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Happy New Year! It’s a couple hours away, but preemptively speaking, "Happy New Year!"

My New Year’s Resolution is to not die. Yeah, anybody with any semblance of realism is aware that the next few years are going to be pretty shitty. It’s like, when a Democrat gets in charge, it’s same old same old, but when a Republican gets in charge it’s chaos and misery and years worth of economic clownery.

So like, dudes:

• Don’t give into the FOMO and take up gambling or cryptocurrency.
• Try to eat nutritious and tasty meals, likely cooked at home because it’s cheaper.
• Wear a mask and wash your hands so you don’t catch COVID, the flu, or norovirus.
• Don’t go into debt buying a handbag that will be out of style next year.
• Get a good winter coat and some warm jackets.
• Don’t drink raw milk.
• Wear sunblock even when it’s "not sunny."
• Moisturize your skin, and not just on your face.
• Wash your bedding and your pet’s bedding.
• Drink enough water.

And above all: Don’t give into despair.

The news of the world is terrible because news companies make money by only sharing terrible things. There was a whole deal where the Zuck’s company was sued for purposefully overloading people with negative content because it resulted in more hits. And their reply to people being angry was to shrug, like "We’re not a news organization even though a large portion of the population trusts us to be their daily news source. Don’t blame us. We’re just a little company uwu."

So no matter how bad things seem, we are still alive, and as long as we live there is hope. May the future be brighter than the present and more hopeful than the past.

Anyways, Happy New Year!

I hope to keep being here for you, and I hope that you continue to be there for me to be there for.

Much love,

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.
https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

I feel like if someone is a human turd sandwich, there is some moral obligation to disinvite them from social media platforms. At the very least, stop recommending them to people.

"But that would be tampering with The Algorithm!"–My dudes, you tamper with The Algorithm on the regular. That’s why that POS is able to pay you money and end up on everyone’s For You feed. Don’t bullshit me.

If the algorithm was really fair, Those People would not be popping up on everyone’s feed in the first place. People would be able to give a Dislike, and your algorithm wouldn’t take all that loathing and use it to boost that POS rather than giving them a negative rating.

The Algorithm boosts garbage, people are recommended that garbage so they glance at it, and then The Algorithm boosts the garbage more because so many people looked at it. Your algorithm is broken. You need to fix your filters.

Like, YouTube: I wanted to know what movies were coming in the future, so I watched some upcoming trailers.

Then SOMEHOW The Algorithm started suggesting trailers for movies THAT AREN’T REAL.

Trailers created with AI for "upcoming movies" that are never going to be made. And I get that there’s satire and fair use and all other kinds of reasons why it’s okay to use real actors’ names and faces and voices without their permission for fake movies… But when I’m on the YouTube home page I can’t read the video descriptions on my TV. All I get are the titles and the thumbnails.

So I watched like four trailers for fake movies and I was getting ANGRY that all the upcoming movies suck so bad.

Fix your algorithms, people.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.
https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

My Dash Mini Donut Maker arrived and I’ve used it once.

I think the machine is a very good thing. It’s easy to clean. It heats up fairly fast. You have to open it and flip the donuts after about a minute and a half, but there’s not a lot of steam or a blast of heat. It’s not intended for children or clumsy people to use, but if you’re careful it won’t burn you. It works well.

The recipe directions… eh. The plain donut recipe made a super dense donut. And the chocolate donut recipe has a printing problem and doesn’t tell how many cups of cocoa should be used. So the included recipes are not to be relied upon.

Tomorrow I’m going to make boxed cake mix donuts. From all the reviews, the donut maker is great for cooking cake mix. And later (after buying groceries) I’m going to try a fudge brownie mix, Jiffy muffin mix, cornbread mix, banana bread mix, etc. I’ve even considered how I could make mini-bagels in it.

So yeah. I like the mini donut maker. I’m glad to add it to my larger collection of Dash mini-maker appliances. The only problem with it is the included recipes, which means having to search the Internet for a recipe I like.

Ideas I’ve had:

• "Strawberry shortcake" — The center "holes" don’t cut all the way through. There’s a thin middle section that remains. So I can make a yellow cake or angel food cake donut and use it as the base for a strawberry shortcake-type desert.
• Ice Cream Cake — I can make a bunch of cake donuts and use them to line the bottom of a pan, then drizzle with that ice cream sauce that makes a "hard" shell, then layer ice cream, whipped cream, and cut fruit. Or just make multiple layers of cake donuts, ice cream shell sauce, ice cream, donuts, and sauce. I like ice cream cake, so being able to make an "ice cream donut cake" could be delicious fun.
• "Cheesy Bread" — Probably make a bread or biscuit dough that I form into a strip that I can fold around some cheese and maybe some cooked sausage or cooked bits of bacon. Then I can take the roll of filled dough and cut off pieces to fit in the maker’s donut holes, pinching the ends together. It should make a bread ring that can then be dipped in butter or a butter-garlic sauce.
• "Pizza Dippers" — The same idea as the Cheesy Bread, but putting pizza cheese and pepperoni or other pizza toppings inside. Then after they’re cooked the pizza dippers can be dipped into marinara sauce (I just use spaghetti sauce) with or without being brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with a mixture of parmesan, garlic, and salt first.
• "Crab Cakes" — I don’t know what donut shaped crab cakes or tuna fish cakes will be like, but it’s fun to experiment. And since I’d be using canned crab or tuna fish, there’s no worry that they would be undercooked, Like, I don’t know if I would use the donut maker to make donut-shaped meatballs/meat loaf bites. But I know that some people make crab cakes in their waffle makers.

