I've always hesitated to do one of these "30 day" challenges, I guess partly because I believe in moderation, and partly because I often try to just do things at a slow and steady natural regularity rather than forcing myself to a strict routine.  But maybe a 30-day dance challenge might be worth thinking about for August.  I seem to be in a place of pretty high interest and motivation when it comes to improving my movement right now.

I kind of...want it all, when it comes to dance.  Well, not all of it, just, many different styles.  Popping, liquid, tutting, lyrical/contemporary, Chinese dance, ... all have elements that I'm drawn to.  There's so much to learn, and at some point "just practicing" doesn't quite cut it, I think that practice has to be a little more intentional.  The good thing is that I can tell that my isolations and such are beginning to be ingrained into my movement patterns.  Comparing back to old videos from 2010, that's a big difference, although to be honest there's a bigger difference simply in posture and quality of movement, just kind of being a little less janky in general (but not perfectly un-janky yet).  The popping is worlds apart, too.  So it's not like that effort over the years was for nothing; far from it.

I've really struggled with posing and body posturing lately, so that is something to focus on, in addition to being comfortable with more lyrical-type movements.  The short and snappy controlled movements are easy to look good, but the bigger, slower, supposedly-graceful motions are really sloppy, I think.  Well, we'll see if I end up working on it.

=====

Sayuri is not =just= quiet though.  That quietness belies a strength, one that I am still trying to understand.  How is it that she would carry herself so well?  Like a top, spinning perfectly still, repelling everything that it touches.  She used to be frail and weak -- delicate and vulnerable.  Something, someone that needed to be protected, and nurtured.  But now no longer -- she is just as quiet, but stands up on her own instead of sitting in the corner.  That quiet strength is something I am still trying to learn from her.

While it was Tina Boo's choreography video that really sold me on "INVU" by Taeyeon, the song itself is really enjoyable as well.  I wasn't floored by the music video at first (probably because I felt that the complexity of the dance paled in comparison), but it's really grown on me as well.

I didn't spend any time on Rhythm Quest these past two days, but that's okay, really -- I accomplished the goals that I needed to get done, which was a drawing (still need to post it) plus a letter.  Even managed to do some vacuuming, too.  I haven't been the =most= productive (keep getting sidetracked onto other things), but I've been productive still, which is about all I can ask for.

Some days I can't tell where my mental health is; I feel like logically and empirically it's probably pretty low just given the data points.  Like, there are points that are pretty normal, but then there are the data points that signal a worse diagnosis, so I can't really ignore that in good conscience.

I've been trying to let in some more natural sunlight in the morning to help me wake earlier.  I had one or two days when things were really working out in that regard, but now I'm back to my natural mode of being up late after sleeping in this morning.  Well, some habits just don't die, I guess.

I've been spending a lot of time on VOD reviews and educational content for ALTTPR - it's felt good and I've been able to learn a thing or two here and there, but I think I'll need to take a break and just play a seed at some point, it's been a little bit since I've been able to.

Mmm...what else is there to say, really?  I modded one of my keyboard stabilizers, which seems to have gotten rid of the ticking successfully -- note to self, next time, do this before applying any lubricant.  I'll have to take care of the rest of them later.

Give me something to believe in, someone to believe in?  Right now, I'm disappointed in everyone, everywhere, but it only gets worse, since now I'm just looking for it in everything that I think about and see.  Sometimes it tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Of course, I am the one that can break myself out of it.  But what if I don't feel like it?

TAEYEON - INVU / Tina Boo Choreography

I remember back in middle school, maybe high school, when it would happen more often -- that I would become obsessed, infatuated with one thing, to the point where I simply couldn't help but be entranced, fixated on just looking at the same thing over and over again.

It happened when my brother introduced me to SSX Tricky, the sequel to one of my favorite games at the time.  It was a sort of nightly ritual, watching that grainy 240p (if even that) downloaded clip of the intro to the game, getting hyped for it and wishing that I could just play it already.

It happened for some of the glowsticking videos that I came across, too.  And okay, yeah, sure.  It probably happened with some people who I thought were beautiful, too.

And of course, it happened with music, too.  Getting "stuck" on a song, hearing it over and over again because it's just THAT good.

That sort of thing doesn't seem to happen to me as often anymore.  Maybe it's because our experiences are so diverse; our entertainment constantly feeding us new imagery, new content, new videos.  You refresh your page and all of a sudden you're provided with a fresh slate -- all of those videos, tweets, posts that you were just looking at, vanished into the aether of the algorithm and the feed forever.

But it still does happen.  Sometimes.

 Sometimes I get so captivated by a simple movement.  Even just the way that someone is standing.

