Better than I was, not as good as I could be

[giza]

I got some of the mental/stress issues that came up in July squared away. The bad news is that I'm single, but the good news is that my relationship status is no longer in a state of flux, which is where it had been for the past few months. I value stability, and having my situation be in said state of uncertainty for some months was starting to take its toll on me. I still have remaining unresolved issues on my plate, but they are about a different situation entirely and there is little I can do about them right now.

On the physical end of things, I got casted for my orthotic inserts last Thursday. Despite there being high tech methods for measuring feet for orthotics, my pawdiatrist explained to me that in this case, the simple methods are the best methods. The orthotics are expected to arrive in another week or two. In the meantime, I adjusted the inserts in my shoes, and started lacing them much looser, and have seen lots of improvement on the pain levels. That makes things much more bearable than before. Things for my physical health will probably continue in this holding pattern until I get my orthotics, at which point they should start to improve. Hopefully that will also take care of my knee issues and I can make a return to the gym.

Over the weekend I bought The Orange Box, and have been playing Half Life 2 in my spare time. For the first time ever, an FPS caused me to suffer from motion sickness. It turned out that the fix was to adjust the view angle from 75 degrees to 90 degrees. That fixed the problems I was having. Also, I'm on Steam as DmuthAtHome.

I also installed the Ubercart Drupal module on my development sever over the weekend and was very very impressed with what they had to offer.

I signed up for an account on InkBunny awhile back, and seeing as I like the interface there, have been visiting that site regularly: http://inkbunny.net/Giza Their feature of having account preferences that can filter out specific tags is a Big Win, because it means I can completely avoid tags which do not interest me, and therefore save time browsing the site. It integrates nicely with their search feature as well. It looks like they're past 10,000 submissions, and the site has scaled pretty well so far.

I also just signed up for Tumblr. Anyone else on there? My account there is: http://dmuth.tumblr.com/ I like what I see of the service so far, in that it's like Twitter but with more "depth" (no silly 140 character limit), and like Facebook but without being quite as "busy" interface-wise. They still need to work on their social integration, though. I can't seem to find any sort of a "friends page" on there.

I've found that I've been drinking a lot less over these last few months. For whatever reasons, my brain no longer associates alcohol consumption with "having a good time". The tolerance that I used to have? Gone. All it takes is 2 beers, and I'm starting to feel happy and buzzed. Meanwhile, my collection of scotch and rum sits lonely and neglected in my liquor cabinet.

Due to better eating habits, and keeping off the weight I lost, I'm down 1-2 shirt sizes. At the beginning of the year I wore Large and Extra Large shirts. Now I'm wearing Medium and Large. I've bought a few smaller shirts to see how the smaller sizes work out, but need to make sure that I'm not going to outgrow them when I eventually get back to the gym after recovering from my current health issues.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I do hope the orthotics will have solid benefit for you.

I've yet to play with inkbunny; while it's interesting it's not yet compelling for me.

As for my weight loss I'm still wearing 2XL shirts mostly, but I fit fine in my XLs now, and any new shirts i buy will be XLs. Chef Jackets are moving down to XL, and my pants from a 46 to 42/44. It's going slow, but going! I should be at 220 by Furfright.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

Wow, a lot going on... Glad the general trend seems to be change for the better though :)

Inkbunny

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

To me, the killer features of Inkbunny are:
* Integrated digital download and print sales (including delivery) plus donations
* Multi-file submissions (think entire comics, but they've also been used for sketch pages/alternate versions) and bulk upload of multiple submissions
* A usable if quirky interface (subjective; some dislike the interface, at least at first)
* Fewer limits on image dimensions and file size than other popular sites
* Fast searching and filtering on tags
* Separation of work into pools
* Email updates

These mostly benefit artists, although the higher quality images provide a trickle-down benefit to viewers. It's probably worth a few minutes of your time to try it out, though.

The tools for moderators are also excellent, which somewhat makes up for not being able to use the filtering. :-p

Re: Inkbunny

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I think a little friendly competition is good, but it's not necessarily an either-or thing. Several people have taken to posting their better works for sale on Inkbunny while promoting them to their FA audiences, and we're quite happy with that arrangement - as long as artists make money that way, it helps support the site.

I think FA has had development issues. It would be nice if they fixed some of the more egregious security holes (//www.flayrah.com/c/fur-affinity-helps-users-fav-watch-delete-each-others-work). But in fairness, some features are hard to do well over a million database records, especially if web and database programming is not your forté. Even when it is, not everyone can take a year out of their life to create their dream website - yet alone recreate one they already spend hours running. It's a full-time job that most of us can't afford to do full-time.

[firedhusky.livejournal.com]

being single is kind of a bummer.. but is much better to be single than in a relationship that is not working out for you !

[giza.livejournal.com]

Well, it didn't even get that far. There was someone I was interested in, and we got along well enough (and are still friends), it's just that he would rather stay single for the time being.

[quentincoyote.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you're doing a whole lot of very positive things. Good for you! I bet things will continue to get better.

Orange Box

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

Good for you kitty.

Better late than never I suppose. :P

Oh, and the cake actually isn't a lie.

Re: Orange Box

[giza.livejournal.com]

You can't fool me! I already played and beat Portal.

I got it as soon as it and Steam were released for the Mac. :-)

Re: Orange Box

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

No. Seriously!

At the end of the credits there is a cake.

I wouldn't recommend eating it though, especially after what GlaDos' second part starts listing as ingredients. (arsenic, etc...)

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

Look on the bright side - two beers is a lot cheaper than a bottle of scotch, and probably better for your liver.

I spent a pleasant weekend playing back through HL2 (and its episodes) last weekend too! It's fun to listen to some of the developer commentary, although they come off as having a lot more fun than we're having right now in crunch mode at work. :-p

re: better than

[music4fun.livejournal.com]

Sigh of relief!

[athauglas.livejournal.com]

Did you play Doom 3? Part of that game's claustrophobic feel was due to the narrow view angle. I didn't care back in the day but as soon as I got a giant wide-screen the problem was obvious.

I hope the orthotics work out. I've only ever done plaster casts but the last two pairs weren't as good as my first ones. Make sure you give yourself reasonable time to adjust to them.

Inkbunny looks interesting, I'll check it out later. It's certainly better looking than FA or SF, the latter of which still looks like Palm OS got airsick or something ;p

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I'm on Tumblr (chipotle.tumblr.com).

It does have a friends page equivalent, actually -- you can follow anyone on Tumblr with the "follow" link on any Tumblr page when you're logged in, and when you visit the Tumblr front page you get your "dashboard" which lets you make posts -- and shows you new posts from people you're following. (And also shows you when somebody likes or reblogs one of your posts.)

[giza.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's nifty! If... a little non obvious. :-P Thanks.

[orionvw.livejournal.com]

I had no idea all of this was going on in your life. You know, you make a wonderful friend and great company even when your world is revolving in an odd manner.

Big hugs.

[rickwoods.livejournal.com]

Last things first -- I'll need to try that 90 degree fix.

Re: Rum and scotch -- Just because "alcohol consumption" isn't any longer associated with having a good time doesn't mean "enjoying a good drink" can't be associated with having a good time! I love me some alcohol, but the best drinks are always those that you have one of and you're done.