least two in separate hacks. LifeLabs also made sure hackers knew this e-mail address.

Through a bit of luck and maybe some online smarts, hackers, to my knowledge, have not been able to get into the e-mail account. They sure have tried though. Once my info was leaked, I noticed the activity logs of my e-mail account began to spike and have never gone down. Every day for years now, the logs show people are trying to sign into that account and failing. On average, someone tries to sign into that account once per hour. I can also see where the sign attempts come from and they try from all over the world. So on an average day, 24 or so attempts are made to get into the account, every single day of the year.

Of course, I’m not stupid, I have alternative methods of account verification turned on. So even if they do brute force the password, they have a second wall to get around. In recent days though, I have been thinking about making that e-mail account passwordless, meaning it cannot be accessed via a regular password. Instead, you can use an authenticator app, a biometric key, or other ways to prove who you are. In all those cases, only the person who really owns that account can verify who they are because a hacker, for example, doesn’t have my fingerprints.

This is probably the smart thing to do because it seems like people will never stop trying to access this account. Every single night, while I sleep, 7 or 8 attempts are made to get in. If they do, they’ll be able to order as many Pizza Hut deep dish pizzas as they want.

It’s probably pretty obvious why someone would enjoy going on vacation but I did find another not so obvious reason while I was gone. I was just so happy to not have to wash any dishes in Hawaii.

There are so crazy folks out there who grab takeout or have delivery for most of their meals but I can’t live like that for many reasons. As such, I cook most of my meals at home. This leads to a lot dirty dishes, pots, pans, and cutlery. Yes, I have a dishwasher but since I live alone, it’s a bit wasteful to run the dishwasher that’s barely half full. Yes, I also could just wait until I have enough dirty dishes until I can fill my dishwasher but I’d have to wait at least two days, three more likely before I could do that. Having dirty dishes sit that long bothers me. So I wash my dishes every day.

Anyways, having a week where I didn’t have to pull on some latex gloves and scrub dishes and pans was heavenly.

The hotel I stayed at while I was in Honolulu had a bidet attachment on the toilet. This was no doubt due to the many Japanese tourists that flock to Hawaii, who are used to having bidets at home. I was quite excited to see this in my hotel bathroom, as I’d never used a bidet before. I checked in fairly late into the evening, so I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to test this out until the next day.

During my first full morning on my vacation, I felt the need to evacuate solid waste, and I did so with some excitement, moreso than usual. The first thing I noticed was that the seat was heated. This was probably not required for a warm place like Hawaii but I can understand why this feature was included, as it would be a nice touch for places that do experience winter weather.

The bidet could be controlled with a remote that placed in a holder on the wall, next to the toilet. Once I actually pooped, I pressed the button that indicated it would spray some water to begin the cleaning. I was a little apprehensive since I had no idea if I was seated in the right position or if the stream was going to be too powerful. Once the button was pressed, I could hear some motors activating behind me. It took a few seconds before I felt the water spray. From what I could tell, a little door needs to open to expose the nozzle of sorts. Once the spraying began, I was relieved to feel warm and pleasant water directed towards my anal region.

The remote had controls for intensity and some sorta pulsation setting, so you could increase the strength of the spray and make it pulse in patterns. I just left it on the default settings for a while, letting the experience wash over me (no pun intended). This was my first time using a bidet, so I didn’t want to rush it.

After a while, I adjusted my position on the toilet seat slightly because I realized I wasn’t at the right spot where the stream would do the most work in cleaning me. I kinda shuffled my butt a bit and after some time, I felt like the spray had probably cleaned as much as it could.

I then pressed the dryer button on the remote. This caused another little door to open and warm air began to caress my anal region. I left it to dry my butt for a few minutes.

At this point, I had still not used any toilet paper. Now, I’ve heard some claims that a bidet eliminates the need for toilet paper, so I had to test those claims. After flushing, I did my usual wiping of my butt. Now, at least for that first usage of the bidet, I discovered that you still need to use toilet paper to get fully clean.

Over the course of the week, I used the bidet every single time after I pooped. I also increased the intensity and the pulse settings. On some days, it did a really good job and I only required a bit of toilet paper to finish up the job. On other days, it required almost the same amount of toilet paper as usual.

Overall, my assessment of this particular bidet is that I understand why people have these in their bathrooms. There is no doubt using warm water to clean your anal region is better than just toilet paper. It’s just much more hygienic. I wish all hotels had a bidet.

Now if I were to install one in my own home, this is how I’d want my bidet compared to the one in my hotel. I’d want one where the intensity of the spray would be ramped up more. Now I understand it can’t be too much because then you’d run the risk of spraying the water right up your anal cavity but the more pressure there is, the better it cleans. For the dryer function, I’d like the ability to make the air hotter and faster. The hotel bidet dryer function was kinda weak. It was slightly warmer than room temperature and it was like a gentle breeze against my butt. It took a while to dry my butthole.

