probably not worth reading

30-something dude from Michigan

[spideysense99]

I saw this movie, Without A Paddle, in theaters when it came out as a teenager. I still get an urge to watch it every few years, and it's never as good as I initially remembered it. Probably because it really was made for young teens. But anyway, this speech about life's finiteness by Burt Reynolds really hits. The sentiments are kind of generic, but it's delivered in a way that stands out. I wrote the key parts of it below, the clip has some context leading up to it. Burt Reynolds' character has been living in seclusion in the woods for decades.

You can lose your money, you can spend all of it. And if you work hard, you can get it all back. But if you waste your time, you're never gonna get it back. Whatever it is you fellas are looking for—you gotta go out and get it. And you gotta go right now.

[spideysense99]

If caffeine is so bad for sleep, why are the drink options for places that people largely go to at night so caffeine-centric? To be fair, I'm a little pickier, because I don't drink soda with real sugar anymore. I'm sure that's pretty common these days though. It's rare for any restaurant to have diet anything that doesn't have caffeine. Mostly just places that have those Coke or Pepsi freestyle machines.

I guess I need to start a petition to get caff-free coke zero or diet pepsi into all restaurants. Big preference on caff-free coke zero over diet coke, caff-free diet coke is disgusting for some reason, and I like regular diet coke.

[spideysense99]

Ended up doing a lot of driving in a city that I haven't been to in like a decade today to look at an apartment. The apartment seemed ideal on the inside, but I definitely got second-thoughts about the area from actually being there. The traffic is hell out there, and it's generally more expensive than where I'm from, so future home ownership will be more difficult to achieve. The area kinda felt low-class from the chaotic road layouts, while at the same time having swanky retail & restaurant franchises that you wouldn't see outside of affluent areas.

There's something profoundly depressing and anxiety-inducing about being stuck in congested traffic on a 50mph stroad that you're unfamiliar with. Completely drained me, felt like I had survived a horror movie when I finally got home. Had an immense sense of relief.

[spideysense99]

Insomnia

Trying really hard to fix my sleep right now because it's making it super difficult to do things I need to do. It kinda feels hopeless. Like I'm sleeping bad because of deeply entrenched misery, and sleeping bad helps reinforce deeply entrenched misery. It's a vicious cycle.

I started a sleep journal and I've been using tips from this insomnia self-help book (The Sleep Prescription). I've made my broad sleep pattern decent, going to bed in roughly the same time block I want to. But the problem is sleep length. I keep only getting 4 hours of sleep. It's hard to last until bedtime with that, and get anything done with that level of energy. Even in past periods where I've been lucky enough to get a consistent 8 hours, I have chronic fatigue issues anyway, so 4 hours is doubly bad. Sure, you can combat that a little with copious amounts of caffeine, and naps—but that just increases the probability that your next sleep will be too brief.

You could argue my insomnia is partly societally-imposed. If I stay awake until I’m completely exhausted and then commit to full sleep (i.e. not a nap), four hours would be fine, since it would likely happen twice a day. But that's just not compatible with life, you do that and the world is likely closed down in the majority of your energetic hours and that sleep pattern works poorly with most jobs that aren't gig-work. I'm between jobs right now, so that's temporarily feasible, but I'll never get out of this life rut if I accept that schedule.

[spideysense99]

Been thinking of maybe replacing my 5.5 year old, security-vulnerable phone. I really don't need that powerful of a phone, but also don't want something hopelessly slow either. The best budget options are kind of annoyingly close to being perfect, but both lack things that make them seem like non-acceptable options.

You go with a Motorola, they stop security updates after 3 years of original release date. So, some $120-$200 phone from them can be plenty of power, but it's going to be security-vulnerable in 1-2 years.

Go with the budget Samsung option, the A17, you got nearly 6 full years of security updates. The problem is that it only has 4 GB of RAM. Same as my current phone, and it's okay, but it struggles at times. I don't know how it will deal with more future tech bloat. If it had just 2-4GB more of RAM, it would be a great option. There's no subtle Samsung step up from there. If you want more RAM, you have to go to the A36 that costs double the price ($400 MSRP).

[spideysense99]

'Dance Area' by Dawn Landes. Chill folk-country song I've been recently listening to that I rediscovered deep in my youtube favorites from like a decade ago. Seems wild how little traction some great songs get, this only has like 4k views between multiple uploads.

Oddly, I think I know about this song because it was used for a transition in a episode of Michael Ian Black's podcast about snack food that I listened to back then.

[spideysense99]

I was up late last night and for some reason ended up asking ChatGPT about the feasibility of starting a strawberry farm for cheap. I now kinda want to move somewhere semi-rural with a big backyard so I can have a tiny hobby berry farm.

