Migraines
Nothing really new here. On the day I posted my last 'update' I started a six day migraine. It ended, and the next one began on the first day of my vacation. What a shit show that was for migraines. I had hoped for better, but it wasn't outside of the expected range. Driving with all that light coming in, being with A and his family (two kids, two dogs, two adult friends that want to visit with me), being in Vegas, being with E (also wants to visit with me), all was incredibly taxing and just didn't allow a time and place to calm down a migraine, let alone space to hopefully avoid it's return.
After arriving home I went three days without a migraine, then back into migraine status for another four days. I'm currently on day four of not having a migraine but as always it's early in the day (08:30 in the morning as I'm currently writing this) so this could still be the first day of a new migraine.
I think I'm going to have to evaluate the increased dose of my new medication and report it to the neurologist. Without looking at the objective data, I believe the days between migraines are getting longer. As in more two or three day breaks instead of more one or two day breaks. If that's true, then maybe another dose increase would suit me well.
Other Health
Speaking of migraines, when I'm out of it in the middle of a migraine it's not uncommon for me to have true memory lapses. The most extreme example I have is Thanksgiving last year. I remember starting the day as it was stressful for Mom (her brother, my uncle, was visiting and she wanted to impress him). I remember the migraine getting really REALLY bad. I then have sporadic memories of setting the table, welcoming my uncle into the house, eating, cleaning up, excusing myself for a nap, waking up, having a Thanksgiving Day sandwich (leftover turkey, mayo, mustard, cheese, cranberry sauce!). But the memories are more snapshots as opposed to videos. I remember THOSE facts and not anything in between them.
Anyway, I mention that because evidently while on vacation I bumped my left shin on something. I mean, severely bumped it. I do remember late in Vegas realizing my leg hurt, but I also remember wondering if it was a bug bite. When I got home at one point I reached down and scratched at my achy left shin and noticed there were scabs. A line of about six scabs stretched over three or four inches. I have no direct memory of bumping into anything, let alone bumping into something hard enough to break the skin.
The only explanation I have is that I was in a bad migraine state and just don't remember it. I'm now in the frustrating status of waiting for the scabs to loosen enough and hopefully fall off on their own (or at least come off with minimal picking). This morning I woke up and assured I'd continue this waiting game for awhile by aggressively picking at several scabs and then seeing my hand come back up with fresh blood on it. Yay.
Oh, and my hand finally healed up enough before I left on vacation that I went without a band-aide. When I look at it now I see just another line on my palm. Only when I look at it closely and feel the stitched up scar tissue under the skin is it evident that this is a healed laceration and not just another palm line.
Finances
I'm really looking forward to the day that I can have an update for my finances that's "nothing to report". Today's not that day. I knew I'd be getting paid while on vacation and that worked out fine for me. I had enough money in my account so that any automatic payments would be covered until the new deposit. I just had to watch and confirm the deposit hit my account as I'd be using my debit card at gas stations and such. Pretty embarrassing if the card is denied while getting a mountain dew and a bag of combos.
'Payday' is the last day of the month. If the last day of the month is on a weekend or holiday, they back it up to the last weekday of the month. The last day of May was on a Friday. While in Vegas I checked my account on Saturday June 1st and saw that there was no deposit. Strange. I didn't want to make a stink of it especially as I was on vacation and already in the middle of a migraine. So I just checked it on Monday, Wednesday, and finally Friday when I was at home and migraine free.
They hadn't paid me. The only thing I could think that might have prevented it was an email I received a couple days before I left on vacation. One of the requirements of continued long term disability is that I have to apply for social security disability. I recall that requirement being enforceable going into the second year, as in they could withhold payment if I don't prove that I've applied. Anyway, I got an email from them asking me for my social security disability application. I wasn't concerned as I'd applied back in November (when my LTD company stopped paying me), and I still had months to go until I got to the one year anniversary.
