A group made a HTML5 port of Counter-Strike 1.6!
https://game.cs-online.club/
I played a match. The default mouse sensitivity was way too low. I couldn’t figure out how to bring up the menu so I just hid in a corner and waited for the T’s to come find me.
I got flash banged. Luckily it seemed to be a hail mary flash bang and they didn’t actually know where I was. I popped out from behind the corner and started blasting the T.
There was lag, and I couldn’t point quickly enough due to the low mouse sensitivity. I had the drop and I made the first shot, but I couldn’t finish what I started and I got blasted to death.
Rage quit!
I’ll definitely check it out again in the future. I’ll take the time to figure out the controls and how to adjust my mouse configuration as well!
11:34AM. This morning I packed and shipped 4 items. Yesterday was a good day for eBay sales. I brought in $125.
I have to practice patience at this point and not immediately go and buy more inventory. I need to spread inventory purchases out. I need to make sure I have the budget for that, and plan ahead.
University of the People popped up in my HackerNews. They have a usiness degree track which interests me. It’s tuition free but they have a $60 application fee. That’s enough to make me intelligible.
I have been thinking of improving my discipline. Right now I use this Pomodoro timer, but I’m so bad at actually respecting the timer and taking a break when it says it is time for a break. I’ll put it off for hours, meanwhile the timer is paused and not doing a thing for me.
Yesterday I got lost in code, and I wasn’t even productive about it. I was simply getting high by staring at my computer monitors and jiggling my fingers against the keyboard.
I exaggerate about my finger, but I think my brain was just doing what it thought it had to do to keep getting that dopamine drip. Keep plugging away at the code, no matter how terrible the code is being written. Keep plugging away no matter how unmaintainable it is. Keep plugging away even though I’m completely stuck and I would benefit greatly from a long walk or a short 5 minute yoga session.
So today I’m going to try and respect the pomodoro timer. Yoga has been really hard for me lately. I’ve been feeling so tired and stiff lately. I think it’s because I spend so much time on the computer. Yoga would probably get rid of the tired and stiff feeling, but I’m too tired and stiff to start yoga.
I’ve been ignoring the timer, skipping breaks, or putting them off.
Today I’m going to practice discipline. Even if I don’t do yoga, I have to get up for five minutes and do something other than be at the computer. I can go walk. I can go ride my bike. I can eat or sit down on my couch and close my eyes.
I can read a book. I can clean the bathroom or do some dusting. I can organize inventory. Anything but my computer. The Pomodoro timer is KING.
Today’s goal is discipline. A secondary goal is to list some items on eBay. I don’t care what it is. It could be some USB dongles that I have sitting around. It could be a bulk trading card LOT which might attract buyers. Doesn’t matter as long as I list something and make progress on selling all this junk I have lying around.
It is Friday, my dudes.
I sent some offers to buyers earlier today. I relisted a card that I shipped and sold, of which I had extra inventory. Hail artificial scarcity!
Yesterday I made a script that makes mosaic images.
Once I generated this mosaic, I realized that this picture is aesthetically pleasing. It’s got order to it. Lots of straight lines and vivid colours.
I was thinking that this might be a good way to increase sales. Come the end of June, I’m going to have to take down a whole lot of eBay listings because eBay is going to start charging me $0.10 per listing per month, beyond the 1K that I get for free due to my subscription.
I have almost 3K listings at this point, which means I’d be paying an extra $250 per month. That’s not happening!
My plan is to group listings together into bundles which my customers might enjoy. The mosaic script which I wrote is going to come in very handy for that purpose!
I want to add in some extra automation to the mosaic script. Right now I have to download all the images and plop them into a folder that the mosaic script acts on. Instead, I’d like to be able to enter eBay listing URLs into the script, at which point it scrapes the images from the listing pages, and processes them into a mosaic.
That’ll save a lot of time for me. I’ll need every advantage I can get to be able to size down my inventory and avoid the ludicrous $0.10 per listing fee.
It really is ludicrous. eBay already charges me close to 20% (14%) of what I bring in. Paypal charges me another 5%.
Well, that’s the cost of doing business on eBay. It’s their platform, I have to play by their rules.
Disruption, pl0x!
Oh hey, I could try to list some of my sealed product on Amazon.
I just searched amazon for “hidamari sketch” and I found something completely different and really cool!
I wonder if Projekt Melody has something like this? Different buttons to get virtually undressed and pull out toys LOL.
Her setup must have so much equipment. I think she must have some sort of eye tracking. It seems pretty accurate so I’m assuming she’s wearing something on her head that does that.
IDK. It’s all speculation.
Today I learned that there is a Final Fantasy card game! Thanks, Amazon!
I listed a copy of all my starter decks on Amazon. We’ll see how it goes!
2:04 PM. Listed some old electronics on eBay. Got a $5 offer for a Roku TV remote I picked up from a thrift store. Accepted the offer.
I’m doing really good on the pomodoro timer discipline. Last break session I did some exercises then I laid on the floor for several minutes and closed my eyes. I would have fallen asleep if not for my tongue trying to choke me to death.
