It’s raining today. It’s not bad because it’s nice and cool. Yesterday was 77 or 78 degrees Fahrenheit in my apartment. I was burning up during video games.
So apparently the beer bottles I found near the firepit were beer bottles from Elysium Brewing. I found some bottle caps today as I combed over the firepit to pick up some more trash. I suppose Elysium could make a root beer or something. So I’m not 100% sure it was beer.
I’m disgusted with myself for putting so much thought into this. I am trying to cover for my brother but I’m really not doing that. I’m trying to avoid my shame trigger of my angry father but really it’s having the opposite effect. Because I’m going to such great lengths to conceal the trash which might cause my dad to become angry, I’m thinking more and more about my dad becoming angry.
I haven’t done anything wrong. M. hasn’t done anything wrong. We’re both adults and he can drink beer if he wants to. He can have a shindig with his mates if he wants to. I’m trying to shield him from my judgemental, anti-alcohol parents, but I think I’m the one being judgemental right now.
Ugh, I don’t want to be in this situation, but I put myself here. I had to intervene and clean up the trash left over. I didn’t have to do that. It’s not my mess to clean up. I’m not my brother’s guardian.
I’d be happy to help my brother if he asked for it, but me stepping in for no good reason is just a bad codependent behavior.
I walked in the rain today. 20 laps around the firepit. I got really wet. I’m grateful that it’s a lot cooler today. It’s a whole 10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler in my apartment than it was yesterday.
I had a dream that I was with a group of nerds and we were having a screening of anime or something. I was running the anime off of my computer and I kept accidentally clicking the stop button or hotkey. The video would close out and go back to desktop. I sometimes do this in my waking life when I’m watching youtube. I’ll have my hand rested on my mouse and my finger will press the left mouse button and stop the video playback.
When it’s just me, it’s no big deal. When it’s a group of people watching the video, this can become annoying. I did it more than once.
The second time I accidentally closed out the video, the girl sitting next to me who leaned over and whispered an order.
Pack up your computer and leave. I’ll pretend like the DVD is dirty and I’ll go clean it, then use someone else’s computer to continue the screening.
Damn! I thought. Do I listen to this babe and leave? Do I say it was just an accident and re-open the video?
I packed up my computer. The girl apologized to the room and took the DVD from me, pretending to clean it.
A few people got impatient and left the room before I did.
Then I woke up.
Psychoanalyze time!
Something that has been weighing heavily on my mind is how I left things with N. the other day. She wished me well, and said that she hopes I find someone. She said she doesn’t want to get in my way, but she also said she was crying because I made her feel like a piece of meat.
If there is anything else I would want to say to her, or something I would want to redo and say differently, I would leave sex out of it. Our relationship was never sexual. There were times when she would talk about sex topics, but I always tried to steer away from that.
I would have simply said, “I changed, and I no longer find you interesting.”
That might be just as hurtful. I’m not really sure. Doesn’t matter though. I got my desired end result which is that we no longer communicate.
I don’t regret ending the friendship. I regret putting so much energy into that friendship when I was not getting enough out of it. I only have myself to blame. I’m angry with myself for being in that relationship which brought me a lot of anger and frustration. Again, it’s not N.’s fault. It’s my fault for not recognizing my sexual and intimacy needs, and not seeking a relationship that would fulfill those needs.
I was lying to myself about my sexuality. Lying to myself that I didn’t care about touching or hugs. Lying to myself that I didn’t care about sex. Lying to myself that I didn’t require love and belonging.
A long distance friendship consisting of text chat was not enough to satisfy my need for love and belonging. It had the opposite effect. I felt more alone than ever, reading her words, but only hearing my own voice in my head.
My total trading card sales for this week is 10. Yesterday I sold 6 cards in a sale that I don’t think would have happened if I hadn’t sent the customer a message with a note about the P-Memories Anohana booster packs that I just got in.
They had purchased anohana cards from me in the past, so I figured they might be interested in the out-of-print booster packs.
Turns out my asking price was too high for them, but they did go through my inventory and ask for a bundle pack of six cards that they liked!
I think this is what is known as, “driving sales.” It’s a process which requires that I know my customers! In this case, I knew of the one customer who enjoys anohana merch, so I send them a message letting them know I had some new merch they might light.
I only really know this one customer’s interests because they messaged me first, wanting to know if I had more anohana cards which I had not yet listed. Most other customers, I don’t take note of. Perhaps a customer relations management software suite would be of benefit in this area?
Ain’t nobody got money for that! I think a simple spreadsheet would be good enough for this. Perhaps I could make a mailing list and sort by buyer’s interests. Perhaps I might be overstepping my privileged access to their e-mail to be using it for marketing. I’m sure there’s a safe middle ground, but I don’t know it yet.
