Phoenixking

Hahahaha XD Yeah, the series were waaaaay cooler than the movies... OMFG. What a clusterfuck. Yeah, a buddy of mine said the same thing. He had issues with games, but after starting out for himself, trying to make a game and a demo and founding a business, ... He'd just poured all of his time in that passion. There just was simply no more time for games, and he could no longer play games without looking at it from a designer/developer standpoint. But I'm not above quitting the job or outsourcing it. I have a few writer buddies I could hand it over to, or I could ask to work with other applicants, and so on... There's options if there would be troubles.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but this does not really sound healthy to me. And it's cool you're keeping a keen eye on how much you eat, but if you work out, keep in mind that you need enough fuel to make your body do the exercises. Good luck keeping up all your good habits, looks like you're doing a lot of cool shit!

I had a similar problem with the audio theater experience I made. Because of the music and legal issues. We ended up making a pilot episode in private and pitched it to a local radio station. Because of them being enthousiastic and me making cool content for them, they agreed to broadcast it, thus using their productional capacities and their license! So if you can find a local radio to publish it for you, you can maybe leverage that delivering content for them into you using their license to broadcast the underground and cool music you like.

Detox day 58."Writing gig. And a risky one." Oh damn, the BBQ went soooooo well! We made mojitos, baked some sausages and burgers and bacon. It worked perfectly! My SO played some music, the sun was shining, honestly, it felt like summer. Afterwards we watched a zombie movie and went to bed. Slept like a rose. Today I made an ambiguous and potentially dangerous decision. A video production studio on the other side of the country is making a new RTS based on Starship Troopers. I heard through the grapevine they need a writer to flesh out backgrounds and locations, come up with cool characters and write scripts for the storylines, dialogues and commentators. I applied. I'd be able to work from home and wouldn't have to walk into the studio. I'd be paid to do what I love and I've always been a huuuuge fan of ST. I grew up with the CGI-series in the Nineties. I had to apply. There's no guarantee I'll get picked and if I'm offered the job, I could still refuse. The prospect of being able to write stuff into such a cool fucking universe just fills me with joy. Even the mail I sent was filled to the brim with lingo and references. The pinnacle of my nerdiness. I just made me so happy to even be able to apply. It could be that my enthusiasm is clouding my judgement. But I'm not making a game, just writing the characters and stories. Ideally, I'd never have to touch anything gameplay related. That's not my field anyways. Maybe saner heads will prevail and I'll retract my application. Maybe I won't get picked at all because it's not like I'm that experienced anyways. But if I do get picked and get to write, I'd just be too enthused to be able to sink my teeth into a cool gig like that to think about the risks. I guess all writers are, in one way or another, masochists. Tonight we're having an online Mexican party. We ordered drinks, bar bites and props from a cool bar nearby. 2 cocktails, 2 bar bites made by a Michelin cook, funny props and a link to an online live DJ set for tonight. All for 30 bucks. We're breaking out the sombrero and funny mustaches, ordering Mexican food, tuning in to the online party and I'm even going to shave off my beard and sport a handlebar mustache! Recent highlight: Enjoying the summer feelings last night. Budget status: I hope our household budget lasts. We've bought a lot of food and paid all of the bills. But we only have about 100 bucks to last us till the end of the month. I don't want to go over budget. My one goal for the next 24h: Enjoy our Mexican party at home. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Done. -Make the bed - All good. -Drink enough water - Finished the first bottle already. -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - About to go do it. -Less daydrinking at home alone - Had 2 mojitos last night while eating and bbq'ing. -Meditation - My SO will be gone for a few hours so I'll get some R&R. -Exercise once this week - Want to go out for a walk today, but the knees still seem kind of sore. I'll probably just go outside and see how it feels. It's too sunny to stay inside anyways.

Oh yeah, totally. I read the book 'Atomic Habits' to see how to improve daily structure and all that jazz. I prefer going outside to a remote park to meditate while walking and just enjoy nature. I noticed that it takes quite a lot of effort to actually sit and actively start meditating. I guess in a way it's cheating, but whatever works, right?