But now that my pay had been withheld, maybe they were speeding up that process? Regardless, I was going to have to call them. To make sure I was on solid ground, I got my ducks in order and got my social security disability application proof ready. Of course all of their instructions are for people that go down to their local social security office and apply in person. I applied online so I don't have the paperwork they want. Instead I made PDFs of the email saying I'd applied and the social security page showing that they estimated it would be five months before a determination is made and that it's currently ongoing (seven months in).
Once i had all of that emailed in I called and asked why I hadn't been paid. Of course it's a pain to get a real person on the phone (the automated phone system recognizes my name, requesting information, birthdates, and stuff like that but has trouble when I say "agent" as it requests). And of course the first person that gets on the phone can't help me and asks me to hold while they talk to the agent associated with my account. While I expected them to come back and say that I'd be called back the next day, my agent came on the line and asked me what the problem was.
We went back and forth and it turns out she fucked up. I'd complained about not having my backpay from December paid, and she'd admitted she fucked up and fixed it by depositing it into my account. Well, when she did that it turned off automatic payments. She apologized, turned it back on, and said I'd probably have it in my account at the end of the next week. She also assured me that I'll get paid at the end of this month. I'm not exactly holding my breath.
Family/Friends
My brother R has finally gone all in on his health. I'll start by saying that I'm still a little hurt that he doesn't take my advice as a nurse. He asks for it, but he just ignores the answers I give. He's had a long standing issue with his heart. He hears it bounding at times and ever since he had his gallbladder removed, he's known he has very nigh blood pressure. His doc has slowly increased his blood pressure med(s), but he still has the elevated BP and bounding heart. So he finally got a referral to a cardiologist and actually got to pick my the same cardiologist that works with my mom and worked with my dad.
R has also has a hernia for years and years. He wants it fixed even though we've been through a similar experience with mom and her hernia. We all sat down with the surgeon after mom's last hernia surgery and she admitted that any hernia surgery is bad hernia surgery. That they shouldn't go in and do anything until the hernia is affecting your life (i.e. preventing you from working or lifting or doing certain activities). R's hernia is not preventing him from anything, it's just bothering him. Well, a few weeks ago he noticed this raised line on his abdomen while he was doing pushups. It really scared him and that's perfectly understandable as he's had abdominal surgery (to get the gallbladder out). I looked at it and said that my opinion was that a layer of connective tissue over one layer of his abdominal muscles had likely given way (torn, ripped, or just slipped) and his muscles were simply bulging in a new way. It didn't hurt him and didn't prevent him from doing anything. I told him that unless those last facts changed, to just go along his normal activities and let his doctor know at his next visit.
R has been 'angry' for a long while. I put it in quotes as that may just be the way he's expressing depression. He had been on an anti-depressant before, years ago, but stopped as he said it wasn't worth it.
And finally, just as I'm of an age and family history that it's recommended for me to have a colonoscopy, R is two and a half years older than me. He's now past due for his colonoscopy.
Those were all health issues that he's been dealing with when I left on vacation. While on vacation I got a text from him telling me and our brother B that he went into the doctor due to his 'new hernia'. Yeah, that bulge on his belly. And the nurse practitioner said it was likely a hernia and sent him off for an ultra sound and an appointment with a surgeon for a hernia repair. R, piled on at that appointment and talked about several issues. He got a referral to the cardiologist that I mentioned above, prescribed a new anti depression medication, pressured to have a colonoscopy, and even had a low dose CT scheduled due to his risk of lung cancer (long time smoker over the age of 50).
The cardiologist appointment was fine. R is going for his stress test today and is wearing a heart monitor for a week. I'll let you know what they find. The ultra sound went fine and the appointment with the surgeon was.... well, it was exactly what I'd been saying for years. The surgeon didn't see any need to repair R's current hernia, but said if it was causing him anxiety he could go in and repair it. It would just need another surgery about ten years down the road. The bump on R's belly wasn't a hernia. It's most likely what I said and the surgeon said not to worry about it unless it grows, changes, or becomes painful (sounds familiar, eh?). R decided on not going ahead for any surgery or procedure but does like the surgeon and will keep him in mind if/when he needs a real hernia surgery.
