My Diary #232

Life

I am taking a couple days off work and anime next week to attempt to finally migrate my site away from the Elementor website builder (local) to the base WordPress one. And at the same time, because the "free" version locks me out of some parts of the theme, away from Volthemes (local) to a child theme of a default WordPress block theme called Twenty Twenty-Four (local). A child theme in this context means an extra folder in the theme that inherits from the base theme but can take additional code or files that I want to put in. WordPress releases one focusing on a different type of site each year and names it after the year, like Twenty Twenty-Three and Twenty-Twenty Five and so on, I named mine Twenty Twenty-Tigey.

Whether it turns out to be a right move for the site to move AWAY from an advanced editor like Elementor, back to the basic WordPress builder and a basic out of the box theme, which a contingent of users definitely dislike, will remain to be seen. But as someone just looking to write without needing a lot of the complexities like SEO and e-commerce stuff that a lot of website builders come with, simpler is probably better and faster anyway. But we shall see. I might end up reverting everything in the end if I find that it causes too much friction.

I plan to put the site into maintenance mode on Thursday and Friday, which blocks visitors from seeing anything but a downtime message. Then I'll disable Elementor and shift the site over to Twenty Twenty-Tigey, and rebuild in place all 450-500ish posts and pages on my site. That mostly involves copying and pasting from the garbage that Elementor will leave me with into default content boxes. But although I've tested some of this out on the test site already, I don't really know what if anything will break still, because several of the pages have one-off content types or use blocks that won't exist in the new system, so we'll see I guess. I can always just migrate "most" of it and work on the offenders once I'm off maintenance mode in the end.

I expect this whole thing to take two days, but it's very possible that it will take three or even four days, which means that it might cut into the weekend and might affect the delivery of next week's blog post.

That sounds so formal. Next week's blog post might be late, ok. But if the site opens up again before or on Saturday morning NA time, then it won't be late.

There is also the possibiliity that I find something so catastrophic that I immediately cancel the migration and go back to what I have right now, and go try to fix whatever the issue is before attempting it again in the future. This is unlikely, but possible. Or I could get very sick or something and not be up for the move.

Lastly, it is possible that I have to try to revert but something breaks so hard during site backup and restoration that we have to start afresh. In that case, I hope visitors enjoy whatever the next iteration of my website will be. This is unlikely, I have tested the import and restoration on a test site, but I don't know what I don't know and so who knows what could rear its head on the actual production environment. For example, I learnt a couple weeks ago that my site backup (just the text portion, without any images or video) is so large that even on a fresh WordPress installation, the import actually fails unless I use a 13-year-old program called WXRSplitter (local) to split it first, due to some WordPress bug that they never managed to fix after well over a decade and a half at this point and instead blame server memory for.

So anyway that should be fun. This week I worked on a lot of blog stuff too -- I simplified my Table of Contents again, got rid of a bunch of sections that I always wanted to have and expand but never will have the time to, and put virtually everything else that isn't a post living on the main Table of Contents page, on the Winter Night Library side page instead. I also went back and added about 150 different (local) snapshots to 300-400 links in my earlier posts, now that I'm no longer giving MAL and Steam links exemptions from being archived, and I also fixed two broken video links from my Song of the Week sections... the associated YouTube accounts hosting those videos had been suspended in the interim between me writing those posts and me checking it this week. My solution for now was to create a free Vimeo account (local) and upload it there. That way if it gets hit by a DMCA or something, only that account gets nuked.

I installed a clipboard app this week for the very first time too. I use cut, copy, and paste (Ctlr-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V a lot) for both work and my online digital activities, be it blog, archive, or spreadsheet related, but I've always just used the basic one-item Windows clipboard for that. I've been wanting to shift over to a slightly more feature-rich app with multiple clipboard slots for a while though, and after trying out a couple I went with Ditto (local) for now. I like that it has an easy way bring up a list (Ctrl-`) and to sticky a clipboard entry or two to the top of the list, without being packed so full of "rich" features and keybinds that I'll never use. Maybe eventually I'll find the need to try one with more features, but not right now.

