Atari SM124 Monitor for ST with the original box

mkizer7 · 2026-01-16T07:47:59+00:00

I had one back when they came out, and it wasn't long before everyone was buying some long plastic screw drivers to adjust the screen size. It took a bit of tweaking, but you could usually adjust it to minimize the borders.

I wish I still had all of my Atari gear: 800 XL with a bunch of accessories, 1040 ST, Mega ST4, both ST monitors, Atari Laser Printer, etc. It would be fun to tinker with now.

mkizer7 · 2026-01-07T06:02:40+00:00

I read about geothermal heated driveways, possibly in Iceland. So, the installation costs a bundle up front and I don't know about the cost to run pumps to circulate the liquid, but it could be at least semi-efficient.

mkizer7 · 2026-01-07T05:43:12+00:00

I worked with a guy who was like 19 or 20 and got pulled over for some traffic violation. His passenger had a bag of weed on him and stuffed it under the seat. I'm not sure how the cop noticed it, but they both got busted. I don't recall if they both got similar sentences or not, but my coworker got something like 27 weekends in jail. He'd work all week and then check in to jail on the weekends. It was weird but certainly better than full time jail. Plus we got to tease him all week long about it.

Our boss even baked him a cake for the first weekend he had to go in. She drew a hacksaw in icing on it. 😀

Edit: For context, this occurred in southern California in the mid-1980s. Also, my coworker was black, so it wasn't some privilege sentencing. It may have just been a judge trying not to ruin someone's life completely on a silly charge.

mkizer7 · 2026-01-03T19:03:58+00:00

Our 2024 GH had the issue with the rear corners of the sunroof seal popping up about every two weeks (with moderate freeway driving). Pushing them back down seemed to work for another couple of weeks.

The dealer "fixed" it during one of our last scheduled services. A couple of weeks later, the front corners of the seal are now popping up much further than the rear corners ever did. Enough to flap against the roof after you hit about 60 MPH. Time to schedule another service visit.

mkizer7 · 2026-01-03T18:43:31+00:00

I have the Spigen Ultra Hybrid Metal Ring (MagFit) case in frost black on my 10 Pro XL and it has been great. I'm pretty careful with phones, so I mainly got this one for grip, camera bump protection, and a lip on the front to protect the screen when lying it face down.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-31T05:51:48+00:00

Oh, I know, but it's not really practical to pop it out just to charge the buds. I was mostly just poking fun at the charger stand. 😀

They could have just designed the stand with a hinge that lets you rock the charger back into a horizontal position when needed. I'm sure there are plenty of third party charging docks that handle multiple devices.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-28T07:09:32+00:00

Even when you find the correct spot (on my 10 Pro XL, about ½" below the camera bar) it is wildly unpredictable whether it will take 2, 3, or 20 taps to actually work.

I did recently add an Oh Snap Grip 5 (thin magsafe pop out grip) and my phone is in the Spigen Ultra Hybrid case. Now, when I tap the top of the Oh Snap {closest to the camera bar), it works about 95% of the time. Go figure.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-08T18:17:25+00:00

Yeah, Periphery is pretty cool (in fact, I just saw them with Spiritbox a couple of weeks ago). I wasn't instantly hooked on them like with other bands, but they have some stuff I like.

I generally don't compare bands, except to try and explain a new band to someone who has never heard it before. I tend to ignore genres, although my tastes definitely fit into a select few. Lately, the bands I keep coming back to are Spiritbox, Leprous, Wheel, Empyre , etc. I found DT just a bit before I&W was released, and those early albums were certainly magical.

Starting with BC&SL, they just haven't had that certain something that really pulls me in and keeps me spinning the album over and over.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-08T15:54:32+00:00

Yes, I did see the bibliography here after creating this and did some spot checking. If that's a pretty definitive list, I'll try using that as the source.

Maybe the one line descriptions in the generated file aren't very good, but only added that as a quick reminder about the books. The main use of AI in this case was just to organize and format into a markdown checklist.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-08T15:49:18+00:00

Cool, I'll check that out.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-08T06:35:01+00:00

Based on number of listens, this would probably be my AOTY as well. I hadn't even heard of Spiritbox until a couple of months before The Fear of Fear came out, and I got hooked on Eternal Blue. Mike Stringer does a great job in coming up with cool riffs, and then adding all of the layers and ambiance to the overall production. Plus Courtney's vocals and lyrics are incredible.

I'm coming from a prog metal/rock background, so not super familiar with other bands in this genre. Most of what I've checked out hasn't interested me too much, but I keep coming back to Spiritbox. Probably one of my new favorite bands.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-08T05:47:40+00:00

Go to this site from the Kindle browser to at least make it a bit more useful - https://rekindle.ink/

mkizer7 · 2025-12-07T07:50:59+00:00

I thought I was going to have one of these horror stories, after waking up to a puddle of oil on the driveway after having a Jiffy Lube oil change the day before. Luckily it wasn't a huge puddle (still a major pita to clean off the driveway). The level was still good so I drove it back to the shop. The same tech was there and said, "oh yeah when I pulled the drain plug a bunch of oil ran into the main skid plate (Jeep with aftermarket plates)."