Finally, R started his new anti depression medication. He said he noticed it after a week but that the feeling went away. I tried to tell him it could take up to six weeks to really get a feel if its working, but he reported it to the doc and got an increased dose. I can appreciate the doc doing that as there were no ill side effects and if the patient feels that a higher dose can help, there's no reason NOT to do it. That doesn't change the fact that it will still take about six weeks to do a proper assessment.
R will also have his CT later this week. I'm looking forward to hearing about it as I'm now in that age range and expect my own doctor to order it for me later this year.
Finally on the friends side, it was great seeing A and his family in Dallas and seeing E in Vegas. I wish I didn't have the migraines, but it was tolerable and worth going through the migraines to get some time in with my good friends. Our current thinking on a trip with just the three of us is sometime after August/September when A gets his new vacation in for the year and maybe we'll all go to New York City. A is from that area (Long Island), and I've never visited NYC as an adult. It's the one metropolis that I have no doubts we'll be unable to see everything even if we're there for more than a week. We could do nothing but an art visit with museums and galleries, and we'd still be unable to see it all.
Entertainment
I finished the Apple series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and it was... meh. I'd wanted to finish it before watching Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire just in case it was reference, but I don't think I got anything extra out of it. And the GxK movie was... well, each movie in that series has gotten worse as far as I'm concerned. The first one, 2014's Godzilla, was dark and scarry and showed the size and ferocity of Godzilla. The scream he had in that movie was EPIC. Godzilla King of Monsters added in a lot of side story regarding the humans and while Godzilla and King Ghidorah were still large and ferocious, they added a bit of humor to them. Godzilla Vs Kong was even more about the humans, and even more directly comedy. Now GxK could be called a comedy on its own. The effects were amazing, but it just seemed over the top to have minutes and minutes of footage with nothing but computer generated monsters fighting. Large groups of Kong sized apes fighting Kong, Godzilla, and Mothra.
I'd been waiting for Godzilla Minus One ever since I saw the trailer for it a year and a half ago. It's the latest Toho Godzilla movie and is a restart, setting it just after World War II. It did huge at the boxoffice both internationally and here in the states. It even won an Oscar. Being a foreign release, it's harder to predict when it will be available though. Well, while on vacation I got word that it not only was released digitally in the States, but it was released on Netflix of all places. I was perfectly content with the idea of paying $25 to buy a digital copy via Fandango, YouTube, or Amazon, but why buy it if I can watch it for 'free' on Netflix? I watched it a few nights ago and it really is a wonderful movie. It's a perfect combination of the Toho Godzilla movies where Godzilla clearly looks like a guy in a rubber suit with googly eyes, and the new American movies with ferocious CGI. The story was simple enough (Godzilla comes, damages the city, leaves, comes back but the humans now have a plan to kill him, it works!) and it didn't get in the way of just simple big monster fighting. I hope they continue it and have a direct sequel to this, maybe set in the late 50s or 60s, unlike Shin Godzilla which was also good (although not nearly as good!) but now just stands alone as it doesn't fit in with the previous movies and will have no sequels.
While I was away two more movies came to digital that I'd been waiting patiently for. Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling, and Civil War with Kirsten Dunst. I haven't seen Fall Guy yet, but I did buy and watch Civil War and... wow! It doesn't go deep on why or how the united states got into a civil war, but it showed the results of it with war in New York and all across the countryside. I knew it followed journalists, but didn't realize it was following photo journalists and I got a real feeling of closeness as one of them was using an old Nikon F2 with black and white film. Many times in the movie it would show her taking a picture then flash the black and white image of her shot, full of that great film grain. The most emotional part is shown through her images as well (I won't ruin what that part is as you just need to see the movie to find out!). I couldn't recommend this movie higher and think it's the best movie I've seen in a long long while.
