Mid-April high- and lowlights

[dorchadas]

I haven't posted anything other than curry night in a bit. That's partially because it's the same old, and partially because I hit a low spot for most of the last week and didn't have enough motivation to do much other than play Dark Souls and post quotes on Facebook. It definitely made me appreciate how helpful to my mental well-being it is that I can go literally days at my job without having to talk to anyone. But enough has happened in the last couple of weeks that I can do a list post, so here we go!

• Dark Souls: I heard a lot about how great it was and thought "Oh come on, no modern game can be that amazing" like some kind of area man who doesn't own a TV. Well, fortunately I never mentioned it anywhere because I don't like the taste of crow, and Dark Souls really is that great. 25 hours in the last week-and-a-half and loving nearly every minute of it with a few hiccups (capra demon... ). I'll have more on this in my inevitable review, but it reminds me of a lot of the great parts of Nethack mixed with probably the most satisfying third-person melee combat I've ever seen. I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to play Skyrim with its nerf-weapon flailing again.


• Money: schoolpsychnerd and my diet costs a lot, since it's fat-heavy and we mostly buy organic and local, but it came up much higher than I was expecting so far this month even with hosting a Seder. We're fortunate enough that we don't have to track every penny we spend, and also fortunate in that any budget crunch we have is because of my insistence that we put a third of our income into savings and investments, but it hit me harder than normal because I was hoping this month that we'd finally be able to get ahead and put more into savings above that one-third floor I set. It seems like every single time I clear away some expense something else crops up. Linked to that is:


• Cosplay: I was really looking forward to actually cosplaying again at ACEN. schoolpsychnerd was going to do Creeper-tan ... and I was going to do Ender-kun, but I cancelled my plans because I know that now I'd only be able to think about the money we were spending and I wouldn't enjoy it at all. That's another reason for my doldrums lately. Maybe next year...


• Spring Cleaning: We stuck to a reasonable cleaning schedule in our old apartment, but maybe because we thought of our time there as temporary, we never really did a full-on spring cleaning session. This year, prompted by Pesach coming on and the fact that both schoolpsychnerd and I had a week off at the same time, we tore the whole apartment apart and cleaned everything. Two-and-a-half hours later, everything was sparkling, dust-free, and chametz-less (though we hadn't had any chametz on our house for weeks, so that's not saying that much.


• Work: It's the end of the dull period, which usually lasts from November to March and leaves me knocking around with little to do. But conversely, the busy period isn't that stressful, because I don't have any deadlines or quotas. I'm basically just fed an effectively unending stream of data and have to sort as much of it as I can, and if some of it slips away, they'll send an update again later in the year. Low stress, podcasts all day, no one talks to me...I really do love my job.


• Star Wars: I haven't watched the trailer.

Still not all the way back to normal, and the weather isn't helping. I know the sun cheers most people up, but my eyes don't do well in bright light and I associate the sun mostly with headaches, and fatigue if I'm in it too long. Give me cloudy fall skies any day.

Comments

[fristle.livejournal.com]

It's fun to watch someone else play Dark Souls the first time. It continues to be good and just keeps rewarding you with new experiences. I'm trying not to be that annoying "wait until you see the ___" guy but I can't wait until you see the ___.

Eating well is a pretty valid way to spend your money assuming it's not on alcohol or restaurant tabs. I would continue making it a priority, personally. Health is wealth.

[dorchadas]

I'm trying not to be that annoying "wait until you see the ___" guy but I can't wait until you see the ___.

I'm really trying hard not to spoil myself until after a zone. After I run through it, or die a half-dozen times on a boss, I'll wiki it and see if there's something I'm missing. So I have no idea what you're referring to at all!

I would continue making it a priority, personally.

I'm fine with spending a lot of money on good food, but I'm not fine with spending an eye-bulging amount of money on food. Usually we stick with the former, but this money we hit the latter.

There's ways to get around it without compromising quality that are just a bit more annoying, though. Ordering grass-fed meat through our co-op instead of at the butcher is less convenient, but about 20-30% cheaper.