December 15, 2024 - bloghan 25
Ah, I wish that this one, number 25, ended up as next week's, or the week after's, bloghan number. That would fit so well with the whole Christmas and the 25th thing! Well, this is alright too, as was this week. Here's what I have for bloghan 25:
Tier list of the week
This week's tier list: Jokers from 'Balatro.' Throughout the entirety of this week, I have been getting constnatly distracted by gameplay of the funny poker roguelike. I'll put it on in the background, hear some cheers or "OOOOH" or some crazy combo being scored, and then switch to that tab, and then I get entranced watching the game. This tier list is based on the hype that getting each Joker has. Here's the tier list:
Ordered tiers, unordered within tiers. Based on what I've seen, I feel like this is an accurate look at what some of the best Jokers are, in addition to the whole hype aspect. However, John Balatro (the regular Joker) is hype not because he's good (he's bad, comparatively) but because he's like the figurehead of the game, and the one who just makes each face card art expansion trailer more unhinged than the last. As a side note, I don't really ever want to play 'Balatro,' since I really don't like how grindy they made all their achievements, and also how addicting it would be for me. I already have enough of that kind of thing in my life from 'Papa's Freezeria Deluxe.'
Personal updates (achievements, reflections, and antics)
Monday did not have a great start, as I woke up about 25 minutes after my alarm was supposed to go off. I had to forgo my morning tea and rush out the door, with onlny a bit of time leftover to change, eat breakfast, and pack lunch. It was raining outside, and all the snow had melted too. Just about every walkable surface was wet, with a frost layer underneath, but I made it to work without slipping and falling (just slipping though, I did about 3-4 times... rookie stats). There weren't that many people in the office from what I could see, probably because of the inclement weather. My work rival was part of this absent group, and so I got to enjoy a quieter, less messy work environment today. I realized that whatever I had left running on Friday did go to completion, but of course, it went to completion and produced completely incorrect results. My morning was spent split between crossword writing and debugging and figuring out where things wrong, which I managed to do just before lunch. It was depressing looking outside, with the freezing rain, but I was actually making surprisingly quick progress with this next 7x7. Just as I finished the fix, and started getting ready to update it for everyone, it was time for us to go to lunch. Lunch was quiet, as it always is without that many coworkers, and we had very limited conversation about the work we were doing, about universities, about our upcoming D&D campaign and survey, and similar conversations. A bunch of us had brought our laptops down to work, which I had done not to do much in the way of work, but just to keep an eye on things I was running. We all finished lunch rather quickly, but before I could head back up, my co-DM motioned towards the pack of cards she had brought down, asking if what we wanted to play. I couldn't really think of a game, so I said the first thing which came to mind: blackjack. After one round of blackjack where someone beat the house by 1 point, we transitioned into crazy eights. Steve wanted to join, but no one told him about the special card rules that the group had in place. I hadn't played in a long time, so I only knew about the rule with eights, so I was also playing rather uninformededly. It was really funny to see Steve forgetting to announce "Crazy Eights" every time he was down to one card in hand, but he was always so surprised (as was I) about the rotate hands cards, the plus-twos, and whatever was going on with the Queen of Spades. We played until someone got last (it was me), then headed up. I put my crossword up, and proceeded to watch them get stuck on it for the next 2 hours. In fairness, a lot of the regular solvers were not present, but even the VP looked at the puzzle for only a moment, before shaking his head and going back to his desk. They went at it as I did one of the tasks given to me by my manager last week, eventually getting it right after a real long time. Despite that, they liked it, saying it was hard but challenging. The rest of the day was spent finishing off one 7x7 crossword, and trying to figure out if I actually did what I was supposed to do correctly. I ended the workday and made my way back to my place, where I set my mind on writing bloghan... except, I saw one of my friends was online in a VC, all alone. After getting my tea ready, I joined, but he didn't say anything. I resolved to also just say nothing, siting there and typing away. Some other people came in, saw we were not talking at all, then just left. Eventually, someone bothered to ask what we were doing, and I responded with my curiosity at what was going on. We could occasionally hear some noises from his headphones, but we settled into a conversation of just catching-up; how we were doing, how work and school were, that sort of thing. The person who was being silent finally said something, and realized that somehow he had unintentionally joined as a mistake, but that he was willing to stay for a little bit. We had some more catch-up discussion, before he started playing 'Helldivers 2,' streaming it for us. We moved our discussion over to games then: I was mostly asking them about 'Helldivers 2' and