I agree. I'd prefer to progress dashingly. But I've done that in the past and learned from my mistakes that overdoing it will do more damage in the long term. Slow and steady wins the race. I feel really wise to pursue this course of action because it's very counter intuitive. I'm a sprinter, not a walker in terms of character.

Oh god XD It was kind of like that a few weeks ago, but things have calmed down. No more empty shelves and whatnot. Probably because they now are limiting the amount of customers who are allowed inside. Hahaha, well, veggies are healthy! In a weird way it's a positive thing, I guess?

I guess your former addictions got in the way. Or your career, or getting a degree, and so on... Life sometimes gets in the way but only if you let it. The fact that you enjoy it so much makes me happy and I think in a way it's a reward for you for putting in the effort of trying to make a better life for yourself.

Detox day 57."BBQ." Well, I went shopping today. Bought food and stuff to last us another 2 weeks, I hope. I don't like groceries shopping. Never have, never will. Too many people, too many stimuli, too cramped a space. And I especially don't like having to wait 30 minutes outside in the sun (it's not hot, but I'm a winter type of dude, the sun and I have a hate/love-relationship) in the middle of a bunch of unwashed derelicts who keep breaking the rules and stand next to each other instead of the mandatory 5 feet (I'm from Belgium, that's the rule here, kinda). I know it's hard to enforce that. But there's been more than enough people who've received fines and it's not even about that. Just don't be fucking stupid. There's a quarantine going on for a reason, don't go looking for trouble. And for the love of everything that is holy, don't stand so close to me. Yeesh. I didn't go walking outside today. I did yesterday, but after a couple of minutes my knees started hurting. Sadly, I had to pick the wiser option and returned home. I was out of the house today for 2 hours because we really needed groceries. But now my knees hurt more XD So I'll see tomorrow about walking but I might just let it all heal a bit. But as soon as I can, I'm going out for a walk again, however short it may be. I guess it's all about slowly building it up again. I've been home for a few weeks now, and though I mind my weight, it's hard to keep the muscles and tendons and sinew around my knees strong and flexible and healthy when your ass is glued to the couch. Tonight we're BBQ'ing! I bought a small one-time BBQ set and some meats and some veggies. Now that there's some sun and nice temperatures, we need to enjoy them! Recent highlight: Watching the movie 'I Am Mother' last night. So cool and thrilling! Budget status: Got paid (FINALLY) for the commercial I shot in February. Took'm long enough! But oddly enough, it seems like it hasn't gotten published yet... But they already paid me for the media rights to publish it. I wonder what's up with that. My one goal for the next 24h: Have fun tonight BBQ'ing. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Just finished it. -Make the bed - Nailed 5 days in a row, waking up at 9! Also bed was made this morning. -Drink enough water - Finished a fruit shake, but no sip of water yet. Though the day is still young (ha, no it ain't, 4:30 pm) -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - Done. -Less daydrinking at home alone - Nothing yesterday. Though I am craving some red wine. -Meditation - I figured that I'd been missing some me time. I used to watch the Mandalorian and truly enjoy my little escape. So I've been looking for cool shit to watch so I can do 1 moment in the morning where I watch it and use that tog et some me time. -Exercise once this week - Went for a groceries run that took me 2 hours. Knees hurt now but it's okay. All good progress is slow.

I like the script. Some of the verbiages are eloquent yet playful. And I get the feeling from it that you're passionate about it, especially that bit about hanging albums on the wall and connecting them with red strings XD I've always had a soft spot for people who are passionate about something and therefor just do with it what they want because of how they feel. I hope you get your new mic soon!

