My ability to have a good night sleep seems to be deteriorating. Maybe I need a new bed. Maybe I need nose surgery.

I sleep the best on my stomach, which I hear is the worst position to sleep in. I wonder if I snore. I probably have sleep apnea although I don’t think I’ve ever caught myself when I stopped breathing. I do catch myself stop breathing before I fall asleep, but never once I’ve fallen asleep. IDK if that makes any sense.

What I do is when I’m laying down trying to sleep, I relax my chest and neck muscles to how I think they will behave once I’ve fallen asleep. Instantly I start snoring and sometimes my airways become completely obstructed and I’ll get a burst of adrenaline and gasp for air.

My bed probably has a lot to do with my inability to sleep well. I already talked about this in a blog post so I don’t want to go into much detail. My bed is an American made Japanese style floor futon. I think it’s just worn out to the point where it is very thin and doesn’t offer much padding. It was $65 compared to an authentic Japanese futon which is closer to $150. Next time I’ll be getting an authentic model because last time I had one, it seemed to remain comfortable for much longer.

I started playing Project Diva X on PSVITA. Since I’m a poor boy I couldn’t just buy it. It was either pirate the game, or don’t play it at all. I found a memory dump of the game, which I was able to install on my modded PSVITA using a homebrew program called MaiDumpTool. MaiDumpTool had an anime theme to it. The background image was of a petite blonde haired girl laying on a bed. I think it was Shinobu from Bakemonogatari/Nisemonogatari.

Anyway, I was able to install this hacked game and it works fine. There is one caveat though. I cannot allow my PSVITA to go to sleep when the game is running. If this happens, the game will lose the ability to save. No ability to save means any progress I make in the game has to be thrown out when the game exits.

I also pirated Project Diva f and Project Diva f 2nd. Both of these games I was able to download and install from PKGj, a program which lists hundreds of pirated games that are downloadable with a few clicks. Project Diva X was on the list, but there was an error every time I tried to download it.

PDf and PDf2 didn’t have that nosleep caveat for some reason. It’s probably due to how they were ripped from an original game cartridge. PDX must have been ripped a different way which makes it unable to handle the PSVITA going to sleep.

What I’m getting at is I would like to buy all the games that I pirated. Firstly, the game cases would look nice in my Miku shrine. Secondly, I would like to support the studios which created the games, so they have more incentive to create more Project Diva games. Thirdly, an officially bought PDX wouldn’t have the nosleep caveat, which means I can jump into the game much quicker than having to close out of it and click through all the menus at the start!

Menus in PSVITA games are kind of ridiculous. It literally takes a half dozen clicks and several minutes to jump into a game. Allow me to illustrate. I did this process twice. First, a slow run to take screenshots. Second time, I did it with a timer as fast as I could.

I tap the game.

I click start. The game shows me the splash screen (which can’t be screenshotted) followed by a loading screen

Next are studio screens, which can’t be skipped.

Obviously, I want to resume my progress so I click load.

We still aren’t at a menu though. Miku had a tip for me that I was able to quickly click through.

I would just click Cloud Requests at this point because I just want to resume my progress already!

I would click the cloud I’m working on. At this moment, I’m working on the ELEGANT cloud.

It takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds from the time I wake my PSVITA from sleep, to the point at which I’m playing through a song on Project Diva X. That’s a minimum time! I timed that going as fast as I could. The menus and the load screens really take that long!

Coming from a PC background, these wait times, unskippable transition videos, and inefficient menus are rather absurd. I think this design is just a part of PlayStation ethos, though.

PDf and PDf2 have similar waits before the game can actually be played. This is why I liked simply putting the console to sleep rather than closing out of the game. Waking from sleep and having the game immediately playable cut out that initial wait time!

I should just buy the game so I don’t have this problem! But that means I gotta work more. And that would mean I would have to spend more time being miserable. That’s the opposite of what my clinician recommended to me. I should do more of what makes me happy!

When I finally get into a game of Project Diva X, it’s rather wonderful. There are only two difficulties on the campaign– easy and normal. This makes playing the game pretty chill. I haven’t once stressed out in PDX like I have with both PDf and PDf2. It’s just a happy fun time with Miku and friends!

I’ve really got into a few of the tracks on PDX. Something about the sound design has changed in PDX. Some of the menu sounds are actually worse, as if the developers introduced loss into some of the sounds transferred over from PDf2. But the actual gameplay is much better. The music sounds more rich and surrounds me more than what I experienced in PDf or PDf2. So well done to the developers there!

I worked for two hours yesterday. Lots of shoveling dirt and walking through mud. My boots were completely caked with mud to the point where my steps became burdened by the weight. I’ll probably do the same thing today. My wrist was hurting pretty bad yesterday morning and I though the pain would interfere with my shoveling, but it wasn’t really noticeable once I got going.

There was something about that two hours of hard work which made coming home and playing Project Diva extra sweet. I was so chilled out. It felt a little how it feels to be high on THC. Just relaxed and happy. Very content, and focused.

So there’s definitely some good that comes from working in landscaping. However, its not work specifically that game me this bonus feeling, it’s the exercise. To that end, I think I’d rather do my paid work on the computer, and work out for two hours than do landscaping.

I watched some inspirational YouTube video the other day from some guy giving a lecture to college students. He asked the question, “What do you desire?” College students often don’t know what they want to do with their lives. Or they have a plan and it involves a career in a 9-5 job and drudgery.

Alan Watts. He suggested that if you don’t know what you desire, it’s because one of two reasons. One, you have it. Two, you don’t know yourself, because you never can.

I’m still trying to understand that second point. But the first point means a lot. I already have a lot of what I want.

I know what I want. I want a warm place to sleep at night, and I want to spend most of my time in front of a computer. I already have that. But there are all these caveats, like I don’t own the place where I live, I have to pay someone or do jobs for them to satisfy them.

And I have to do these things to satisfy my landlord, all so I can continue to do these things to satisfy my landlord.

One more reason to live out of my truck!

I want that freedom but I’m so afraid to take the first steps. The first steps are 1) prepare my truck for living out of. 2) try living out of my truck for a day or two.

Those are the two steps I can think of. I could come up with more steps, but if I do that, I risk overwhelming myself and I’ll begin to think that the task is too large to approach.

So I’ll keep it at those steps. Actually, I’ll just focus on that first step. Prepare my truck for living out of.

That step alone is insurmountable. My suburban is filthy on the interior, full of dust and junk. It’s got braking problems. It’s got suspension problems.

You know what? Fuck it. I can’t do that. I’m not good with mechanical things or working on cars.

If I am to live out of my car, I need a solid foundation. I need a Tesla!

Fuck that too. Fuck. Too expensive. I’d just have to work more to afford it.

I give up.

Gratitude items.

I’m grateful for YouTube.

I’m grateful for HackerNews

I’m grateful for Twitter