Quite a few people have contacted me recently for updates, and since I almost never post journals, I'll do my usual routine of packing a lot of things into a single journal. I won't include my month-long quest to fix my Amiga computer, as that's a story in itself! I'll do that later.
WEIGHT LOSS
Yeah, shortly after my birthday in February, I hit 202 pounds. That's hardly outrageous, since I've been fat my whole life (I was even seriously overweight at birth) and my heaviest was 250 about 20 years ago. Still, I was 180 when I left my last job, and wasn't happy about putting on more weight since quitting. Time to get in shape.
Three months of diet and regular exercise has left me shorter 27 pounds (now at 175), and my goal is to hit 160 by the end of summer. I'm already at the lowest weight I've been since my early teens. Man, I feel so much better, and it's nice to finally touch my toes literally for the first time in my life. I still haven't made any progress on my sleeping disorder, as I'm still getting 5 hours a night on my "good" days, but dropping weight and getting my metabolism up has been great. I can now actually see my 6-pack (currently a 2-pack) poking through, and my belly is now almost flat, other than that stubborn fat around the intestines. I'm pretty serious about making dies and exercise a permanent part of my lifestyle, so no cheat days for me. It's nice being able to jog for 20 minutes straight without losing breath. 8)
I think Wac will end up slimming down a bit, too. Everyone draws him skinny in commissions, anyway. It'll also make him look nice when [if] I ever do start that puppet show on YouTube.
STUPID IDEA THIS YEAR: YOUTUBE
Ever since I posted this picture, I've not been able to get the image out of my head. While I can't see myself appearing in videos, ever since I was in grade school I've wanted to do a puppet show. I made a flamingo puppet 30 years ago which came out really nice, but I couldn't think of what kind of performance to go with the character. Now I actually have some material in mind, and with some spare foam from an old bed mattress, I really want to start working on a Waccoon puppet.
Yeah, it's a stupid idea that probably won't go anywhere, but I tried cutting out a head shape from a block of foam and it was surprisingly easy to get the shape right in 3D. So, once I get my next electronic project finished, I'll start putting together a wireframe and experiment with mouth and eyebrow movements.
Waccoon has gotten a bit crazier as of late (no NyQuil required), so I think a semi-rant channel with deadpan humor would make him funny enough to stand out. It'll just be for fun, though. I think it's pretty obvious that the age of overnight 100K subscribers and any kind of income on views is coming to an end. At the very least, if this works, it'll finally give me a creative outlet that doesn't require me to sit 8 hours at a drawing board, just to have people pan by my stuff after 30 seconds.
Working on comics is disappointing and a huge time sink with no reward. Working on videos sounds fun, and is worth a try.
SEARCHING FOR A LIFE
At the end of last year, I decided I didn't want to work with computers anymore. The reasons are a bit complicated, but after a stint working in web development, and having to endure the pain of "apps" and busting my ass getting various frameworks to work, I've just given up. Standards aren't fashionable anymore, and the whole business of the Internet is an unbelievable mess. I'm way, way too pessimistic about the future of technology and IP regulation to do this kind of work for a living, but... I'll spare you the bitter rant.
Recently, my new hobby has been electronics and fixing old computers. I finally completed a full repair of my aging Amiga 1200 and 1000 computers, along with my monitor and floppy drives. Everything's been running like a top. I also completed work on building my own headphone amp, and will be moving on to a new power control module and integrated USB hub for my PC. I've learned a lot about building circuits as of late, though I'm struggling to think of things to build other than power supplies and light blinkers. I'm not interested in robots. I wouldn't know what to do with a Raspberry Pi or Arduino. Yet another short-term hobby? Probably, but it's fun at the moment. Building mini power supplies is fun, hence, my interest in making a centralized power hub for all my equipment and trying to cut down on cable clutter.
SEARCHING FOR A JOB
Well, not just yet, but I will be soon. I've been taking quite a lot of time off from the rat race and living off savings. It's been fun and I still have plenty of money in investments, but I would like to actually retire someday, so I guess at the end of the summer it'll be time to get back to work... at least part-time.