Detox day 56."Walking & Talking." So D&D yesterday was pretty cool. Lots of combat and some plothooks. And my first encounter with party drama. The dynamic is off. It's supposed to be a group game but there's a few players who seem to spearhead characters who are all about being edgy loners. But that begs the question, why are they in the group then? I had a brief chat with a player, a lifelong buddy of mine, to see if we could resolve that in character. But yesterday still had a bit too much combat so there was no real respite to have a talk like that. After that session, a second player called be about it to vent and see what I think. I told them both I'd start the next game with a quiet moment to give both of them a shot at starting that talk. If neither do, I'll step in and subtly try to steer things in the right direction. But I'm not above breaking it all and just talking to my friends, without D&D or characters and tell them that some of them need to take a critical look at their behavior in game; It's not right to call yourself a hero but decide the fate of a beloved NPC's afterlife on your own; it's not right to leave the last few round of combat to go and steal the loot before the rest arrives, it's not right to not care about hitting your friends with you aoe-spells... There should be consequences to being a dick or the behavior will get reinforced. Conflict makes for great storytelling. But only if it can get addressed and thus resolved. That'll heal'm all and strengthen their bonds. If none of it happens, I'll end it early and ask them to question why their character voluntarily remains a part of the group. I'm pretty sure one of them, the edgiest one, is totally up for redemption and totally willing to. The other dude, claims to have been a village leader, but doesn't really care about anybody other than himself. They need some self-reflection and I hope that we can facilitate that next time. It just sucks that communcation is hampered by digital media. If you only have audio and a webcam (and not even all of them have that) it's hard to have deep connection. I miss our actual table time. So next Monday should be interesting. I've read enough stories about DMs being dicks themselves or people not talking about the elephant in the room. The fact that both players felt comfortable enough with me and dare to rely on me for this and opened up is both a great testament to their characters and a compliment to me. I choose to look at it like they perceive me as capable and emotionally open to stuff like this and willing to communicate and solve the issue with a velvet glove instead of an iron hand. I talk softly, but carry a big stick. I prefer the former, but I am able to wield the latter with no qualms. I have been struggling with exercising for a while now. Today I saw @ceponatia and @Erik2.0 talking about going for walks. I don't really like going outside right now because of the risk of infection. I trust myself to be safe. But I don't trust others. But I think I'd be able to dodge crowded places. To feel a bit more safe, less anxious and lower the threshold for me, I'll bring some podcasts along. It's going to be healthy for my mind and my sore knees. And my SO will get some alone time to boot. Recent highlight: Calling my friends and talking about how they feel and how we'll resolve it; working together to fix things via talking instead of infighting. Budget status: Insurance got paid but they sent the wrong info. So we paid the wrong amount, the right amount was 20 bucks more. UGH. My one goal for the next 24h: Go for a walk today. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - All good. Got a good grip on hiragana, some kanji and now perfecting katakana (3 different kinds of scripts) -Make the bed - Was hard to get out this morning, but did it anyway and made the bed too. -Drink enough water - First bottle down already. -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - Before I go for a walk, I'll spruce myself up. -Less daydrinking at home alone - Nothing yesterday. -Meditation - I guess if I take a walk today, that's going to count? -Exercise once this week - Going for a walk today. I'll try not to push myself too much because of my brittle knees.

Bit by bit man. Fall 1000 times, get back up 1001 times. As trying a time as this is, it's a good reality check for some. Don't be too hard on yourself, but also not too soft. I like seeing that your music is something that really seems to be growing on you and you keep trying to be more conscious of your habits, patterns, good and bad. Growing as a person isn't a straight line upwards, of course ^^ just keep doing what you do!

Shit. Something inside me just clicked too. Imma go shower and take a walk right now...

