The movie conversion project continues, and I’ve finally landed on my final solutions. Years ago I purchased a lifetime subscription to Plex, so that’s my main streaming software on my media PC that Roku connects to. I’ve landed on using MakeMKV for ripping my discs to files on the media PC. Plex handles the .mkv files just fine and the quality is great! It’s VERY simple to use, and I like that I can use it for both DVDs and Blu Rays. I don’t stream outside my home, which is something the Plex software offers – stream your home movies from anywhere! But, if I ever get to that point, I’d probably use Handbrake to convert the files to MP4 format. Handbrake is NOT user friendly, but it has presets you can use to make things easier and it’s free. MakeMKV costs about $60 and comes with a 30 day free trial. That price is for life though, it’s not an annual subscription or anything like that. Worth it. 😉

The actual conversion is a slow process, this whole thing is definitely a labor of love. Or insanity, not sure which! 😀 For the most part it’s just time, but there are things I need to remember to look out for and check as I go. The big thing is forced captions – these things are an absolute pain in the arse! Forced captions are the subtitles that appear for only part of the movie. Think of the beginning of “Hunt for Red October”, when the sailors are speaking in Russian and subtitles appear for a bit until the film switches to English. THOSE are forced captions. DVDs and Blu Rays handle them differently and getting them to be “burned in” to the video stream, correctly, sucks. So far MakeMKV is handling those pretty well for me.

I’ve switched from T-Mobile to MintMobile. $180 and I don’t have to pay for cell service again for another year. Since I work from home and am usually on my WiFi, I purchased the lowest data plan – 4GB per month. However, it’s only $30 per month if you want to go the unlimited route. So for $360 you can have unlimited data plus 5G for 1 year for your phone. I didn’t even need to talk to T-Mobile to cancel my account, it was all done through the website to get the PIN to transfer my phone number, and as soon as it was ported over, my account was canceled with T-Mobile. At the lowest account level I was paying $70 per month, MUCH better deal! I’ve only had 1 glitch during that first week when I had to reinstall my SIM card in my phone, but that could have been the phone and not necessarily the new service causing the issue.

Many of the streaming services are raising prices again here soon, over the holiday season no less! I’ve dropped Hulu, but became a fan of “Only Murders in the Building” with Steve Martin and Martin Short right before that expired. It’s unfortunately a Hulu exclusive, so I’ll have to sign up for a free trial or something when the next season comes out. I’m keeping Netflix, I watch several of their shows and I’ve got my Amazon Prime for most everything else.

I’ve finished another quilt that I dropped off this last week for the machine quilting:

I really like the fabrics used in the leaves pattern in the corners, it was fun to do. It’ll be 5-7 weeks before it’s done though. Everyone is getting in their quilts for the holidays.

I’m back to doing Diamond Dotz! Very happy to be back to this hobby, but ran into something really weird on the Jack Sparrow canvas I’ve been working on:

Those white-ish “dotz” do not look like they belong! I triple-checked the pattern and looked up the color online. Those are not the right ones! This kit was different in that my beads were sent to me already separated into the mini zip-lock storage bags. They’re usually in sealed, stamped packets with just the color code number on the outside. Ordered some replacements and THIS is what that color should look like:

Yeah, that’s a BIG difference! Only cost $3 plus $3 shipping to get it and one other bag that had half round and half square drills inside it fixed.

I’ve been working with a company on xeriscaping my property. We’ve got a nice plan ready to go, I’m just waiting on HOA approval which is taking forever at this point. One thing I’ve been debating is a fire pit area in the back. I got a portable one to try out:

My sister and niece came over to try out making S’mores with it. It’s a gas one, so no ashes to deal with or campfire smoke. Yeah, it was in the 80s when we did it, but it worked well!

That’s about it. Even though we had several days in the 100’s during Labor Day, I put my fall decorations up. Don’t care, just wanted some fun color in the house. Enjoy a couple of pup videos! Here’s Nyx with an empty Red Vines bucket:

Here they are attacking their nemesis, the dreaded vacuum!