In the vein of retaining things longer, I also bought a couple more things from the same store that I bought the 300 polypropylene sleeves two weeks ago, Pastime Sports & Games (local). As a sports card store, they have a lot of archival-grade sleeves and folders and other things too, and although their shipping is pricey even though they're from neighbouring British Columbia, I do like their selection and the "local" shopping option so I've made two purchases from them so far and both have come quickly and without any issue. I should still look for a local source at some point though, since I don't like the $16 or so shipping cost each time, but the couple shops I have checked so far, like Warp Three (local) at Mill Woods Town Centre this week, have struck out. The stuff I have bought, and kind of still need, are mostly BCW (local) or similar acid-free sleeves like this of various sizes:

 I went down to Mill Woods Town Centre this week because I had a follow-up appointment with an ophthalmologist, or eye doctor, to check for glaucoma, after my visit there three weeks ago, and his office was at Landmark Professional Center, which is right across the road from the Mill Woods Transit Centre, which is itself adjacent to the mall. I'm glad to announce that the doctor declared that while my eye pressure was a bit high, and that I was a potential risk for it in the future, there were no signs of it right now. He said that my eye pressure reading came in at 20/21 under whatever measurement scale they use, whereby 20 and below is considered a "normal" pressure reading, but that because my cornea was thicker than average, that probably pushed the reading up and the true reading was probably a little lower than that. Conversely, he said, the test tends to underestimate the pressure in those with thin corneas.

My newfound thick corneas are also noticing now that the building name uses the American spelling of "center" for whatever reason instead of the Canadian spelling of "centre". It's actually on the sign on the side of the building itself. But anyway he said they'd continue to monitor me as a preventative measure, so he would get the office to arrange another appointment in 6 months or so from now. My appointment was at 11 am, and I had forgotten that I had set the appointment reminder in my calendar to be at 10 am instead of 11 am since I had built in travel time as well, so I left the house a little before 9 am and reached there at 10 am instead. Oops. So what happened was that I checked in just before 10 am, then realized the error and checked out again, wandered around, then came back at 10:50 am to check in again for my appointment. And yet I had to sit around and wait until noon before the doctor was free.

I also learnt later on that this doctor, Dr. Mathew Palakkamanil, also happens to be the same one who takes care of my Dad, but that also meant that he was the one that performed eye surgery on my Dad and left him with semi-permanent double vision issues last year. Dad said he doesn't resent the doctor for it though, since obviously the doctor didn't intend to and has no reason to purposely do it that way, it is what it is.

In that one hour period before the appointment, I headed toward the nearby library and the mall, taking this picture along the way. I remember when Southgate used to have these recycling depot bins a couple of years ago too, but alas, that's now gone. Southgate is worse off for this.

I didn't stay long inside the library but I did get a picture of their question board:

And I then passed through the mall to go walk around in the No Frills supermarket attached to it. I hadn't been here before, and No Frills is on the expensive end of grocery store options despite what they claim, but I know that the area had been lacking a grocery store (local) for a while too so it's good that it's there.

It was so empty in the morning, empty like the Valley Line train to Mill Woods. A staff member accosted me and tried to sell me on a membership and their Mastercard credit card so I could earn extra points on all purchases I made anywhere, but I said no, since my Scotiabank Visa Infinite already does that and is better overall. I should have asked for a form or a pamphlet though. I ended up buying a couple packs of instant noodles that Safeway doesn't sell, and this sauce bottle to try something new:

Despite Gemini critiquing me for a very "normal" bottle that can be found in "any Canadian pantry", I haven't actually tried Worcestershire sauce before and it has an interesting taste. Gemini was also the one who recommended it to me in the first place after I showed it several pictures of shelves, because the brand, Lea & Perrins, has a long history, and it knows I like that sort of stuff, so maybe it was criticizing itself. It hallucinated a lot though, constantly suggesting products not on the shelves in front of me when I gave it a picture, and I got so frustrated that I eventually said goodbye, turned it off, and enjoyed the next day, Fri, Apr 24, as my first day without touching or looking at Gemini for the entire day since I came back from Canada. Today, Apr 25, will probably be the second day, so it's basically in timeout right now. I'll definitely need it next week for the website migration though.

