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Opinion/Editorial/Life

Blaugust 2023 – Staying Motivated

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This week’s “Blaugust theme” is “Staying Motivated”. These days especially, I have to say, I have, almost zero motivation. There are a lot of factors as to why, I’m not really motivated to discuss them at this time though, maybe later, sometime (X-Doubt.jpg). Instead, let’s look at what keeps me motivated.

I think one thing that keeps me going a lot of the time is gamifying things. I think the idea of “gamification” seems really stupid on paper, but it also works pretty well. Achievement badges are actually kind of a weakness. I once spent an afternoon playing around with the chat program we use at work after discovering it has achievement badges. It’s basically fucking AIM.

I’ve gotten on a bit of a kick lately trying to 100% achievements in games, for example. I don’t super-push myself when some of the achievements are annoyingly bad though. Like Blaugust here, I don’t really know how it’s graded, it’s mostly an honor system, but there is a list of made-up achievements for it. Basically, the only one I have not done is “Pickup Group”. I guess I should try doing that to get the achievement for “doing all the achievements”. I am also on track-ish to do 31/31 posts for the month, this post being number 22. Numbers 25 through 28 should be taken care of as well. One of the five remaining needed will be my “Lessons Learned” wrap-up, probably on the 31st.

  • Reading the Manual – Read the introductory blog post with the rules of the event.
  • Joining the Cause – Sign-Up for Blaugust.
  • Recruit a Friend – Convince another blogger to participate in Blaugust.
  • Spreading the Madness – Promote Blaugust on your blog or through your social media of choice.
  • Friend of Wumpus – Join the Blaugust Discord.
  • Sharing is Caring – Post your content in the “Share Your Content” Channel.
  • Forum of Friends – Take part in a discussion on the “Post Discussion” Channel.
  • The Pet Tax – Post a picture of an animal friend on the “Stuff and Things” Channel or create a blog post about them.
  • Friend Like Me – Answer a question posted on the Blagust Discord or help out a new blogger.
  • Shared Thoughts – Comment on a blog post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Federation of Bloggers – Sign up for a Fediverse account and follow the official Blaugust account.
  • Getting Inspired – Write a blog post inspired by a post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Pickup Group – Play a game or take part in an activity with one or more Blaugust participants.
  • Hot Topics – Write a blog post based on the Blaugust Prompt List.
  • Welcome Wagon – Write a blog post based on the first week’s theme of Welcoming Folks to Blaugust.
  • Introduce Yourself – Write a blog post based on the second week’s theme of Introducing Yourself.
  • Creative Appreciation – Write a blog post based on the third week’s theme Appreciating the works of some Creative or Company.
  • Staying Motivated – Write a blog post based on the fourth week’s theme of how you have managed to Stay Motivated.
  • Lessons Learned – Write a blog post based on the fifth week’s theme explaining some of the Lessons you have Learned through Blaugust.
  • Going Platinum – Complete All of the Blaugchievements for Blaugust 2023.

Completionism like this can be bad though, and sometimes I have to stop myself. Like, for while I was really bad about buying toys I didn’t really want because it would “complete teams”. Marvel teams, Transformers teams, whatever. It can certainly lead to some bad behaviors for sure.

Streaks are another good motivator. Possibly a better motivator. A few good examples of these in my life, that I may actually get into more detail on in full-fledged posts, I’m considering maybe doing a series of “Track all the Things” posts, maybe after my “Computing History” series. A lot of what keeps these going now is “streak motivation” of “I’ve been doing it, so I should keep doing it.”

  • I have tracked the gas and mileage on my car every fill-up since I got it. It’s all in an Excel book with graphs and such.
  • I track all my spending in categories and charts in an Excel workbook. I have done this for years.
  • I have almost a 1700 Day streak in Duolingo.
  • I use a daily mood and activity tracking app called Daylio that I have a 2056 day streak in.

The motivation is to not break these streaks of activity. Keep it going, keep it flowing. I would love to blog every day, and get that streak going but I find that much stress ends up killing the quality of posts (not that there is much there to start with on that).

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up (08.13.2023 to 08.19.2023)

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Another week of Blog Posts done, I’m in the home stretch now for Blaugust. I can assure you, and myself, that I will not be keeping up this pace. For a variety of reasons, probably most of which I will mention in a wrap-up post on the 31st.

But what about this week. The big event this week was going to see Alanis Morissette. I also had some overnight work at work, which I don’t usually have, which has thrown my whole schedule off, not that I am not tired, basically, all the time, already. Something fun that came out of my Instagram posts from that concert, Cedric LeMoyne, the awesome bass player from the show, liked my awesome photo of him. I really like the pic too, so here it is.

