I fully intended to write regularly while I was in England. I did have a lovely time visiting with one of my best friends in all the world, and I definitely worried over nothing. The hotel I stayed at was quirky and fun and just steps away from the High Street and had a nice little Chinese restaurant directly across the street. I found some keepers in the £1 bargain bins at a record shop in town, as well as an interesting little book about the beginnings of BBC Radio One. We had a few really nice meals out as well, but spent the bulk of the time up in the attic, listening to music, passing the aux and the Dutchie, and watched the New York Stock Exchange crash live in real time and 4K.

My friend surprised me with a gift of a reproduction of the classic Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer! The Spectrum was that "computer over there" that I was never able to experience growing up in the States; we received it's greatly inferior sibling, the ZX-81. This model from Retro Games, Ltd. has some of the best-rated games from Crash Magazine built into the unit, with the ability to load other games and programs via USB, as well as the BASIC interpreter mode. It was the computer that introduced a lot of people behind the Iron Curtain to home computing, through bootlegged units. The Spectrum really was a phenomenon, and it's lovely to own a working physical version. I also bought their Commodore 64 reproduction several years back, and they're both quality products.

Coming back was difficult, knowing what I was coming back to. I hope this visit isn't the last one I'll be able to take out of the country. It's absolutely insane how everything has been turned upside down and lit on fire here in the US since the end of January. But that's a post for another day. It's Friday, it's the weekend, last night's radio broadcast went off without a hitch and sounded great.

I did allow myself one final indulgence before putting a kibosh on non-essential purchases: I bought an Anbernic Cube XX, just before the stock already in the US ran out, and I'm really glad I did. I think this is the perfect unit for running Pico-8 software. I still love the RGB30, but this unit hits the sweet spot. Having multiple operating systems to choose from is nice, as well. I have so much love for a gaming platform with tens of thousands of games which are free and a low bar to entry to coding fun, small, lo-fi games.

I've not been writing, sorry. I've been spun around and spun out by these seemingly never-ending waves of absolute cruelty being blasted out of Washington since a certain sentient malignancy returned to power. I am trying to not let myself become completely overwhelmed by the Caligulesque* level of legislative and executive sadism on parade. I feel constantly exhausted, mentally overstimulated and physically numb. Angry. Unable to focus. Unable to enjoy the things which usually get my mind off of troubles. These aren't ordinary troubles, and these are no ordinary times. There couldn't be a more perfect storm of chaos to decimate the psyche of a justice-sensitive ADHD person. My executive function is nil most of the time. It's Kafkaesque to watch everything being ripped apart around you - jobs, lives, families - and still be expected to function for eight hours at a job, as though everything is business as usual.

I'm supposed to travel out of the country soon. I've had my ticket since December. I always want to be a model visitor when I'm abroad - don't speak loudly, be respectful and polite, remember I'm a guest, be aware of cultural "do-nots", don't stand out. Now, "not standing out" ends the moment I open my mouth and my accent outs me as a citizen of a nation which has betrayed all of its allies in the span of two months. A nation now openly attacking them while praising autocrats and dictatorial regimes and threatening military incursion on our closest friends and trading partners. I am a visitor from the Fourth Reich this time. 

As much as I desperately need to get away from this madness if even for a week, my chances of being singled out as a target for someone's anti-American anger while I'm there are small but not zero. What I fear more right now is US Border Patrol and Customs Enforcement, since they appear to have been re-purposed to instill fear in immigrants, green card holders, and citizens alike. I have not been silent about my disgust for this Administration, and I won't. Silence in the face of injustice is siding with injustice. Given that my last two visits across international airport borders have involved "random additional screening" both ways, and with the FBI currently under the control of a member of the QAnon cult, these points of interaction are the ones which concern me the most.

* A French word that desperately needs to be adopted in English

I am writing this on my new Raspberry Pi 500, which arrived from CanaKit yesterday. I am both impressed and frustrated,  but mostly impressed - and the frustration will decrease with time as I get more comfortable with RasPi. This will likely be my last non-essential major purchase for quite some time. The monitor is really very sharp and clear, and the computer/keyboard is very comfortable to type on. I've gotten very spoiled running Mint on my laptop, with all of the software available for Intel-based PCs. Software instalallation is not always as straightforward on the RasPi, either. This is all probably for the best though, as it will force me to learn more about Linux, which is never a bad thing. With technology, your choices are always convenience or security - you'll never get both.

It's got a very nice, clean design with a small desk footprint. The monitor also has an indentation on the bottom to allow your cables to pass-through which is just cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing overall.

For under $200, it's a nice system with no telemetry.

I deleted Wordpress, as I found my cookie-blockers were blocking cookies on the blog. On closer inspection, I noticed one of the attempted cookies was from doubleclick.net.

Nope, nope, nope.

So I'm starting again. Thankfully, I had not written much, and none of it was really worth moving over.