Hot chick at Starbucks

A prime year

Six years ago my age was a prime number, it is again now, and it won't be for another four years after this.

Ok, since a year is not a slice of time that's not strictly true, but you get the idea.

I'd like to talk about work, but I won't.

Saturday we had a joint birthday party. Food, folks, fun.

Zoloft has side effects. The most annoying one is drowsiness. Nausea wears off, and I'm not nearly narcoleptic any more, but I am still drowsy. Of course, there's a good chance that's also due to getting crappy sleep lately.

That reminds me. I have a sleep study tonight. On my frickin' birthday. I have to be at the hospital at 8:30 tonight. How is that fun? Feh.

So maybe you think that I'm not in a good mood right now. You'd be right.

Frustration

I have decided that the opposite of happiness is not sadness, but frustration, because you can be happy and sad at the same time, but not happy and frustrated.

wtf???

I swear to God this is an honest screenshot of part of my "recommended" list at Amazon. Look at item 56, and, more importantly, *why* it was recommended.

Wow.

Chunky bacon

I found a book in the Half Price Bookstore a couple weeks ago on Ruby on Rails. Wow. Having worked on a web project a while back, it's really nice to see someone else having built a useful framework like this. I'm sure there are plenty of others out there, but this is the first one I've seen that seems so bloody easy to use. (Yeah, yeah, accuse me of drinking the Cool-Aid if you like.) We were working on a framework in PHP, and actually had some decent functionality built, but we didn't grok templating yet, and the project went South. But this stuff looks like we were going in the right direction, and I like it.

As a result, I've been Googling for useful articles on Ruby and Rails and reading them. (Is this curiosity? I dunno, as I have a specific use in mind for it.) I want to use this for a little project on the side sometime soon. The hard part is finding the time. Hah.

Time.

As always, no rest for the wicked.

I'm not curious

It dawned on me yesterday that I've lost my curiousity. I no longer really care why things work, nor how, except just enough to get them to do what I want. In the code I write, I just get it to work. I don't especially care if it's elegant, just that it does what it's supposed to. Some of the time I don't even care enough about how something works to bother finding out for myself to do it, I'll just gladly pay someone else to take care of it for me.

An implication of this is that I don't think I can think of myself as a scientist. I'm just not interested any more in how or why things do what they do.

It's kind of sad, I suppose, and I suppose maybe I'll try to get that back at some point, but maybe now I can focus on getting what I want in life instead of bumbling about asking irrelevant questions.

I'm going about this all wrong

I am tired of not having money. I just posted on my other site an essay on finding the easiest way to do something, and I'm not doing that with regards to making money. I'm in the wrong job, it's obvious. I think having a passive revenue stream is very key, multiple streams in fact. Selling your time only once is insane.

I also need to start exercising again. I got sick, and then it got cold outside, and now I need to exercise indoors and I'm not doing it. There's a decent exercise facility here, so I need to just bring a change of clothes, a towel, and some shampoo to clean up after exercising.

I'm also thinking that having a job, as in working for someone else, is also insane. It's nuts for the same reason that service based contracting is nuts - you can only sell your time once with it. It's much better to do one thing and have a lot of people incrementally pay you for it.

Buying stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities - those are all fine and dandy passive revenue streams, but they also have a really pitiful rate of return when you really think about it. Very few businesses have as their plan, "We'll take our investor's money and put in the bank, and as the interest comes in, we'll pay out dividends." That's just stupid. Investors require a much higher ROI than that, as they can just put money in the bank themselves.

Of course, a higher ROI means greater risk, but that's the business of playing the law of large numbers. If the ROI wasn't high enough, people simply wouldn't start new businesses, or anything like that.

So I need a much, much higer ROI on my time.

Frustration

It seems like my entire life people have not been listening to me. Sure, they hear the sounds that come out of my mouth, but they completely disregard them. It happened to me when I was a kid, it happened growing up, it happens now.

I tell people my understanding of how something works, or how to do something, or what I want, and they ignore what I have to say. They have to hear it from somebody else before they believe it, if it's an explanation. If it's a statement of what I want, I don't get it. What part is unclear? I don't mumble, I don't leave out words, I say exactly what I mean.

Christ, there's a damn good reason some people prefer writing code to talking to people. At least in writing code, you are guaranteed to get exactly what you asked for, and being precise in your statements is what works.

