Quick Hits: Adventures In Voting, And The Kindle App

On 06/08/2018 at 01:07 PM by goaztecs

Oh the weekend, you have been missed. Hello Pixlpeeps! It is currently warm here in sunny Southern California where it could hit triple digits but it isn’t bad because there’s no humidity. Now in a month or so I will complain about it being freakin’ hot AND humid.

Adventures In Voting!

This past week has been interesting because California had an election and for the past couple of weeks commericals have been nothing but “Vote For Me’s” and “X is a horrible person” (I kinda liked these). Then the mailbox was starting to be full of random flyers and other goodies from these yahoos. As election day grew closer I started getting text from volunteers. Now since they are folks who believe in their campaign I’m not mean to them. They call, start with “Hi I’m with-” and before they continue I simply say “not interested”. Usually they reply with thank you and we both go on our way. Now if someone continues I get loud “HEY I SAID NOT INTERESTED!”. If they still continue I say “tell your candidate because of you they lost a vote.” I don’t hang up first because at this point I will waste their time.

What probably pissed me off the most is when I started getting texts. Now I censored the names because these yahoos don’t deserve more of their names on the internets.

This is freaking disgusting and seriously how is this legal? One of my friends said they received 40 of these. I kind of want to text these numbers now because well their candidates lost and just troll. So after all of this it was time to vote.

My polling place got moved from one of those hotels by the freeway to an elementary school. I’m disappointed because I was thinking about taking part in their guest breakfast that is right next to the area where the actual voting happens. It’s just little containers of cereal and some fruit but still it’s there. Anyways the elementary school is in a sketchy neighborhood but the school library was nice, and quiet. One quick thought: why do all schools have the same smell? The minute I walked in I thought I was back in the 4^th or 5^th grade getting ready to pick out a book to check out. Back to voting, so I walked in and it’s the same two precincts and I go to the left one. I give my last name and the lady who’s supposed to listen to me looks at me like I’m speaking a different language. Finally after repeating my name the other precinct said “Over here” and I move over. The folks working the table said I was the second person to vote today. The polls opened at 7am, I was there at 8:30am. Hey California, I guess you only show up once a decade to vote. Anyways my picks were on my phone and 5 minutes later I was done. I was asked which language I wanted my sticker in and you know if I lived in an area with more choices other than English or Spanish I would have went with the more exotic language, but since it’s just two options I went with…

Yep. I celebrated by buying some subpar donuts from a place with an alliterative name but has good ice coffee. If we ever get one of those local mom & pop shops I’m going there over this spot. That was my voting story and you're welcome California.

Chris Tries To Sync His Kindle Apps

Yesterday while reading my book I thought it would be nice to be able to sync everything across my devices: my iPad, phone, and the Android Tablet. Well it turns out it’s a little more difficult to do this because there are no real clear instructions. Let’s take a step back: I have a bunch of books that I got from friends that could be read on the Kindle App, and other non Kindle purchased stuff. Apparently there is a bunch of steps to do not only get these on the device and have them sync with each other. After an hour of this I finally figured it out and this is what I did:

Step 1: Erase all the stuff on my three main devices. Not really a big deal but it made everything easier

Step 2: Go to the Amazon site, under Your Content And Devices.

Step 3: Under Settings, Personal Document Settings, Personal Document Archiving, add your email if different from your Amazon log-in email.

Step 4: (This is an option) Change the device email addresses for the devices you are using under the Your Device tab. I did this because it just made it easier to name which devices I have instead of having some generic name that Amazon assigned to it followed by a number.

Step 5: Go to email client, and send books/docs to the primary device e-mail. This will send the docs to that device but also add it to your Content And Devices tab. They are located under the Docs menu.

Step 6: Once the book/doc has been uploaded click on the box next to it and hit “Send to Others”

Step 7: Launch other devices and download the items.

Now when you hit sync, bookmarks, and other notes will be updated.

Of course my luck I found an app Amazon offers that kind of does it all through the browser, Android phone, and desktop. Oh well, I’m comfortable with my method, and eventually I will try and add all my books.

Pickups

Digital

This was a freebie from Steam

I guess it’s another one of those PUBG/Fornite type games. I installed it and I might give it a spin

Thrift Store Finds

Remember when I went to the Thrift Store and the CDs were .50 cents? Well apparently that’s when the nice lady is working. The bitchy older lady is there, it’s a $1. When I gave her my card she said “I don’t know how to do this” and walked away looking for the nice lady. The nice lady however couldn’t give me the .50 cent price because bitchy older lady was there and made sure to say “$14 dollars” a couple of times. Yeah I’m not visiting this store for a bit. Anyways here is what I got

I thought the Sharon Cuneta Cuneta CD was interesting because it’s in Tagalog (language of the Philippines) but it turns out to be a VCD. Oh well I have a couple of those in the collection already and I know they play in the Dreamcast.