how it worked and played, and we talked about other games like 'Ace Attorney' and 'Gyakuten Live!' Now, I was in a club back in my home city, and one person in this call was an executive in this club, and the other (the one who was streaming) was not. The executive wanted to share some news of the club with me, but since it was a bit more on the sensitive side, he told me that he'll call me later to relay it to me. The conversation shifted towards current shocking events, some on a more local scale, and some on a much larger scale. I also got asked about how happy I was with my job, and if I would want to go back: I said maybe, but I think I'd like to do something different. Eventually, the one who was streaming decided to turn in for the night, so me and the club exec got to discuss in a different private call. He started telling me all about the shenanigans of the past couple months in the club, but only a limited set of course. I rank much lower than him so he couldn't tell me a lot of it, but I could really get a good view of what had occured in my absence. It's really not looking good for the division I was previously on, and the amount of drama between teams was not great to hear about. I think the team overall is going to be alright, maybe even a bit better than last year, but we'll just have to see about that. I got asked about my plans for when I come back, and I started to conceive of a dastardly plan, one that would cause all the execs great mental distress. I can't really explain what it is - some level of tact is needed to pull this off and to also not delve the team farther into chaos - but the basic principle behind it is that "anything is even funnier the second time." As I shared my plan, the one I made in reaction of the team's wishes for how I should proceed, we dragged in my former division lead for his input, and so that he could be informed a bit about what was going on in the team as well. We talked and talked, I planned and connived, and the other two expressed fear and worry (both about current events in the club and about my machinations), and it was such a great time. Once we had had our fill of club talk, we talked more personal things: work, school, and skills that we could take into the job market pretty soon. I expressed how I wanted to move into a different field, another expressed how he might want to do a Master's degree, and the third just described how he wanted to get through his current position, but this idle chit chat, this never-ending conversation - I had really missed having it with these two fellows. I guess it was something I had taken for granted back in my home city, when I would see those two every weekend for two years, and we'd even sometimes go out to do things to. It was an enjoyable night, and I did not feel bad about staying up as late as I did, just talking about all the things we three did: clubs, careers, our education, and our equally excellent high-quality ideas. Eventually, we called it a night, and I put my efforts into 'Papa's Freezeria Deluxe' for two in-game days before heading to bed.
I woke up late on Tuesday morning because I wanted to. There was going to be a team lunch, paid by the director on the company card, so I didn't have to be awake as long, since I didn't have to prepare my regular lunch this morning. I had stayed up a lot later than I expected because of 'Freezeria,' so I didn't really feel all that rested, but at least I got to have my morning tea in the morning. Or was raining, not heavily, but there was quite a bit of mist, which was actively tuning my mood to a more sombre tone. I get into work, and after withstanding a strangling from one of my coworkers, I helped another one try to figure out an issue she was running into. I wasn't able to solve it, but what I did tell her led her to eventually figure out what she needed to take another look at, and solve the problem. We talked about the team lunch and how everyone would get there, since apparently it was an hour walk from the offic. I didn't realize that would be that long of a walk and now I was really needing a ride. Luckily, that same coworker that I helped today said that it I attended her presentation in half an hour, she would give me a ride. Once I had secured that offer, I finally went to my desk. Before I could actually take a seat though, Steve told me that he needed something from me right away. We worked on some stuff together for a bit, and I got some things started for his use later, and then I joined that presentation, which mostly went over my head. After this, we shipped out, heading towards the restruant that we scheduled the team lunch at, a Chinese buffet place. We actually were late by 5 minutes or so, but there was a table that was empty, so the five of us that arrived together took that table. This included my work rival, Steve, the coworker who shares a name with my landlord, and my Japanese coworker. Then, we got up to grab food, and I loaded up my plate with quite a lot of meets and veggies, with a little bit of noodle. My work rival admonished me, since now I would be fuller when it came time for seconds, when I would choose my favourites, but he didn't account for my actual strategy of just eating whatever looked tasty, and eating enough of it so that it could hold me over until the next day. We began eating our first course, when the smallest subteam of our team, the one that my Japanese coworker was on, asked to join our table. That group consisted of the manager of that subteam and two of his regular team members. That manager also happens to be