I tried out some free, open source bookkeeping software today. https://frappebooks.com/
I saw this shared on Hacker News the other day. It’s a nice looking piece of software! I think it has a lot of promise.
Unfortunately, it’s not going to be useful for me in my eBay business. There would be somewhere close to 10 steps needed for every transaction I do in eBay. I suppose I could implement some hackish automation to do that automatically using keyboard macros… That might actually be a fun project to do.
Right now, I’m using a spreadsheet to track return on investments. That’s all I’m really tracking at this point. I think it would be good to sync up my eBay sales with accounting software, but I really want to make sure I use the right tool for the job.
I also can’t spend much money on this. My budget is probably zero because my income is so low at present. I can’t add an extra expense unless I absolutely need it. Right now, I’m still in the sink or swim stage. eBay is charging me hundreds of dollars a month just to have a store. My parents are charging me hundreds of dollars a month to live here. I really can’t afford to buy anything right now.
Fuck, I was hoping to use the 0.06 BTC I withdrew from my Bitbond wallet to buy some gaming headphones. I am disappointed with the SONY ECMCS3 I got for my birthday. It picks up too much background noise. I think what I need is a condenser microphone. I was thinking of getting an inexpensive gaming headset with a condenser mic such as this NUBWO gaming headset. I’m assuming it’s a condenser mic because it says it’s noise cancelling.
I went down a rabbithole of gaming headset research. I think I’m going to break the bank and buy a Sennheiser GSP 300. I’m going to try and use purse.io to save some $$$. I also have to wait a few days because the $84 headset variation is out of stock currently.
HyperX Cloud microphone sounds really good! The guy in this vid is talking about frequency response… I don’t know much about that.
I want broadcast quality! The dude just airquoted, “somewhat true.” That’s not something that I would think would be air quoted.
Ugh, I’m so envious! I want a super super good microphone that doesn’t pick up my obnoxious laptop fan noise. I think the Sennheiser GSP 300 will be good at that. I saw an example video of a guy who was playing the TV and had an AC unit going in the background. I could hear the TV, but I couldn’t hear his AC which he pointed to and it seemed pretty close.
$84 for a good headset seems pretty good to me. I will go ahead and sell my SONY ECMCS3 on eBay once I get that headset. The sony is a good mic, but not suitable for my high-noise environment.
I’m so tempted to shell out the cash right now. I know that’s a bad idea, though. Every few blog posts I rant and rave about money. I know I’m in this situation because I have been less than stellar with my money. I haven’t saved up for much. I have been impulsive on purchases. I have got into debt.
The money I would be spending on a gaming headset is money I discovered that I had sitting around. That’s not money I earned lately. In some ways, I did earn it. It was an investment from 2016 that has paid off. I have to be smart with this money. I don’t feel that I’ve earned it because I pretty much forgot about it to begin with. I don’t yet have a solid revenue stream to where I can justify spending $84 on a headset.
What I’m going to do is I’m going to wait until the 11th when Amazon says they are restocking that item. At that point, I can create a purse.io order and see if I can save some $$ on the headset. In other words, I’m putting off the purchase until a later date. This prevents me from making the purchase impulsively as I had thought of doing.
I’m on a dopamine hangover. Well, maybe not so much a hangover as it is a… Lull? I don’t feel terrible like I have in weeks past. I suppose a big part of that might have to do with the physical training I’ve been undertaking. Today I walked 5 laps around the firepit, then ran 5, then walked 5, then ran 5. Feeling really good today, but I am feeling the urge to distract myself.
I think that urge is the aftereffects of the dopamine buzz I had last night. I played video games until about midnight. It was a shorter session than normal, because I had to wait for Steam to download the 10GB Squad Beta 19 patch.
I downloaded via LTE. It’s amazing the speeds that are achievable with a phone nowadays. I was seeing 1MBps at times. Incredible!
I can only imagine what Starlink is going to be like. I’m really looking forward to that. Later this year, potentially! I heard via Tim Dodd that people are starting to be selected for Starlink trials.
I’m sometimes surprised at how fast SpaceX works. Maybe it’s just because of the fact SpaceX does a lot of work behind the scenes. Who knows just how many classified missions they have done for NASA or Air/Space Force. When their technology launches, it’s sometimes very unexpected because I hadn’t heard anything about the development process. All of a sudden, bam! A new, unexpected product gets revealed.
I configured my phone to just be my primary internet connection. I leave the wifi hotspot on all the time. I deleted my parent’s home internet connection from my laptop. There’s really no reason to use it anymore! It’s so unstable and has such low bandwidth in comparison to what my phone can offer. It really is a shocking difference, but a good example of just how bad rural internet can be.
My parents have two internet connections, and they’re both pretty poor. I think Ptera is the best out of the two, as it uses modern Microtik point to point radios rather than the old copper wire that Centurylink has been using since 1970 or whenever it was installed LOL. I look at that wire how it’s strung up along the powerline from my parent’s property to the road. It’s completely exposed to the elements and spliced every few feet as it ascends the initial power pole. It’s amazing that it works at all!