For 'TV' I finished watching Star Trek Discovery. They finished the story of the fifth season fine. If they could have finished it and just moved on with a sixth season sometime in the future, it would have been good. But the last twenty minutes or so of the last episode shoehorned in the series finale part. It did what I don't like, moving twenty or so years into the future and showing the now Admiral and how she and her crew progressed from that point. It doesn't answer all the questions and ironically seems to have been set up so that they could make one of the 'Short Trek' stories fit into cannon. You see, back in the early years of Discovery and Strange New Worlds they had Short Treks between seasons, little episodes a few minutes long telling stories that might or might not involve the upcoming season. They all ended up telling stories that were background information except for one. In that story the USS Discovery picks up a guy that was floating in space (in an escape pod) and gets him healthy again. But the USS Discovery is empty, says it's been years since her crew was there, and speaks in a voice that the Discovery didn't have at the time. It ends with her letting the guy go. This was done before the Discovery went into the future and they showed the ship inside and out and it was clearly the ship before the major refit it got in the future (primarily, the nacelles were still connected in a traditional manner and not floating near the pylons). The voice that the Discovery had became cannon a few seasons back, but now they finished up the story with the Admiral overseeing a 'retrofit' of the Discovery, returning her to her old state and then sending her off to sit and wait. Yeah... they shoehorned it in and it felt like it.
Finally, I watched Echo on Disney+. It's an MCU series that's only five episodes long. Echo was a villain turned anti-hero in the Hawkeye series a year or so back, and this series was all about her. She's a Native American, deaf, and has a leg amputation. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have watched it as I'm just not a fan of the modern MCU, but Echo's boss was Kingpin (who was also in Dare Devil and those Netflix shows) and I really love Vincent D'Onofrio's portrayal of the classic Marvel villain. The series was... fine. Vincent D'Onofrio was good but he wasn't a major part of the show. The Native American story was nice, but I get a little squeamish as they're co-opting a real heritage and making it over for their 'superhero' including super powers. Only at the end did they actually directly thank the Choctaw nation, making me believe that they had the Native American's support. It'd have been nice to have that thanks up front as it would have let me know they had approval. It's like the difference of the Florida State Seminoles (done with approval of the Seminole Nation) and the Washington Redskins Ino approval and just racist).
My one complaint is a little strange. The intro for the episodes utilizes a great song. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's song called Burning. Here's the intro on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJNhYWn5mbE
I'm normally a fan of series using great music like that. BUT, I first heard this song back in August of 2022. I know I wasn't the only one who liked this song, but I still felt like it was special and 'mine' as it wasn't overly popular and still really REALLY good. But now if I want to brag about liking this song, it's just 'oh yea that intro song from Echo, right?'. Grrr.
I now have to decide what my next series will be. Several have started up, but they're progressing week to week and I really would rather binge watch a show rather than wait for new episodes. The Boys, House of the Dragon, and The Accolate. Funny Superheroes, Serious Fantasy, and Star Wars. So, I'll wait for all of those to finish and then have a glut as to which one I'll binge next. As for now, I can pick up For All Mankind as I have a couple episodes of season 3 plus all of season 4. I could pick up The Witcher or the Morning Show as I haven't seen their most recent seasons. I have Loki on my list but the biggest reason to watch that is that it might have background information for the upcoming Deadpool movie. Then there's both Suits and Reacher which I've started on their fist seasons but never got fully into. Then there's new shows that I'm interested in but haven't started yet like Loudermilk, 3 Body Problem, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Special Ops: Lioness, Succession, Titans, Hijack, Westworld, Watchmen, and Mr. Mercedes.
The big one on my list, and the most likely candidate for binge viewing is The Americans. It's set in the 80s and is about a Russian spy couple that are deep undercover as an American family, including their kids who don't know they're part of a spy family. I've watched the first season before and liked it, but got distracted as I got into the second season. My brother highly recommends it, specifically saying it gets better and better with every season. It's not like I stepped away because I didn't like it, I just got distracted and had every intention to go back and pick it back up. The only problem with The Americans? It's six seasons long.
New Tech
I had this little dongle in Tiffany that would connect to my phone wirelessly and allow Android Auto to hook up wirelessly even though Tiffany doesn't support that feature. It's great as I don't need to ever plug the phone in unless I want to charge it. I've had it for several years and it works just about as well as you'd expect a third party piece of hardware in-between a car and a phone to work. That's to say, it worked okay.