[spideysense99]

Little annoyed that my supposedly waterproof Fitbit watch seemed to fizzle out as a direct consequence of wearing it in the shower. Got a little over 2 years out of it, warranty was 1 year. Google (owners of FitBit) offered me a 35% off coupon for a new one, will probably begrudgingly take them up on it. I really like the step and sleep tracking.

[spideysense99]

Just had a can of this Thai-Style Chicken Rice soup from Chunky for probably like the 6th time. This is my favorite canned soup. Tastes really good, really interesting spicy flavor. I've never had this style of soup not in a can, I bet it's great.

[spideysense99]

St. Denis Medical / The Paper

This hospital mockumentary sitcom, St. Denis Medical, is pretty good. I got drawn into the show, The Paper, from the advertising of it, and I heard about St. Denis Medical in the process. The Paper is just too inconsistent, too many episodes with too few bits that land. Esmeralda gets way too much screen time for bits that just don't work well. I'll probably still give season 2 a chance though. Some of the characters are compelling.

On the other side of things, St. Denis Medical has been great in the 7+ episodes I've seen, it's much more consistent of a show with what seems like a lower budget (less set variety).

[spideysense99]

Finished GTA4 today. Man, I got stuck on that last mission with the helicopter for so long. Was really missing the mission checkpoint feature of GTA5. I had to clean out this warehouse of guys like 10 times to get through it because I kept screwing up the helicopter part. Game tells you to fly low, but that makes you vulnerable to a one hit kill. Turns out, all you had to do was fly really high and you didn't have to dodge anything. All in all, good game though. I liked Nico and Roman.

Was actually looking forward to being able to do cab pickups for fun, but you can't do them outside of the side missions early in the game. Weird, because I think you could spontaneously do them even in GTA3 on PS2. Guess I'll go back to messing around with GTA5 cabs. I'll probably pick up the expansion stories at some point, but not in a rush. GTA4 turned into a real grind for me by the end.

[spideysense99]

Been playing Grand Theft Auto IV (4). It was fun at first, but like GTA5, the missions turned into a grind and I just wanted to see how the story played out. Locked in today and played like 18 or so missions. Only have the final one to go, but it sounds like a long one, so I'm gonna play it tomorrow. For anyone else who's played it, I chose, "Revenge". Dmitri sucks.

[spideysense99]

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town

Have been playing this Harvest Moon game on Xbox Gamepass, it's so addictive. I've tried Stardew Valley multiple times and always lost interest before I got very deep, not this game. I must have played it 5+ hours the first day. The town and farm being a lot more compact makes it so much less overwhelming to get into than Stardew. Plus, it's nice to have clean 3D graphics instead of gameboy advance sprites.

Only complaint is that the stamina aspect is maybe too limiting. It's nice for there to be some challenge, but after I water all my plants, I barely have stamina to do anything else that requires stamina, and you have to make a somewhat tedious (but short) trip to the hot spring south of your farm to get some back. By the time you recover in the spring, it's already really late in the day. I guess it effectively simulates having a real 9 to 5 job, it's hard to find time for things. Anyway, it's a great game. I kind of want to be a farmer IRL now.

edit:

I got sick of this game. Too much of a grind. Not really relaxing in the end. With the hectic pace, feels like the game puts you in a rat race to be in a rush to do this or that constantly to get a bigger house, better tools, more livestock, etc.

I wonder if any of the other Harvest Moon games have a more relaxing pace to them. I like the basic gameplay, just doesn't work well at a hectic pace.

[spideysense99]

Sitting here high on a weed gummy, thinking how awesome it would be to have someone to get high with and make fun of movies with. I never really got that experience yet as someone who only really got into weed when the legal stuff became easy to buy.

[spideysense99]

Planning at looking at an apartment this week in Ohio. Rent is cheaper there than anywhere I want to live in Michigan. I am kinda bummed about losing that affordable recreational weed access though. I really like using Indica gummies as an occasional sleep aid.

Ohio did recently pass something about recreational weed, but sounds like there's resistance to enacting it, and even if gets through, it might still be super expensive for a long time.

[spideysense99]

I wish I had the mobility to do a full bodyweight squat so bad. Really limits the exercises you can do in the gym if you don't have that mobility. I think squatting properly is also interrelated with "hinging" properly, so the inability also prevents you from doing deadlifts and certain row exercises safely.

Have tried a lot of mobility exercises I've seen on youtube, but never really saw any progress from them so I always lost interest. Trying something new right now, will share with the world if it works :-D

[spideysense99]

Bladerunner 2049 is soooo boring. I had seen little clips here and there that looked very cool aesthetically with the cyberpunk city stuff that got me interested. I'm now halfway through and have to pause every 5-10 minutes to not zone out. Maybe it'll all click by the end.

edit: I stand by my initial impression. I was kind of confused at the details, but got the gist of things. After reading the wiki and fully understanding, it's kind of wild how little actually happens during the course of the nearly 3 hour movie. It's just all so slow. I still kinda want to see the original though. Looks more eventful.