Ramblings of a Menopausal Broad

Tag: Streaming Services

Seven Things I Love (4-18-2022)

April 19, 2022 / / 0 Comments
  1. 1. This Shower “Tool” – I’ve used a loofah/pouf for decades. Originally I used natural sponge loofahs but I stopped after reading they were breeding grounds for bacteria. I switched to nylon poufs, which are a little easier to keep clean, but always felt guilty about the environmental impact, especially because they are so big and they need to be replaced every few months since they stretch out so much.

When I read about LuvScrub exfoliating scrubs, which have been used in West Africa for decades, they sounded like a potential compromise.

And they are. They may not be made out of a natural material but they are made out significantly less nylon than poufs. And there are other reasons why they are better than both loofahs and poufs.

  • They make may skin feel wonderful. It’s much smoother and softer. I feel it does a better job exfoliating than my pouf. Not sure why, it’s kind of the same material, but it does.
  • I love that you can stretch it, like you would a towel, to scrub your back. I had been using a separate brush with a long handle, now I only have the one thing in my shower.
  • This thing is going to be awesome if I ever get to travel again (which may never happen now that that dumb-ass Florida judge got rid of the travel mask mandate. I hope to god that get appealed, and quickly.) It’s small and compact and will be so easy to pack and it dries quickly.

[Found on Refinery29]

2. These Knitting Projects – I’m still just a beginning knitter but a girl likes to dream…

Details on the projects:

  1. “Foolish Virgins” Mittens – created by Lacesockslupins (knitting), this person used this scarf as inspiration. FANTASTIC!
  2. Fantailed Goldfish Hot Water Bottle Cover – created by MimiCodd (knitting), Mimi wrote that it’s going to be a Christmas gift for someone, “probably” (that made me smile). I would totally keep it. When I was in India in 2019 we stayed in an inn that gave the guests hot water bottles. It was heaven. Americans should use them more.
  3. Horse Sculpture – created by Psyche-dog (crochet) and many, MANY others for the National Waterways Museum. “500 – 4” granny squares were made by the museum crochet group plus yards of curly braid for mane and tail. All stitched to topiary frame by me. Made to celebrate the value of horses in the history of England’s canals. The horse will be displayed at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, UK from the end of June 2017 for a few years, hopefully.” EPIC.
  4. Chair Cover – created by Ponnekeblom (crochet) for their daughter using loads of leftover yarn. Why pay hundreds of dollars for a reupholsterer?
  5. “Knit” Apple Pie – created by Knitsforlife (knitting), technically it’s the top crust. This person is one dedicated knitter.
  6. “A Very Warm Book” or A Knitted Book Cover – created by Craftivore (knitting). They had me at EX LIBRIS.
  7. Flashdance Chair Sock/Legwarmers – created by The KnittyStew. Gotta love people who have a sense of humor! I’m thinking these might have people sliding around but that might not be such a bad thing. At least they’ll protect the floors for a bit.

[Found on Ravelry]

3. This Basic Income Program for Artists in Ireland – 2000 artists will be chosen to receive €325 (about $355) per week with no restrictions. Ireland wants to make the idea of the “starving artist” a thing of the past (though I’m not sure how far $350/week will go). Still, it’s a start. They will be trying this out for three years.

There’s good reason to support the arts – it has a positive impact on society and communities that have strong arts programs thrive. And, though this isn’t necessarily good for the artists themselves, it has been discovered that as public art goes up so do property values.

Meanwhile, over in Dublin, a legal battle over street art is brewing.

Mural by Nick Harvey in Galway, Ireland – photo by Hardiman’s Galway

[Found on Hyperallergic]

4. These New York Libraries Giving Access Nationally to Fight Censorship –

New York Public Library

Books for All – The New York Public Library is giving anyone who wants to sign up free access to a variety of commonly censored titles through their free reading app, SimpleE. You can download the app on your iOS or Android device and read the “unbanned books” through May 31st (must be 13 years of age.) There is no wait time!

Books UnBanned – Brooklyn Public Library is doing one better. They are offering cards to any young adult in the country, age 13 to 21, for an entire year. The service is meant to be used to supplement and fill the gaps of what YAs can’t get in their own communities. Additionally (and this is super cool) “Those 13 to 21, who access the free eCard from BPL, will be able to connect with their peers in Brooklyn, including members of BPL’s Intellectual Freedom Teen Council, to help one another with information and resources to fight censorship, book recommendations and the defense of freedom to read.”

If I were a teen right now I would totally be doing this. (BPL also has a collection of frequently censored titles with no wait times.)

To apply for the card, teens can send a note to BooksUnbanned@bklynlibrary.org, or via the Library’s s teen-run Instagram account, @bklynfuture. The $50 fee normally associated with out-of-state cards will be waived.

[Found on Time Out]

5. This Iris Apfel Ring – Sigh. Ms. Apfel teamed up with H&M and put out a fantastic collection that was also affordable. It became available in the U.S. last Thursday and SOLD OUT in hours – before I even had a chance to read the Refinery29 article. UNFAIR! There are many things I would have loved to have bought but this ring is the one thing I really, REALLY wanted.

