What Was I Saying...?

Earlier this week I finally started up the Bullet Journal again, after getting knocked entirely off my routine for a month and a half or however long it was. I find a Bullet Journal super-useful for both keeping myself on track to being productive, and for keeping my head screwed on right. To use a Spoon Theory analogy, a Bullet Journal is like having an extra pocket you can stash a few spoons in the night before. ;)

Anyway, all week I've had as a to-do item "Three Good Things" post. But what's been happening is that at night I'm fighting to force myself to go to bed much against my will, which means I don't have a "wind down" routine so much as a "knock myself down" routine... and so the "Good Things" post doesn't happen because it's 2 a.m. and I have been trying to make myself go to bed for hours.

I blame Overwatch. :P But that's for another discussion.

So I decided that today I would simply list a ton of good stuff that's happened to me recently, in no particular order, and with no numerical limit. Most of this is very personal/self-centered stuff rather than any sort of "greater good," but that's okay. Sometimes things that are just good for me, are good enough.

1. The weather has been crazy nice for most of May/June. This sounds trivial, but given the strong correlation between my energy level/mood and sunny days, it's a lot bigger than it may seem. It's weird, I can sometimes wake up and somehow know, just from how bleah I feel, that it's a cloudy day outside.



2. I've been having fun playing Overwatch. This is a little more of a mixed bag because I've also been very frustrated with my computer trying to play Overwatch. The thing crashes five times out of six tries, and I don't currently have the funds to replace it. XD So it can be kind of frustrating to spend 50 minutes rebooting for every 10 minutes playing, but when the computer gets into a long "working" streak, Overwatch is a lot of fun. This leads to my next item...



3. People are being super-generous about helping with the computer problem. A fan who prefers to remain anonymous is upgrading his own computer to a super-high-end model and basically giving me most of his previous one, which is still a giant step up from the one I'm currently using. All I have to provide is a copy of Windows and a video card, and that I can afford to do. ^.^ He's currently talking about handing it off to me at BronyCon, which is July 9-10. Another friend has given me a full license for Team Fortress 2, on the grounds that Overwatch is basically a newer version of that, to play in the meantime. XD



4. Finished issue four! It'll be at AnthroCon! Rough Housing is starting to build up a body of work finally. ^.^



5. AnthroCon is next weekend! I get to see a bunch of my furry pals and do arts and get commissions and stuff!



6. We're moved! We've got the furniture all in place, curtains up and art on the walls. There's still settling in to be done, especially in the office and library because we don't use those rooms as much, but we do at least have the beginnings of a home going on.



7. My heart ablation surgery was a complete success! I haven't had any afib since March, and as of this week, I am off the heart meds. In as much as afib ever gets "cured," this is it.



8. My toe is healing nicely. I did cringe a bit when the doctor said it might need a pin, but then the x-rays came back that the joint was fine and that all I have to do is keep taping it up and wearing this silly shoe-brace-thing for a few more weeks. I'll probably be alternating between it and a regular shoe at AC, particularly for driving and/or if the weather is rainy.



9. This video. Just... this video.
   

So... yeah. Some good stuff has been happening. I'm sure there's more than I've remembered to post here, but I am a lion of little brain and things fall out of it a lot. I'm going to try to be more regular about posting good things on a regular basis, but that requires not fighting to force myself to go to bed. So... we'll see. ;P

-The Gneech

Today is supposed to be "get everything fixed" day. And by everything I pretty much mean the AC and the internet. I have a dire premonition that in both cases the answer will be, "I don't have the parts I need, be back in a month." But I'm going to stay hopeful until then!

Things are gradually improving here. We're finally getting some sun, which has improved my outlook and energy level. The dishwasher pump is still hosed, but the technician showed us a workaround that will suffice until he gets the replacement part, so we can at least wash dishes. My foot is still a bit swollen and tender, but it can at least support weight for a few moments without hurting. The nasty blood blister that accompanied the broken toe is gone, and the wound is healing up now. lythandra has been unpacking like crazy and you can see the beginnings of a home taking shape out of the chaos. Even InkyGirl seems to be fairly comfortable in her new digs, although she's still hesitant about going upstairs (but will pluck up the courage to come up and walk on our heads to get her breakfast).

Since I'm pretty much supposed to plant myself and stay whenever possible, I've been cranking on Suburban Jungle. Yesterday I finished next week's page, which means that today (Gasp!) I actually start getting ahead again! Just in time to only have four pages of this issue left. ¬.¬ But that's okay, I need to get issue four finished by the end of May so that FurPlanet can have June to print it before AnthroCon.