After the appointment, I went over to Mill Woods Town Centre for lunch. Again, I went to Bernardo Diner for lunch, and again, I opted for the more expensive noodle for lunch instead of rice as a base plus two items. This again cost me $20 ($21 after tax) instead of $16, and again I kinda regretted it, but hey, their "noodle" option was different from last time so I guess it was worth a try.

I did not take a picture of the store's food trays itself, but I ended up with rice noodles with egg and pork, fish with a sort of milky curry, and vegetables with shrimp paste. I didn't particularly fancy the noodles, nor the four or so sweet potatoes in the vegetables, but the rest of it was good.

Before and after, I swung through the mall, taking a picture of one of the primary central walkways in the mall, and then the directory map in the middle of that walkway:

Outside a store called 6th Sense Cafe, I was amused to find a stack of "Coffee News" newsletters, a Canadian paper distribution that targets local restaurants and cafes. I've collected and scanned several of these myself but there are many different versions (local) that get published every week even just within Alberta. The ads are different in each one too.

I was amused by this though because despite it being only Apr 23 2026, I found editions for Apr 20, Apr 27, May 04, and May 11 there, showing that they preprint these and distribute these quite far into the future to save on costs. Nothing wrong with that, just amusing to see in action.

I also stopped by Warp 3 as mentioned above, and asked them about any archival supplies that they might have, as Gemini had mentioned that they would be a good place to try during my initial walk through the mall earlier on. They didn't sell sleeves (besides card sleeves) and even for acid-free backing boards, all they sold were these comic-book-sized ones:

The staff member said that their flagship store on Whyte Avenue, Warp 1, would have more sizes of those backer boards, but that they didn't stock things like sleeves either. Hmm.

Anyway, that was one of my two forays outdoor this week where I ended up with new condiments for the pantry. The other one was earlier in the week, on Mon, Apr 20, when I went out to Southgate Centre to grab lunch. I do like visiting the Winners store in the basement to peruse their shelves, as they usually have lots of stuff that I have not seen before. Stuff like this:

As always, my modus operandi when faced with such a pile of things is to throw all the images at Gemini and have it scan for things with interesting histories or taste profiles, and after consulting with it for a bit I ended up with some Himalayan black salt (Gemini said pink salt is a scam though), and some Persaillotte Parsley-Garlic-Shallot Mix.

The black salt is sooo strong and threatens to overpower anything I put even just a couple of rocks into, it was a pretty good try and I'm happy with it. The other spice mix smells really aromatic and interesting but has been overpowered by any dish I have tried to put it in so far!

Closer to home, I finally caught up on all the seasonal anime that I was watching... from last season. I wasn't even watching that many shows, but all my archival and other work that either piled up during my trip or came out as new things that I wanted to do from the trip, stuff like preparing for the site migration next week, took up so much time that I barely even had any time for solo games over the past few weeks, never mind watching anime. Now that I've finished the season though, a shoutout to some anime that I really enjoyed watching last season, Seihantai na Kimi to Boku (local), Sousou no Frieren 2nd Season (local), and Himesama "Goumon" no Jikan desu 2nd Season (local). And Ikoku Nikki (local), even though we group watched that once I got back rather than solo watched. I really enjoyed the opening songs of both Seihantai and Himesama, although the second song's full version, Sunday Morning by Illit, a Korean idol group, seems to have some really ugly and poorly integrated AI-generated stuff in the full song's Official MV that I saw while doing research on the song and video.

