i finally got around to repairing my Pixel 3 last month!

the charging port was broken and i had to be very careful with how i positioned the phone and cord, or else it wouldn't charge. the back glass was also cracked. i actually bought the things i needed to repair it last year but due to chronic procrastination i never got around to doing it...

i ran into some issues but it was pretty easy overall. the back cracked even more as i tried to remove it and i ended up breaking the fingerprint scanner cord connected to it but since i've never used the fingerprint scanner i don't consider this a loss. and for a while i was worried about having broken one of the speaker cords because i had trouble disconnecting it to get to the port, but the sound seems to work just fine so i guess i didn't mangle it too bad! when replacing the back i chose the light pink so now i've got a nice contrast going on.

the only other thing i needed was an actually decent phone case. the last one i had was a cheap plastic thing that didn't prevent the previously mentioned back cover from cracking, so this time i got a secondhand otterbox. time will tell how well it does it's job, but i can already tell it's a lot thicker/denser than the old one which is good.

i was torn between the clear glitter and the gradient energy glitter, but i'm glad i went with gradient energy.

all i need is more stickers to enhance it's gayness

i have mixed feelings on my phone. obviously i care enough about it that i repaired it, but a big part of me wishes i never bought it. it was the newest Pixel at the time, so it was very expensive. because i couldn't pay for it all at once, i paid monthly on it for over a year. i was just barely able to afford it. the me of today has different priorities and never would've spent that kind of money on a phone... i could've - and should've - spent that amount on anything else.

it's not just financial though. over the past few years, i've realized that i just don't really need or want very much connection with other people. the one event that really taught me that i don't need other people is how, when i finally quit facebook for good, almost none of my friends reached out to me afterwards. i was a little hurt at first, but over time i realized that 1) it's nice to not spend large portions of my day preoccupied with the goings on of other people, and 2) i realized that i didn't actually care about none of them talking to me anymore. they have their lives and i have mine, if we don't naturally gravitate towards one another there's no sense in forcing it.

i no longer feel a serious need to make friends, be a part of a community or have people in my life. i can count the number of friends i have on one hand and i'd like to keep it that way. i'm in one discord server that i rarely if ever participate in, i let most calls go to voicemail and then delete those voicemails without listening to them if i don't recognize the number. with all this in mind, i really don't have a need for a device that facilitates constant connection with others.

for now, i'm just going to keep using my Pixel and repairing it when need be. then i'll switch to a dumb phone and use the Pixel as a camera/media/gaming device.

in other news...

while getting my tools together to repair my phone, i found my old sansa clip+. the clip broke off at some point but it still turns on! i also found a 64gb microSD card?? it was a nice surprise, though i have no memory of where/when i got it. unfortunately, the clip+ only supports 32gb cards... at least with the default firmware. i found out that you can change it though, so eventually i'm going to install rockbox on it.

my veggies are growing nicely.

these were taken last month.

after i flushed the ant infestation out of an old bag of potting soil i had, i planted some garlic, green onions and potatoes. i've been watering them every day but it's too early to tell how well they're doing, at least to my untrained eye. these are all hardy plants though so i'm hoping they'll survive long enough to become edible!

don't worry, i watered them again after taking these pics.

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Meal of the Day

today's Meal of the Day was... a Lenny & Larry's Cookie and a can of coke from the dollar store. sorry. that's all i got.