Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: tech

Dating, sex, and tech, part seven

Apparently, I have more to say about dating, sex, and tech. Techs in the city? Text in the city? Oh, wait. It’s Sex AND the City. Whatever. I never watched the showl/movie?/whatever, anyway. This is my post from yesterday in which I talk about what I thought was going to happen in my life versus what I really wanted to happen in my life.

Today, I had my Taiji Zoom class. It’s in the basement of a church that is like a concrete bunker. My teacher uses a headset so we online can hear her. Without fail, at some point, the connection goes out. We may be able to see her, but we can’t hear her. Or vice-versa. This is usually when she switches from using her headset to not using it, which she does after ne do meditation. She takes off the headset during meditation, which makes sense. For whatever reason, when plugging the headset back in, it totally disconnects her from the internet.

Sometimes, it’s because she accidentally hits a button on her headset. Other times, who knows? Tech is going to tech.

I will say on my end, I had a few months of frustration with my audio when attending the Zoom classes. It was after a Zoom update, of course. I fucking hate updates because for every positive update, there’s two to three unintended negative consequences. Also, I really don’t need updates every month. Maybe keep it to once a quarter.

Of course I want my computer to run as smoothly as possible, but I hate it when the negatives outweighs the positives. And it’s often the case of , “How the fuck do I return this to the way it was? Fuck if I know!”

By the way, I’m playing a game called, Birdigo, by John August and Corey Martin. They say it’s inspired by Wordle and Balatro; it’s simple and addictive. However, it would not accept the word ‘fuck’, which made me lift an eyebrow. Really? ‘Fuck’ isn’t in the dictionary? I was very disappointed by that.

Anyway, back to my computer issues. Suddenly, after a Zoom update, my audio did not work in Zoom. It worked just fine the week before. I fiddled with my settings, and they said that they could hear me, but I was extremely quiet.

The next week, I realized that I was somehow had two Zooms open. One was the app and one was the in-browser Normally, I used the in-browser, but it didn’t automatically come up like it used to. Now, it was the app that came up, but I didn’t use the app. Therefore, there was no audio through the app. The audio would only come through the browser.

This took two sessions to figure out. I checked it after class, and it was correct. I had no idea why the app was opening since I did not use the app and did not want to use the app. I only used the browser, but Zoom didn’t like that. It wanted me to use the app, probably so it could get my details.


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More about dating…and tech issues, part five

Day three? Four? Something like that of tech issues. This time, it’s completely self-inflicted, which doesn’t make it any less frustrating. In fact, it’s more frustrating because why the hell did I do that? If only I hadn’t done that! Here’s what happened.

A couple days ago, I accidentally kicked my PC tower. Hard. It was fine, but I had to make sure all the cables were plugged in firmly. They seemed to be, and all was well. Today, suddenly, my PC stopped working. Just out of the blue. I immediately deduced that it had something to do with the accidental kick I had given the PC tower a few days ago.

I checked cables. All seemed fine. I checked the power strip. Also seemed fine. I unplugged it and replugged it in, and then I turned it off and on again. It was all fine. It was late at night (for normies), so I didn’t want to call my brother. I knew that he went to bed by eleven/midnight, and I didn’t know how long it would take me to fix the issue. Though I had a hunch that he would know what it was.

I did some more hunting around to see what I might have missed. I finally realized that I was looking at the wrong cord when I was checking out the  power cord. The actual power cord had come unplugged on the PC tower side, so I plugged it back in. Did that take care of the problem? Yes! My computer booted up, and it was fine. Except.

Why wasn’t my second monitor working? I futzed with the settings, but my computer said that the second monitor was not available. What the hell? I was mad at myself for kicking my PC,  even though it was an accident.

I checked the cable on the back of my second monitor, and the other end was unplugged. I knew it had to go into my PC tower, but I had no idea where. By the shape of the cable, I only seemed to have one option. I plugged it in, but it wasn’t the one. I Googled it, and it said not to plug into the HDMI at the top of the PC tower, but to use the port that was lower. I could not see another HDMI port, but I knew there had to be one.

I got onto the ground with my phone (as my flashlight), and I found the right HDMI port. Finally! Everything was back to the way it should be. Except. About five minutes later, several YouTube videos started playing at the same time. I had about a hundred tabs open in roughly thirty different bunches. I had to quickly go through them to find the ones that were playing. Of course, it was nearly the last bunch that was the culprit, so I got rid of almost all my YouTube tabs. It doesn’t bother me because I’m sure I’ll have a hundred open again in no time flat.


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Simmer down now

I feel like I can just breathe. I still have shit I need to do, but the rate at which I have to do them has slowed down. And, things like getting a new phone can wait. I do want to be able to take video, though. It really helps now that I’m learning something completely new. That would be Bagua, specifically the Swimming Dragon Form. It’s stimulating and slightly scary at the same time to be a total newbie again.

Well, not exactly. I mean, Yes, it’s a new internal martial art, but I’ve done some Bagua before. Walking the circle with 8 palms plus the DeerHorn Knives….I know this sounds mad from the outside, but I promise you it makes sense. At least to me!

I loved it from the start, but i thought it would be too hard to learn two martial arts at once. I wanted to focus on Taiji weapons because they are my life, my love, and my happily ever after. But…at a certain point…I got really into my beloved DeerHorn Knives. It makes sense because they are weapons as well. I asked my teacher if she could show me a form for them, and she saw an opening. She said that there was the Swimming Dragon Form, which was the best-known form. Maybe the only form? Don’t quote me on that. You have to learn it with your hands first before you can learn it with the DeerHorn Knives. I agreed because I was so earger to learn the DeerHorn Knives version and because I really liked Bagua in general.

I have mentioned it before, but the feeling while practicing Bagua is so different than the feeling while practicing Taiji. With Taiji, it’s about being calm, chill, and being receptive. You take the energy that is given to you and return it twofold. Theoretically, it’s not for aggression, but, of course, you can initiate if you want. When I’m practicing, I’m more about being smooth and doing it for my health. Even with the weapons, it’s not about attacking. It’s about perfecting the form and doing it as seamlessly as possible.


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