Patreon Death

So, logging into Patreon today to suspend payment for another month, seeing how the payment goes through on the first of every month and that's tomorrow, I find that I can't do it? They changed something our something; I can cancel my payment entirely but I can't just skip a pay period. Maybe you're not allowed to do it two months in a row; I've got no clue. I don't want to cancel my subscriptions/support, but neither am I able to pay.

But like maybe it's like the Barnes and Noble thing, where it like killed itself when it saw it couldn't go through; if they're in multiple transactions, one per pledge, it might still slip through for one of them, but that would require the savings-to-checking rollover. Trying to check my e-receipts if it's in a lump sum or not; if it is then no worries.

(Watching Paddington on Netflix)

You need a seventeen minute twenty-eight second explanation about how rad the Paddington films are? No worries, mate; Patrick (H) Willems has got you covered. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSq0308_g7c

Face Fit for Streaming

I got called handsome today...! Reminded this lady of someone she'd seen on TV... But she couldn't recall who.

If you haven't seen it, my beard is now better trimmed and even more magnificent than in my last YouTube video, the ~vlog of a week ago. Which, I'm not remaking? Think I'll just, move on, and start making fresh engaging content elsehows. Got so many ideas today. Good stuff. It's so much more inspirational to watch the high quality videos over the other stuff.

Westminster Canvas

Blank canvas is intimidating, but that intimidation is the most familiar part of creation, the step zero that all must experience, as well-known and background noise as that... hold on let me look it up... Westminster Quarters, the Westminster chimes, so accustomed as we are to our chiming clocks that it all just glides along as natural a part of reality as air being transparent.

...that was overwritten; i'm sorry, i'm tired...

but yeah i have things i want to blog about but mostly stuff that would be perfect for pretzelize me, cap'n! instead of for over here. it's easier to write here though because i'm already logged in right now but it's not easy to write right now anyway because I'm tired, everything sliding easily, like westminster quarters.

One Day/Last Week

Last week was super long for some reason; maybe the days felt full of purpose or something? Today I haven't had a single good/creative idea all day, when yesterday especially was full of insight and connectivity. So today felt long in that; actually felt longer than any of the days last week.

The Little Lost Breakfast Who Could

Nobody probably watched the video yesterday, since nobody watched the YouTube video I put up four days ago and embedded exclusively on this blog- nobody watches any of the videos I put up, or at least according to my YouTube's metrics, any of my own videos (unlisted videos do work the way I think they do, right, I mean you should have all been able to see that?,) but no matter! It was a very very weird video, and I posted it up as an act of deadline desperation. It was, the least weird, of his videos, that I could find.

Q Rais is the name of the artist; I can't make heads or tails of any of his (?) stuff, and I have a suspicion the situation would be the same even if I were fluent in Japanese. He (??) also does, like, comics and stuff, in Japanese, which is how I discovered, them.

But I just love weird things, don't you?

Q Rais

Focus

Doing the reboot remake is taking longer than anticipated; the focal length nearer to the camera is super short so it's easier to be out-of-focus? If you're so much as an inch off it'll do that to you. Recommended fixes?

Stand back further
Get someone else to focus the camera so you don't have to worry about it yourself
Get a wider-angle lens with smaller possible f-stop size (meaning wider possible focal distance.)

I'm eyeing a lens for that last option, but it looks like I'll just have to go with either firsts for now.

Whatever Happened to Why the Lucky Stiff?

Hey look an article about a thing I like! 

Too tired right now to write much more about it. Mmbleh.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/03/ruby_ruby_on_rails_and__why_the_disappearance_of_one_of_the_world_s_most_beloved_computer_programmers_.single.html

Reboots and BARSK PODCASTS

The video was easier to do than I anticipated, and with my current schedule I have the ability to produce a video a day, instead of once every however many weeks like last time. Tomorrow I'm remaking this video; it's all out of focus, but I think it had spunk enough to publish at least on private.