the hiring manager, the one proposing candidates to the director. Over the course of the entire lunch, he was asking us about our experiences on the team and the company, telling us about ht epeople who would be coming in next year to replace us, and about the work we were doing and how we were finding it. He asked us some questions that were basically the same as "do yo like your job," and I got away with "it's not what I thought but I'm growing to appreciate that fact more and more each day," while my work rival, tactless as ever, gave a flat out no. Aside from the questions about us and him, the lunch was really good. They gave us the most awful teapots that you couldn't even pour tea out of, yes, but the food was plentiful and it had a lot of things I liked. I was really surprised by the lack of ginger beef - apparently, no one from here had ever heard of it - but they had those fried squid rings (I think they call them pearlina or something like that?) which I loaded my plate with on round 2. The lunch was good to me, at least, with the conversation with the hiring manager being really illuminating about the goals of the comapny in hiring me and the others at the table, and how my team sees me. We had a group picture by the restuarant door, and everyone started to head out, back to work. I put up the final 6x6, and watched them all work together to take care of it in 20 minutes, not even batting an eye at the Schrödinger square this time around. I was running out of puzzles in my cache to give them, but that was a problem for next week. The rest of my Tuesday workday was a lot more muted, but way nore distracted at the same time: I wasn't terribly excited to do some of my tasks, and none of them really had any urgent deadlines as far as I knew. The only relatively eyebrow-raising thing was my work rival getting an interview request from a competitor business, for after he was done this current position. He was so excited, and went over immediately to the crossword cubicle to share the news. When he got back, he described to me how he was actually feeling like he didn't want the position, since he'd have to move way down south, away from a lot of the connections he valued in the place he currently was. My most important value that guides where I want to end up is "freedom" - his, he told me, is "relationships," which is respectable. To be honest, I wouldn't feel very free in the United States, even if I had a lot more money because of it, but he decided to still prep for that interview as if he really wanted it. The rest of my workday was spent just doing some crossword stuff, and starting/restarting work on other things, before I headed home. I didn't have many plans for this night, so I ended up just working on bloghan and getting distracted, until I went to bed.
I must have some sort of sleep problem or something, because it was insanely diificult for me to get out of bed on Wednesday. That, or I shouldn't have gone to bed as late as I did yesterday. The bed was just so warm, and while the morning tea and oatmeal were warm too, I really felt like just getting back in and saying I was "working from home." I came into work and reported to my manager about something that I had completed. The goal was for me to complete that task in the old way that our team used to, and for my manager to complete the same task in his newly made way, and compare our two results to see if both ways produced the same results. If they did, the team would transition to his new way. I waited for him to get back to me, and I proceeded to work on the director's task, trying to figure out where his version and my version were differing. Once I could prove that my version matched the results of his, he would give me the next steps. That's really all I did in the morning: my work rival was busy studying for that interview, Steve and the not-manager were being sassy in the group DM I was privy to, and everyone else seemed busy in their own ways too. Despite the busyness, we still found time to head down for lunch, but a lot of us still brought down our laptops. There was some limited conversation, but I got a message from my manager that put all of that out of my mind, asking what the results of my testing on what I did this morning was. I felt really dumb, since I hadn't even thought of doing the testing after completing it, just to make sure it was functional. Right after starting the testing, which would not finish for another 3 hours or so if everything went fine, I told him that it was "still running," and that so far it hadn't reported any errors. After lunch, it was time for the first 7x7 cryptic. I went ahead and printed it at work, on the advice of the VP, doing it landscape on a Letter sized sheet. The VP passed by as we were putting the paper up, and he was happy to see that I had printed the clues out this time, saving us writing time, but lamented at the fact that it was so small. He told us that we could use the Tabloid size paper next time, then left the group to solving. They went for the solve, and it took them a good while (more than usual), since the theme words (Gen X stuff) were things they didn't know that well, and the classic cryptic "egg equals O" custom was really frustrating to them, as it is to me. They liked the puzzle, but the interest in it was low from the start, since the small printout of the clues was so initially offset. The work rival joined the solvers late: initially he wanted to do the puzzle himself on his phone, since he missed the beginning of the solve, but when the main group got hard stuck