Friends and family

First the best news: My best girlfriend is talking to me again, which makes me infinitely happy. Some of you may remember. Some time ago, I was very wrong in my choice of words. In any case, I am infinitely happy that we are slowly finding our way back to each other.

The vacation week I wanted to reserve for my family was a vacation week for house construction. It was terribly nerve-wracking. No one in my family benefited from it. That said, things don’t really get any better next week when I also go back to work. This makes me very sad.

I

I was downgraded (upgraded?) from priority 4 to priority 2. My vaccination against Corona could come so soon. I am looking forward to it, really. I want to finally get this all behind me.

Otherwise, I’m a mental wreck. It would be an understatement to blame everything on building a house. Simply everything is costing me everything. It is very important that many things change soon, that I change. I am working on it.

Technology

I’m going to part ways with HEY. That cool and hip internet service. As nice as I thought it was, it ultimately did me little good. In one respect, but more about that in a moment. In the matter of mail I remain faithful to the usual. I have a clean folder structure and a partly very important archive. I have set up good filters and work so mails structured and good. HEY got this a little bit mixed up. It opened up new possibilities for me, but old habits I had to partially forget, which I did not want. So in the end it did not make me happier. And that’s what it should be: A web service should be helpful in some way. Be useful. And thus make you happier.

By the way, I will not continue my Banana Weekly with it. Not even in another form. That was kind of great, but I don’t feel like worrying about how to send a newsletter elsewhere now.

HEY made me subscribe to various newsletters. The “The Feed” section in HEY was great. But rather, it was a stepping stone to Mailbrew, which has completely replaced my feed reader for about a week now. I now get a summary 3x a day from all the sources I’ve been feeding in. This way I don’t get all the news of the day, but at least a selection. And that’s exactly what I need. I have so no more urge to constantly open the feedreader. Instead, I’m happy when another summary lands in my inbox at 19:30. Great concept. That’s useful. It actually makes me happier. The few euros from HEY will probably go into a year’s subscription here.

Movies, video games, books

I last bought Neo Cab in the Eshop Sale from Nintendo. It’s basically a kind of interactive movie in a cyberpunk universe. I think it’s great. It’s quiet, emotional, beautiful to watch. Just what I need. I first considered buying Immortals Fenyx Rising on sale, but ended up not liking the demo. I should just play demos more often again. Recently, I just bought games in the sale and was then partially disappointed. And by the way: I had a very similar experience with Lonely Mountains: Downhill. I found the demo horrible. I couldn’t get to grips with the controls at all. That ruled it out for me.

I only watch a few movies. The last one I saw moved me a lot, but I always have to spend my few free minutes every day on something else.

I’ve been reading my current book, After You, a little further. Only a few pages. It’s great. I hope to get further soon.

Closing words

Probably there is more, much more. But I just wrote that off my chest. It’s okay, just like that.

As the story began as a sort of involuntary road trip by Tim, I immediately took him and the book to my heart. An interesting character comes to a small town and becomes a night knocker. Never heard of it before, but all the more interesting I found exactly that.

Shortly thereafter, I met Luke, who would be the focus from then on. He and numerous other children who were held captive in the so-called Insititute. King-typically it was very rough there. So much so that you could almost feel the children’s pain yourself. Of course, this was also due to the fact that the character drawing is once again great.

Nevertheless: I was sad. Where is Tim? Only the children? I was a bit disappointed, but only briefly. Because the story about the institute, the background and the children became more exciting by the minute. And as typical for King, I couldn’t put the book down after about halfway through, because that’s when it really picked up speed.

I had almost forgotten about Tim, but then the two heroes finally met. It was great. A relief and at the same time tension, because how exactly did they deal with what was to come?

Then the end of the book was good. No, it wasn’t very good, unfortunately, but still good enough that I will definitely read The Institute again. What I’m getting at is that the showdown felt kind of forced. It was spectacular but not spectacular enough. As if King had to draw a line very quickly.

I have now read several pages of The Institute by Stephen King with my new Kindle Paperwhite (10th generation).

This is my first impression:

Brilliant without backlighting. Like a book page. With backlighting: Unfortunately, it is not even. In the bottom right corner it is slightly stronger than in other places. You can overlook it, but it bothers me somehow. I’m also not sure if the writing is always 100% sharp. Sometimes I don’t have that impression, but I could never really confirm that. Maybe my eyes are just too tired, because I sit at my computer or stare at my mobile phone display all day anyway.

The fabric cover I chose: Very nice, good feel. But: very uncomfortable to hold on to the edges when reading for a long time. I don’t think it’s any different with the leather cover, but it also has sharp edges and is more slippery. However, I have the best experience without the cover. It’s the best way to hold the device. On the other hand, I don’t feel like taking the thing in and out every time. Hmm.

Anyway, the last hour was really fun and I think I can get used to it.

Did I mention that my Kindle Paperwhite arrived today? (Spoiler: Yes.)

A nondescript little package in the mailbox. At first I didn’t expect it to be so small, but then I learned to appreciate the size. And now the question: on Amazon you can see pictures of people who ordered 5 of them. Each of them had different colors. Say one had more of a yellow tint, the other went into the bluish, etc. I have one lying there now. And paranoid as I am, I ask myself: Do I accept it like that? Or do I order a few more and choose the one that appeals to me the most? I must say that it currently fits me so quite well. But here you see again, how reviews affect the brain of another…

Anyway, I immediately bought the novel “The Institute” by Stephen King, which I’ve been listening to on Audible so far. This is now read further. I have always preferred to read books, but Audible has been my choice since I had to drive long distances to work.

I expect a lot from the little technical creature. I hope I can finally get back to reading more. I haven’t read many Stephen King novels to date (I’m a big fan of his works). I need to catch up on that now. And maybe I’ll buy one or two of my favorite books for Kindle again. For example “The Swarm” by Frank Schätzing or my favorite King novels like “The Stand”, “It” or “11/22/63”.