Do I want to be a YouTuber? Is that what I really want? It's what I kinda want, but I don't really care about, doing anything for subs or whatever. But, my goodness, look at me up there, I'm clever and smart and gorgeous; I don't want to do this for myself, but to grace you little people with my presence. 



Anyway. Check it out, a bonus episode of Writing Excuses came out today! It was recorded when Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard was written, but slipped through the cracks, and is now posted up in honor of The Moons of Barsk!



https://writingexcuses.com/2018/08/22/13-b1-bonus-episode-elephants-and-death-with-lawrence-schoen/

Returning Soon

Did I not blog last night? Whoops. 

Did I not post the above up last night? Whoops.

Two days later, then; I've got a lot but I think I'll save anything I have to say for tomorrow... not for lack of time to write it tonight; it's not about the writing. I'm feeling, a different format... a VIDEO format.

Tati's Chef

There's a scene in the Sylvain Chomet film The Illusionist which is presented so matter-of-factly and naturally it takes a while to realize how remarkable it is. Jaques Tati "interacting" with himself. This... this is the kind of thing I would use my YouTube channel for; I guess I still have time to put videos together. The Barnes and Noble thing and the Adobe account actually would go onto their next pay period within a day of each other, so I've still got a couple of weeks for both, not that I use either much. This is what financial responsibility looks like, cutting the fat.

Anyway, like the way it's been set up that TV and movies are live-action instead of animated, and the way that it's set up just in framing and the unusually long shot lengths, especially for Western Animation and animation in general, is what I was going on about. It's fine.

Insufficient Funds!

Mere hours after writing about the Barnes and Noble membership probably wanting to resubscribe itself, it attempted to resubscribe itself, found insufficient funds, and quietly curled into a ball and died.

Yaaay.

Technically it wouldn't go onto the new period until the 12th, so I've still got a month to enjoy the sweet goodness of a Barnes and Noble membership. Man, this would be so much better had I nearby access to a Barnes and Noble. Or if I had any money, that either.

Being penniless is so much more enjoyable without that hanging over my head. Still not very enjoyable, of course, so I suppose I should have phrased that, it's no longer as unenjoyable. 

I should start heckin' makin' art, and start heckin' sellin' it.

Think I should post on my graphic design blog, about graphic design stuff. If I told you the specifics here, I wouldn't have to do it over there, so.

My Adobe subscription is still technically going on, and I won't have to shut it down till September. Maybe I'd edit and upload a video, if not for the laundry list of excuses not to, completely arbitrary and conjurable at a moment's whim. I never did figure out how other people seem to get much better audio quality than I do, using the same equipment. Maybe I'm just more attuned to background white noise etc when it's in my own works?

I have a Barnes and Nobel membership which renews every year; I've got no idea when it's going to do that but it's probably sometime soon, and I can't afford it renewing on me. It'd probably cost, like, $30, or some ridiculously large sum of money like that, like dang, ain't nobody got a rai stone that big. So I'm going to have to figure out how to, like, suspend that as well?

MAN I DON'T KNOW ABOUT ANYTHING.

(fighting urge to make I Write Sins Not Tragedies reference)

SO my sister got married today, and I was I guess UNofficially the photographer, but the idea had been for me to be the official one, any so I didn't get the memo about what to wear there or anything, and they found a tie for me eventually... But I went up with the bride and groom as well, yesterday, instead of with my family, today, which is why I wasn't around any computers to post a blog post yesterday evening.

But it looks like my mom's going to have to finally update her blog, so there's that instead.

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL WEDDING, WHAT A BEAUTiful WEDding says the
dangit.

Be Ye Therefore Perfect-- Eventually

I'm not as hot on Jeffrey R Holland as other people seem to be- like everyone else seems to be, oh yeah his talks are so great, and I don't think so, as much; and I've been unpacking the whys and wherefores of that a little bit, more recently- and I guess the reasons are a post unto themselves, most of them niggling, or otherwise just weird personal preferences. 

