Good morning! Last night I got hella high. The computer high, as in the shit I do when I let my computer addiction run wild. I don’t even feel bad about it, which is a really nice for a change.

So I was angry yesterday early. I was angry that I didn’t wake up early enough to take care of self care before board game day. I missed board game day because I was overwhelmed and cancelled my plans.

Ok so yeah, I got high… but it wasn’t a terrible high. I stayed up late and I coded more features into precious-data. I stayed up until 6AM an I was completely exhausted but I couldn’t bring myself to get off the computer. I only did so after I wrapped up the coded and masturbated. I was so exhausted that it was difficult to get hard. I wasn’t even horny but sometimes when I get hooked like I was, the only thing I can do to get off the computer is to “get off” by nutting.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I wasn’t getting high by writing code, I was getting high trying to get outdated morse code decoding software to run on my computer. It was a completely pointless endeavor because I fell upon a really cool website which lets users control a software defined radio (SDR) with their web browser. http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ There were 600+ users on at the same time, and each user can listen to whatever frequency they want! It’s really amazing.

Right now I’m listening to some amateur radio operators in Mexico calling out “CQ USA 9A9RR” on 20m. He’s using incorrect ITU phonetics. “Nine alpha nine radio radio.” I wonder if it’s one of those challenge things, this guy is talking fast and looking for contacts.

Oh, he used the correct phonetics eventually. Wow, this is a really busy frequency. Lots of people talking at once on a spread of requencies right around 14196.0 kHz. I have to make tiny little adjustments to be able to hear each individual speaker clearly.

Ohh, heard another amateur, LZ5DD from Sofia, Bulgaria. He’s pushing out 450 watts. He’s hearing someone else that I can’t. ON5RJ Maybe they’re on a different frequency? Either that, or they’re out of range of this receiver.

It’s nice to hear people speaking English. Last night, I could only find people speaking Russian and Chinese.

LZ5DD is also using non-ITU phonetic alphabet. But he’s alternating. “Lima zulu fife denmark denmark” to “Lima zulu fife delta delta”

Wow, what a trap! I could get caught up in this radio listening thing for hours. I wouldn’t get anything done!

I left p-data.js running as I slept. It got stalled so I just restarted it. I’m pretty happy with it right now. It doesn’t make a request to a card page if the card has already been downloaded. I have yet to see it able to rip everything without choking, so let’s hope this one does the trick!

I wonder why it hung. I’m guessing it was because of my terrible internet.

I forgot to run the ripper in debug mode 😬

My brother M. invited me over to his girlfriend’s place so we can play Magic. I don’t have any cards left so I’m just going to be borrowing one of M.’s decks. I’ve never been over there. I’m tempted to bail but I’m going to go because I haven’t seen M. in forever. His gf is nice, I’m just awkward around her and have a lot of trouble holding a conversation.

The ripper got to PM_HS and it’s re-ripping that set. I think it’s doing so because I just made a change to the card ID parser. It didn’t handle an underscore in the set abbreviations until last night, so it previously thought the set name of PM_HS would have been just PM.

I’m so afraid of getting sick right now. The covid-19 panic has got to me. My sister A. wanted me to make a video mashup of some covid-19 handwashing meme and superimpose her co-workers faces over the people in the video. I spent 3 hours on it, then threw in the towel. I’m not into video special effects anymore. I don’t have the resources or the patience to do it, and I was just stressing myself out.

I ended up texting her that I can’t do it and I took a nap.

I felt a bit better after that. Seriously though, I’ve bought into the fear. Not voluntarily, but because I have not chosen to be courageous and live regardless of the ongoing pandemic.

It would be nice if my ripper would show me a progress bar as it ripped. This is a nice to have feature but it’s really a feature creep! I don’t need it. The ripper isn’t meant to run all the time, so it’s not really necessary. A better place to focus my efforts would be the precious-decks frontend, which is a big reason for why I made precious-data in the first place!

I’m focusing on my blog today. I’m going to get a full 2000 words, and affirmations and gratitude and successes and tags and a featured image. The past three days now, my journal has not been a focus of my day, and I’ve not felt great because of it!

I might as well put in some affirmations right here, because my mind is kinda blank right now.

9. I refuse to give up because I haven’t tried all possible ways.
45. I release myself from my anger.
47. I will allow peace to fill my soul.

I got distracted. I checked my e-mail and discovered that there is Trivia night at Nerds United, tomorrow at 5:30PM @ Amy’s donuts. I haven’t been there before. Last time I was there, the building was Abadino’s Mexican restauraunt. Now it’s Amy’s donuts and I’ve heard great reviews. unfortunately, their website says that they do not have any vegan donuts 🙁

I just have to note though, their website is fucking amazing! My mouth is watering as I scroll through!

Hmm, I suppose I will check the next box on my todo list for this post. Gratitude!

I’m grateful for brownies! I made some using a brownie mix last night. I then ate way too many of them and felt like shit! I had to eat some rice to feel better.

I have leftover brownies though! After looking at donuts, I’m tempted to eat them now, but I think I’ll bring them with me when I go play cards with M.

I started reheating some food for… afternoon breakfast.