I could see Ptera being good if it was being used by a single person. That’s not the case here.
I didn’t want to wake up today. I owe that to video games. I was tired for a good hour and a half before I finally disconnected. I had to wait for everyone to finish talking and go to bed before I could do the same. I don’t like it when I do it.
I am worth more than that. I am worth enough to dismiss myself when I am tired. I do not exist to please the dopamine demands of my gaming friends. I can leave at any time, and I will do so, because my self care is more important than one more game.
When I stay up later, my cognitive abilites decline. My reflexes go down. I struggle to identify targets. I stop having fun. I have poorer games.
It’s the same for everyone in our gaming group. I think there are times when it would be best for everyone to just disconnect and call it a night. Sometimes, we have a series of bad games, and there’s this sentiment that the next one is going to be better.
It’s not going to be better, so long as morale is low. I think I want to become better at recognizing when the morale has faded. I want to become better at recognizing when I’m tired, and when the games stop being fun.
It’s at those points when I want to disconnect. I want to say goodnight, and dismiss myself. I’m not going to accept things like, “Oh come on, just one more game!” or, “you’re leaving already?”
The answer will always be, “I have to go now. goodnight.” at which point I will shut down my PC.
I want to make it clear to my friends that I can’t play video games very much. I have a real problem being addicted to video games, being addicted to dopamine, and neither of those things are helping me reach my life goals.
When I played League of Legends, I adopted a schedule at some point which actually served me pretty well. I had a 3 match rule. I would play three matches, at which point I disconnected. I did this primarily to increase my win rate.
I figured that I’m at my best when I am awake and feeling fresh. I could play about 3 games before I would start to tire. My goal was to win each match, but of course that is difficult to accomplish. If I won two matches in a row, I would simply be done for the day. That was 2 wins out of 2 games which is a perfect win rate.
If I lost one game out of three, that was 2 wins out of 3 games, which is a great win rate.
Both of those outcomes during my goal to play 3 games resulted in an overall positive experience. My ranking would improve, I would get some practice, and I would not descend into a spiral of long lasting, tired, low-morale games.
Hmm, yes. This is a good plan. I can adapt this philosophy to Squad, and I think it will greatly improve my gaming sessions. Sessions will be shorter, but I’ll be more awake, more alert, and better in control of my emotions.
I’ll play three or less matches, during which I can do my best and have a good time. I won’t allow myself to play when I’m tired or otherwise emotionally vulnerable. I’ll disconnect on my own schedule, not the according to the consensus of the group. I do these things for my own sanity, edification, and pursuit of happiness.
Ok then, I have a game plan. You know what? I don’t usually keep track of wins or losses. I think I am actually pretty mindful in games. I play because the game is fun. I like getting lots of kills, but I don’t judge the quality of the match based on win or loss. It’s not like there’s a ranking system in Squad. I just play because it’s fun and challenging.
I suppose there is a certain pleasurable element of doing good and getting the win. But more than that, I just want to have an even match with the other team. The best games consist of lots of good fights where both teams struggle to gain ground. At the end of those games, a win is sweet, but a good battle is even sweeter!
My reason for bringing this up is because I’m not sure I want to start tracking wins and losses. I don’t want one more metric which has potential to add to a feeling of a bad time. I want only to keep track of games played so I limit my time getting dopamine rushes.
10. I will inhale confidence and exhale doubt
11. I may be one in 7 billion but I am also one in 7 billion!
12. I am smart.
I’m grateful for the abundance of third party eBay seller tools. Today I’m starting a trial of 3D Sellers because they have a nice feature I’m interested in– separating warehouse inventory from eBay inventory! I’m interested in that because that would allow me to create artificial scarcity in the trading cards I sell. Instead of putting all the available quantity in eBay, I’ll only have a quantity of 1. That way, buyers will think it’s the last one, and buy it before someone else does!
There’s a nifty feature which lets me choose how long to wait until the eBay listing gets re-listed. I’m thinking several days at this point. That way, buyers who had an item on their watch list will get a notification that the item is back in stock, days after they were disappointed that they lost out on the opportunity. They’ll have another chance to buy, but only if they act quick!
I’ll see how it goes. There’s a bunch of other seller tools which offer this feature. Right now, 3D Sellers seems attractive because they don’t have a limit on the number of listings I have. Other third party tools have item count limits, which I think is ridiculous because it’s just another limit stacked on top of the limit that eBay already imposes. Instead of a listing limit, 3D Sellers bases their fees on monthly income, which is much better suited for my eBay store, one that aims to sell a high volume of low-value cards.
I’m grateful for third party seller tools because there are lots to choose from, with all sorts of various features. I hope to increase my sales and profitability with these tools in the future.
I’m grateful for Brene Brown‘s books. I’m reading through The Gifts of Imperfection right now. There’s lots of concepts in here that I want to apply to my life.
I’m grateful for dried Mango slices, because they’re incredibly tasty and probably nutritious.. Have you had dried mango slices?
Excelsior!