Detox day 55."Urges and coping." Yesterday I was going crazy. My SO and I had heard about a friend that had sleeping issues and sought professional help. She's going to send us her course via mail so we can educate ourselves more on sleep. One of the things she mentioned is that it's good to establish a daily point where you wake up. But apparently it was a bad move on our part to agree to go to bed at 11 each night. I get anxious when I have to go to sleep, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy where I lie awake for hours. It's maddening. So because of that, I was going a bit stir crazy when I had to go to sleep. My SO went on ahead and gave me some much needed space. That's when I noticed it, me being all alone and stressed. The old coping mechanisms coming back, the monkey on my back whispering, begging for a fix. I ended up having a beer and watching some Japanese variety show and some anime, enjoying the empty room and going to bed after that. So it all ended well. But it was the first time in a while that I'd felt so put on edge. I figured out how that came to be. No Krav Maga. Usually I let off a lot of steam, about twice a week. Normal weeks are more stressing, and nowadays I'm more relaxed because of the quarantine. But there's also no Krav Maga, luckily there's also less need. So if anything, not just for my knees, I should try to work out more to balance out my mind a bit more. Recent highlight: Making a killer pasta amatriciana last night. It tasted great. Thank heavens, it better did. I spent so much time peeling tomatoes and cutting peeled ones. Such an annoying thing to do. Budget status: We're planning to get a special bar bite, drinks, props and music box this weekend. To like have a Mexican type date at home. My one goal for the next 24h: Nail the D&D session. Hopefully they can recover from the dark deeds a member of the group did last time. And also FINALLY finish the dungeon they're in. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Just finished. -Make the bed - Did it this morning. -Drink enough water - Bottle is next to me. -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - I need a shower to wake up anyway, so I'll go do this now. -No daydrinking at home alone - Had a beer last night. -Meditation - Being alone last night really hit the spot. -Exercise once this week - I should make this a priority. Either tonight after D&D if I'm not too tired yet, or tomorrow.

I think you made some great points there. Those mechanisms some games utilize are clearly dangerous to people like me. My brain just can't handle that. If I had an actual chess board, things'd be different. But because of the quarantine things are just a bit more hard. I do feel like I could quit but I'd need a different mental challenge. It's like quitting my Japanese learning but it'd make me sad too XD Hahaha. I don't feel like it's a problem for now, but we'll stay vigilant. The only moment I have quitting issues is when a game is going on. I don't want to stop until somebody wins or yields. I tell myself it's because I'm so competitive and that I want to be a good sportsman. But I'm afraid I use that to cover up the fact that I'd rather not stop because of junkie tendencies. I'm still not sure which is which.

Detox day 54."Getting better." Yesterday I learned how to use Photopea. It's basically a free online Photoshop using a browser. AMAZING. I feel so happy that I have a new skill. Well, I don't 'know' it yet. But I made about 60 lore card for my D&D game. I used the basic template I found online for cards like Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic: The Gathering. Then I selected fonts and style for the title of the card and the main body of text and learned how to manipulate those. Finally I edited images that represent the rumours, legends, myths and lore into the cards, making all of them unique. I'd written about 2 days worth of random knowledge, organized it by region and type and then made the 60 cards. I spent a lot of time doing it and I'm so fucking proud. Also, all of my prepping is done for the game tomorrow, so I can just focus on different things today like cooking, doing laundry and making a huge fruit smoothie before the fruits go to waste. Another morning waking up as a zombie. We went to bed properly, though. I minded my activity level, screentime and started winding down on time. I had the feeling that I'd already spent a full day doing stuff, editing those cards. So I felt happy and accomplished while I sipped my tea and read my book. This morning also sucked. I'm basically hung over when I wake up for the first two or three hours. But after that, my idiosyncratic engine powers up and I steam through the day! I'm still paying some extra attention to the chess thing, though. I like it but it's not worth keeping it up if I feel like it's an actual threat. Recent highlight: Making the 60 gorgeous lore cards. (I added a pic below, it's in Dutch though.) Budget status: Got paid! Yay! My one goal for the next 24h: Just have a productive day and be happy today. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Done. -Make the bed - Done. -Drink enough water - Started. Already had the first bottle. Yay! -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - I'm about do do laundy, make a smoothie and I'll brush my teeth after that. Makes more sense. -No daydrinking at home alone - All good. Still have that one beer in the fridge. -Meditation - I think I'm good? -Exercise once this week - Maybe today would be the ideal moment...