Once that's done, I'm going to return to a) Marketing the Sky Pirates book, and b) Writing Mortal Thoughts. Those two projects will probably take most of my June, with some scripting for issue five done around the edges when I can.

So that's where things stand. Will we have internet today? Will I ever sell my bloody books? Will Susan ever confess her love to Brad? The answers to all these questions and more, on the next episode of... SOAP.

-The Gneech, kidnapped by aliens

Well, we're mostly moved. Almost all of the stuff we're keeping is in the new place; what's left at the old place is stuff that's being donated, or stuff that is needed to clean up.

The only major hitch in the proceedings so far is that the FiOS box is over two years old, which means that Verizon can't (or won't, either is equally likely with those guys) activate it without sending a tech out here. Unfortunately, Verizon is going through a workers' strike right now so... who knows if or when we'll get service.

So in the meantime, I have to use my phone's personal hotspot (which will eat through data like whoa), or find a Starbucks and glom on. ;) So my online time may be spotty for a while. :P

Still, given that we had 30 days to GTFO, it could have been a lot worse.

Now... to see if sirfox would consider exchanging renovations for rent...

...

...but first, sleep. *thud*

-TG

So on the way home, Pandora played a song by Skeewiff called "Flanger Freak." Regardéz:



This being an awesome tune, I wanted to make a note of it and knew I wouldn't remember the name. As it was, I could barely hold onto it long enough to fire up Siri and give her the instruction: "Remember Skeewiff Flanger!"

With a completely straight face (or the android equivalent thereto), Siri replied, "Okay, I'll create a reminder to ski with blender."

Welp.

Now I have a cartoon in my head of Comfort, skiing down the side of a mountain, holding a blender over her head like a trophy. Nice one, Siri.

Starbucks Moments: The Day Santa Liked My Muttonchops

On Monday, a man who I am pretty sure was Santa Claus in his civilian clothes came into the store looking flustered and somewhat lost, but upon seeing me (looking not too different from the icon for this post) immediately brightened up and said, "I love your facial hair!"

To which I replied with a thank you and proceeded to show him how the Starbucks smartphone app works because, being Santa, it's all still pretty new to him.

A woman also complimented my haircut-and-muttonchops combo tonight, saying that "It really worked." So apparently it does!

And now, back to prepping for my MFF flight. *kermitflails!*

-The Gneech

Back in October, when I was first making my transition to stay-at-home writer/artist dude, the always-awesome lythandra bought me a new laptop for my birthday/new career. The choice was entirely mine, and being an airhead, I naturally chose wrong.

Well, sorta. I got a Macbook Air, a lightweight and zippy laptop, on the reasonable assumption that I would only be using it to write, while the more heavy-duty machine that would be required for me to do comics on was 33% more expensive and I had a perfectly serviceable PC that I had been using for art for years.

Of course, once we were past the return period, my perfectly serviceable PC started to go south. ¬.¬ Strange hangups, DLLs getting lost, BSODs, etc. Malware and anti-virus programs helped, but did not fix the problem completely, and one of those BSODs created a recurring problem where Outlook crashes on startup and you spend the rest of the day being notified that it can't start Outlook every 10 minutes whether you asked it to or not. Productivity was dropping fast, and I was constantly paranoid that the machine would die on me while I was fighting a deadline.

So, yeah. Had I known that was coming, I would have gone with a Macbook Pro. -.- But the thing with the game of life is, you can only move forward, so I started looking at ways to finance a PC replacement. One idea that came to me was to add "Buy a Macbook" as a goal on my Patreon campaign. I have to admit, I never actually expected the goal to be reached.

It was reached within a day. O.o I nearly had (more) kittens.

So, Macbook Pro get. :) It's a "certified refurbished," which is sort of like going to the auto dealership and getting last year's model-- which in the case of a Macintosh, puts it at a comparable price to a similar PC. And it's a beefy little laptop! I spent last night and most of today getting it up and running, as well as figuring out how to avoid all the little traps along the way. ("Do you want to erase everything from your iPhone to sync with this computer?" "Hell no, what are you THINKING?") Hooking it up to the PC network was surprisingly painless, although completely nonintuitive.

The main lingering issue now is one of software. The copy of Manga Studio I have came with both PC and Mac versions, and that's my comic-creating workhorse, but there are still some things that Photoshop is just much easier for, especially when it comes to text and certain painty effects. But older (i.e., non-subscription) versions of Photoshop still go on eBay for $300+, so I'm going to have to either wince and put MORE on the credit card, or spend time hunting down a Photoshop-killer.