I also liked Frieren's ending song quite a lot, and that official extended music video in the link was a nice listen/watch now after having finished the show. Good times. Honourary mention to Okiraku Ryoushu no Tanoshii Ryouchi Bouei: Seisankei Majutsu de Na mo Naki Mura wo Saikyou no Jousai Toshi ni (local) and its opening song. Particularly the parts at 0:32 and 0:38 when the singer/characters go "nonbiri, nonbiri". That was pretty much the theme song snippet of half my trip, since I had fed that word to Gemini as part of my instructions to it regarding what my ideal travel itinerary and preferences were like, so it used the word back at me a lot (and still does). It also helps that the full MV of the song showcases the singer paying homage to rubber duckies through that part and other parts of it.

Last but not least, we go from one domain full of rubber duckies to another one closer to home, as I present a couple pictures from my balcony as always. This first one is from Sun, Apr 19 at 6:28 pm, as a cavalcade of vehicles waving Edmonton Oilers flags went by the nearby freeway, honking horns. I only caught the tail end of it.

Like our weather, they aren't doing so well right now, but I didn't expect them to this year anyway. Next, Tue, Apr 21 at 7:34 pm:

Milumbar and Kynji taught the ZOMG Discord (maybe mostly me) a new word fthis week, virga, which is the streak of rain that can be seen from a distance falling from a cloud but which evaporates before hitting the ground. According to that Wikipedia article, the ones that do hit the ground have a much more boring name, a rain shaft. By that definition, I think the streaks on the middle of the horizon are rain shafts, but there might be some virgae on the right into the brighter areas. Either way, neat.

Next, here's a deep orange sky with distant wispy clouds bisecting the remaining sun on Wed, Apr 22 at 8:51 pm.

Sunset these days is quite late, and this is probably a good time to note that the Albertan government plans to abolish daylight savings time going forwards (local) soon. This is despite a referendum (that I took part in) on it barely failing despite supposedly having overwhelming support (local) back in 2021. Now that other provinces around us are doing the same, it seems like we're taking the opportunity to do the same though, without a referendum, and will likely be standardizing on daylight savings time, so the "one hour ahead" version that will mean the sun rises and sets later. While I strongly dislike the current government, I strongly support this move. Finally, finally!

And then later on in the week, this happened. Fri, Apr 24 2026, 10:37 am. I don't want to talk about it.

Although I have next Thu and Fri off, I have to go in on Monday for a couple of meetings. The snow better bugger off.

Games

Satinel and I played a lot of Orcs Must Die 3 (local) this week. We completed and five-starred the entire main campaign and side campaign, and then she bought the DLC (which I already had) and we finished that, too. After that, we're pretty close to 100%ing the game so I am guessing that we will go for that by doing some of the other game modes, assuming that we don't run into anything rage-inducing that makes us quit.

On a personal front, during the early to middle of the week, I dabbled around in Melvor Idle (local), Slay the Spire 2 (local), and Backpack Battles (local) for a Thursday community night with Nomakk (local) and other chatters from his stream.

Later in the week, I was given playtest access (local) to Petit Planet (archive), and I spent a couple days on that. That's miHoYo's Animal Crossing-style game. The first hour and change were extremely boring, but it got much, much better after that, and as of the weekend I'm actually looking forward to spending a few more hours in the game next week. It's interesting to see miHoYo pivot into a game like this after all their fantasy/scifi offerings.

(Tigey is the name of my planet there.)

There's also a couple of LLM chatbots that rely on generative AI in the game, one being an in-game help tool that takes a couple of hours to unlock:

And another one being a bartender in a cozy little bar in the social area.

There was also a third one that I didn't take a good picture of, a character sitting around a campfire in the social area and "talking" with anyone that comes by and sits down with him, and I hear that there is another in the social area too that I haven't seen since the events there cycle depending on time of day. After interacting with the bartender, I then had a survey pop up asking me if I minded if she retained memory of our conversations into the live servers later on.

Considering that I wasted no time in extolling the virtues of Tigey to all of them, of course I said yes.

