I almost didn’t write today. Not that I didn’t want to, just that I had other stuff goin’ on.

I woke up and send some ebay offers at 8:30 am. I waited until 8:30 am because I didn’t want to get orders right before my same-day shipping cutoff time of 8:30.

I then walked the 3 orders out to the mailbox at 8:30 that I had accumulated over the weekend. Yup. super cool story, eh?

Well it’s 10:40PM now. I just finished a couple rounds of Squad. I have an idea for a webapp, are you ready kids?

I can’t heaarrrrr youuuuuuu!!!

Ok just kidding I’m not doing that meme.

Ok so I will now write the idea I have for a webapp because it’s a cool and useful idea and I haven’t seen anybody else do something like it.

The idea is a points tracker for Squad. It tracks kills/deaths/revives/score etc. and it’ll plot a graph for you that you can share with your friends, compare, etc.

It works by using Machine Learning (openCV) to read Squad screenshots. It gets the screenshots via Steam API.

Lemme restart the explanation…

The player creates an account on stats-tracker webapp. Signup is simple, all it needs is to sign in via Steam, so stats-tracker becomes aware of the player’s Steam profile (profile must be public or stats-tracker must be able to view the player’s steam screenshots some other way. Maybe it sends a friend request?)

The player then plays a Squad match and the post-game screen shows up which shows all the scores. The player uses Steam to take a screenshot (F12.) When the player is done playing Squad for the night, they exit Steam and Steam’s screenshot sharing window pops up. The player chooses the Screenshot that they saved and they publish the screenshot to their Steam profile.

The stats-tracker webapp uses the Steam API to view the screenshot. It uses openCV Tesseract optical character recognition or something like that, and converts the stats data from the screenshot to text data (JSON.)

The player’s name is parsed from the stats data, at which point the player’s score data from that match goes into the stats-tracker webapp database.

There is a nice UI for the webapp which displays the player’s past game stats and plots the data on a pretty graph.

Players can view other player stats and make comparisons. Players can make clans which are pages featuring all the stats of the members of the clan.

I think it would be a good thing to have doctored photo detection. This way, it could help prevent or at least flag players from submitting fake score data to the app.

That’s the idea. I want to make it.

I have a billion other projects to complete first, though. Now that I write this, I’m thinking that I’m probably going to do what I always do– I’m going to skip the queue and jump right into this new project, abandoning past projects forever!!!

Just kidding. I don’t actually want to do that. this squad-stats app would be difficult to monetize. It would be easy to cheat and get high up on the list, unless I put a concentrated effort into anti-gaming detection.

There’s a software suite that helps detect doctored photos… I don’t know how to use it though. I don’t even know if it can be automated either– it might be a thing that a human eye needs to look at.

I think machine learning is the real solution to this problem. Machine learning will be responsible for reading the text on the post-game stats screen.

I could probably figure out how to make a neural network which can detect doctored photos… At least the really obvious doctored photos.

I would train it on a collection of post-game screenshots that I have. I could probably get my friends and brother to send me a bunch of theirs as well.

I probably would worry about cheaters later on. I could first accumulate a shit ton of screenshots from players as they use the app to track their scores, after which I would have a good sized pool of training data.

So yeah, addressing cheaters before they even exist is probably jumping the gun!

But it’s a good brainstorming exercise I guess.

Ok then..

What to write about now?

I’m tired. I wanna sleep.

ironmouse streamed this evening, but I played Squad instead of watching. I’ll probably catch the vod tomorrow morning when I’m working.

I was thinking about going to the grocery store in the morning, but it’s Tuesday tomorrow which means it’s seniors and immuno-compromised time in the morning. I suppose I could go in there in the later morning. I think the morning time slot for people who are vulnerable ends at 11am.

I might just put it off entirely. It only helps my frugality if I don’t go to the grocery store right away.