Anyway, I have some coding projects I want to get to but have not had time lately, or, probably more accurately, have not had the mental capacity to work on lately. I also have some code stuff I’ve been trying to puzzle out for work, and I am sure at some point it will “click” and just slide into place and work, and I’ll start running there, but other work issues, have been blocking that focus.

I’ve also started making an effort to read a bit more again, though not a lot of progress there. I go through ups and downs on how much I read. I just am ashamed of my massive book backlog.

Activity Log

I really want to, at some point, find a way to add things like, my Duolingo progress here. I could do it manually, but I also don’t really know how to format it.

I did get a new Marvel Legends this week, I didn’t plan to, but the two-pack of Endgame Captain Marvel and Pepper Potts Rescue was down to $20, and I had to jump on that. I’ve been sort of wanting it for a while, but mostly for the Endgame Carol, I already have the single-pack Rescue. The Pepper heads would mostly be a bonus. I’ve been tempted at $25 and $30, but at $20, it would be less than a single figure. If Endgame Captain Marvel had been a single-packed figure, I would have already bought it. At this point, the useless extra Rescue figure is just an accessory.

I picked up one book (for the embarrassing backlog) called The Little Book of Mathematical Principles, Theories & Things by Robert Solomon. What can I say, it was probably $2 and I like nerdy things.

I almost forgot that I also bought a game or a game bundle. Steam had a bundle of Mega Man games, half of which I already owned. Because of the way Steam discounts work, owning something, knocks even more off, so for a price I wanted to pay, I could get the Mega Man Zero collection. I’ve only played the first one a while ago, but it’s a series I have been meaning to play. I have beaten all of the previous Mainline Mega Man and Mega Man X games already. The Zero series is kind of a hole.

Opinion/Editorial/Life

Cat Tax Day

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I’m all off this week thanks to screwy work and an extra post and just a general chaotic time. So I’m going to do a bit of a filler day and fulfill the “Cat Tax” for Blaugust. Against my better wants, we have 7 cats. We have the space and the people, but personally, 7 is too many. Also, they don’t always get along. At the moment, two of them we have to keep separate at all times, which is a pain, shuffling them between which is locked up in a room and which is not. If we don’t they will literally just, fiercely deathmatch, instantly.

I’ll go from oldest to youngest.

Scarlette (#10)

I’m going to throw some numbers on these, Scarlette is the tenth cat I have had in my lifetime.

Scarlette doesn’t really have any other nicknames. She is the oldest at around 13 years now I think. Like all of our cats, we got her as a kitten. She was actually a replacement cat, from the vet. We had adopted a calico kitten that the kids were calling Uganda. When it came time, we set it to be fixed at the vet, and the poor kitten didn’t make it. The Kids were of course devastated. Shortly afterward, the vet (who was sort of a friend of the family because our kids were friends) called up and they had another kitten that needed a home, so we adopted Scarlette. She had come from a “cat hoarding” situation I think, and she was extremely skittish. To the point of, we lost her in the house at one point for days.

Later we discovered that she had been hiding inside the boxed springs of the bed. For at least the first year she would regularly just, vanish into the boxed springs.

My family commonly refers to her as “My Girlfriend” (as in me personally) because I am definitely her favorite of everyone in the house and when I go to bed, I don’t care where she is, she will come running in to join me in the bed. I’ve also worked with her to get her to be less skittish and more cuddly. Even after years with us, she would cower in fear anytime you tried to pet her, despite that she may have just been trying to get your attention for pets. I have no idea what happened to her in the brief time before we adopted her, but it had to have been pretty horrible.

Simba (#11)

The next three are actually all from the same litter, so I’m not positive of the age difference, though whatever it is, it’s minutes. We sometimes call them “the Triplets”. Simba doesn’t have any nicknames aside from maybe “Jackass”, because he is kind of a bully sometimes.

Simba’s fun story. At our old house, eh loved to go outside and hunt birds and rabbits. We tried to keep them from going out, but that didn’t really work out sometimes. When we last moved, during the move, he got outside. He is, notoriously hard to catch. In the end, we left him behind, with plans to come back for him. Over the course of a month or two, we would periodically drive the 45b minutes (one way) drive down to the old house and see if we could see him. It was mildly irritating because he would come to the door of our old house, but the new owners refused to let him in. All they needed to do was let him in and give us a call, we would have been there and taken him away.