As always, pockets of the internet are up in arms about this, and while I absolutely acknowledge that the AI bubble is vastly overrated and server farms are harmful to the environment, especially in North America where the corporations are pushing profit first over everything else, I believe the environmental issues are far less of a concern in China (where miHoYo is from) because they regulate more strongly, and there's a lot more social responsibility and governmental oversight in China that will keep companies there in check, except for where they don't care about Western copyright as much, and the Western billionaires that profit off of that and own media mouthpieces here largely take affront to that.

While there are certainly bad and unethical applications of generative AI, and I do not support games or media that use it irresponsibly, I think characters with generative AI in games like this or Where Winds Meet (local, 2026) are perfectly fine if completely pointless to have except as a "first wave of usage" gimmick. They're apparently training their own in-house models on their own data, so they're probably using some data from these chats to train too, which is why I need to stuff as many Emperor Tigey references in as possible.

Plushie of the Week #225

We have two plushies presenting themselves this week for archival purposes. Continuing the theme over the last three weeks with airplane plushies, this pair are the last members of the set of airplane plushies that I got while on my recent trip to Asia. Specifically, I picked them up from my ANA flight on my return trip home on Mar 23 2026, specifically the flight from Tokyo Haneda Airport to Vancouver Airport. They were called the 819 ANA Ohanami Bear Mascots set, and cost 5,000 yen as a pair, but for the longest time the charge did not appear on the card  It eventually appeared on the card later a month later, and was charged as $43.59 CAD.

Back in We Walk Together #44, where I detailed their purchase, I linked a couple pictures of them as well, specifically what the purchase screen on the airplane seat back looked like:

As well as a top-down view just after I got home that included their plastic bag and information sheet:

To supplement those, here's a picture of their fronts with their backs slightly raised so they can look at the camera (they're being propped up by helpful Linlee ducks behind them):

And here's a picture of their backs:

Ohanami means flower-viewing, and refers to a spring event/festival that lots of places around Japan partake in. The bear on the left a female one, as evidenced by the kimono that she is wearing, and the one on the right is a male one, as evidenced by the same thing. Welcome to your forever home! Wait, not yet, I plan to move to a house soon. So not yet forever home. Welcome to your forever Tigey's Plushie Army, though!

Dreams

Apr 22 2026

• Snippet: I received a gadget that I had Kickstarted in the past, that I then used in my dream to accomplish something. I don't remember what it did, but I do remember being disappointed that the gadget only came with B-RAM, which in my dream was the weakest and cheapest type of RAM on the market, and that it had batteries that did not last very long, and that I needed to change out even just within the timeframe of my dream.

Apr 23 2026

• I was going to take Mom to meet some people elsewhere in the city. Dad would usually be the one going with her, but he was either sick or physically weak and so was going to stay at home this time. There was an implication of hospital-style rest that was needed, although we were staying on the 5th storey of a HDB block and not a hospital.
• Dad came out to the elevator lobby to see us off while we were waiting for the elevator, and I asked him if I could borrow his shoes, which would also let me borrow his identity for a story that would be automatically generated for the journey that Mom and I were about to make, since the writing for that story was apparently tracked by shoes and where they went.
• He looked confused by this but was nonetheless about to say a hesitant yes, and he wandered back into the apartment to look for some shoes. But at that time both the elevator doors opened and Mom and I stepped into one of them and took it downstairs. I told Mom I was joking anyway but that I had forgotten to actually say goodbye to Dad since he had gone back inside. Oh well.
• Whereas normally we would have gotten into a car right at the carpark next to the block, both car slots were empty and Dad had suggested that we walk northeast a couple of blocks to another road there called Anderson Road in order to shave off some time from our journey as that road was closer. I walked in that direction with Mom, and we stopped halfway to rest next to another residential carpark road. She sat down on a giant flowerpot and I pointed out to her that across the carpark road was an actual table and chair that we could sit on. She said she preferred to be under the shade, which the flowerpot was, but so was the table.

Apr 24 2026

• Snippet: All I remember is either helping produce and give out, or trying to collect, issues of a school magazine. There was something mildly apocalyptic going on with the world that created some sort of deadline too, but I don't remember any more details.