Photo of some of the pieces from the collection including Iris Apfel wearing THE ring.

[Found on Refinery29]

6. This Bio-Series – Bio-series, I think that’s what this would be called – so many different names for the various types of television series nowadays.

This new show, on HBOMax, is about Julia Child as she works through the first year of her cooking show being on the air. Overall it’s fairly historically accurate but of course nobody knows exactly what people say or do in private, so the writers extrapolated some of it using biographies, articles, documents, letters, recordings, and even Wikipedia. And a few things they made up but it totally works.

It’s simply called Julia and that is a perfect title. I LOVE THIS SHOW! It’s exactly what I think people need right now – upbeat, cheerful, funny, and hopeful. After all, we all know that she’s going to succeed.

If you don’t have HBOMax you may want to get it just for this, or at least get the 7-day trial and watch it (though if you do that, wait until May 5th since that is when the last episode will be airing.)

Also, if you have or get HBOMax I recommend watching Our Flag Means Death and Minx.

Sarah Lancashire as Julia Child

7. This Man, Who Won the Lottery and Used the Winnings to Start an Environmental Foundation – This is what I’ve said I always wanted to do if I ever won the lottery! If you don’t believe me I have multiple friends you can ask – there’s a group of us who all want to do the same thing.

A retiree in France won the second highest lottery in French history €200 million ($217 million) and used the money to start a foundation that concentrates on revitalizing forests, and preserving and regenerating biodiversity. He also has money set aside for supporting family caregivers, which is amazing. You can read more if you click on the image below.

[Found on MyModernMet]

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Seven Things I Love (2-14-2022)

February 15, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day!

1. This Streaming Service – For me this is the best streaming service for one simple reason, your monthly “fee” is actually a donation to your LOCAL PBS station!

Simply download the PBS app on your smart TV or device – even if you don’t make the donation there is a lot you can watch for free but if you would like access to everything, including the newest Masterpiece programs, you are going to want PBS Passport, especially if you’ve cut the cable cord.

You can find out more here (scroll down.)

Currently I’ve been watching the new Around the World in Eighty Days .
It’s FANTASTIC!!! There is one more episode coming next week.

IBRAHIM KOMA as Passepartout, DAVID TENNANT as Phileas Fogg,
and LEONIE BENESCH as Abigail ‘Fix’ Fortescue

2. This Seven-Year-Old Girl – Isobel is going to go far in this world.

In case you don’t follow British politics, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, is in a bit of a sticky wicket. It was discovered that he had several social gatherings at No. 10 Downing Street during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns.

“Partygate,” as it has been dubbed, has led to calls for his resignation not only from members of other political parties but from members of his own Conservative Party. And now the POLICE are investigating it. Quite a different response to bad behavior/corruption from a politician than what happens in the U.S., where a sitting president can instigate an insurrection and nearly every member of his party will stand by him.

Well, Little Isobel wouldn’t have it so she sent the PM a withering note. After all, if she had to miss her birthday parties then he should have to do the same! As she says – “follow the rulse!”

Here’s the letter –

Family photo obtained from BBC news.

3. This Embroidered Brooch – I can’t even. This artist is located in Russia, which doesn’t surprise me. Whenever I find truly stunning pieces on Etsy they always seem to be from Russia or Romania or someplace in Eastern Europe – probably because they are still passing on the skills I imagine.

4. This Tweet by Adidas – I had to go post a few comments on this. I LOVED it so much. Seeing real boobs – if I could have seen things like this or ads with women that were not stick skinny when I was a teen I would probably be a hell of a lot thinner now (and I certainly wouldn’t be so ashamed of the way I look.)

5. These Samantha Bee Videos on Book Banning – Well said Samatha! I think what we are going to find is that as soon as mid-term elections are over both CRT and book banning are going to disappear {poof} and no longer be an issue, because right now Neo-conservatives are using these issues to get votes. Because they have no actual platforms or policies of their own that would make anyone want to vote for them, and they know that. The only way they can win is to demonize their opponents.

6. This Turkish Man Who Replanted a Forest – Hikmet Kaya started his career in forest management in 1979 in a town called Sinop. When he retired 19 years later, he and his team had brought in and planted 30 MILLION saplings! Over the past few decades he’s been able to see the results of their efforts. Incredible.

Unfortunately, as has been the case in so many places in the world, there has been a reduction in tree coverage in Turkey over the past twenty years or so – the major cause is deforestation. Hopefully the Turkish people can get that evil, autocratic president out so they have a chance at getting legislation passed that is best for the people of their country.

Hikmet Kaya shows a photo of what the landscape looked like over 40 years ago when he began working on the forestation project with the help of some colleagues and people from his village.

