I just need to let you all know that I have the Best Son in the world. He came over for his usual weekend visit and I shanghaied him into helping me set up my new DVD player. "Helping" by which I mean he is setting it up and I am sitting here working on my blog post. This has turned into a trip to the store to buy some supplies and is definitely not what he planned on doing this afternoon but, like I said, he is the Best Son.

So why the new DVD player? Well, my home theater set up is about 20 years old and the current player doesn't even play Blu-Rays. It is also balking at playing some regular DVDs, as I found out recently. I'm trying to build up my personal collection of DVDs and not rely on streaming. Out of the last 3 that I bought, one played fine, one only played some sound, no video at all and one wouldn't play at all (but would on the almost 10 year old laptop which has the only other disk playing device in the house). Hopefully the new player will fix this issue and I can actually watch my DVDs.

It was Bandcamp Friday a few days ago and I bought some more things off my wishlist. My haul this time:

Much like last time, mostly various forms of electronic with some bluegrass/metal thrown in. The Estuera Channel Tracks are from a YouTube channel I watch. The creator goes through different synthesizers and puts together a piece that sounds like a particular era of EDM. I find it fascinating to watch him build the different elements and then put them all together. My favorite track on that is #6 - Big Beat like we're back in the 90s.

Reading

I am reading the 3rd book in Sarah J. Maas' series A Court of Thorns and Roses. I wasn't sure about this series to begin with but the second book was better. Now I'm into the 3rd but I've been reading about some controversies with the author and I don't know how I feel about finishing it. Namely that this series has borrowed heavily from The Black Jewels series by Anne Bishop. Like, blatantly so. (There are other issues that people have had with this author, but this is the one that bothers me.) So now I don't know how I feel about this book. I wasn't super excited with it but it was keeping me entertained. But now I just feel a little dirty and like maybe if I am liking it I should dump it and go read the older series.

Luckily, I have just come into a buttload of e-books so I can walk away from all of that and start something else. I bought a Terry Pratchett Humble Bundle consisting of 39 books. I have read a few of the Discworld books. I thought it might be cool to read the rest of the series. I also bought a bundle from Diane Duane. I don't think I've ever read anything of hers but I follow a couple of authors on Bluesky and one of them reposted a post of hers mentioning this special deal. She said she was having a "backed up rent" situation, hence the deal. I was in a position to help out by buying her books, so I did.

Watching

I found 2 cool shows to watch on PBS, both foreign series. Berlin Wall is about 3 sisters, all working for different sides in the days before the Wall fell. The Drought (Sequía) is about a decades old murder discovered due to falling water levels in a reservoir. This one is kind of interesting because it's set on the Spain/Portugal border and both languages are spoken in the show.

I wasn't sure what to do for dinner tonight so I ended up ordering Chinese. It has just arrived (Beef Broccoli with Fried Rice and Fried Wontons) so I'm going to go dig in.