Maybe bluntness isn't what works with people. Maybe people don't want direct answers. Maybe they want their prose wrapped in poetry. Maybe I'm not conveying my message in the right manner. Who knows? It just seems to me that wrapping it in flowery words increases the chance of misinterpretation.

I'm more than willing to help people. If they want my advice, they should take it when it's offered. If not, why ask for it? If I'm not going to get what I want, why bother asking?

I like buying what I want. I hand over money, I get what I want. Period.

This isn't just about me getting what I want, though that's a big part of it. Many times I have tried to help people and gotten blown off. Explanations of why a car got so hot when I was seven, or for a friend to get a business line of credit rather than a loan a few years ago, or ideas for a product very recently. There are other examples, but right there are a few. I want to help.

But don't bother acting like you give a damn if it actually doesn't matter what I say.

Finding my way out of a paper bag

It's just obvious what I have to do. I have to write a simple game, make it crazy addictive, punch the hell out of marketing for it, and get paid. And repeat the process. Over and over and over again.

It's making me nuts not doing it.

Bigger games can come later. I want to get paid right now.

Owww

So I've had to stop jogging. I've pulled ligaments in my knees, I am pretty darn certain of it. The impact of hitting the ground is not a problem, but the negative impact of rapidly lifting my legs just hurts too much to run. Still doing situps and pushups, but had to switch to walking.

Walking won't be as good for me cardio-wise as jogging, but until my knees heal, I can't do it.

I hate being out of shape. This is why I am getting back into shape.

Life lately

It's been a while since I said anything about what's going on, so here ya go.

Ben is talking a lot more lately. This is a huge relief. It's like something clicked with him and he finally sees the value of communicating with us. His pronunciation isn't always great, but he's got the idea of what words are for. Finally.

Zoe can sit up on her own, and crawl short distances, and just yesterday pulled herself to standing. She is a really happy baby - everything is funny, and she smiles all the time.

I've started exercising in the mornings. Situps, pushups, and jogging. Wow, I am out of shape. What would have been a mere warmup half my life ago beats the hell out of me now. The pain I am in tells me I really need to do this.

Good things are also happening in the home front, but I'm not ready to put forth details. No, not another baby. I do expect not everyone will understand or approve. That's ok with me.

Work is work. I'd be lying if I said it was perfect, but I won't be talking about anything here that bothers me with it.

I'm trying to find a product arena that I can get into solo and make decent money at. I still want to make games. I know it's hard work, but so is everything else. I figure I have some domain knowledge there, so it'll be easier to do than many other fields.

Oh, and my cat just took a dump.

Not really. I just wanted to throw that in to see if anyone was paying attention.

Holy crap

What the hell is going on in this country? Have we totally lost our way? Read this, and then tell me if you think this is a safe place to live.

I personally think it's insane. It's a short step from this to SS Homeland Security enforcers.

This is really, really bad.

GenCon

I kinda went to GenCon this year. I live in Indy, and lately it's been here, so it makes it easy to go, in theory. The problem is that I have some deadlines at work this week, and so couldn't really get away with taking a chunk of time off work to go spend money and play games. So I just took (slightly more than) half a day off, Thursday morning. I wanted to get there early enough so that I could get some stuff before it ran out, and I did, but some other stuff I wanted had some problems with shipping and hadn't yet made it to the Con.

Very annoying.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It was a breath of fresh air. Not just the unhealthy high of spending scads of money, but a confirmation that these are my people, and this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I am supposed to be making games, and playing them. It reminded me of how cool it was to have my own booth there four years ago, and how much I want to do it again. Nevermind that it was a financial failure - I know what I did wrong, and how to avoid those mistakes. I'm sure there are other mistakes I'll make, but I'll be doing well if I don't repeat my old ones.

So I need to get back into it. I need to create a piece of software and get that selling. I need to restart writing so I can sell some pdf's. I need to figure out what it takes to get board games and card games not only into production but into stores. I need to get marketing figured out - that perhaps most of all. Creating books, that I know how to do. But getting them into stores, that'll be new. There's a lot to do, and a lot to learn, but I am going nuts not doing it.

This sucks

I am always tired. I know I don't get enough sleep, but this is ridiculous. I can nap off and on nearly all day, and I'm still tired. I wake up tired, and my limbs are sore when I get up.