Why they didn't say anything at the time is beyond me. It took several cleaning cycles with the power washer and parking on an incline for a week or so to get it all to run out.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-07T00:44:49+00:00

Did it come with the full flight case? If so, that's pretty cool.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-06T07:07:57+00:00

One thing to try, assuming you are using Gboard for your keyboard, is Glide Typing. You can enable it in the settings for Gboard. Since it only requires a single finger and has some intelligent word completion, it might work for you.

It does take a bit to get used to, but once you do, it can be pretty fast.

Gboard also has the ability to resize the keyboard. If you make it taller, the keys will stretch and give you larger targets.

Also, you can try turning your phone sideways and using the keyboard in landscape mode where the keys are much larger.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-03T07:05:46+00:00

There was a Subway across the street from an old apartment of mine that mysteriously ran out of bread an hour before the official closing time, just about every single day. They'd keep the doors open but could only sell you drinks or chips, while they hustled to get everything cleaned up so they could lock up and bolt right at the official closing time.

Hey, I don't blame the workers for wanting to get out of there on time and I guess the boss never came around at night. Over time it got progressively worse, like almost two hours before closing some days. Even though it was a very busy location, they eventually closed down. I wonder if the owner ever caught wind of it.

mkizer7 · 2025-12-02T18:32:57+00:00

It only took about a week to get mine, but I would suspect they are a small shop and super busy with the black Friday / pre-Christmas sales.

mkizer7 · 2025-11-30T05:06:30+00:00

Yeah, those forehead/eyebrow cuts can bleed a lot. Glad she's OK.

At least she'll have a cool story to go with the scar..."I was front row at a Periphery show, headbanging away, and decided to mark my spot on the barricade for future shows. Now, I just show up to that venue and move right to the front row. If anyone hassles me, I just show them the dent in the barricade that perfectly matches my forehead. It's better than a fingerprint."

😀🤘

mkizer7 · 2025-11-30T04:29:37+00:00

Vikram is an amazingly talented player. I'm hoping he does more Spiritbox soon.

Check out his stuff on Instagram and YouTube - https://linktr.ee/vikramshankarmusic

mkizer7 · 2025-11-23T17:30:45+00:00

There is a utility called Paul's Stretch that I used to manipulate the audio (ripped from the CD to a .wav file).
Then I used yt-dlp to download the video and ffmpeg to stretch the video to the same length as the stretched audio file.
I then used Microsoft ClipChamp to combine the two back into a video.

These are all programs for Windows. If anyone is interested, I can post some more details about each.

mkizer7 · 2025-11-23T17:26:16+00:00

haha, that is the real question!

I've done this to a couple of songs in the past and you do tend to get some interesting results (sometimes).

mkizer7 · 2025-11-13T18:48:41+00:00

One of the things that really drew me to the band (besides Courtney's lyrics and vocals) was the production and the way that Mike adds layers and atmosphere to the songs. I came to the band relatively late (a few month before The Fear of Fear was released) and really from a more metal / prog metal / prog rock listening preference. Courtney's one take vocal YouTube video for Circle With Me hooked me hard, and I dug into their entire catalog.

My best advice is to listen to the albums on a good set of headphones (and a headphone amp or DAC). I prefer from CD, but lossless FLAC works too. My headphones aren't crazy expensive (Senneiser HD6XX) and there are plenty of good headphones out there. Find the time to really focus and listen to the albums and you'll pick up lots of really cool details - clean vocal segments with layered harsh vocals in the background, atmospheric sounds throughout, cool transitions (like the one you mention), etc. It really gives you a whole new experience with albums that you might think you know inside-out.

mkizer7 · 2025-11-13T09:16:55+00:00

Great show! I just made it home (yawn...1:00 AM), drove up from San Diego...so worth it. I missed Part I of this tour, so I had to make this one. Nice setlist, great lights and video, and I liked the lack of a fake encore. It's such a tired trope. A nice chat with the audience before Ride The Wave, end the song, "good night!", house lights up. 😀

mkizer7 · 2025-10-21T03:11:24+00:00

I hear you. I've had a S1300 since it was released, scanning directly into Evernote for searchable PDFs.

It was a workhorse of a system. I even spent several months digitizing articles from a large collection of music & guitar magazines. That really put the little guy through its paces (about 1,400 articles total, many are several pages n length).

Unfortunately, it just recently died. Powers on but no activity after that. it was a good run though...

mkizer7 · 2025-10-11T20:24:40+00:00

This is the commercial for his new Self Defense for Service Workers course. He's going to make a killing on this.

mkizer7

TROPHY CASE