Blueman

Last night I made the wonderful discovery that Linux handles Bluetooth streaming to HAs, way better than Microsoft ever did.

 The setup I have is quite modest by modern standards, which is why I suppose Microsoft decided not to support it with an upgrade to Windows 11 from 10. Just fine by me — 11 is garbage in my opinion. Mint likes it, however. Mint has handled everything I've thrown at it, hardware wise. The hilarious part about all of this - the entire Bluetooth stack is enabled by a USB key. That's it — the motherboard has no built-in support.

 When I attempted to stream audio to my hearing aids under Windows 10 a couple of years back, it would sputter, staccato audio. Unlistenable & unusable. I'm here to inform you, early in the A.M. I tried connecting the HAs to the PC again using the Blueman-manager widget provided by the Mint developers. Activated the hardware handshake and the name of the product popped up in the list of available devices. Right click, connect and PAH! It WORKS. I now have access to higher fidelity audio on my PC than I did previously. 

 Thanks again, Linux. 

Privilege

There is a level of privilege normies take advantage of daily, and quite frankly we're in the way of them having a good time. Haven't you learned that yet?

Triggers

In lieu of speaking with a psycho-therapist, I've been working on myself. It is possible I'm carrying "childhood trauma" from 1) being undiagnosed autistic and 2) hearing impaired. I am trying to identify triggers, or pain points in my life that have contributed to how I react to things today. I say react, because there are times I feel absolutely tranquil. That only happens when I don't have to interact with normal people.
* People who dismiss mental health under the guise of toxic positivity, or even worse religion (pray the disability away) - wishing on a miracle from a saviour which will never happen. BTW If I ever find out who sent Jehovah's Witnesses to my apartment, you're going to get a stern talking to.
* Ableism - too often there is dismissal of the issue entirely by the normal person. It doesn't affect them, so how can it possibly affect others? I have been nailed by this one so many times, I've lost count.
* Quit minimizing the trauma. By that I mean when I tell you that something has changed in my brain and I feel "broken", don't tell me to "grow up" or "just find another job". If I wasn't struggling, I would be doing those things already.
* The level of disrespect and rudeness displayed by people is on the rise. Was questioning myself whether I was becoming agoraphobic. I don't think that's what it is. I think people are just plain fucking rude these days.
* Emerging from a period of anxiety thanks to the COVID epidemic took time. I'm better now but still broken.

No Faith

I have no faith in corporations anymore. Absolutely zero. I say this as a hard of hearing person who has given up trying to work with "normal people."

Your Bong

♪ And you can tell ev'ryody
This is your bong
It may be quite stinky
Now that's it done
I hope you don't mind
that I have to grind
Some more wacky Kush
How wonderful life is
With Weed in the world ♫

(Apologies to Elton & Bernie.)

PSA

The remaining piles of dirt, gravel, ice and snow on the ground has an official term: Snirt.