I’ve got a few shoppings lists on my desk which I wrote several weeks ago. It’s all decent stuff to buy, which is nice n’ frugal.

• oatmeal
• walnuts
• pecans
• corn tortilla
• lime juice
• salsa
• raisins
• green lettuce
• black bean
• spring mix
• corn
• pasta
• hemp seed
• quinoa
• ice cream
• dried fruit
• peanut butter
• apples
• garbanzo beans
• potato
• celery

I take the frugality back. There are a bunch of items on this list which are NOT budget-friendly. Ice cream, dried fruit, and lime juice are all things that I can do without.

I must have wrote some of that list when I didn’t have to buy my own groceries (pappa Sam paid for ’em)

Here’s a new list which is actually frugal and should result in some palatable meals.

• oatmeal
• brown rice
• peanut butter
• bananas
• potatoes
• corn tortillas
• salsa
• hot sauce
• lettuce
• black beans

That seems pretty good. I could probably do without the bananas and peanut butter, but those are going to be my splurge foods. When I’m really feelin’ like eating ice cream or something, I can bust out the cold peanut butter from the fridge and indulge in that.

Or I can make some smoothies with the banana.

Unfortunately, I think I’m going to have to stay away from buying nutmilk like coconutmilk or soymilk for awhile. It’s great stuff, but It’s too damn expensive. I gotta make up for spending $25 on the Lime scooter rentals from last week.

That was an expense I didn’t plan on, so I gotta tighten the belt a bit and give up good tastes for a few weeks.

Speaking of giving up good taste… Yesterday I ate brown rice, black bean, squash, potato, and zucchini.

It was so bland!

That’s what the hot sauce is going to be for I actually have some expired Frank’s Red Hot sauce which I can use up before I need to buy some more, but it’s a quick and easy way to make meals palatable.

When I run out, I’ll buy whatever is cheap and vegan. Maybe tapatio or Valentina can beat Frank’s hot sauce price? I dunno, it’s been ages since I’ve even looked, as indicated by the fact that my hot sauce is 2 months expired!

I’m still eating it. I’ll eat it as long as it smells and tastes okay. it’s runnier than it should be, but that’s no surprise for something which has exceeded it’s shelf life.

I threw out some other expired sauce today. Horseradish mustard. it’s a shame because it tastes so good. I’m surprised I never got around to eating it while it was good. It’s definitely bad now. It smells like rotten vegetables. I ate a bit of it and the horseradish covered the foul taste at first.

Oh well!

My veganaise is also expired. I’m still gonna eat it if I can think of something to use it for. It still looks okay.

This can actually be a dangerous thing what I’m doing. Eating expired food can be deadly… I should know this after watching so many Chubbyemu videos!

Well when I put it that way… I think I’ll do myself a favor and buy some hot sauce at my next trip to the grocery store.

I’m definitely getting a big container of salsa. I’ve been having corn tortillas, brown rice and black beans mixed together in a bowl with lime juice and red onion, and I’ve been really enjoying it. I think I need some healthy fats in there.. Avocado would be great. Yeah, all that plus some salsa would be THE BEST.

Definitely getting salsa to enhance that dish.

Also corn would be nice.

Basically I want a bunch of dried food that is super super super cheap. I want to get ahead monetarily in every way I can. I want to make this lifestyle work for me. I want to keep this lifestyle up! I love having an eBay store. I love the routine, I love the product, I love the nice customers.

All hail the mighty otaku!

So yeah, I’m getting another Buyee package put together. I got 10 smaller packages at the Buyee HQ queued for package consolidation with package protection. All hail the calendar reminders which tell me when I need to get a consolidation job going in order to be on time to get a package shipped out to me!

Monday is consolidation day. Wednesday is package shipment day. That gives Buyee staff all of Tuesday to get my packages consolidated and ready for shipment.

I still have 13 packages ready to consolidate and get shipped out. Several of those will go out in my next shipment, three weeks from Wednesday!