I exaggerate. It wasn’t an intense choke. I was simply observing my body relax as I neared a sleep state. I observed my tongue sliding back as I relaxed. I observed my airway become blocked and my neck muscles instinctively flex to clear the path.
I need one of those retainers that prevents my tongue from slipping into my throat.
Years ago I asked for my dentist for help on the matter. He said something to the extent of, “the solution is more trouble than it’s worth.”
What an asshat dentist. I’m glad he retired because I was literally ready to pay him money to help me with my snoring issue, and he denied me.
Maybe he hadn’t seen the TED talk on the importance of sleep. It’s possible that that talk wasn’t even recorded at that point.
This was back in the day when I had a good paying job. I had it GREAT!
Not that I want that back. Fuck no. I’m much happier now. I’m closer to my goals now more than I was then.
The dentist though. He advertised sleep apnea solutions. That’s why I asked. Perhaps he meant that the process was more trouble for him, not for the patient.
Whatever. That’s the past. A new dentist moved into that office who is much better. I can’t afford to see them, LOL.
But hey, they did launch a payment plan for people with incompatible insurance. It’s about $500 a year and it would get me three cleanings or something like that.
I wonder if they’re hurting as well. COVID-19 needs to end. The panic and the economic impact is man made. It’s a seasonal flu just like any other seasonal flu. This one is stronger than normal, but it’s still a seasonal flu, not a plague like it was made out to be.
I our ancestors will look back on COVID-19 with shame. Shame that the disinformation spread about covy was so wrong. Shame that the rush to “flatten the curve” meant setting into motion a chain of grief that would last years to recover from.
It’s just starting.
9:28 PM. I ate very well today. I think a little bit of Ronnie Coleman rubbed off on me. He said he used to eat 6 meals a day back when he was training for body building competitions.
I made some delicious refried beans as well.
I used this recipe but I deviated from the chef’s strong recommendation to use lard.
I’m still vegan! I used 2 or 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil instead. It turned out really good! I ate these beans with rice & tomato chunks. The tomato really went well with the dish!
I didn’t have a bunch of the spices mentioned in the video’s recipe. I found some sort of substitution for all of them. Blessed be my bountiful spice rack!
Today I learned that green tomatos are not ready to eat. The first tomato I ate was perfectly ripe. The second was partially green so I just cut off the green part and put that part back in the fridge.
Even the red part didn’t taste good. It was too firm as well. Today I Learned!
I watched a couple episodes of Samurai Girls today. I’ve got a bunch of P-Memories Samurai Girls cards and I know nothing about the series. I have a bunch of P-Memories cards featuring anime that I am clueless about.
Anohana: A Flower I Saw That Day is one example of an anime which seems to have a cult following. I think I’ve sold more Anohana cards than I have sold Madoka cards, which surprises me.
It must be good! I hadn’t even heard of Anohana until I got into selling P-Memories.
I think it would be nice to go through each product I carry and watch some of the associated anime. I might not be into it and i might drop it straight away, but I’d at least like to know my product.
I’m remembering back to the time when I installed home security systems. I would hear little snippets from the salespeople about sales tactics that they learned in their meetings.
“Assume the sale”
–was probably my favorite.
ICON security was the company name. They dissolved in 2007 after selling to another security system company.
I guess that’s the dream of a startup. Sell. Sell the product, then sell the business!
ICON security would hire a bunch of people for summer jobs. Technicians and Salespeople. Salespeople would meet for morning meetings, choose a section of the local area, and then drive out and comb the streets.
One by one, they would knock on doors and offer an incredible deal on a home security system… A deal with fine print that hiked up the price in a few months.
I never read the fine print, but I heard that it was kind of a ripoff. I guess that’s just an opinion. To the right person, having a company do the work for you is worth every penny.
ICON would rent a block of apartments and those apartments became the sleeping quarters and offices. I remember one of the apartments was turned into the sales office where the salespeople would meet every morning and discuss the plans for the day.
Another apartment was turned into the technician office, which became stocked full of alarm system parts and control panels.
I think there was a third office somewhere, which was set up for our telephone dispatcher. I remember she would do so much texting on her pre-smartphone, slideout keyboard cellphone that it would overheat and delay the sending of texts.
My cousin got me the job. He had done the job several years prior, and worked his way up to lead tech. He pretty much ran the entire technical side of the operation. I never saw any C-level people. I think they worked out of Utah or somewhere like that and there was no real need for them to be in our area.
Seattle was where we worked. I think our apartments were in Renton. We would commute in our personal vehicles to the various neighborhoods in which the salespeople were combing the streets. I never wanted to get up. I wanted to sleep in as much as possible.
That’s all I’m going to write for now.
I’m grateful for having that experience so I could learn that I don’t like to be in other people’s spaces. I don’t like putting holes in people’s walls and I don’t like the pressure of doing a perfect job.
I’m grateful for my friends.
I’m grateful for rice. Especially grateful now that I don’t have any! Ahg! 1 week until my EBT card gets reupped. I think I will try and do better next week/month and figure out how to stretch my dollar further so I don’t have periods where I’m out of food.
Excelsior!