But his talk from the most recent semi-annual general conference, I'm listening to right now, and it's really good.

https://www.lds.org/languages/eng/content/general-conference/2017/10/be-ye-therefore-perfect-eventually

(moons of barsk)

The BARSK sequel, The Moons of Barsk, comes out Tuesday! It promises to be as weird and haunting and awe-inspiring as the first one, which I've been very meaning to reread anyway. I clicked around Lawrence Schoen's website, and there doesn't appear to be any exclusive swag available one should one preorder; his Twitter (@klingonguy) did have a sweepstakes thing where three people get a free hardcover copy each, but the deadline for that was today, World Elephant Day. The winners have winned, and the books are gettin' shipped. There is another sweepstakes, though, this time to win the audiobook; all one need do to enter is be a subscriber to his newsletter. Deadline is noon of next Sunday. Yep.

There's Nothing to Stop This from Being the Best Day Ever

I'm super excited for the Sabbath tomorrow. Last Sunday it was all, Sabbaths should mean something to me, so I'm going to live this week in preparation for the next one. And so I, well I tried at least. Didn't do as well as I'd hoped, but I'm back on track now.

Darn it, I really want to go see the Teen Titans Go! movie for some reason. I'm feeling really simpatico with Cartoon Network right now, is probably it. Cartoon Network is somehow awesome again. Yay.

I want to paint stuff again. There's a reason easels exist, I've discovered. I just looked it up, and the word easel actually comes from the Dutch word for donkey which makes sense, and doesn't have anything to do with the word "ease," which-- yep, I just looked it up, and its origins have nothing to do with the Dutch word for donkey. Easels make things easy, is what my point was.

So anyway- there's this long-term project I've been working on and I feel really good about it right now, like there have been days when it's all what is this, what are all these elements doing together, this is random and arbitrary, and really discouraging- but it's like there's a floodgate of inspiration that's opened up today, only two or three elements really, but they've just gelled the whole thing, and opened the whole thing up. 

Today started out, well not rough or anything, but it could have started out better let's say. But the U2 lyric, from their album which I own which I haven't even gotten the chance to listen to, really helped me, and, heck maybe it was the best day ever today.

It's way beautiful, isn't it, this moss-covered stone hurtling through an inexorably vast void.

League Defeats

There's a mission that I NEED to complete in League, otherwise terrorists kill my wife and family (alright, I only want to complete it, and the reward is just like some in-game whatever,) and like all I need to do is win one game, just one game is that too much to ask?, and Kaellen brought his laptop so he and Alex and I could all storm the Rift together, and my laptop (what's its designation now, 2.1 I think?) crashed on me while we were all in a group together preparing to queue up, and it tried booting up for the entirety of the game next (which was won quite handily) and I turned it off and on again and it tried to repair itself for the entirety of the game after that (also a winning one) and I could finally get it up and running for the game after that, and-- well, I can rest knowing that at least my worst possible League of Legends defeat is behind me; even if 2.1 hadn't had crashed on me again leaving my team fighting 4v5, I'd been marching straight into the jaws of death every time I set out down that bottom lane. Not playing Leona again, probably ever. And I've got two skins for her too, though that's the only reason I was playing her...

But I've still a few days left to complete the mission. so.

Scratching

There's always "content" in your heart or mind that can be put out there, if you want to scratch yourself bleeding that deeply. (Posting every day again it looks like, and though a lot's happened today the temptation is just to stick with something vapid, in which case I may as well not post.) Open-ended question, why do I want to protect the dark parts of myself, even though I see them as something external and of need to purge?

Story

Teeth cleaned today. Dentist! X-ray as well, full set, all my teeth. Four cavities?, but one is under a filling, so they will just tamp that down to fill it in. Still, no insurance :(. Expensive prospect.

X ray lead bib. Heavy, comfortable. Nice pressure. Measured heart rate to be less than one beat per second. Very healthy. Idea: make own lead bib-type object and keep my heart rate that low?

Teeth were very clean. What brushing I do is working. Brush more!!

Pandemic Legacy Season 2: Complete!

Beat Season Two of Pandemic: Legacy this afternoon. Which makes this my, third, or fourth Legacy game, depending how you count it? I've played Pandemic Legacy Season One of course; SeaFall; a game of Risk Legacy though not as part of the campaign (just a Risk game played out on a board that had been through some stuff; that was interesting.) 