I am so happy to be able to witness your progress and proud to see you do well, yo ^^

Detox day 53." Zombie morning." Day 1 of waking up and going to bed more regularly. I'm so happy my SO is doing it too because I'm not sure I could do this if I were to have to rely on solely my own self-discipline. Holy shit do I feel like a mangy rag right now. I got contacted by the Starterslab people. We're starting it all up using video chat on the 21st. So I'll officially be able to invoice and stuff in about a week or two. I'll start sending messages today about work and offers and all that jazz. I feel like I'll finally be able to get shit started again ^^ My toe hurts. I think a nail is growing in again. Tantalizing. I want to remove it but I'm afraid I'd make it worse. And I can't go out and get a pedicure at times like these... I'll try to do it myself then... On the bright side, the entire apartment is fucking spotless. Together with clearing out the bedroom, we've now cleared the kitchen cupboards, removed spoiled foodstuffs, rearranged everything, ... We are on fire! Recent highlight: Being able to rely on my SO helping me, checking up on me and supporting me during my sleep issues stuff. Budget status: Our internet limit is getting challenged during quarantine. Meaning I have to pay attention to how much I download, surf, etc... UGH. Gone are the days of frivolous browsing. My one goal for the next 24h: Tire myself out so I can go to sleep at 11. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Done. -Make the bed - Done. -Drink enough water - Haven't started yet, but I'm sure I will. I'm still just a bit groggy. -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - I'll do it in a sec. -No daydrinking at home alone - I had some Scotch while playing chess with my buddy over Skype last night. It felt very noir. -Meditation - Mentally I'm quite okay. Though I miss the park. -Exercise once this week - I can't believe I keep postponing this...

Maybe it'd be healthier for me to only play in real life. But then it'd be hard to practice, though. And especially hard to play chess during quarantine...

I don't really feel the same way though. I can start and stop it with no issues, unless I'm actually playing a game. Then I really want to finish because I want to win and progress up the bar. I don't have urges to play it all day because it really needs full attention and mental focus. You can't do it to relax, in a sense, because it's hard if you want to do it right. But I do agree with you that it's risky... I'm a little bit apprehensive of it but also don't want to quit just yet. Thanks for the warning, though. I agree with you. Yeah, totally! We even had people in the chat help determine our course of action. "Do we go left or right?" Stuff like that is loads of fun.

Detox day 52."Chess & new sleep." Another livestream that went well! We got way further, had some really exciting moments, we were able to flex our abilities and spells a lot and had fun. We didn't finish, so we're planning another. But. I've also planned my own sessions on both next Wednesday and the Monday after that. So that's 2 sessions in the next 8 days as a DM. And because of the livestream not getting to the end of the dungeon, we should finish it. So that means a 3rd session this week to satisfy the story arc. ... But we had also planned to record our podcast. And they want to go ahead with that. So that's fucking 4 D&D sessions, two of which I'm a DM for in 8 days. That's too much, man! It takes over the broadband, limiting what my SO can do. I feel like I got roped into this. I don't really want to disappoint the fans or my friends, I enjoy it but I don't want to bother my SO too much... I'm thinking of cancelling something. Maybe we can postpone the livestream or something? I've been enjoying chess a lot! I'm climbing up to an ELO of 1000 and I came from like 200. I've been winning back to back games like 8 times in a row now. So much fun! I never knew I'd enjoy something like that so much. But I do notice that old habits start popping up a bit... I love competition and this behavior reminds me of how addicted I was to online video games... Starting tomorrow, me and my SO are going to change our sleeping habits a bit to try and be more healthy. Sleep or not, we have to be in bed at the latest at 11 and we have to get out at 9. We want to have more productive days and better quality of sleep at night and I feel like this is a good move to do so. If one of us breaks this, we don't order out for a whole month and save money. If we make it, we order delicious, greasy food on the last night. Either way, win-win. Recent highlight: Being a badass Druid on the livestream slinging high level spells. Budget status: Still nothing to report. Should be getting some money coming in soon, though. My one goal for the next 24h: Clean the fridge. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Ok. -Make the bed - Ok. -Drink enough water - Almost a whole week now I've been drinking properly. Huzzah! -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - I'll do it before I skype with my friends tonight. -No daydrinking at home alone - Nothing yesterday, despite there being a cold beer in the fridge. -Meditation - SO is having a walk with a friend (safely, like distancing and all that jazz) so I'm enjoying my alone time for the moment ^^ -Exercise once this week - The knees are really becoming a thing. It's a good thing we're changing up the schedule because I really lack time to work out. And by that I mean I have loads of time that I fill with different things that are important to me. It's like things really need to start hurting and aching before I act on them...