Well, while in Vegas, it stopped working. It was frustrating as I had E driving Tiffany most of the time while I played navigator. It meant I had to hook up the phone with a cable each time we got in and unhook it when we got out. And then I had to do the same thing on the three day roadtrip back home.
When I was picking up some groceries for Mom, I saw an article on a rival dongle as it was on a good sale. In the article they mentioned the one I had and specifically said it had a reputation of breaking after months of working just fine. Fine. I bought the new one from AAWireless. It's a little different as it requires an app on the phone, but I'm fine with that. I got it a couple days ago, installed it, and it's worked fine. BUT, I don't drive nearly as much as I used to, so we'll see if it continues to work well.
It's not new, but a quick update on the Switch. I got it and it's fun. I took it with me on my vacation and it was nice to pull it out in the morning and just before bed to play a quick round of Farm Land. I even played some Super Mario Bros Wonder while in the hotel one night. The DBrand skins were delivered while I was on vacation and I finally applied them a few days ago. They really do make it look a lot better. They're not perfect, but evidently I could smooth out the few rough edges by using a hair dryer to heat up the skin before smoothing it out again. It's not bad enough to warrant me even finding our hair dryer, let alone plugging it in and working with it. It's just nice to glance up to my left where the Switch sits on my speaker and see that swirly blue and pink.
One last thing about the new hardware, I got the Nintendo Pro Controller to make it easier to play while it's hooked up to my computer monitor. The controller is fine, but damn it burns through battery quick. And when I hook it up to my USB C power cable that I keep on my desk specifically for charging anything, it only sips at power meaning I have to leave it on charging for hours. The charger can put out over 60 Watts and could power a laptop. My phone takes up to 15 Watts. The controller? 1 Watt.
I should also add that I've finally finished Farm Land. It was nice that the game was four times as big as it was on YouTube, but I've come to the end. I could still grind and get the storage of all the barns up to the max, but it honestly doesn't make a difference while playing so it's literally upgrading for no reason. So I went looking for another time wasting management game and saw one from the same publisher where you're mining instead of farming. Well, while it's done in the same style it's evidently earlier as I finished it practically in one setting. I'm at the same point at it for now as I can continue to grind and upgrade my workers speed, but it doesn't make a big difference in the game.
Now I'm back searching for another game. What I want is a resource and time management game. What I mean is something I get into, see what resources have come in, spend the resources in a way that will get me more resources over time, and then stop playing and wait for the resources to grow. That's what attracted me to Farm Land and it's why I got the switch. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be a big category of games. The closest I've found is Factorio, where you crash landed on a remote planet and set up factories to harvest resources and use them to make more and more complex things. It really sounded like it could go on forever, but the interface is far too complex for something like the Switch. Hell, it's be kind of complicated on the computer and I just want mindless action.
So, if you have any suggestions, I'm open.
Writing
I barely made headway on It's A Man's World. I posted a single chapter since my last update and have about a third of the next chapter. I'm afraid I might start to rush as it's not holding my interest but I want to finish it. Maybe.... just maybe... it would be worth just stepping back and moving on with another project.
My writing interest is obviously still here. I wrote that Dommy Mommy story and really got into that. And then yesterday I wrote what was supposed to be another 'quick' story and it turned into a 7,500 word short story that I now have on Fictionmania (Practice to Deceive).
I don't know. My gut says that if I step away I might never return (or it might take years). But the outline I have means another ten or so chapters. Maybe I could rush it? Write about how repetitive Joy's life is getting instead of going through the scenes again even though the scenes themselves are really sexy.
I don't know. I'll try writing it again today. But if I don't get traction this week without a good reason, I might have to re-evaluate my writing plan.
I Want My Computer The Way I Want My Computer
Okay, first and foremost, I recognize that this is the epitome of a first world problem. My computer is big, bad, and fast. I literally cannot get better tech right now for a home computer. But damn it, it's acting just a little bit squirely and it's driving me crazy.