The other thing is cross-platform gotchas-- the scroll wheel on the trackball is reversed-axis from the PC, for instance, so I keep scrolling the wrong way. CTRL+uparrow might do anything, nothing, or several things, all dependent on the app-- there's no dedicated and consistent "Page Up/Page Down".

So, still some stuff to shake down, but I think that for this lappy and me, it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship. lythandra is going to take the Air as a replacement for her old never-really-liked-it PC and see how well that goes.

So, thank you, Patreon supporters! I'll make good use of it. :)

-The Gneech

My LJ peeps who go past the LJ-cut and read the wall o' text that is my tweets... I am honored. :) And more than a little surprised that you go through the effort.

I shall endeavor to keep my tweets worth reading for you!

-The Gneech

PS: Not tweeting the link to this post. ;)

• Mac Os X "Mini Box" (Finder Version 10.5.8)



• Runs Firefox up to version 3.6.23; does not run current versions of Chrome



• Includes wifi



• Hardware in generally good condition except for some fraying on AC adapter connector



• Includes third-party keyboard, mouse, and 17" Dell monitor on pivoting/rotating stand; monitor has some picture degradation due to age



• Will deliver to greater D.C. area, AnthroCon, or InterventionCon for $100; will ship w/in U.S. for $125. Check, cash (if delivered), or Paypal.



• E-mail thegneech@gmail.com if interested.

Sold! :D

It's time to start cleaning out some stuff to raise funds and/or make room! :) So watch for a few more posts like this in the upcoming weeks/months.

-The Gneech

The thing with social media is finding the right balance of enough people to follow that you're connected, but not so many you're overwhelmed, comfortable enough that it doesn't cause you distress, diverse enough that it's not just a giant echo chamber...

The past few weeks my mood stability has been on the vulnerable side, and I've found that more often than not social media (and especially Twitter, as it's far and away the most active form of social media) have ranged from wearying to infuriating. So I've been going through and targeting posters who, even if I agree with them, add stress, and quietly unfollowing them.

This is a tricky thing to do when I'm emotionally wobbly... the temptation is to go all Oprah on it. "You get an unfollow, and YOU get an unfollow-- EVERYBODY GETS AN UNFOLLOW!" But that's neither healthy nor productive in the long run, it's just the tendency-towards-implosion that emotional wonkiness creates.

But trimming the social media tree is a good thing every once in a while. There are enough stressors I can't control, there's no reason to hold onto the ones that I can control.

-The Gneech

For past few months lythandra and I have been looking at ways to affect some positive change in our current lifestyle. Financially, we're on nice solid footing, but we're both stressed out (her especially), feeling frustrated, and being pushed by market forces into dead-end careers that we need to get out of.

So we have been looking with a keen eye at the idea of me cutting back to part time in order to free me up to work on my writing and comics, as well as trying to land some freelance gigs in order to update my skills and resume. This weekend, we sat down and ran the numbers, giving our budget a thorough and honest look... and came to the conclusion that the money just isn't there. :( Full-time, we operate on a comfortable surplus. Part-time, even after cutting out a lot of stuff and throttling back our savings contributions, we end up ~$10k short a year.

So I'm staying full-time. Yay for having more money than we need... I guess?

In other news, that Cintiq I bought from Flinters at FC? It works beautifully by itself on my system, but will not stand the presence of another tablet-- even the bonus tablet made specifically to work with it. The problem appears to boil down to Windows 7's security settings: the Cintiq wants to write its preferences to the Windows directory, and Windows doesn't want to let it. So the preferences never get saved, and the defaults are all wrong.

I took the Cintiq over to hantamouse's house last weekend and tried it on his Mac, and it all worked perfectly. So when, earlier this week, Sparf on Twitter offered up a G4 Mac Mini for $100, I snapped it up, figuring this might be a way to salvage use of the Cintiq. Yesterday Sparf brought it over, and I discovered that the DVI-to-USB adapter I have is not compatible with a Mac that old, and cannot be made compatible with workarounds. Which means... I can have a tablet on the Mac or the Cintiq as both tablet and monitor.

Which is to say, it still doesn't work.

So at this stage, I've got pretty much one more option before giving up on the whole idea: see if I can find some reasonably-cheap way to add another DVI slot to a G4 Mac Mini from ~6 years ago. I have come dangerously close to the "throwing good money after bad" point on this project, and if the Mac doesn't work, I'll probably put it and the Cintiq back up for sale (or up on eBay).

After all, we're running at a surplus, I can just buy myself a new Cintiq if I really want one. :P If only I could buy myself some free time.

-The Gneech

Ba-ba-boom, baybee!