From the thrift store across the street where the people are nicer

I replaced my scratched to hell copy of Street Sk8er with a nice clean disc and apparently I bought a religious CD. Anyways I thought it was going to be $2, but to my surprise, it was .97. I forgot to look at the wall and see the discount tag colors for the week. I might go check out their other stores later on today.

Anyways I am off. I need to do some things before I think about spending time at a random thrift store looking for more CDs. Have a good weekend!

That’s all for now, more later!

-Chris

Super Step Contributing Writer

06/08/2018 at 04:16 PM

The Obama email armageddon (didn't have an affect on my vote one way or another, just pointing it out because I remember it vividly) was bad enough. Unsolicited texts? Hell no. At least email has a spam folder. I don't want anyone texting me unless I ask.

The one instance where I could see wanting political texts is to remind me of an upcoming vote; I believe Dallas County allows you to sign up for those notifications, which is fine because you ask for it. I should probably vote in Nacogdoches elections now anyway, but ... well, that's another story.

I know exactly what you mean about the school smell. Every time I have to pick up or visit my mom who works in the same 1st-8th school as when I went, I always wonder how they've maintained that smell after twenty years or so. I just know something about that smell gives me major anxiety and I need to get the hell out immediately upon smelling it. lol

I loved listening to "All My Friends Are Metalheads" while playing Street Sk8er back when. I was 8 at the time, so perfect title for the game. Also cool that the game doubles as a music CD should you want it to.

At first when you said "religious band," I was thinking, "wait? the one with the heroin song I used to think was about sex?" I was thinking of K's Choice. lol I don't think they're religious, but I don't really keep track, so who knows.

I looked up Relient K though and they have a good mid-2000s rock sound that's nostalgic for me, since I was in high school at that time. I don't necessarily recognize their songs, but the sound is definitely familiar in a good way for me. There are religious bands that would be nowhere without their religious label and fanbase and ones that can expand way further out, and Relient K sounds like the latter. They have a good sound, so good for them.

goaztecs

06/27/2018 at 08:43 PM

I think I missed out on the Obama email. Since California is blue they probably didn't even need to do it here. Well when November rolls around I'm giving an ear full to the volunteers who call about their candidate. Sorry volunteers but these texts are trash.

It's amazing how that smell is a permanent fixture at every school.

I did not know about Street Sk8er being an audio CD. That's cool. I listened to a couple of tracks from that religious CD and yeah it has that 2000s sound. It isn't bad.

Casey Curran Staff Writer

06/08/2018 at 04:41 PM

I was just as snarky with the texts and calls. Told everyone who did that I wouldn't vote for their candidate, I'm voting for whoever respects my right to privacy, doesn't go digging to find my name and phone number, and leaves me alone.

That's the way to do it. I'm going to do the same in November to the poor volunteers that call.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

06/08/2018 at 10:38 PM

I heard that Totally Accurate Battlegrounds game is good fun.

06/27/2018 at 08:44 PM

I haven't tried it yet, but it seems fun and can't complain about free.

KnightDriver

07/21/2018 at 10:41 AM

Sorry this is so late, but I got school-busy the last few months.

I just went to four different GoodWills the other day. Lots of stuff there but no music I really wanted. I got a CashConverters I should hit though. Last time I got some good music there.

07/24/2018 at 01:46 PM

It's all good.

Yeah thrifts are hit and miss. If I don't get too lazy I'm thinking about hitting the local mom and pop later on today to see if there is anything new worth adding to the library. The last time I was there they added a lot more Jazz to their inventory but I didn't get a chance to look around.

07/28/2018 at 08:56 PM

I went and found all the Goodwills in my area the other week. I found four of them, two of which were huge, like department stores. I didn't find any music or games I wanted though. Got a great kitchen table I needed and some more shirts.

07/30/2018 at 12:31 PM

Before resellers figured out about thrifts I could find tons of cool stuff. I always look for games, music, and jerseys. Once I found an old school Gucci Travel Bag. The sad part is that I broke the zipper.

07/31/2018 at 01:00 AM

It used to be fun to hunt for stuff.

PixlBit