on the right side of the puzzle, he agreed to come back and got them enough clues to eventually solve thw whole grid. Once that was done, I got back to work, checking up on the test I started at lunch: it had failures. I relayed this to my manager, and he asked if I had also produced some file with an extension I've never heard of, to observe the results or something like that. I had no idea what he was talking about, and went straight to my coworkers, who taught me how to do it, through much difficulty. I restarted the tests rounds, this time to produce that weird file, and let my manager know, before heading back. It was snowing pretty harshly, with some of the largest flurries I've ever seen, and a very intense wind. I got home, very cold, but glad that the snow was back. I started a bit of work on bloghan stuff, but then had another one of those recording sessions with my friend from home. I think I enjoyed myself more in this recording, and now it's really shaped up to become more of a podcast with a distraction in the background. We talked about 'Papa's Freezeria Deluxe' and the franchise as a whole; about ginger beef, and how no one here seems to know what it is; the uses of the word "natty," past and present; and of course, the gameplay happening on screen, whenever I could see it. In the middle of the recording, I got a message from another coworker, asking if I had Steve's number: apparently, there was an emergency and they needed Steve right away. I didn't have his number, and I shared it with them, but it did make me go silent on recording for a bit there, which I would rather have not have occured, but it had to, I guess. Following this, I hopped into a voice chat with another friend from home, and we had some fun too. First, we watched some videos together, then I got her to help me order dinner (a large pizza, the first time I've ordered a large), then we both bought a game called 'Stick Fight: The Game.' We had both heard of it before, and it was on sale for real cheap, and it looked fun and mindless enough. We eventually stayed up really late just having a blast, managing to play through every single level and then some. We played for over an hour, and it really felt like it was just 15 minutes. The pizza came midway through, and the large slices were about as big as my face, which means dinner for the next two days was also already decided! I went with a four topping pie (I had a coupon), choosing tomato, ham, pepperoni, and spinach. It was actually really good, with the sweetness of the ham and pepperoni being complemented really well by the tomato. We ended off the call pretty soon after we were done with 'Stick Fight,' and since it was so late at night, I decided to just go to bed. Before I could, my landlord paid me a visit, reminding me again about her trip that would last until January. She asked me if I had eaten some of the buckwheat chips she had gifted me earlier, which I hadn't yet, but I told her I was probably going to eat them tomorrow. She seemed satisfied with that, and left me to my devices (bed).
A sunny sky started off my Thursday morning, so I think I woke up a little easier because of it. I didn't have to leave in a rush this time, but getting into work felt like one. The snow from yesterday had already melted: I fear I have made a grave mistake banking on a white Christmas occuring over here. Starting the workday, I felt like I was already rushing. The tests from yesterday had finished by now, but I still had no idea how to look at the weird file that my manager requested. I got some help from another coworker, who walked me through what I needed to do. The director actually walked in at some point, but he saw us all working on this thing, so he turned tail and left right away. I looked through the file contents, and realized that something was very wrong with the changes I had made, and I let my manager know what exactly the error was. I went ahead with my comparison work on that other task, with my current work and the director's old work, and then it was time for lunch. Today, lunch was being provided to us by the company: pizza. Hmmm... maybe I should've ordered something else last night. At the very beginning of the lunch, my manager told me that I was probably encountering an issue having to do with things being connected improperly because of the tools that I ran, so I had to figure out how to catch that error. I recalled there was a tool that I used a while back to check that sort of thing, so I brought down my laptop to the lunch tables to start running it. I did so, and the people running the event were amused that a ton of people from my team specifically were the ones bringing their laptops down to the lunchroom to work more. I tried running it, but got an error that no one else had ever seen in that specific tool, talking about a file being missing that it required. Everyone else had already gotten 6 or more slices of pizza, but I was stressed to the point where I could only eat two. They all began to play Jenga as well, probably doing some crazy plays based on the cheering I was hearing, but I was focused on this. Eventually, I just made a blank file to replace the one it was missing, and it just started working, promppting me to finally get up and look at the Jenga game. They were playing pretty standardly, I suppose, though I've never seen the tech where two people take their turn simultaneously and yank out two blocks. I watched both my tool run and the Jenga game for a bit, still only really thinking about where the problem could be, before heading back