Anyways, it was super fun to use a bidet all week. Looking forward to my next time with one.

On Saturday, I flew home from Honolulu via Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. The check-in and bag drop-off process was quick and smooth at the Air Canada counter. When I went to get through security, I saw a very long line. The TSA app on my phone told me it would take anywhere between 0 to 15 minutes to clear security. Seeing the length of the line, I was a bit skeptical.

Once I actually got in line, I noticed that while the line was long, it was moving really fast. People were constantly moving and I don’t think I stopped in place for more than five seconds before I had to keep walking. I began to wonder how it was possible for this line to be consistently moving this fast. Security at most U.S. airports require you to take off jackets, belts, shoes, hats, empty your pockets, take out electronics and liquids, and place everything, including your carry-on baggage in those trays for scanning. Then everyone needs to go into those machines that allows TSA agents to look at your genitals (unless you choose to opt out). It’s a very long process.

As I got closer to the front of the line where everyone was gets checked, I was asked to walk by a sniffer dog. After that, I was at the front of the line, where a TSA agent checked my passport and boarding pass. Then they asked me to empty my pockets and place the contents into my backpack. Then my backpack went onto the conveyor belt. It was then I realized that no one was being asked to take off jackets, shoes, belts, or hats. Everyone didn’t even need to go through those stupid imaging machines. We just needed to go through a simple metal detector machine. The TSA were breezing people through the metal detector machine at almost a one a second pace. From the time I gave the TSA agent my passport and boarding pass to when I picked up my backpack on the other end of the conveyor belt was about 30 seconds. This was easily the most streamlined security check I’ve encountered in years. It was so pleasant. Now I understood why the security line was moving so fast.

In contrast, on the way to Hawaii, at YVR I had to take off half my clothing, take out all my electronics in a separate tray, and I had to go through the scanning machine a few times. I’m sure this doesn’t happen very often but I have to give the TSA some praise here for getting everyone through security in an efficient manner.

I returned home from a little vacation late on Saturday night. I took a taxi home from the airport and I’d be getting home around midnight. You might understand that I did not have much in the way of food at home given that I was away for many days. I was also very hungry, with the time since my last meal verging on twelve hours.

To solve this problem, I did something that I’ve been thinking about doing for years: I was going to order food while en route from the airport. The apps give you a rough estimate of when you might get your order, so I made sure I didn’t order too early, since my food would just be sitting in front of my door, getting cold. Of course, there was nothing wrong with ordering food later into my drive home, other than perhaps needing to wait for it once I got home.

I managed to time it pretty well. The delivery driver buzzed my intercom about a minute before I got dropped off. When I got out of the taxi, my driver must have just left the area. When I got to my front door, there was a bag of food waiting for me, which gave me the best feeling, after a long day of travel.

The modern world sucks in so many ways, but I am glad we figured out some way for someone to order food on the way home from the airport.

Just a big, old sigh.

In a recent post, I wrote that my building had a major flood. This flood necessitated an building-wide shut off of the water for nearly six hours last Friday. Today, I saw one of the elevators was locked off for a move between 9am and 5pm. This is a massive amount of time for one of the elevators to be dedicated for a move.

On my way back from lunch, I saw the building manager and asked him about this lengthy move. He told me that two units are moving out because of the flood. There was enough water damage that those units are not fit for living in and I’m guessing repairs are just easier with all the furniture and people out of there.

He also confirmed the affected units are on tenth floor, which is the lowest floor in this building that has residential units, everything below is either common property, parking, or commercial. The floor right below the tenth is the amenities room, storage lockers, and gym. This whole building is lucky that the leak happened on the tenth floor and the water went down to a non-residential floor, otherwise we’d probably be dealing with more people moving out.

I can’t imagine what a pain in the ass it is for those living in those two units. Not only is your home flooded, now you gottta move your ass elsewhere. I can only hope their insurance is covering all this. Even if it does, what an upheaval to your life.

I recently wrote about how my building had to shut off the water supply to all residents for about eight hours during a weekday so they could do some repairs. Well, they’re gonna do it again. In my last post, I detailed how a major water leak in one of the apartments caused extensive flooding in the lower floors. I imagine they were only able to make temporary repairs because on Friday evening they’re going for a more permanent fix. The water will be shut off on Friday night from 10am to 4am early Saturday morning.

In the meantime, there have been multiple flood restoration vans parked outside the building all week since the leak began. These dudes must be working all day drying stuff out. The amenities floor, which includes the weight room and sauna, and our storage lockers have been off-limits to residents as well. Oh wow, I totally forgot about my storage locker. Well, they didn’t say the storage lockers were affected, so I can only hope everything is ok down there. I better go check now.