7. This Meme – Love every single one of them!

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Bye Bye, Spotify

February 2, 2022 / / 0 Comments

In this corner, weighing in at 165 pounds, we have Hall of Famer, Grammy winning Neil Young, clocking in at a spry 76 years old.

And in this corner, weighing 194 pounds and clocking in at a sturdy 54, we have Joe Rogan, backed by his 11 million anti-vax Spotify listeners.

It was a David and Goliath moment to be sure and Goliath was the victor.

Wait, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work. God damned Spotify.

But here they come, over the hills, like the calvary in an old politically incorrect western who ride in at the last minute. Only this calvary are canceling their accounts in droves along with a few other big name artists who have joined Neil Young and asked to have their music removed from the Music behemoth.

Joe Rogan must have been a little concerned about his image taking a hit because he “apologized” and said that he would have more mainstream people on his show. Then four hours later he promptly posted more misinformation on Twitter. Yeah, he’s a twat.

If you want to show your support for Neil Young, along with Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, Brene Brown, Wendy Zukerman & Blythe Terrell, India Arie, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills (aka Crosby, Stills & Nash), Mary Trump and Roxane Gay here’s what you can do….

“CANCEL” YOUR SPOTIFY ACCOUNT!

Since I’ve already done so myself I thought I’d give you a few tips.

First off, I put “cancel” in quotation marks because you can’t actually cancel your account. What you can is change your plan from a paid plan to the free one.

To do this

1. Log into Spotify
2. Click on your name in the top right corner and choose Account
3. Choose the Available Plans tab
4. Select the Change Plans button
5. Choose the free plan, they will make you confirm it like three times

They give you an opportunity to tell them WHY you are changing to the free plan. I said it was because I support Neil Young and that Spotify isn’t doing enough to stop the spread of misinformation.

Spotify is pretty shitty for not letting people delete their accounts but at least this way they won’t be getting your money.

There are other streaming services you can use instead of Spotify – Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, etc.. Here’s a list of options. Admittedly, I don’t think any of them have everything Spotify does (which is why it has become the most popular service), but you need to make the decision – which is more important, bells & whistles or your principles?

Before I cancelled my account I hesitated because I had put so much work into creating my playlists. Then I found out I could easily transfer my playlists and changed from Spotify in the flash of an eye.

Turns out there’s an app for that!

I chose Songshift but there are other options that most likely work equally well. I chose this particular app because I’ll be able to use it to share playlists with people even after I’m done transferring my playlists from Spotify – which makes the investment worthwhile (I’ll explain in a moment). AND if by some miracle, if Spotify does a huge overhaul in how it runs its company, I can easily move my playlists back.

Now, if you don’t have a lot of playlists you could probably just use the free version of Songshift but I had about 25 of them so I could to subscribe. Subscription (I think it’s $4.99/month which I can cancel at any time) gives me the ability to transfer multiple playlists at one time. Otherwise it will only do one at a time. So, like I said, if you have 5 or 6, the free version will probably be fine, much more than 8 or 9 and you’re probably going to want to make the investment, at least for one month.

It also gives me the ability to share playlists with anyone on multiple music streaming services – Pandora, Amazon Music, Apple Music, just to name a few. I’m curious to see how that works.

Anyway, transferring is super easy – you sign in to both your Spotify account and whatever new music streaming service you’ve chosen then you selection one service as the one you are transferring from and one that you are transferring to and that you choose which playlists you want to transfer. (Like I mentioned, you need the premium version if you want to do more than one at a time.)

It wills start the process and look for matches. A lot of the songs will match without problems but some of them you will need to approve and some of them you may need to help find matches for. You can choose to ignore songs that your new service can’t find a match for if you don’t want to spend the time looking.

Once all the songs have matches you hit the “Confirm Matches” button…

Once it has “shifted” all the songs you will see that it has finished and you need to hit the “Continue” button.

After that there’s one more button to hit and you’re finished with the process.

I moved to Apple Music because I used iTunes for so many years. I had a bunch of playlists there already so I merged the duplicate playlists together. (More decluttering!)

Hope this helps those of you who want to drop Spotify but have been hesitating.

Do it! You’ll feel better. And remember, Spotify is not a music company, it’s the Netflix of audio.

Addendum (2-2-22)

A friend of mine (thanks Ann!) shared this post with me. If you are having a hard time making a decision on which music platform to go with this may help you out…

I wanted to make sure I was reading this correctly. Basically it’s saying:
if P!nk had a song streaming on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, the song would have to be streamed 128 times on Apple Music for her to earn a dollar, the song would have to be streamed 315 times on Spotify for her to earn a dollar, and the song would have to be streamed a whoppin’ 1,250 times on YouTube Music for her to earn that same dollar.

I’m not familiar with Tidal Music and I didn’t even know Napster was still around but seems to me that, of the options I was considering, Apple Music is the best deal for musicians. I’d definitely avoid YouTube Music and Pandora.

And if you are still hesitating, here’s one last article to read.

Oops, for real, now this is the last article. It seems that India.Arie left Spotify because Rogan used the N-word 24 times.

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