up and continuing with work. Before that though came the crossword, being coffee themed and the second 7x7. They really liked this one because I tried to shoehorn something to do with coffee in every clue, and also because of it being printed on Tabloid sized paper, so everyone could see whathe clues very easily. While they solved this one a little faster than the one from yesterday, they had a lot more fun with this one, although they did get a little confused at the end with two words they had never heard of sharing the last letter they had to get. After this crossword, I headed back to work, finally seeing the results of my tool un reporting where the errors were. It gave me some very strange errors, and I was trying to figure out why those would be true, of all things, using Absconder to analyze the project, and just reading through what had been changed. I couldn't figure it out, until I realized that the error checking tool makes multiple reports, not just one, and reading the others showed me even more errors. These erros finally made me realize what it was, and I felt a little dumb for not realizing what had happened when I had made my changes. I smacked my forehead really hard, and it was a really clean hit too: people in the crossword cubicle probably heard it. I fixed it, ran the tests to verify its functionality, and rewarded myself with a hot chocolate from the break room, explaining the error to my work rival, who was a little interested in the issue I was finding. After telling my manager about what was going on, the work day had ended, but there were still things I had to do today. The majority of my lunchtime coworkers wanted to go to the big warehouse store today, just to get some bulk items: snacks for next Tuesday's event, flowers for old coworkers who were visiting for the holidays, and for myself, a vegetable peeler. We split into two cars, going in as a large group of 7. We took some time to discuss strategy, but the strategy everyone ended up on was going in a group of 7, traversing the aisles one by one. I often broke off from the group, searching aisles more quickly to find a peeler, often rejoining the group right beofre people noticed my absence. Sometimes they'd ask where I was, not seeing me right beside or behind them, but I think I was the only one who found it amusing. At some point, they all got trapped looking at the stuff in the toy aisle, which confused me: I was the youngest one there, so why were all these older people (some by years, some by months) gushing so much over these run-of-the-mill plushes? Maybe it's like how I am with 'Love Live,' so I guess it's alright. At some point, my Japanese coworker and I started speedrunning aisles (that guy can walk surprisingly fast) to find my peeler, but there was none. After musing about the price of beef shanks being above a hundred dollars, we rejoined with the group, which had splintered off even more. We almost made it to the checkout, but we got distracted by seeing one of the products that our employer made being sold here. Once we were done with that, they checked out (with great difficulty), and we got food at the restaurant. My work rival was complaining about the long wait the whole time, but I managed to trick him a couple times into thinking he was next. I gave my drink to the person who wasn't feeling like eating, and we ate in contentment. My work rival proposed we do this monthly, and everyone agreed. We went outside, split off into the two different cars again, and I got a ride back. From there, straight into D&D with my friends from home, ending off this campaign, finally. But before we could, we ended up doing 'Stick Fight' as a group of three for an hour, once again going through every single level and then some, and once again having a whole lot of trouble using Steam's invite friend feature to get a lobby together. I discovered the in game all chat feature while we were playing and immediately started trying to workshop all the different ways to be toxic if I ever took to public lobbies, but I don't quite yet think I have the mechanical skill to pull that off well. Once we were satisfied with that, we transistioned into the D&D session, clearing the boss fight and finishing off the overall adventure. I had planned for the boss fight to be multi-phase and challenging, making the boss move slow but hit hard, and keep coming back to life unless they disintegrated it completely. The first phase was the weakest, and the second the strongest, but they were being whittled down a lot, and I sensed a bit of frustration from them as it kept going. I think the "always coming back" aspect was cool in concept, but when it was actually applied, it quickly got old and boring. In addition, one of the players really wanted to watch the Game Awards instead of play D&D, which probably contributed to their lack of interest in what was going on. It was a series of unfortunate circumstances and unfrotunate decisions, but they still thought that the ending was satisfying, and the challenge was appropriate. There was a sense of accomplishment, even though they really thought they had won after downing the boss for the second time. After we finished up, there was a little discussion on what was next, including potential for a oneshot in December run by one of the players, and a campaign starting in January, mirroring the one that me and my co-DM would be running in that same month. We ended the call, and I played 'Papa's Freezeria Deluxe' until realizing it was two hours after my bedtime goal, after which I immediately went to sleep.