Funny, this time, how it doesn't offer up any ideas for playing on the board now that we're finished with it, speaking of playing on previously Legacy'd boards. The other Legacy games all had that option, even SeaFall, rudimentary as that mode may be. There appears to be a few secrets left that the board has to offer, though; some panels that we never got to open though we completed the whole thing. Maybe they have to do with searches we never completed, or maybe they're just blank or funny or Easter eggs or what; or maybe they're like SPOILER from Risk Legacy, and we have to figure it out for ourselves. (there were a few failure options we didn't fail often enough to trigger, so it may have something to do with those??)

Speaking of spoilers, though, I think it's time to rank how I feel about this game as compared to the other Legacy games I've played? What I mean by that is, the twist in this one, definitely my favorite, plot-wise at least; game mechanics-wise, it'd be really really tough to top SeaFall for its twists. The opening part of the game, the months of exploring the world and connecting everything, that was tops, better than just starting out with the whole world open like in Season One, and better I think than sailing off and discovering new islands in SeaFall.

The way the game balanced, the world getting bigger our resources getting more stretched thin, but with mechanical ways to counteract that, was very well done, and I could feel Matt Leacock's hand in the way everything fit together, the elegance of the similarities and differences between Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert in between this game and Season One, and the balance of always being just about to fail just like in those games. I think he and Rob Daviau are a crackerjack team, and please please please somehow give us like, it doesn't even have to be Forbidden Whatever Legacy or anything, but please work together again.

Out of all Legacy games I've played so far, I think this one is the one I'm most likely to replay, not only because the thrill of discovery is more plot- rather than mechanics-based, like I said, but also to see how differently things can turn out. SeaFall was a mind-bending experience, once, and Pandemic Legacy Season One was harrowing and exciting (and heck maybe I'd need to play that one again as well as a refresher,) but this one did, well not everything, but most things right, that Legacy games should do.

Work/Feel

I oversaw the Cub Scout Day Camp obstacle course area on Saturday, which was fun and frustrating and busy and, it felt like I was getting something done, at least. I'd forgotten how very little it feels like I accomplish in any given day here back at home. Is every day like this? 

It doesn't really take much for me to feel like I'm getting something done, just a little thing each day. I'm working and thinking constantly about projects that had their inception almost a decade ago and are now maybe a few weeks away from coming to something resembling fruition-- but that doesn't feel like actual work.

Flat Heroes of the Universe

We are Ben.

The Switch game Flat Heroes came out yesterday, and there's a campaign mode (which I beat the demo of before the game came out, the first world and ~half of the second) and there are pvp modes, are seven survival modes as well, which all require unlocking, and which have world leader scoreboards. Two of those survival modes are solo, but the rest you can cooperate on and keep each other alive.

Playing on Ben's account, four of us, the name BEN climbed to the tops of the scoreboards. Like, the tops tops.

I'm not sure if this is the case still, but we have/had each of the world records, all at the same time. Each number one spot, on each survival mode, goes to BEN. 

Since it had only been out for a few hours, we were among the first to unlock some of the survival modes- that doesn't make it as easy as it sounds, though; we faced some stiff competition, and unlocking the modes requires a lot of SP, gained from playing well. The final (most SP-expensive) mode, a solo mode called arrows, we were the first to unlock, and thus automatically made it to the top of the world leaderboard (don't know what it looks like or how far Ben got solo.)

So I'm writing this right now in case, y'know, anybody sees our awesomeness, and wonders, y'know, who the heck this Ben character is.

Wreckin Ball

K so I've been gone for a couple of months, and everything in Overwatch is totally different now. Well, not everything, but with the Symmetra rework and EDIT: the Sombra rework and the new character and all, the meat meta is totally different. It's focused more on area control now, which meat is way neat, and the way I think the meat was always meant to be? I heard somewhere that someone thought the meta was getting stale, and I can't recall the circumstances, but I think it's way good now.