Eventually, our old neighbor called us up. He had managed to catch Simba in a Raccoon trap and he was recovered. Now he has zero interest in going outside ever.

His absolute favorite thing is when I refill the cat food container and he can come and eat the super fresh out of the bag food directly from the source. I like to let him indulge in that since it only happens maybe once a month.

Kiara (#12)

The girl of the triplets, sometimes called Dobby or the “Basement Troll”. Kiara likes me, and is pretty agreeable with people, but she hates all of the other cats except maybe Kovu, and especially after the move, she claimed the basement as her domain and hides down there all the time.

Kiara is our smallest cat. She likes to hide in the most random and strangest places.

Kovu (#13)

Kovu is the largest cat we own, though pure weight-wise, Simba is very close, though Simba is pretty lean and is basically all muscle. Kovu is sometimes called “Fatty”, which I’ll admit is a bit rude. He likes to think he’s not fat though and often climbs up all over the place and jumps between furniture, chasing people down to get petted. He’ll let you know too, because he’ll squawk at you and reach out for it.

He’s probably the overall best-behaved cat. He generally doesn’t get in fights with anyone else and he doesn’t cause any problems. His worst offense is being too pushy sometimes about getting attention, which is made worse because he is a fat ass and will knock things around getting to you.

Jackie (#14)

Jackie is my wife and I’s baby, though don’t tell her, Scarlette is probably my real favorite. Jackie came from my father-in-law’s shop as a kitten and we basically brought her home expecting her to die. which she did not. Originally she had one eye stuck closed so we called her “One-Eyed Jack”.

She is extremely spoiled and thinks she is my wife and I’s favorite and gets pissy and jealous anytime the other cats get attention.

Lettie Bug (#15)

My daughter’s cat officially, though Lettie prefers my wife over everyone. Also known as Lettie, Buggers, and (from me) Boogers. Boogers because she is an absolute bitch to me, at all times. Seriously, fuck this cat. She will attack me anytime I come near her, for no reason.

She is part Maine Coon and quite fluffy. She mostly avoids the other cats but only really actively attacks Kiara or Wilbur, sometimes.

Wilbur (#16)

Wilbur is the youngest cat. Sometimes I call him Kovu’s Boyfriend, because they get along well. Also sometimes, “YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE”. He’s an ok cat but he’s also a dick to all of the other cats. He also pisses on things, a lot. He’s a little jack-ass. He likes to be in the middle of whatever you’re doing but doesn’t really like attention. If it were up to me, I would seriously consider rehoming Wilbur, because he is a bit over-aggressive towards the other cats and he’s damaged a lot of things, including our old TV. It’s not up to me though.

He’s a good cat, he just, could be better. I am hoping as our older cats start to “age out” for a sterile way to phrase that, he will get better. He could literally BE the favorite if he would stop pissing on things (yes, we had him checked at the vet, he is just an asshole).

Opinion/Editorial/Life

Blaugust 2023 – Creator Appreciation Week

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The “theme” for this week in Blaugust is “Creators Appreciation Week” or something along those lines. I’m not really great at this sort of thing, I can’t really say I particularly have any sort of “idols” or anything and I follow a zillion people on various platforms, I could never really properly pick even a handful to ever spotlight. Plus it always just feels weird to me to put anyone on a pedestal, though maybe I shouldn’t feel that way, people appreciate being appreciated usually.

Instead, I guess, I wanted to talk a bit about Leo Laporte, “The Tech Guy,” though I am not sure he really goes by that anymore since his syndicated radio show ended.

Why Leo?

Because of all the content creators out there that I do follow, I’ve possibly followed Leo the longest. Leo currently runs the TWIT Podcast network, or at least, hosts most of the shows, I think his wife actually “runs” things. He created it, however. It’s a collection of tech-themed podcasts on a variety of topics.

I’ve followed Leo since before that time though. I actually have a bit of a funny history there. Back when I was in High School, I think probably at the tail end, around 1997 or 1998, while living in Indiana, our cable added a channel, ZDTV. The whole channel had this great almost cable-access feel to it. I don’t remember a ton of the other shows, but I always would watch The Screen Savers, with Leo Laporte and Kate Botello as the hosts. They would just, talk about all sorts of computer and techy stuff. The content was perfect, and the production quality was a bit dodgy, it was the best show I had ever seen.

After High School, I briefly attended school at IUPUI for one semester. During that time, my dad transferred his job and my parents moved back to Illinois. I lived with my aunt and uncle for a bit attending school. After that one semester, I moved back in with my parents in Illinois.

Which meant no more ZDTV, no more Screen Savers, the cable we had in Illinois didn’t carry ZDTV.