I would like to do something like a newsletter. I want to do surveys wtih prizes and an idea I’m calling waifu wars.
Waifu wars would require a website of my design, in which I upload a new duel every week. I would use two photos of cards in my possession, and those two cards would face off and compete for votes. Customers would visit the site, and vote on the card they like the most.
At the end of the week, the most popular vote becomes the top waifu! I would keep track of waifu rakings over time, which gives me an indication of which cards featuring which characters are worth more $$ on eBay, and it gives viewers an interesting dataset to research.
Two voters, one per card, would be randomly selected to win the card. This gives customers incentive to vote in the first place, and encourages more customers to join in and vote!
The whole idea of this waifu wars is to promote my eBay store. Because of that, I’m not sure if this should be a standalone website, part of a woo commerce website, or what.
I’m tempted to make it a standalone website, just so I have the flexibility of using whatever software stack I want. I’d use Node/Express/Redis, as those are my goto. I’m sure there would be all sorts of challenges with battling fake accounts, fake votes, etc. Anytime there’s a prize, that always happens!
Maybe I could integrate cryptocurrency somehow? Like using metamask wallet to sign entries and reduce cheating? I dunno if that’s a viable thing. Dunno much about how metamask works.
More research is needed! It would be a fun exercise to make the website a Distributed application (DAPP.) I have wanted to make one of those for awhile, but haven’t had a good idea for how to make it.
Most givaways I see use gleam.io for handing entries. I’m pretty sure Gleam has all sorts of anti-cheating mechanisms in place. All they do is givaways, so I’m sure they’re well accustomed to fighting botnets and malicious users who are out to game the system!
I don’t even want to try getting into that realm. I’m sure there would be all sorts of artificial intelligence and data science methods that I’d have to learn just so I could fight off the bots. I think getting into that area would be a little too much for me to manage. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
I just realized that I have about 0.06 bitcoin sitting at Bitbond. I think I put about $20 worth of Bitcoin in Bitbond back in 2016. I made a micro investment of $6.46 to a borrower, got the money back months later plus $0.38 in interest, and did nothing else in Bitbond. Now, that $20 worth of BTC has grown to around $500. That’s a fucking fantastic ROI!
Good investment, very, VERY good!
I have to say, almost every cryptocurrency investment I have made has been a good one. This is future tech, available now. Buy, buy, buy!
I finally got my identification taken care of in Bitbond. When I first joined, they didn’t have this feature, so I was able to invest without having worry about it. Later on, they implemented ID verification and I wasn’t able to withdraw my funds without going through the verification. Problem is, their verification has been broken for as long as I can remember!
I opened a support ticket and got it sorted out. Now I’ve withdrawed my funds and I’m clear to invest those funds into something with a sweet, sweet ROI!
I thought about ideas of things I could invest in that could return me some $$$. I’m thinking disaster.radio might be a nice thing to try.
Disaster.radio is a system for a mesh network of wifi-enabled nodes. The disaster radio nodes communicate with similar nodes, and together pass on messages sent from users. This is a system designed to work off grid on 100% solar power, and facilitate communication using smart phones when cell networks and/or internet is down.
Really cool idea! Might be a good thing to get into right now, since I think there is going to be an uptick in the number of people who start prepping for disasters because of the effect COVID-19 is having on the economy and people’s livelihood in general.
My idea is to buy the parts and assemble disaster radios. I don’t think there are kits available just yet, but there are instructions on how to set up the system. If I can simply buy parts, assemble, and sell complete units, I think there might be some promise there. However, if there is any sort of hardware engineering or case design required, I’m going to forget about this idea.
I’ve been there, done that. That hardware design process left me broke and unfulfilled, as I poured my heart and soul into the product. I simply don’t have the resources to do that kind of project.
Assembly and sales, I could do. Design, prototyping, revisions, sourcing parts, assembly, on a $0 budget? No way.
I think I’m going to do some research on disaster radio after I finish writing. I want to see if it’s a viable idea for something to monetize.
7. My problem has a solution. I will work on a plan.
8. I am a survivor.
9. I refuse to give up because I haven’t tried all possible ways yet.
I’m grateful for trading cards which are way easier to work with than computers. Holy shit, I think I just came to my conclusion already. I’m not going to try to make and sell Disaster Radios. There’s going to be too much stress involved with that process!
I’m grateful for this journal, which helps me figure things out through reflection, pondering, and seeing things from different perspective. When my thoughts become words on my screen and I read them back to myself, I suddenly see my thoughts differently and that helps me progress.
I’m grateful for youtube. I love watching JRE podcasts and space news channels and funny meme vids, vocaloid, pyrotechnics, etc. etc. etc.
Excelsior!
