Part of the pain of these posts is, I don’t really keep a log, so I have to go back and remember what I did the last week.
Part of the point of these posts, is I don’t keep a log, and I have to go back and remember what I did during the last week.
It’s all a sort of, purposeful, mental health exercise. Try to reflect on life and the good or whatever I suppose. Some weeks are in fact, truly uneventful and boring. Which in theory should be the time to spur some sort of reflection and appreciation of “the little moments”. I guess. I have a vaguely passing interest in the whole Zen mindset like that, or whatever it would be, but I also am generally pretty negative in mood lately, so it’s hard to really give a shit.
See, this is me, trying to free-flow write while I remember what I should write. I used to be pretty good at this. I really need to start doing it MORE I think. For some weird reason I often get caught up in this weird, bland, technical style of writing, where in the end, I certainly did not write about myself or my thoughts, but what I think some hypothetical, reader might give a shit about. This becomes a problem because, especially when I’m feeling pretty down, which is basically always, that “hypothetical reader” is someone who will never give a shit about anything I write because why would they.
I have this half-finished post in my “WIP” folder about how I burned myself out on coding. I guess I can dump that one because I am feeling it come back a bit again. I’ve been doing some more online tutorials. This week, I wrapped up one I started a bit ago on Responsive Web Design. I’m also working through the JavaScript course on FCC, which was why I did the Web Design one. And I’ve started doing one on C#. Why C#? I dunno, I do know some C and C++, this is just the evolution of that I suppose. I have dreams of one day actually making proper GUI-style apps, even for simple things. I need to learn JavaScript for work. Well, I don’t NEED to, I WANT to. My job requires no coding skills, but the side projects I do at work for the group, to help keep myself valuable as an employee, do need coding.
And I feel like I am pretty good at coding. I mean, next to a lot of folks, I am absolutely awful, but I like to think I am pretty good.
I should stick a meme in here, I keep meaning to use more memes to inspire more self-reflective posts.
Anyway, the “Activity Log” is a bit lengthy this week, so I’ll move on to that.
Activity Log
This really does occur in waves, it’s funny. Also, I mentioned last week, for a variety of reasons, I’ve basically gotten some bonus money through work, so I’ve been doing a bit of catch-up. Plus I had some pre-order stuff come in (one has not arrived yet). I actually thought I had more but I put the Humble Bundles on last week’s list. I also renewed several domain names and paid for my web hosting for the rest of the year (and then some).
Music
Just one this week, my pre-order of the Tron Legacy 10th anniversary vinyl came in. It’s very nice, I love the way the arcade cabinet slipcover works with the inner cover, but with the slipcover on, it makes it too thick to fit in the grooves on my Vinyl shelf. I wonder if I could carefully chisel a slightly wider slot without taking the whole thing down. Also the second record is orange colored. There are two records and they match the colors of the Tron world. I’ll eventually do a Friday Album post on this album, I am sure.
Books
One I forgot last week, Corey Doctorow’s The Internet Con Kickstarter. I have not read it yet, and I’m not real sure why I went in on this Kickstarter because I honestly find Doctorow to be a bit insufferable at times, though he also makes some good points at other times. There isn’t a lot of in-between on it. I am blaming peer pressure.
And then there are the usual, random Kindle Deal pick-ups.
- Live Long And . . .: What I Learned Along the Way by William Shatner – Shatner’s Autobiography
- The Shepherd’s Crown (Discworld Book 41) by Terry Pratchett – One day, I want to read the Discworld series, and I’ve been slowly gathering them as they get discounted. I have a few series like this.
- Drawing Physics: 2,600 Years of Discovery From Thales to Higgs by Don S lemons – A random Science book that looked fun.
- Spanish-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary (DK Bilingual Visual Dictionary) – More attempt to expand my learning of Spanish.
- The Far Reaches Collection – A series of Sci-Fi short stories put out by Amazon.
- How Smart Machines Think by Sean Gerrish – A random interesting looking math and computer science book.
- The Numerati by Stephen Baker – A random interesting-looking math and computer science book.
It’s also worth mentioning that we also subscribed to Kindle Unlimited. I’m not sure if we’ll keep it long term, but for at least two months we have it. My wife has been talking about getting ads for books she wants to read but they are all Kindle Unlimited, I told her to just subscribe if she wants it. Especially with the small pay bump. She’s kind of bad about never wanting to do things like this that she wants.
Toys and Stuff
A while back I picked up a few Dungeons and Dragons figures on clearance from Amazon. I want to finish the set, but I’m waiting for another markdown. Except in the case of the two-pack for Venger and the Dungeon Master. It was marked down, but also, more importantly, it was I think the first release for the set, and I am worried it will eventually sell out on my. So I went ahead and picked it up. It’s a nice-looking set, I feel like it’s not worth “the price of two figures”. The Dungeon Master is small, and essentially a lumpy statue. Venger is quite large, but he is also, effectively a statue, because his neck joint is useless, and his legs, while articulated, are enclosed in a long plastic skirt.
I also got this neat Recycling truck on super clearance. I pick up these sorts of things because they make good props for photos (that I never actually take). It’s a bit small for 6″ figures, but it’ll work.
Josh Miller aka “Ramen Junkie”. I write about my various hobbies here. Mostly coding, photography, and music. Sometimes I just write about life in general. I also post sometimes about toy collecting and video games at Lameazoid.com.