A new chapter has started, in a way it's like revisiting a book series you loved and finding a new entry. I'm on my second week at the new job.
I had a shot at something different (working in the casino gaming sector)... But, I knew that it would involve being awake at all hours, and having to devote an inordinate amount of my time to the company.
The law firm I interviewed with offered me what I was looking for: straight forward expectations and a realistic workload. Law offices can be notorious for having to work overtime, deadlines are critical, and you have to juggle hearing dates and things like that. But every so often you find an attorney who has put in enough time (often several years) and has struck a nice balance. I've never worked with this particular attorney directly before, but we know a lot of the same people from as far back as decade (or longer) ago. So I felt comfortable taking the job.
A friend of mine and I meet up every week just to shoot the shit and compare notes. We keep each other motivated to continue moving forward and improving our lives. This week he shared with me a “Life Audit” document (specifically, it was a PDF). I was thinking about doing a blog post with basically all the steps from the PDF and talking about my approach to them. But I don't see the PDF publicly posted anywhere, or it's not easily accessible. I would say that the author is a pretty notable internet personality and “self-help guru.” It is branded content, but doesn't appear to be copyrighted... In any case, I'm not looking to be sued (should more than 10 people read this), so I'll spare you the specific steps that he walks through with his system. Instead I'll summarize the process without also promoting any one specific personality—there are a myriad of them online, you're free to pick the personality you like the best, they all essentially say the same things and they're happy to take your money. Sometimes these people are controversial figures, and I have no real context for this guy other than the title of a book he wrote, and this one PDF that my friend sent me.
December 30, 2023 was the last Pixel Pints podcast episode that will be recorded for the foreseeable future. All of us founding members have decided to put the show on hiatus. It's been a good ride. I can't speak for the others, but I can speak for myself. Somewhat in honor of that, I thought it might be good to do another top 20 list. Don't worry I'll get into the titles on this list, but first, I'm going to muse and rant a bit on the gaming industry as a whole. More specifically about “journalism” and gaming enthusiast media.
Special shout out to MobyGames. I reached out to them last year when I was going through my frontend development course, and they provided me with API access. I haven't done much with it yet, but all of the links and images for this list (with the exception of the above image created with Topsters 3) are all from Moby. Maybe I can come up with a creative way to use the API that would be beneficial for the site and that community as well as offer some cool utility... I'm open to suggestions.
If you're so inclined though, and want to skip ahead to a specific title, just click the number next to it on the list above.
Holy shit... I've always wanted to read the original James Bond novels, and after reading this first one, I think I'll definitely continue with the series. At least read all of the original ones that Fleming wrote (there are twelve of them, if I'm not mistaken). Although this is quite an old book being originally published in 1953, I know there are plenty of people out there like me who have only seen the movies and haven't read the novels (or are just getting into reading the novels which is why you might be reading this review). Like always, there are some major differences between the book and films, in order to point out those differences though, I'll have to reveal some critical plot points, and I will be spoiling the ending.
While the movies can be fairly predictable and formulaic, there were some twists here in the novel that I didn't quite expect, and do not remember there being sufficient enough analogs for from the films.
Everyone has their own winter rituals. Either you make them or you follow what has come before, or you choose to ignore them all together, we're all acutely aware that it's something that a lot of us do every year. Figuratively, symbolically, or astrologically, everything in the human condition is a cycle of some sort, like a series of a million different Venn diagrams creating infinite combinations of various overlapping factors, perpetually in motion like celestial gears; these cycles dictate a number of things related to our lives. Or, the cycles at least preside an influence over our perceptions, emotions, and actions during certain times of the year, or periods in our lives over the course of several years.
Not sure what's taking me so much time to finish my Nation of Victims review. I keep coming back to it though. Hopefully I'll be done changing things around and rearranging paragraphs enough to post a fairly decent overview and recommendation for the book soon. Right now though, I'd like to talk a little about life and get into some personal knowledge management (or, “pkm”) software that I've been using.
So, this book has its ups and downs. It started off strong. About half-way through I wasn't feeling it, but pushed through. By the end I was satisfied with the book, but I'm not overly enthusiastic about getting other people to read it. If you like what he has to say in interviews, then I would recommend the book though. He goes into some depth regarding his philosophy on how markets should be governed.
The other night I was looking for something to watch. Specifically I wanted a movie where I could smoke a joint and really just sit back and relax, and get a lot of enjoyment out of the movie. I started off the search looking for a wuxia film. I came across The Assassin which stars Shu Qi, who I recognized from The Transporter... Maybe I should have smoked before checking out the first 10 minutes, but I wanted to make sure it was going to be worth it. While it might be a good movie, it was a bit too artsy for the GLP Tango I would be smoking.
After that I decided to go back to an older movie that I hadn't seen in a while that I knew would match the metal space. I found Planet Terror on Tubi. The opening sequence includes a trailer for a movie that Robert Rodriguez hadn't made at that time, Machete. I remembered very distinctly watching the movie with director commentary and listening to Rodriguez say that he wanted to do a trailer for a movie that didn't exist. When I went looking for the trailer from the beginning of Planet Terror to share with my friends, I found out that Rodriguez had in fact made not only Machete but a second one as well! I was sold at that point, and Machete was the movie I watched. I immediately knew it would get added to my list of favorite movies of all time. Thus, this list was born.
This is a common question that I feel a lot of people face every day, from season vets to newbies looking to learn something that might be useful elsewhere.
One thing I can say, from what I've learned, is that the framework isn't really all that important, it's the fundamentals that matter. When I was younger and and the commercial internet was still in its infancy, the big saying was “RTFM,” read the fucking manual. Which is still true to this day. If it doesn't have good documentation, move on.
As far as a language, I'm sticking to JavaScript. I like it. I was never hardcore into programming like all of the Rust and Go people out there. I just want to be able to do stuff. If I ever hit a point where JavaScript isn't doing what I need it to do, then I'll move on.
Thought I would try something a little different. I never noticed that GoodReads gives you the option to copy and paste your book reviews (until now), so I figured I would take advantage of that.
I've been working on a project that I'll get online relatively soon... I don't think it's really ready for primetime right now. It's just more of a “yeah that's cool.” It's not really a full app yet, and I've been playing around with some different ideas. Technically it is already online if you follow my github commits you can probably guess what I've been cooking. Needless to say, it's tarot-related.
(The first snow of the year finally touched down in the Humbodlt-Toiyabe National Forest.)