I’ve got 2 packages in transit right now via Sea Mail. The first one has been in transit for 40 days! 42 days will be 6 weeks, which is just about 2 months as the original transit estimate stated.

I think it’ll be another 2 weeks. That’s my best estimate right now. 2 weeks at a minimum. The package is going to show up at a US port, after which it will probably sit for a long time. The postal service is slowed due to some truly mad policies that are getting set by some US postmaster in charge of shit.

IDK what is going on. I don’t see how slowing mail helps anything. I’ve been reading on the usps subreddit that some mail carriers are actually working more hours due to the mandated changes… IDK how that works, but apparently there’s some bureaucratic nonsense that restricts overtime but it’s actually having an opposite effect.

IDK. Madness.

Covy has affected the economy in the strangest of ways.

I just sent out a few offers on some eBay items that I have listed. It’s a good time to do that, because if I get some bites on those offers, I wake up to a nice sale.

I’ve got 2 or 3 orders already queued to go out tomorrow. I’ll be doing my regular thing of packing and shipping in the morning.

There was no Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple live stream this morning. Could it be the sensei’s day off, perhaps? That would make sense since he has to work weekends.

Fuuuck, I just want my 2000 words so I can get the fuck off the computer and go to sleep.

Affirmations and gratitude time!

I’m grateful for my strange customers who make deals with me such as, “$25 or $30, take your pick.”

Such a strange way to haggle. I get caught off guard by this certain customer and I laugh.

He’s annoying but he’s a customer and his wants and needs come before mine! I am so greatful for him and others like him!

Had an $89 sale over the weekend. Unfortunately shipping was $25, but that’s still a great sale and sales like that are what is going to keep me afloat.

I listed 34 cards today. I’m almost out of cards to relist, which means that I’m probably back to somewhere around 3K items. Wait, no. I consolidated a bunch of items into lots, so I’m not going to be at 3K for awhile yet.

Anyway, I’m going to be cracking booster packs once I run out of cards. I’ll open boosters and list single cards until I get my Buyee order which I’ve labelled, “lime green.”

The relation to lime scooters is pure coincidence! Lime green is just the color I chose for this order in my ROI spreadsheet.

1647 inventory items. So I’m about halfway back to 3K.

I don’t have another 1400 items to list! Even if I cracked every booster pack I had, I wouldn’t be back to 3K.

Well it’s not a race anyway. I want products that sell. I want consistent and relentless new products to entice my customers and drive sales.

It’s all coming together! I’m getting my supply chain set up. I’m getting sales. I’m sweetening the pot that is my eBay store by getting new products in, and listing them.

Ok now I’m repeating myself!

Back to gratitude.

I’m grateful that I learned how to cook lentils today! It’s so super simple. I think I cooked them before on the stove, but this was the first time I cooked them in my instant pot. They cook way faster than I thought they would! It only takes 20 minutes!

Just one more thing to add to my list of go-to ingredients. Very nutritious and filling!

I’m grateful for having food. I’m grateful that I figured out how to cook dried food. I’m grateful that I was BRAVE enough to give them a try! My stomach will thank me for it! My budget will become more manageable due to my thrifty frugality!

I’m grateful for my computer. It’s been really good to me for the year and a half that I’ve had it. It’s a terrible portable laptop, and I still regret the HDMI display in a 17″ form factor, but it’s a quality workstation and it is still so POWERFUL!

I had therapy this morning. I think I forgot to mention that. I talked about how I shame spiraled last week when M. was here. I was urged to talk to M. about my feelings from last week because he is close to me and I didn’t explain anything while he was here or even since he left and I talked to him via Teamspeak.

Something to do when I talk to him on wednesday. Ok then. Affirmation time.

22. I choose to focus on what I can control.
23. Everything will work out in the end. If it hasn’t worked out yet, it’s not the end.
24. I am happy with who I am.

Excelsior!