Friday was the first day in a while where I woke up with more than 7 hours of sleep. It was another sunny day, and I was working from home. The plan was to mostly slack off and prioritize bloghan writing, but I guess I felt really good about the tasks I was given because I was so drawn in towards the tasks I was doing. I was shifting rapidly between runs of things for the stuff for the director, the stuff for my manager, the cryptic crossword on my personal laptop's screen, and the stuff for the not-manager. I got a new task from the not-manager as well, and apparently I got mentioned in a meeting by the director, a meeting with some of the more senior employees. I got messages left and right, responding to them in time: my manager telling me that he couldn't get his version of the fix working himself (what do you want me to do about that???), receiving the new task from the not-manager, hearing about my name being mentioned. During the workday, I also got a knock on my door from my landlord, letting me know that for about 5 days during the holidays, I would be the only one in the house. She commented on how since I wouldn't be going out at all during that time, that I should just call her right away if something happens. Thanks for the assumption, Ms. Landlord, you are absolutely correct. She also showed me which areas out front I should shovel if it came to that during her absence. Once I got back inside, I got a message from my coworkers requesting the Friday cryptic, and I provided a non-checked 7x7, which I wrote in around 45 minutes. This whole day, I was just munching on those buckwheat chips, which I had opened last night but didn't like at first. Today though, I couldn't resist putting just one more in my mouth once the last was done. I began running out of steam around the last 30 minutes of the shift, as I started to run into complications with the new task I was given. The things I got done included that matching thing with the director's previous work, that old-style thing I had to do for my manager, and about a fifth of the brand new task. After this, I realized that I hadn't really done any of the bloghan that I wanted to, and it was still much too late to go out and get those spoons and the peeler. After very many shifts at 'Papa's Freezeria,' some perogies for dinner, and watching some very entrancing 'Balatro' gameplay, I was about to turn in, but I thought that maybe I should contact my sister and ask her about school, since my dad was complaining that she just stays on her computer all day. It was very shocking to find out that she spends 0 time doing studying or assignments, and never actually prepared for tests or knew when they were happening. I was going to admonish her for this, but then she casually dropped that she was getting above 90s in everything anyways, so I decided to be a little lighter on her and tell her to start doing a bit more than 0 minutes of review each week. My landlord visited me again, and gave me some fancy chocolates as a Christmas present, and just reiterated again about the whole absence thing. After more intense digital sundae making and eating every single buckwheat chip, I went to bed. Saturday morning was similar, where I woke up way later than I wanted to, but technically got 8 hours of sleep. I spent the morning cleaning up and making a non-oatmeal breakfast, then got straight to work on bloghan, making up for missed and delayed days. I was also getting pretty easily distracted, which was slowing down my progress. I managed to catch up after lunch, eating the last of my leftovers, and decided to finally go out and get the vegetable peeler and wooden spoons. I visited the nearby dollar store, and while I shouldn;t have been surprised by the lack of options for wooden spoons and peelers, I still felt like there should have been more types of peeler and other spoons that weren't bleach white. I roam around a little too, seeing if there was anything interesting that I might want to grab, but there was nothing really. There was this cool section where there were these pre-prepared empty gift boxes, so you wouldn't have to put in the effort to wrap, which I thought was an excellent idea, and something I might do in the future. I'm not a great gift-giver, not by any means of measurement, and I'm an even worse gift wrapper. I also grabed a jar of tomato sauce, just so I could use it with some pasta later. I checked out and threw the stuff in my coat pocket, walking back to my place. It was a little cold, but before sunset, so I thought I would be fine, but my right thumbnail started to hurt a bit, and even on the day that this bloghan goes live, it still hurts a bit. That's not really something I think has happened to me before, so I guess I'll have to keep an eye on it. When I got back, I took some time to wash them, but had trouble getting rid of the plastic tag on it. I didn't have a utility knife, and while I noted the Phillips head screw shape in that plastic thing, I didn't really think that's what you had to do: to unscrew the plastic tag with a screwdriver for a 2 dollar potato peeler? Is that really what they want you to do? It turns out that yes, that is exactly what tehy want you to do. Why that is, is beyond me. I also noticed this weird smell coming from my new spoons, so if they keep that up, I might just toss them and get some more expensive ones. The latter part of Saturday was spent finally touching my PCB software and starting on something. I decided that my first course of action should be to make something somewhat simple that I've built before on a breadboard. I don't think right now I'm at the stage where I can make something like a 4-layer PCB, or a new circuit to solve a problem that is completely from scratch, and I also don't feel like I should jump straight into that keyboard project. I decided to go with a one-bit adder that I made last year, using that to re-learn how to make a PCB from scratch. I probably won't get this one fabricated, since it literally is just a one-bit adder, and also because I'll be using SMD