I should be making a comic for tomorrow. I should be working on George. I should be working on T-Shirt designs in Photoshop. I should be ironing clothes for tomorrow. I should be writing a short story or a novel or an essay or something. I should probably be sleeping. I should have re-installed Wild Divine and be working on a relaxation exercise. I should go watch an episode of The Count of Monte Cristo and … work on … something else while I do.
Angela monopolizes the TV every night. I get up at 5 or 6 in the morning work all day, get home at 8PM, and Angela has TV programs to watch every night from 8 to 10. And if I don’t go to bed by ten I couldn’t possibly get a full eight hours of sleep at night. Sigh. Netflix has slowed WAY down between this work schedule and Angela’s TV-watching.
Perhaps, when my TV arrives from Pine on Thursday, things will get re-arranged. But probably not. I’m pretty sure dad will take the TV currently in the living room back to Pine, and that Angela will continue to not watch her own TV, the one she has in her bedroom, and I’ll be relegated to watching her shows or waiting until my days off to try to watch anything. Ooh, or watching late at night. That’s fun, and certainly good for my health.
Speaking of my health, I’m going to the dentist on Thursday. Gotta have a couple of cavities filled. Been waiting literally for years to get it done. Around six months since my dad took me in to get my teeth looked and and said I could get them fixed. But it looks like he’s going to pay for one or two of the teeth this time, so that’s a good thing. Teeths is expensive.
Oh, and I mentioned the TV is coming down Thursday? Yeah. TV, entertainment center, possibly table, possibly some books… I don’t know what all, but a truck load of my stuff will be trawling down the hill Thursday morning. My father and brother should be loading it Wednesday, and the three of us will unload it Thursday, right before my dental appointment. Then … then … I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see how I feel about trying to get any of that stuff I mentioned done… the art et cetera. Or maybe I’ll just want to play Quidditch.
I kinda want to just play Quidditch right now.
But there’s stuff that ought to be done. Bare minimum for me before I go to bed: at least one ME24 comic. Doing them in the morning before work is not a fun thing. Heck, being so far behind I’m not ahead at all is not a fun thing.
Diet’s not going well. I keep eating too large of portions or eating little things that aren’t supposed to be on my diet and I haven’t checked in with eDiets yet, and I was supposed to check in with my weight on Sunday. Sunday I was down to 213 from 214, which is good. This morning I was back up to 214 or 214.5, depending on which time I weighed myself. Of course, last night I made bean burritos, a reasonable thing to eat, if I eat two small burritos. And I ate three large burritos. Approximately… well, over a pound of food wrapped in three warm tortillas. With cheese. Tonight I ate the one leftover burrito from last night’s dinner. And a slice of chocolate cream pie. And a white peach, just now. Which is better than last night, I suppose. The diet does allow for desserts, within reason. Probably not full-calorie, full-fat chocolate cream pie, but … it was just one slice.
We’ll see how much the scale thinks of me in the morning.
Damn, that reminds me to take my fibre.
I was going to look into Benefiber, since it’s supposed to dissolve completely into water, be flavorless, and be actual fiber, but it cost about … 66% more than the Metamucil, overall. And the Metamucil was twice or more (depending on volume) the cost of the generic fibre drink mix at Fry’s Marketplace. And based on how much they recommend, and how awful I know drinking Metamucil is, I was happy to see that the Metamucil Capsules contained the same amount of fibre in each capsule as an entire 8oz glass of Metamucil. So that is what I purchased; the capsules.
I started by taking the minimum recommended amounts for a couple of days, since I definitely eat lots of fruits and salads and whole-grain breads and snacks, so already have some fibre in my diet. But that was clearly and painfully not enough fibre, so I began increasing the amount I was taking, a pill at a time, until everything started moving along smoothly again. So, adding it up right now, I get … 6-7grams of fibre for breakfast, another 6+grams for second breakfast (don’t ask – I work a long day), 2grams for lunch (around 6grams when I remember to take a salad), and another ~6grams in most of my dinners … that makes around 20-25grams of fibre every day just from my food, not to mention the fibre in the 3-6 pieces of fruit I eat every day, which could be up to … 4-12grams. I have to take at least 18grams of additional, supplemental fibre to keep everything moving along smoothly, for a total of around 42-55grams of fibre/day. Do any of YOU get 55grams of fibre in your diet?
Man. If I get colon cancer, I’m suing Metamucil or someone. This is ridiculous. Yes, I know I’m overestimating; I probably only get closer to the 40/42grams a day that’s double the recommendations I keep reading all over the web.
And all of a sudden I also have money to deal with and think about. Not having any money was so much easier… there was just the constant tension of how I was going to pay my (smallish) bills for another month. Now I have money coming in at certain times, money going out all over the calendar, plus having to pay for food and think about saving up for … things, and consider … ugh… so much… that I haven’t though much about in almost two years…
And I don’t know how much my portion of the utilities is going to be, and I just signed up for Cox High Speed Internet (which I should be able to set up Thursday), and that’s $40/month, plus they want a $60 deposit right now which is reasonable but something to think about, and it seems impossible to pre-determine how much food is going to cost on a week to week basis, and there are teeth to pay for and in a couple of months there may be medical insurance payments coming out of my paychecks, and I don’t know if/when dad will start making me pay for my own phone again, and with easy access to movie theatres, how much am I going to be spending there? I’m thinking of setting myself a “movie budget” and at the beginning of each month refilling a gift card with a pre-determined amount and then only spending from the card all month.