I look at the donut maker and there’s a lot of possibility.

I’ve been going a bit hard at the Amazon Vine requests, but it’s mostly been things I have always wanted or that I need. And yeah, a few things just for myself, like the diamond art kits I got. But mostly not a bunch of junk that’s going to clutter the house.

(Amazon list: "I got that" https://www.amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0/list/2N4YMQNTQSBKN)

One thing I got that I’ve always been curious about is a candle making kit. But it’s never been a priority item, so I’ve never gotten one.

Until now.

I got a candle making kit to review, and though I haven’t used it yet, I opened the box and saw that there’s everything I need to start out. A wax melter, 8 bags of wax beads, 8 jars, wicks and their little stickers, wax dye cubes, essential oils, and dried flowers.

The included directions aren’t the best, but the kit comes everything I think I need to start out with. At this point, I just want to know if candle making is something I’ll like doing. Like, I’ve always liked the idea of the little fondue pots that are heated with tealight candles. And if I have my own electric wax melter, I can refill metal tealight candle tins and it’s not a waste.

The kit includes essential oils, which I’m not sure about. There are so many essential oils that are a hazard toward a cat’s health. So any candles I make for my own use are likely going to be unscented. But maybe I’ll get into making and gifting candles to other people.

I think the big candles that are different scents as they burn down are a lot of fun. It’s just I don’t want to make a candle that becomes stinky as the melted wax of one scent mixes with another.

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.
https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

Sometimes my brain thinks about things without my permission and goes through whole tangents on subjects I otherwise wouldn’t consider. And so I was thinking about the classic (racist) joke "Me Chinese. Me play joke. Me go pee pee in your Coke." And it’s basically "The Help" with the Chinese man being the protagonist and without the unnecessary addition of the unhelpful white savior woman.

Seriously, she nudged her way into their private spaces, gathered their stories, wrote a book, and made a bunch of money. She profited off the lives and misery of Black women and didn’t even give them any of the money she received in return. She was the worst sort of person.

"But she wrote a great book! Because of her, everyone in town knew that some lady ate a shit pie! How is that not life changing?!?"

And I get it. As a species, humans enjoy the thought of their enemies knowing that they’ve been revenged upon. It’s why a dying old woman was so gleeful as she said "Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me."

But at the end of the day, what was the result?

Everyone in town knew that one of their members had eaten a fecal pie. And considering the number of people in town, that the pie maker was recently fired by the person before making the "apology" pie; it likely wasn’t too hard to figure out the identity of the pie maker, thus resulting in her having a hard time getting a job in the future. A job she very much needed.

Yeah. That lady was the worst sort of white savior. The kind that didn’t really save anyone. Only profited off the life stories of Black women whose lives were likely adversely affected by the secrets she’d told.

"But those women wanted their stories told! They just couldn’t write it themselves! They were happy to help her succeed in her fabulous life as a young white woman in America! It’s a success story. Like ‘The Blind Side.’"

"The Help" may have been an entertaining story and a great movie due to the cast of fabulous Black women (Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis for example) but at the end of the day it was intended for the white gaze. It’s one of those stories that someone can consume and metaphorically pat themselves on the back afterward. "I’m not as awful as those racists that abuse their maids. Hey, sub-minimum wage serving staff, feel free to use the servant’s toilet. Just make sure you keep it clean. I’m such a good person."

The Chinese man urinating in the rude customer’s Coca-Cola is a better story than "The Help" in that there didn’t need to be a savior figure to step in and make a point that much deserved revenge had happened. The Chinese man had his own autonomy. He made a decision, he carried it out, and he didn’t have to share any of the glory with some mild-mannered observer that made no effort to stop the racism as it happened but only stepped in afterward to make themself feel better.

Him holding his eyes in the inherently racist "squinty eye" gesture while speaking in broken English really got his point across.

White people telling that joke in the 80s thought they were hilarious, because "That Chinese guy was so dumb he peed in the Coke and thought it was okay to serve that to a person. He was so ignorant he didn’t even know better!" When really the joke is "A white guy was racist toward a Chinese person, and the Chinese guy turned it back on him by leaning into the broken English stereotype and playing up the assumption that ‘Asians are foolish’ and got a racist to drink his urine. And he did it in such a way that the guy couldn’t even be mad! Good joke, haha."

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.
https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.