It’s 1:04PM by the way. I want to get this journal out of the way so I can go hang out with M. I don’t want to use exercise as an excuse to not go soon, so I’m tempted to skip it. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I should exercise if I’m able. Today is NOT a cheat day!

I also am running on less sleep than normal. I might just call today a cheat day, because I think I’ll keep putting off going to play cards if I don’t. Maybe a short walk, like 10 laps instead of 20. Yeah, I think that’s a good compromise.

I’m really stoked about the trading cards I have on the way. I think they’ll make a great addition to my eBay store. Sales are down this past week.

I’m not going to be dismayed. I’m going to work hard and boost my sales, and boost my revenue sources, while simultaneously reducing my expenses. I’m in it to win it!

I’m eager to receive the package of cards. It doesn’t make much sense to do so, but I’m checking the tracking number again because I’m SO STOKED!

E-mail notification of completed delivery… Heh… I want e-mail notifications of every single update as the package reaches each step it’s travel towards me! I signed up for e-mail notifications. Perhaps it gives more updates than just the final delivery? I’ll soon find out!

Boy, my brain is just distracted. I keep catching myself Ctrl+Tabbing or Ctrl+Shift+Tabbing to the next or previous tab. Is writing really so boring?

No, of course not. I’m just a net junkie with a short attention span and the desire to consume endlessly!

Consume more than create… That’s the approach I’m taking at present.

My mom texted me yesterday congratulating me on becoming a student as SFCC. An acceptance letter must have come to the house or something. Fuck. Now I guess I gotta follow through and take the next step. Spring classes already started, so I guess I’ll try to squeeze in for Summer classes. This is all very dependent on whether or not I get financial aid. There’s no way that I can afford to pay for classes with my income… Or rather, I can’t pay for rent and classes. My parents would probably not mind if I put my rent money towards classes instead, but I don’t want to do that. I want to keep paying rent so I don’t feel like a loser.

I just wanna learn Japanese. If there’s a better online class to do so, I’d jump at that in an instant. Goverment run schools are completely antiquated. They have one ancient computer system after another, and it requires multiple logins and so much hunting and searching for the most basic of features. Then you gotta apply to be a student, then get an ID, then get a parking pass, then sign up for classes using a third antique computer system, then do financial aid using some convoluted process that takes literal weeks to accomplish, at which case there is no course to continue, so you gotta do some hunting and figure out a fourth antique computer system which must be accessed…

This is the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever seen. A school should be on the cutting edge of technology, but this place is systematically stuck in the 90’s.

I don’t really want to go to SFCC because of this shit that I have to wade through. I think I might be better served if I go to an online course. http://www.yutaaoki.com is what I have in mind.

I dunno how the two would compare. I’m assuming that Yuta’s class would be better because he’s a private entity and he’s free to deviate from textbooks, free to innovate, etc. A school on the other hand, will have rigid expectations for the teacher, and the teacher is probably overworked and underpaid, and may not even enjoy teaching to begin with. Yuta records videos in which he has a long time to spend on post production. He can get it juuuust right before he decides to publish a video, whereas a school with a live teacher is going to make mistakes and get bored after being so repetitive. I’m making all sorts of assumptions, but the one clear thing is that a government run school is going to be rife with antiquated operating policies.

I’m thinking that maybe I could go full steam ahead in trying to get free Japanese classes at SFCC, and if I end up having to pay, I’ll just take Yuta Aoki’s course instead. Dollar for dollar, I think I’ll get more out of Yuta’s course.

I want to take a minute and reflect on my successes from yesterday. I had a success in that I opened a booster box, sorted, and listed the contents on eBay, and I had a success in that I improved my precious-data project by implementing a more network efficient downloader.

I’m having thoughts of running a business now, and using success as a motivator for my employees. Every Monday at the standup meeting, we could go over our successes before we move onto the todo list for the upcoming week. That would be a nice thing to do.

I think going to therapy would be really important for me if I ever was in a management position. I would need to make sure that I extend the same love and kindness to my subordinates that I expect to give to myself.

A big challenge right now is expressing love and kindness to myself. My internal dialog is really important to keep clean. Clean is the wrong word, but it’s also the right word. I’m not talking about curse words or sex topics, I’m talking about cleaning my internal dialog in the same way that a room should be cleaned. If it’s cluttered and full of hateful messages, it’s going to result in a cluttered and hateful person.

My internal dialog is often self doubting and focused on failure. I gotta clean that up a bit, and focus more on successes. Recognizing and learning from failure is important, but I don’t want to dwell on it. I want to experience failure, be in the moment and feel the associated feelings, then release those feelings and move on.

Fuck yeah.

I’m grateful for my brother M, because he has a funny personality and his willingness to learn and work hard to reach his goals are inspriing. I look forward to playing cards with him today.

I’m greatful for covid-19 because it is making shit interesting and pulling me out of my comfort zone. That’s a fucked up thing to be greatful for, due to the panic it has caused a lot of people and the grief that I am experiencing due to that panic. I guess I’m seeing a silver lining here and ignoring the bad for the moment.

I’m greatful for my friend D. he goes out of his way to include me in things and I appreciate it.