DAMN! That looks really cool!

Detox day 51."Fixin' shit." The livestream last night was fun! We had about 16 ish viewers. Not a lot, but a fun bunch. We were all a bit off point though. We were so scared of dying or fucking up, we started to lose our edge. We weren't as funny as we usually were, also because of it all being a digital medium instead of us doing stuff and pulling shenanigans live. I ended up taking point often. I didn't really want to or be that risky with my character. But somebody needed to step up and progress things for the sake of entertainment. It's boring to watch 5 people fiddling with the lock of a door. Something you just need to kick it in and discover it was open all along so you can go to the next room/puzzle/monster... I did speak up at some point to make sure that we stepped it up a gear. We have our second livestream tonight, in a few hours. We're at 20% of the dungeon instead of the projected 50%. So either we skip shit tonight, amp it up and do it al waaay quicker or we'll plan another livestream. Probably the latter... In the mean time I'm writing even more lore, prepping stuff for the campaign and majorly enjoying it. I have a couple of hours planned out tomorrow to bite off a chunk of the work. Together with using this weekend to clean the kitchen. Again XD we keep baking stuff and cooking exotic food that requires a lot of our attention while cooking it, so we tend to leave the kitchen in disarray instead of cleaning it while we cook at the same time. On top of the cleaning and D&D-writing, I'm tackling the suction hood above our stove in the kitchen. The switch is being wonky so I'm going to have to take it all out, fix it and jam it back into place. It's tedious, McGuyver-like work. But I feel so masculine breaking out the toolbox and fixing stuff around the house. Recent highlight: Discovering we could watch a second extra episode of one of our favorite current reality shows. I love Temptation Island. It's like modern gladiators, but instead of death, they make out and cheat. It's hilarious. I also pity them a bit, some of the contestants seem Darwin Award-potentials. Budget status: Nothing to report. Waiting on some paperwork. My one goal for the next 24h: Fix the suction hood. Maintained habits: -Daily Japanese lesson - Done. -Make the bed - Done. -Drink enough water - Already finished a bottle, next one coming. -Brush teeth two times a day, floss and clean once a day - I'll do it a bit later today, so that I'm clean for the stream ^^ -No daydrinking at home alone - Nothing yesterday. -Meditation - I feel like I'm getting more used to sharing a space 24/7 with my SO during this quarantaine. There are clear moments that are mine though, that's where I'm currently getting my mental fix from. -Exercise once this week - I was hoping to work out this weekend but I start my days so late nowadays. I wake up around noon due to sleeping issues. But in a few hours the stream is starting and I'm not sure I'll have the time to work out, clean the kitchen, fix the suction hood, and so on... UGH. Choices.

Well, you didn't get this from me. But there are other ways to watch stuff if you have a bit of internet savvy 😉 Not that I'd do such a deplorable thing, of course. I'm nearing the end of the series and I'm blown away. It's been a while since I'd been able to sink my teeth into something so well crafted. Well, nobody is saying you couldn't do both? I just like Japanese more because I also like cooking Japanese food, Japanese TV, I've visited the country... I like Spanish as well and it'd be probably a more useful skill. But I'm just more passionate about Japan than I am about Spain so I progress quicker and enjoy it more. Maybe you should try it? If you like something, it's easier to grow into it more. Heck, you could still discover you like both and just learn two languages instead of one 😉

Take care of yourself! 🙂 In a weird way I hope too you have it and it won't get worse than this. I guess that'd be the best of the worst case scenarios