Trouble is, I have no idea what to do. I have the social aptitude of lettuce, have no friends, and have sworn off relationships. My work is what gives me the most satisfaction in life. I'm a loner by nature, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Alas, that doesn't help livelihood prospects. If you want to get a job, you have to provide a service that's valuable to other people, and it seems that my interests are so narrow and niche, there's really nothing I like doing that's profitable. It's not hard to love your work, but the trick is to actually get paid!
Yeah, yeah... jobs aren't meant to be pleasant, but if you don't have social skills, you end up being the doormat while everyone else just sits around playing with their smartphones. I found that lesson out the hard way, and every job I've had in the past has been a hundred times worse than it should have been thanks to a total lack of accountability in those environments. It's hard to tolerate any job if the managers bark at me to get my ass to work, while they huddle together with the rest of the goofballs and yak about sports. At my last job, it was literally mandatory to love baseball, as it was a guaranteed way to get on the boss' good side and get out of doing work.
Hey, if I'm not interested in sports, TV, and pop culture, that makes me the spoilsport workaholic. Just shove me into the corner and watch the work get done! It's always okay to ostracise the unpopular guy, you know.
So, I would really like to get away from blue-collar work, but as far as white-collar work is concerned, I'm totally at a loss.
I spent my whole life working with computers, and that's all I know. If I could do whatever I wanted, I'd be self-employed writing backup software. Alas, the market for that is virtually non-existent unless you pledge allegiance to the dark side and force people into the cloud model, and for that you need marketing muscle, not good technology. In a few years, it'll be basically impossible to run backup software, anyway. You think you have any control of your computer? You actually want to access your own files? Haha. The walled garden is strong with this one!
I hate computers these days. Just about everything people know about security, privacy, updates, code signing, malware, and... everything in general... is a total lie. It's planned obsolescence all the way down and virtually everything we use today will be dead (by force) in a few years. It's not like the old days when you could get software working for 20+ years with the right drivers or even an emulator. Today it's nothing but DRM and trusted modules, and when companies decide to pull the plug, it's gone forever. Hardware encryption built into SOCs makes reverse-engineering and piracy (and historical preservation) a lot harder than it used to be. It's the digital equivalent to book burning. Destroy the past so we have no reference to judge how much progress we're making.
Modern computers are total bullshit. All my Amiga stuff works just fine, and I can actually get modern hardware upgrades for that 30-year-old machine. Everything I have on my Windows7 PC will be permanently dead in 10 years... or sooner. The general public has no idea how bad things are going to get.
So, what now? I have no idea. I'm too old for college and I couldn't hack it the last time I went, anyway. I should consider a trade school. I might like being an electrician. In the short term, it's been suggested I work for the Post Office, and that also sounds pretty nice, seeing how I used to be a postal employee a little over 10 years ago (albeit as a temp). Unlike software and "services", delivering mail and other physical products is good, honest work. You can always be sure of what you're getting.
Unfortunately, no. It was supposed to be for a school project, but since I only did the puppet and not a script, my teacher was really upset with me and threw the thing out. It was more of a writing class, not an art class.
Looking back, I realize today just how horrible my school was. It surprises me that I graduated at all.
Unfortunately, no. It was supposed to be for a school project, but since I only did the puppet and
What an asshole teacher! Was the puppet made of foam? I have built a few puppets but the stuff I use work better for monsters and weird stuff, not clean looking characters. Anyways I'd love to see Wac videos, tell me if I can help with anything.
What an asshole teacher! Was the puppet made of foam? I have built a few puppets but the stuff I use
I can't quite remember, as it was made from a combination of school materials and stuff I brought from home (which I guess is why the teacher felt the right to seize it).
When I'm ready to start building my Waccoon puppet, I'll be making a prototype with scraps and cardboard to get the shape I want, then build a frame with wire and solder, then stuff it with mattress foam. I think a strong frame will help when I get the eyes implemented. Since there's no pupils to worry about and Wac has a large mask, it should be fairly easy to get a range of emotions with two wires: one to blink the eyes and another to change the brows. Then, it's all just a matter of performance practice. If things go well, I may look into some servos and a simple microcontroller for canned emotions at the push of a button.
Hmm... maybe I should look into some simple robotics after all. That stuff is way cheaper and easier to do today than it used to be.
I can't quite remember, as it was made from a combination of school materials and stuff I brought fr