And DVDs and CDs and … video games and … art supplies … and the idea that in a year or so I’ll have to be paying rent or mortgage payments, and how to plan for that … and thinking about maybe paying car insurance and car payments and gas and maintenance and how to plan for that, how to make that fit my mind and my lifestyle choices … and all the things I”m saving for/working toward:
an iPod (now with reduced prices!)
a GameBoy Advance SP a ‘Nintendo DS’ (which can play GBA games, too)
money for the Florida trip (that’s the week of my birthday, BTW)
an iBook (Gha, that’s expensive compared to these)
Fable for XBox (aha, a savings at only $50!)
not to mention recurring costs for things like … MMOGs (Second Life, definitely, though that may not require a monthly fee depending on how much time I have for it, and City of Heroes on Heath’s PC when he gets down here in the fall, and then maybe The Matrix Online too) and iTMS and I sure would like to pay more than the minimum payments on my outstanding debts…
In fact I was thinking earlier today that any amount of money that I spend (a running total from now) on ‘big’ items (anything >$48 that is tangible) must be matched by an equal or greater reduction in my debt (from its size now, all accounts combined, to its amount at the moment after I purchase the ‘big item’), in order to allow myself the purchase. Because seriously, my debt is out of control, 21 months unemployed without missing a payment notwithstanding. A quick look-up … and my starting debt looks to be … $17,459.30. Which seems like a lot, considering my income level for the last couple of years or so. Oh, and the fact that my current pre-tax annual income is only around $19k…
So that if I didn’t eat or … use utilities or need replacement clothes or to pay for transportation to and from work or use the internet or go to the dentist or the doctor or the movies and didn’t spend money in any other way for an entire year, after taxes I still couldn’t pay off my debt.
Did you know an online comic creator recently raised $22k in about a month? Purely from donations? Anyone wanna donate? Pick a cause, pick an expense… you wanna help pay for my teeth to be fixed, great! You wanna help pay for a new computer, an iPod, for art supplies, whatever, I’m for it! You want to help and end up with product? Buy merchandise, buy my art, buy my furniture, buy my novels, buy my BitPass stuff, even! I’m working hard, at my job, at my other projects, at not killing myself most of the time, but I still need some more help. Any help you could offer.
Hey.
How about a limited-edition, hand-painted T-Shirt? The first design, (insert applause here), is already available! Pricing is complicated and simple at the same time. Each run of limited edition shirts will be not more than 20 shirts. The starting price of each shirt design will be $20 (+S/H, when applicable). Every shirt will be numbered, 01 through 20. There will be 20 designs introduced in 2004. With every additional shirt, 02 through 20, that I produce, the price of each design goes up by $1. So the first shirt of a design’s run is $20, the second is $21, the fifth is $24, and the twentieth is $39. For two reasons:
The less there are of something available, the more it is worth.
and
The more times I have to hand-paint a design, the more annoying it becomes and the less I want to do it again.
Here is the pricing/availability of the first shirt, (insert applause here):
01 – $20 – SOLD
02 – $21
03 – $22
04 – $23
05 – $24
06 – $25
07 – $26
08 – $27
09 – $28
10 – $29
11 – $30
12 – $31
13 – $32
14 – $33
15 – $34
16 – $35
17 – $36
18 – $37
19 – $38
20 – $39
See how simple that is? Even more interesting is that if you’re silly and want a particular number I’ll let you buy it for the listed amount, even if lower-numbered shirts of that design have not yet been sold. So if you want to buy a whole set of all twenty #06 limited edition T-Shirts at once, they’ll each be $25, and you won’t have to wait for #01-#05 to sell in every design before you get yours. Hooray!
And here’s where it gets complicated:
When any design sells out all 20 available shirts, two things happen. First, the lowest-numbered shirt among all designs will no longer be available. (In the event that multiple designs are tied for lowest-number available, one will be selected semi-randomly by a method of my choosing.) That is, if shirt #01 has sold from 19 designs and the twentieth shirt of a single design sells, the last remaining #01 shirt will no longer be available, and will in fact never be made. Second, the prices of all remaining available shirts of all remaining available designs will be raised by $1. Those #06 shirts would all go to $26, for instance, though if it were a multiple-shirt order that sold-out a design (or more than one design) the complicated part of the pricing, the elimination of shirts and the raising of prices, would take place AFTER the sale was completed.
As designs are introduced, as shirts are sold, and as prices go up, a price-list page will be updated for your convenience. No, I haven’t built it yet. I want to take a photo of Zoe wearing Shirt 01 of (insert applause here) to put on the page, and he hasn’t come to pick it up yet. But I’ll build it soon, and link to it on the sidebar of FYTH, and probably in the Art section of ME.
For those of you paying attention, if the #20 shirt of the last remaining (twentieth to sell out) 2004 design is the last to sell, it would cost $58 (+S/H, if applicable). So buy early to save.
I know I would. I mean, really. These are hand-painted original works of art! Certainly worth the money, even at $58/shirt!
I’m getting silly, I’ve been typing for around 100 minutes, and I still don’t have a ME24. What a productive time this has been. What do you say? You want a shirt? You want a book? Sigh. I should go to bed.