I'm starting to wonder if I've broken something in my energy storage/replenishmnet system. If my batteries have capped out at a new low or something.

I know I'm not exercising enough - i.e. at all. Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe some exercise would help me be able to store more energy. I don't know.

I'm just tired.

All. The. Time.

50 First Dates

My wife checked this out from the library yesterday and we watched it. Adam Sandler is in a wide range of films, from good to bad, and I liked this one. One thing I liked a lot about this was that it didn't go for the obvious unlikely thing and still managed to make things work out alright in the end. It was a nice surprise. It took a couple unexpected detours en route, too. Nice to see those bits not given away in the previews I saw, which is pretty rare lately.

Aaron's Mind

is now open.

Aaron's Mind

There will be some changes and tweaks, but feel free to play around on the site. Let me know what you think.

Almost Ready

This new project of mine is almost ready to go live. I have been keeping up on an article a day for about two and a half weeks now, which is just about enough to keep it interesting, and several pieces are in place...but...forums and FAQ's seem to be broken. Also, I want to tweak how the url's come out to make them more friendly. And I need links in my articles.

Ok, there's a chunk left to do. Feh. I told some people it would probably go online yesterday. Sorry, guys. Sometime this week, soon. I hope.

It's all about the content

So I'm starting yet another project on the web. I'm slowly but surely building a content based site. It's not a blog - I write here when I feel like it, when events call for it. That's what a blog is to me. This is a more disciplined approach. It's not set up in chronological order, it's arranged by topic. It's not about recent events, though sometimes events will inspire a new essay. I plan on writing a new page a day, every day. I got the site running over the last few days, and got the first essay written last night. One thing that I didn't do that I need to make myself do is some keyword analysis on the essays before publishing, and hyperlink not only to external sites that are relevant but also within the site itself.

I will not bring the site online for at least a week or two. If I put it up now, you'd go there, take one look, and never go back. I want there to be enough substance there for it to be somewhat sticky and make you want to check in to see what I've written every single day. That's why I'm not posting a link to it just yet. When it's ready, you'll get a link to it.

Now, I'm not abandoning Grinning Gecko, nor giving up on lore. This is something I want to build a habit of so I can almost autopilot my fingers to write the essay, fire off keyword analysis, edit, Google for relevant sites, and link to them. You'll get enough of my attention in the essays to get insight into my mind, but believe me, it's not the same as writing code. Code is a different part of my mind that is really really energy consuming. I've been able to write essays easily for years, much as I can ad lib on almost any topic that I've heard of. This is something that should be easy for me. It's just a matter of sitting down and doing it.

So what else will the site have? Well, a forum, for starters. I have SimpleBoard working now for this site - I need to get it running for Grinning Gecko, too. I got Google ads to work. They're unobtrusive, sitting in the right hand margin. Adding new sections and categories within the sections is pretty easy, too. As I come up with new things to write about, I'll add new sections/categories, and you'll be able to find what I write with relative ease, especially once I start crosslinking. I still love Mambo. That reminds me...I need to figure out how to easily make links within the site from one article to another - a decent cms should not need the absolute url, you should be able to specify the article somehow. Hmmm...

I'm going to try to avoid ranting and raving on the new site, but what I say will come from my point of view, and few if any apologies will be made for that. I'll try not to say anything that will get me sued.

Anyway, I'll post here with a link once it is online. If you stumble across it before then, you'll see that it's down for maintenance, which I figured was better than a horribly incomplete site.

Rumbling Musings

So I'm thinking about creating a website that is a collection of essays covering my point of view on the world. Not another blog, since a blog really should be time sequential as far as I can tell. This would be more of opinion pieces that aren't really specific to events in my life. Some people have told me they like my writing style, and I have to wonder how much traffic a big bunch of pages covering how I see the world would generate. I don't think many people read this one much, but maybe longer pieces that were more static would gradually build a set of readers.

Oh, no! Another fanboy wannabe site creating a cult of personality to feed my already oversized ego! Hey, if you feel that way about it, tell me. I can take criticism. If, on the other hand, you think it would be cool, also let me know.

Basically, let me know what you think of this idea. If you care enough to have an actual opinion one way or the other, that is.

Oscar

I buried Oscar yesterday. Oscar was my iguana that I had for nearly 14 years, the longest I've had any pet in my life.

I guess that's about all I have to say about that.