I use Windows 11 and utilize two desktops. If you don't know what I mean by either of those things (Windows 11 or multiple desktops), you'd probably best skip this and just say mentally that Calvin is being a little bitch). Anyway, when I start my day I'm in Desktop 1, or what i think of as Calvin Desktop. I load up my phone link software so I can keep track of my phone notifications, Google Chrome as most of my activities are through the web, and Apple Music as I always want music in the background. I also have to load up Precision X so that I can turn the bright ass lights off on my video card and that's an annoyance all in itself, but one that I've covered and not one that I think there is a fix for.
I use that desktop as my home area knowing that if my brother, or mother, or some stranger just walked in behind me they wouldn't see anything untoward. Nothing overtly adult or 'Caitlyn'esque. While I'm very open about my queerness and my Caitlyn persona, I haven't shared that side of my life with mom or R, and they're literally just steps away from seeing anything I'm doing on my huge 48" OLED computer monitor.
Once my morning tasks are done (email, social media, news, college football...), I move on to my more sordid Caitlyn activities. Not necessarily more feminine but certainly more 'adult'. It's not all porn.. but yeah, a lot of it is porn-esque. Stuff that even if it weren't about my being queer or my Caitlyn self, I wouldn't want mom or R seeing.
To keep myself safe from a quick unintended discovery, I open up a new desktop. I take Apple Music and move it over but otherwise leave my phone link software and Chrome open to a news or college football story. On my new desktop I open up Chrome on my Caitlyn profile and Discord. Even if nothing is directly pornographic on the screen, you could easily glance at my discord and see that the name is Caitlyn. In other words, if I'm just sitting there and R walked in I wouldn't want him to see that. Having it on a different desktop makes it easy to prevent.
I have three methods to change desktops. I could go down and click on the desktop button on the task bar. That opens up a screen with all my currently opened windows and desktops and I can select my 'Calvin' desktop. The second method would be simply hitting the Control and Windows key along with the left or right arrow keys. That will 'move' to the previous or next desktop (Calvin is the first desktop, so I'd go 'back' to it from the Caitlyn desktop). And finally, since I have the Logitech MX Master 3S mouse, it has a button under my thumb. I press on that, move the mouse to the left, and it slides me to my Calvin desktop (or move it to the right and it will take me to the Caitlyn desktop from the Calvin desktop).
I could hide all of this by simply minimizing windows, but having the desktop lets me have the freedom of using my computer the way I want. For instance, right now I have discord open. I'm displaying the last channel I looked at which happens to be the NSFW D+X channel showing porn images. It's under my pink Chrome window showing me writing a blog post as Caitlyn, and I have Photoshop open with the header graphic for this post (but could just as easily have a more 'adult' image open). If R were to come to the door, knock twice, and start to walk in I'd have maybe a couple seconds to minimize those three windows. Or I could lock the computer by hitting the Windows and L keys, but wouldn't that just look suspicious? Instead he knocks, I use one of the methods above (normally the mouse one as it's the fastest), he steps in, and sees me reading something that makes sense along with my phone link software. Nothing suspicious to see here!
Hopefully you can see why I want the privacy of multiple desktops and the mechanics of it. Up until I got this computer it worked fine. But late last year on this new computer and new load of Windows I noticed a problem. When I switched to a new desktop, my background wallpaper changed from being a slideshow to a single picture. I keep a rotation of about 50 images as my background. I just like the variety. Yes, most of the background is covered up by the windows, but I still like to see it. It changes the image every 10 minutes and the colors of windows (the task bar, every window's title bar...) changes to match the colors in the new random wallpaper.
Several years ago, I think back under Windows 10, I had tried to have individual sets of images for the background. My Calvin desktop would have the normal selection of images while Caitlyn could have more adult or just more overtly feminine images. I found through trial and error and a lot of research that you can't do that. The desktops are more or less the same.
