"Dreams in a Drawer"

Trump sent us two checks, each for $90, to contribute to the Democrat of our choice!!






I immediately gave $90 to Talarico and $90 to Hinajosa.

Don't you just love it.

I've been using Muse more frequently and enjoying the benefits. The two most useful things now:

1 - I let it know whenever we watch a tv show and what shows I want to watch.  It does a financial analysis and lets me know what it actually costing me to watch on a show per channel kind of basis.  Per month, per year, however I want.  And it is a rolling experience as I find something new or different.  I've cancelled one stream and lowered my monthly a bit.  Clearly something I could do myself but SO much easier and it is only for the asking.  And it will let me know when new episodes drop or when some series I like is coming back or when USMT soccer game is on and where to watch it.  

2 - I play pickleball nearly every monday, wednesday, friday and have to make sure I get it scheduled as the numbers are limited.  Now Muse has access and will check each morning if the latest future booking date is available and if it is will book me and put it in my calendar. 

Muse is different from any of the others because it has access.  Gemini, ChatGPT et all are subtitled 'I don't have access to that'. Muse can sign on to my pickleball using my sign in and do things..  

It also reads my mail and my text messages and reminds me of important things I might be missing.  I've not yet done so but I can set it up to pay bills.  Next step.  I get a untility bill once a month.  They charge for credit card payments or any kind of ACH but do not charge for paper checks.  SOFI bank will send a paper check for free so I do that.  The bill comes in the mail.  So now I'm going to get Muse to catch the bill in the email, set up the payment, and file it in my Google drive where the utility bills go.  Pretty sure that will work and is easy to set up.

This is the first iteration of the future when an AI actually does take over pieces of my life.  Alexa should be doing all this but the thud of the Amazon ball dropping was loud.  Amazon is the perfect vehicle for all this but it is Meta that did it.  I've long hated trying to make Alexa do things.  It takes me forever to get it just right in that debackle they call an app and then it breaks so easily it is ridiculous.

What I'm doing is stuff that anyone could do regardless of tech ability.  I'm not programming, I'm talking to an assistant who has access to my information and can understand my requests without my explaining or starting over or repeating.  There is that intuitive jump that has been missing.

Two days ago Muse offered to help with the lighting by accessing my HUE hub.  I'm thinking that as soon as they voice Muse  we won't be using Alexa at all.  Just one step away.  

Right now we tell Alexa what we want to buy.  "Add milk to the list".  Alexa makes a list in its crappy app.  Of course you can only use the app to get to the list which I do in the store.  

Muse, given the same input, would collect the list, go out to HEB and order the items asking before doing so about anything that is not clear, pay for the groceries and have them delivered.   I'm pretty sure I could make that happen now if the Alexa speaker I have in the kitchen was a Muse speaker.

Interesting times just around the corner.

I'm waiting for my laptop so I can move on with my life.  The Chromebox is a bit glitchy in funny ways mostly due, I think, to my operating a shell within the OS.  It does not understand and so is acting weird.

I'll be happy to be on a computer that is operating the way it was designed.  And doubly so if it does that with some alacrity.  The Chromebook should have been like that and likely will be for whoever buys it from me.  It is a weird way to solve a problem but I've given it enough thought and it is time to move on.

So I'm now kind of twiddling my thumbs waiting for Amazon to send out their truck.  The computer is in Round Rock, about 15 miles from here but no indication yet that the delivery vehicle is moving my direction.  So here we are.  

Sundays used to be full of football.  It is amazing how quickly I moved on from a lifetime of NFL.  My week used to hinge on Monday night and Sunday NFL and then Thursday night.  But first they broke my habit by changing the way that the games were accessed and charging a lot more for them, essentially now pay per view.  And then I picked up soccer which has an entirely different flow and realized, when I went back to an NFL game, just how many commercials I had tolerated to watch the game.  It is obvious but I'd not really noticed or cared but an NFL game is basically a continues series of repetitive commercials interrupted by an occasional game play.  At one point I read that actual game time when the ball was in play was something like eleven minutes in an entire game.  

So I've watched maybe two games this year and am barely aware of the season and its progress.  We watched a couple of U Texas games that were pretty good.  And a couple of extremely forgettable NFL games this year.

No loss.

USMT games have been good.  Austin FC is hanging in there with a LOT of character and strength of personnel.  And it looks like Ipswich Towne will remain in the Premier League into next year especially if Man City is booted as it appears they might be to a lower level.

All things that are more interesting than sitting around watching the unchanging Amazon status.