components and I don't have the tools to solder those onto boards at the moment. I decided to go back to an old tutorial video I had watched before, just to inform me of the steps and the process, and not necessarily the specific circuit being made. It was a little difficult to work with the designer and the video and all the different datasheets and part catalogs on just one screen, and I do really wish I had a monitor, but I still amde it work. I started with starting the project, making all the project files, and drawing up schematic symbols, which are essentially the circuit symbols that are used for each component in your overall circuit schematic. In the past, when I was first starting out with PCB design, I used to always just grab every component's schematic symbol and footprint (representation of the physical space the component takes up on the PCB) from online databases, and I was about to do that here to save time. I am glad that I replayed this video for myself though, as the creator made an excellent point of those online part model databases not always being very accurate, and that the industry standard was to make them yourself based on the datasheet. This would take more time, but I think it would make me a better designer overall because of it. I got to work on the four components I would need, and at first it felt like a slog, but it quickly became more fun and enjoyable than I thought it would be. During the process, I realized that I didn't remember exactly everything about the componens I had used last year, so I had a bit of fun redesigning one of the sub-circuits of that original design, actually using power calculations and such to do this. That felt like a good sign that it might not be too late to rescue my design skills, but there's still quite a long way to go. I ended up leaving it at finishing off making each symbol that I would need: tomorrow, I would actually make the schematic. I fixed myself some dinner (fried rice), got concerned over my new wooden spoons that I was using and their weird smell, played 'Papa's Freezeria' for way too long once again, and went to bed. Finally, Sunday, where I woke up early but just kinda lied there in bed for an hour. Not sleeping, not on my phone, just lying there, thinking about things. I woke up and made my breakfast, wrote more bloghan and went to the grocery store to top up on a few things. It was uneventful, for the most part, but I saw a zamboni and almost got hit by a car. My regular path was still blocked by this construction work on some playground which had been going on for months and seemed to expand its fencing out constantly, and I got jumpscared by a large Samoyed on the way back. Following putting all that back, I had a meeting with my co-DM to plan that went way longer than expected, but it was productive for hte most part. We started planning for the first session and even for scheduling, and did a short tangent on moose noises and her attempt at a 5x5 French word cryptic crossword, which I gave some feedback on. That will be a fun one to share on Monday. After this, I had the distinct realization that I forgot to make lunch and made some perogies, then wrote some more bloghan, random thoughts, cryptic clues, and efficeintly made sundaes, my new obsession. Once I had finished this week's bloghan, I made myself butter chicken (my new peeler works great!! but why did I start cooking at such a late hour???), ate some of it, then headed to bed, yet again at a very late hour.
Future plans
A repeat of last week, when it comes to getting things done. I really want to do more, and now that it's December, I think my time will get freed up slightly.
- PCB stuff: made schematic symbols for each component in my one-bit adder recreation
- Door: no progress
- 'A Court of Thorns and Roses': so funny story. I need to figure out how to get back more time on the weekends. Because... it happened again.
- Cryptic crossword: My pace has slowed down by a lot since I've moved to 7x7s, but British non-checked style crosswords might save me. Nonetheless, that special 12x12 is going to be a while, as are more 7x7s. You can try the ones I made this week with these links:
- New D&D campaign: A lot more planning!! Interest forms were sent out and most were received back.
- Home D&D campaign: It's DONE!!!
- Library violin: Didn't end up doing it this week, this may be something I move to the new year.
- Butter chicken: yeah, I made it.
This week, the plan is simple, and repeated, slightly, but like again (is this bit unfunny yet? because it was never a bit): finish 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' (this time for sure), make the PCB schematic and component footprints for the one-bit adder recreation, make a special 12x12 cryptic after finishing one more checked 7x7, and it might not hurt to start watching a new series.
Song of the week
'The Concept of Love' (https://youtu.be/HNy_retSME0) from 'Jet Set Radio Future' is the song of the week. Along with 'Supporting Me,' this is a song I regularly listen to focus. I love its use of sampling, especially the intro lines drawing from 'Free Huey.' It's one of those songs which can get stuck in my head, and not frustrate me and help me to focus and "lock in." The sheer funk, and the prozimity to electronic music, a genre which I've started to appreciate and listen to more and more, make this one of my favourite songs of all time. It's one song I'll reference a lot, and one of the first ones I think of when someone asks me "What is love?" I doubt that I'll ever understand the concept of love, but I think that I'll always to be able to recognize, if not understand, 'The Concept of Love.'
Until next time
While this week really felt like more of a repeat of last week, with only a little bit of variance, I still think I had a good week. It was busy, especially with work but also with personal things, but I don't think I mind it so much. Being busy lets me put things out of mind, after all, so I can continue with what I do best: run away from my problems. See you next week!
- bubbler