I’m watching the 1996 movie, From Dusk Till Dawn. I had no idea. I had no premise. I never saw the trailer. I had zero idea of what I was getting into. Wow. If you get what I’m talking about, you get what I’m talking about. Spoilers below!

I wonder how that movie was received in 1996 when it came out? I bet it blew people’s minds, much like it did mine just now.

I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting a gritty crime flick, but all of a sudden an erotic dancer transforms into a lizard person and all hell breaks loose. I was expecting it to be a hallucination, but nope! It’s a bar full of vampires and it’s suddenly part of the movie. Hyper-violent and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I kept having to remind myself that this is a movie and it’s not real. I think my mind was playing tricks on me to protect itself from the violence and the gruesome imagery. Not real. Not real.

I wonder if people who go through mass shootings experience brain distractions like this. My mind was drifting to other places and relating what I’m seeing to something less grotesque. Oh that’s person’s face didn’t just melt and ooze all sorts of green, red, and creamy white liquids. No no, that was not a face, it was just a balloon popping. No, brain, I actually saw someone’s face explode and gush white ooze out of their eye-sockets! But it’s not a real person. That was a real person but but the film cut to a dummy which exploded. They’re fine. It’s just movie special effects.

Damn, I almost wish I didn’t see that movie because it’s so violent and strange. But now that I have seen it, I can relate when I hear someone talk about it. Now I know to think twice before watching a Quintin Tarantino movie!

I gotta give it props though, as an original idea. It’s not just a cliche hero’s journey. It’s a villain’s journey. The way the movie starts out leads me to think that I know where this is going. The characters are going to make one choice after another and lead them to a bad situation, then there will be a climactic shootout, then the good guys will win. Nope! Not at all. That sort of idea disappeared as soon as they got to the Tiddy Twister bar.

The actual premise of the movie, which is not obvious until the very end, is that there is an bar in the middle of the Mexican desert which is actually an ancient mayan temple. The temple is home to vampires and other demons, and those creatures have been using the bar’s lustrous appeal as a way to lure humans in for centuries. The demons prey on the humans who are simply coming there for a good time. In their preying, the demons are satiated and their numbers bolstered. It just so happened that our main characters chose this hellish bar to meet at!

I wonder what Shane was doing at the end of the movie. Does it tie into another Tarantino movie somehow? I’ll have to research that.

What a movie. My mind is blown. I’m both disgusted and impressed. I laughed. I was shocked. That was one crazy ride. And that’s about all I have to say about that!

I’m out of things to list on eBay! I went through my entire personal card collection and listed everything. I need new inventory! It won’t be long. I have one package on the way, and one at the buyee warehouse consisting of 9 sub-packages which are getting consolidated. Then there’s one more which has yet to arrive at the buyee warehouse which is the big order which I’m going to have forwarded to me as-is.

I wonder where my buyee package is. It’s been a few weeks since it shipped. I wonder if it got denied entry to the country due to COVID-19? It’s not like Japan is a place that’s got a high infection rate. I bet it’s delayed for some other reason. I’m going to take a minute and find out where it’s at using the tracking information.

Buyee is a great service! I’m happy that they exist because there are so many items on Japanese marketplaces that would otherwise be completely out of my reach.

Hmm, it’s stuck in Osaka since the 3rd of April. I think something is wrong, since the previous package I received from Buyee was in and out of Osaka in a day. It’s been two weeks. I bet it’s a COVID-19 thing, but maybe I should send an E-mail to Buyee for clarification. There’s a phone number on the tracking page. Imagine me calling and speaking to someone in Japanese! That would be incredible. I would record it so I could translate it later. I’d just stumble on my words and questions and pretend that I understood. LMAO, I couldn’t do that. It would be rude to the person on the other end, and rudeness is a frowned upon trait in Japan!

I’m just going to e-mail Buyee. They’ll know what’s up. Perhaps I need to wait awhile until I have them ship out my next two packages.

Sales are up! I already mentioned this I’m sure. But I’m just so stoked about it that I have to mention it again.

I got 2 orders in last night. I’ll be walking them out to the mailbox at around 6AM this morning. I enjoy being up at 6 and walking before the sun is up. I like it when it’s light out, but the sun hasn’t crested the hills yet. halfway through my walk, I start to see the sunbeams shining through the tree trunks. It’s a lighting condition that I have not seen very many times in my life. I appreciate the newness to it.

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Slept for a few hours. I had this crazy deep morning voice when I woke up preciously. When I went to sleep, I still had that crazy deep morning voice. I woke up just now and had less of that deep morning voice than when I went to sleep! Craziness.

Something is up with my third monitor. It’s got these vertical blue lines in them. It’s as if the liquid crystal is leaking out the bottom of the monitor, and leaving the top of the monitor dry. It always had that crack in the screen from when I saved it from a trash pile. I think that crack is the reason the monitor was in the trash in the first place. I could deal with the crack, but the blue lines are giving the monitor a little too much character.