Which is where the “funny part” comes in. From what I gather, a lot of Leo’s followers and fans came from his time on TechTV, and later G4, which ZDTV transformed into. I am not sure I’ve ever had access to or watched G4 TV at all. I just caught him early on with it was still ZDTV.

A good while later, and I have no idea how I discovered it, but it was very very early on in the life of it, I discovered TWIT. I should probably sidestep here to mention, TWIT stands for “This Week in Tech”. It may have been the only show at the time, and Leo was doing it out of his house or maybe just the original Cottage (hell it may have been the same thing), but there he was, Leo Laporte, still talking tech. On a weekly basis, in a podcast.

So I picked it up. I had to download each episode manually to put on my music player but I started listening every week. In fact, I’m not sure I have missed an episode in all that time, not of TWIT at least.

Eventually, TWIT became the TWIT Network and added more shows. I picked up Windows Weekly very early on. I used to listen to Net@Nite with Amber Weekly until it turned into This Week in Google, which I listened to for a while but don’t currently. Occasionally I pick up episodes of Security Now. I mostly stick to Windows Weekly and TWIT, I am a big fan of Paul Thurrott, who can get a little repetitive in his rants but I sympathize with a lot of his grievances so much.

Ever present in these shows is Leo though, who hosts most of them. I also really enjoy the rotating menagerie of interesting people each week on TWIT. I’ve picked up so many blogs and other accounts to follow through TWIT. It’s one of the things I look forward to the most each week honestly and it’s always entertaining.

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap-Up (08.06.2023 to 08.12.2023)

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Weekly Wrap-Up (07.30.2023 to 08.05.2023)

Another week, another weekly wrap-up. This is technically the trickiest post I’m doing right now, since it’s the only thing I can’t really pre-write up. If I were not trying to do 31 days of posts for Blaugust it wouldn’t matter, I’d just, skip it sometimes probably.

Not a lot new or exciting anyway. I had some craziness at work but I don’t blog about work.

Probably the most exciting thing this week was Guardians of the Galaxy 3 coming to Disney+, so I finally got to watch that. It’s not exactly glowing praise, but at the very least, I didn’t come off it thinking it was very “meh” like all of the newer MCU projects. Like Secret Invasion, which I think I finished last week. Secret Invasion was, ok, but not super impressive. A few things on GotG3, I kind of wish they had toned down some of the end a bit. Mild spoilers, as generic as possible but it felt like they needed to save that “large group of people”, entirely because for some reason every Marvel climax has to have huge stakes where the heroes have to save large groups of people. Like, maybe they could have just, gone there, and faced off with the bad guys and had a little fight, without all the extra.

The Activity Log

This part is partially just for my future reference, and it maybe deserves its own name. So we’ll call it the Activity Log.

No new toy stuff this week, not directly toys, I did buy another set of acrylic riser shelves from a daily deal off Amazon. I kind of needed one more set and now I’m pretty good for little shelves for a while. Being able to lift some of the stuff in the back side of a deeper shelf really helps with the aesthetics of a display.

I did pick up a bundle of games on Humble Bundle Because Baldur’s Gate III is the recently released hotness, Humble Bundle has a bundle (affiliate link) of older titles, including Baldur’s Gate I and II, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights. I think I may have a couple fo these on CDs somewhere but I don’t seem to have them on any modern platforms, and the bundle was cheap (a lot of HBs have become overpriced) so I figured why not.

Another one that is probably worth tracking a bit, if only for my own sanity, is books. Because I often will impulse buy books that seem interesting from Kindle Daily Deals (and elsewhere). This week’s books:

  • The Elderon Chronicles (Books 1-3): A Space Colonization Science Fiction Collection by Tarah Benner – I usually steer clear of these “bundles of Sci-Fi Books” but this one seemed appealing so I figured why not.
  • Bilbo’s Last Song by J.R.R. Tolkien – I have most of Tokien’s works already, and I didn’t have this one.
  • This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture by Whitney Phillips – I have a bad habit of picking up randomly are these sorts of, “cultural exploration with witty titles” books.
  • Nordic Tales: Folktales from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark (Tales of Book 5) – I have a variety of these folktale books from different cultures because one of my many interests, in general, is various world cultures and history.

Lastly, there’s Music. I didn’t listen to anything new really, just a lot of stuff I already listen to. A little Nirvana, a little Orla Garland, a little Alanis Morrisette, a little Sigrid. Not trying anything out of the ordinary this week. It’s just been kind of a boring week overall I suppose.

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