So when I changed desktops with my new computer, it was frustrating. I wanted it to stay on the slide show, and it changed to one of the images. I'd only notice after seeing the same color and fringe of the image for about a half hour. It was easy enough to fix as all it took was right clicking on an empty part of the desktop, clicking on 'Personalize' then changing the 'Background' selection from 'Picture' to 'Slideshow'. I didn't even have to set up the folder with the slideshow images as it remembered the folder. I only had to do that when moving to the second or 'Caitlyn' desktop. If I moved to the first or 'Calvin' desktop it didn't change from the slide show to the picture.
At some point, I think it was January, I had to format and reinstall windows. I'd installed a program badly and kind of screwed up windows. Not making it truly broken, but slowing it down and making it less stable. When I got it back up and running... the desktop wallpaper problem was solved. I could skip between multiple desktops and the background stayed on slideshow.
Yay!
But then come to March of this year and I do another format and reinstall of Windows. BAM, the problem is back. And in the last week it's gotten even worse as it will now flip from slideshow to picture mode any time I change desktops, no matter if its from or to the Calvin or Caitlyn desktops. I've now researched this three times. When I first got the computer and noticed the problem, when the problem came back in March, and this past week. None of that research gave me any clue as to why it was doing it.
I wish I had a solution to put here, but it's just a problem and frustration that I'm dealing with.
As long as I'm sharing frustrations, lemme share my most recent Apple Music frustrations. I mentioned awhile back that I moved from iTunes to the Apple Music app on Windows. For the most part it's fine. It still has the audio problem where it won't follow my change from the speakers to the headset, but honestly that's rarely a problem. If I want to force it to change, I can simply close it and re-open it as it starts up a LOT faster than iTunes ever did.
No, the 'new' problems are playlist management/organization and shuffling.
I have a variety of playlists. Most playlists only grow. When I add a new song to my 'Good Tunes' or 'Drive' playlist, it's pretty rare that I want to later remove it. But I keep a 'Recent' playlist that's much shorter and far more curated. It's like a 'best of the best' since August of 2022. If I add a song to that playlist and later find out I don't want to hear it nearly as often, I go back in and remove it. I also have my 'Newest' playlist. That's the ten most recent songs I've added to my library. When I add a new song, I make myself maintain that limit by removing the oldest song.
Now I organize all of my playlists by 'Date Added'. That way the top of the playlist is always the most recently added songs as they're most often the ones I'm going to want to cue up. Even 'Good Tunes' which is my every day, music in the background, over 1300 songs, playlist, I'll cue up a song I added recently and let it randomly shuffle through my entire library (or practically my entire library).
To organize the playlists this way though, Apple Music makes you view them as a list of songs. When viewing them as a playlist, you can't organize by date added. Easy Peasy, just switch it to list by song and done, right? Wrong. When you're looking at this playlist as songs, you don't get the option to remove it from the playlist. You have to go back in, change it to view as a playlist, remove the selected song or songs, then go back and change it back to view as songs so it will organize by date added.
Again, not a problem. Just a frustration.
And finally, shuffling. I rarely want to listen to songs in a particular order. I'm not a fan of listening to an album where order matters. Even my newest playlists, I want them to pick songs in a random order. If I want a particular song, I'll cue it up and then let Apple Music just shuffle on whatever comes up next.
On iTunes I could select shuffle and it kept shuffle on until I turned it off. On Apple Music, if I select a particular song, it starts playing it and turns shuffle off. Unless I turn it back on it will just play along the songs in whatever I have them currently ordered (normally by date added). So I have to cue up the song I want, hit shuffle, and then move to the mini player so it's not taking up all my screen space.
Again, not a problem. Just a frustration.
I feel like about three or four years ago, when I had my yellow Origin computer with the Intel i5 9600k and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Founder's Edition video card. I had the computer for years and it worked just fine. I'm sure there were frustrations and problems, but I remember being happy with it and only wanting to upgrade when the video card couldn't play the games I wanted at the resolution and settings I wanted. Every computer since has been seemingly buggy. The 3080 video card was great, but I upgraded to 4K soon thereafter and it was again not keeping up. The next computer had the AMD Ryzen7 7700X and it took about a billion years to boot up. Now this, with it's back ground and Apple Music bugginess.
I guess if I'm going to have computer problems, first world computer problems are the best ones to have.
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