I suppose I can’t do anything about it. I would like a new monitor, but that’s not in the books. I have another spare monitor but it’s a lot smaller than this one. I suppose I’ll switch to it if this one completely dies, but that’ll be a last resort.

I wanna list more on eBay! April is my last chance to use my 50,000 free listings. After that, I’m going to have to pay hundreds of dollars per month just to keep things listed! I think a woo-commerce site is starting to make sense, because I could keep the bulk of my inventory on my woocommerce site and only upload items I deem highly likely to sell. I’d need a good eBay plugin for woocommerce, which cost a monthly fee, so I’d have to figure out if that would be financially viable. Something to consider as the month winds down.

5:12 AM. I’m looking through photos of cards I’ve listed on eBay recently. The cards make up a beautiful mosaic of color!

I’ve been using my phone to take pictures. I use OpenCamera to take the photos. I like that camera app because it is highly configurable. It lets me lock the camera orientation to portrait, which is the default for how I take photos of cards. Additionally, Opencamera has plugins which help with processing images after they are taken. Originally I wanted to use a plugin to upload the photos to my computer, but I couldn’t find one which worked suitably for me.

For that purpuse, I found FolderSync. I configured a folderpair in FolderSync which every five minutes uploads all images in the OpenCamera photo folder. I run a docker sftp container on my laptop which I start on demand when I want to take photos.

docker run -it --name sftp -p 22:22 -v ~/Documents/ftp:/home/chris --rm atmoz/sftp chris:turbo123:1000:1000:upload

The photos automatically sync over wifi and it’s been really good for me. After a successful upload, the photo gets deleted from my phone which saves disk space. FolderSync is really great with one exception. It’s got crazy popup adds. Every screen I go to in FolderSync seems to pop up an add. Luckily FolderSync is the type of app I can configure once then never have to open up again, because it reliably runs in the background.

I’m planning on walking to Albertson’s today. I think they have a seniors only time slot though, so I need to check and find out when that is. Their website says call to find out when that is. So I think I’ll call then when they open so I can ensure that I don’t show up during the senior’s time slot.

I don’t have much on my mind right now. It’s difficult to come up with things to write about. I guess this means I can only do one thing– writer’s way! Is that even what writer’s way is? Is writer’s way the method of writing just whatever is on my mind? I don’t knoooow! Oh well, that’s what I’m callin’ it.

I’m really digging these coffee bag sucky sucky things.

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I really only use them when I play video games, but they give me an edge! They look super nasty in the photos I took of them. My OnePlus One isn’t so great at taking photos in my dim lit apartment. Whenever I take photos of cards, I use my NoCo GB40‘s flashlight to illuminate my workspace. It really blasts those photons into my subject. My phone gives me a good result in that case.

There’s an eBay app for Android, but I really dislike it. I want to have my photos saved in a folder in case I want to sell the same item on a different marketplace in the future. It makes a lot of sense for trading cards especially because I could have one copy of a card, sell it, then later obtain another copy of the same card. If I have the card already photographed, I simply use the preexisting photograph for the new listing and I’m good to go!

I’m wondering if I should update my wordpress theme. I’m not sure if this theme is screen reader compatible. That’s one thing that I think is really important for a blog because mobile websites are so prevalent nowadays. I think it’s important to have good readability on those tiny screens. Sometimes when I visit other people’s blogs, I appreciate reader mode even on my big screen. I click that reader mode button in the Firefox address bar, and instantly I’m familiar with the layout. I always switch to night mode because it’s a lot easier on the eyes than black text on a bright white background. The text size is immediately bigger as well.

Hmm… I haven’t seen that reader mode icon for awhile. I think today is as good a day as any to ensure that my blog looks good!

I think this was kind of a crummy article. I did a lot of writing, but I didn’t say much. I just talked about what was going on in my life, and that’s booooriiiiinnnnggg! Well, I suppose every article can’t be a 10!

Ok then. I’ll be wrapping this one up. I’m grateful for happy happy trading cards! That mosaic I shared earlier contains a bunch of cards which are designed for visual appeal, and facilitate good times between friends. I appreciate trading cards and their visual brilliance!

I’m grateful for food. I am happy to be headed to the grocery store today and restock my supplies. I look forward to getting some yummy coconut milk in which to dunk a bowl full of muesli! I look forward to getting some more barsoap so I can continue to smell decent. I look foward to potatos and more delicious vegetable curry!

I’m grateful for the eBay partner network which gives me a percentage of each sale that occurs after clicking my special referral link. I appreciate the idea that I can gain an audience and create a website which earns me money.

72. I am thankful for life.
73. I choose to be happy.
74. I accept the good that is flowing into my life.

Excelsior!