Selfie to celebrate the first time I’ve had to put on makeup and a proper shirt since March

I had a meeting at work and it was the first time I was forced to use my video.

October 14, 2020

Browse Through 72 Years of Ikea Catalogs

Ikea has uploaded scans of all 72 years of their annual catalogs, from 1950 to 2021, to their online museum. (The company’s optimism that there will be a 2021 is heartening.) An entertaining time machine of Scandinavian design trends.

via kottke.org

September 17, 2020

Email Issues

So my maiden name is Barker. And there’s this other Rachel Barker, who either genuinely thinks she has my email address, or just uses it as her spam email.

​But over the years I have learned her entire address, most of her family member’s names, including mother’s maiden name, and a metric tonne of other information about her, like where she works and banks. I am unwilling to get rid of this email (which is a gmail address that I have owned literally since the first month gmail was a thing), but I basically only log in to delete her emails at this point.

Last month I got a notification that she was trying to log in to outlook.com, with an email address I own (and have since about 2006) but don’t ever use. So I tried to log in myself, but the account was locked. I talked to Microsoft account services, and they verified me as the account owner, but I had to wait 30 days for the account to unlock.

​So I did. And today when the 30 days were up, I logged in, changed the password and set up two factor authentication. When I got in I saw that she has ALSO been using the outlook email as her own for years. She never replies, obviously, since she couldn’t actually access the email. But people have been emailing her at that address. 

Is she terrible at email? Does she just hate everyone in her life and gives them a “fake” email? It is unclear.

But if you’re ever googling yourself, Rachel Barker who lives in Southborough, Kent, UK: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you don’t own any emails using rachel.barker. You don’t own it on any service, not outlook, not gmail. Please stop giving it out, I’m uncomfortable knowing this much about you.

July 16, 2020

June 22, 2020

trying a Beef Fizz

Click the image for a video of me trying the classic mocktail, the “Beef Fizz”. Recipe from this tweet.

My husband tried it too and said it “Would be better with less beef”.

June 19, 2020

Listening to Black Voices

Listening to Black Voices Amid Murder, Violence, Protest, and Pandemic via https://kottke.org/

June 18, 2020