I search my mind in hopes of rationalizing just what it is that makes this person's motion speak to me.

But I'm helpless to explain it.

I can barely see it anymore as something that I admire, or even aspire to.

Rather, it's something that I can only witness and behold.

 

I just watch it again and again.

...I'm not really learning or gaining anything each time.

It's just something I can't help.

And that's okay.  It remind me that there are things for which I can still feel love in this world.

(source for clips is Tina Boo's Choreography of TAEYEON - INVU)

That depression that was getting to me seems to have been short-lived, somehow.  The longer-term malaise, I'm not really sure either way, to be honest.  There are levels to it, I'm sure.

The four of cups showed up today...stable emotions, yeah, but also just apathy and a lack of motivation, which seems about right.  I'm not sure what the mysterious "way out" is supposed to be, though.

The mentored-race portion of the Go Mode Podcast mentor tournament is officially concluded; I feel very happy with some of the progress that I've seen, though unfortunately my mentees' results don't speak of it.  Mentoring was a great opportunity not only to share knowledge, but to think even more deeply than before on some of the complicated questions in the game (when do you check left side swamp...).  I created some additional educational content, and hope to continue doing so as I have time and motivation.

I only managed one of the three things I had to choose from to do today, but at least I finished it (Rhythm Quest update).  The monthly pixel art drawing and the letter-writing will have to wait until another day.  Which is fine -- one thing done is more than none, and that is really the most important thing of all.  I was mentoring for most of the day anyways, which took a lot out of me; I'm surprised I managed to get as much done on Rhythm Quest as I did.  Honestly, looking at my "tasks completed" columns, they've been strikingly large for the past two weeks, which is good to see.  The game continues to get better and better with each week spent on it, that's really all I can ask for, regardless of whether I can deliver on my release date or not.

Cooking continues to be mostly a joy; there's just always satisfaction to be had in different dishes.  Even when I'm not feeling super up to it (like my second cooked meal today), there's still enjoyment to be had.  I roasted some quails and carrots, and had some brown rice and green onions.  A simple affair really, I didn't even do any sort of teriyaki glaze/marinade like usual (the quails weren't thawed out fully anyways...), but I decided to use brown rice with a sprinkling of green onions; that really hit the spot and went with the meal well I think.  It's really quite rare that I have brown rice, I had forgotten exactly what the flavor was like, so it was a welcome taste!

JaSmix planning continues and we finally have a date for the event (August 12th).  Choosing not to host a workshop myself was definitely the right decision; not regretting that at all right now!  I'm confident that I can at least handle the rest of the event; the next big things are going to be to construct my private lesson signups and to wrangle all of my staff to make sure we have everything put together.

I skipped OHC last week, quite unceremoniously -- a rarity for me!  I really could have done it, too, just decided that I didn't feel like it.  Part of the reason was because I was originally supposed to mentor a race at that time (which got cancelled...), the other was that I just felt tired and wanted to just hang out and laze around while playing Pokemon Unite or whatever.

Taking breaks from constant steady (even slow!) progress is something I've always seen as dangerous.  Losing a good habit starts with "just one time" that you slip up; it's happened many a time before.  But I'm also learning where it's important to apply myself, and where it's maybe not as important.  OHC seems to be lower down on that scale now; it's sort of a been-there-done-that kind of feeling as far as that goes.  Of course, there's no shortage of things I can still learn through OHC, but at a certain point I feel like I don't NEED to do every single week of it, right?  Well, inertia is still a hard driving force for me, but this week it might actually be out of my hands as I've got other commitments anyways.  Well, maybe it's okay.  Again, learning to prioritize the right things is still a fine thing.

My search for mech keyboard switches has finally come to an end, as I got some KTT Strawberry linears and installed them.  They're not necessarily what I initially had in mind for the board, and yes, my fingers do miss the tactile switches (the U4Txs were quite nice!), but it's a great combination of smooth feel, nice sound (dampened by o-rings as to not be so clacky), and overall a sensibility that seems to just "make sense" with the board.  I'm not 100% done-done with the keyboard, as some ticking seems to have come back with some of the stabilizers (I'll do some work on it....later), but these are really the switches that I want to be in this keyboard, I think.  There's a possibility that I could see about lubing the switches if I wanted to, to make the sound a little more consistent, but that is quite a bit of effort and maybe not even the best for these switches in particular, so, ......eh.  I've got better things to do.

I realized one or two days ago that I was depressed...not sure if I still am, but the realization was pretty clear to me.  After a while you kinda learn some signs to look out for.  Symptoms, really.

=====

I'm shelving Cyberstorm after getting to the 3rd system -- this is when the game really starts to get repetitive and lackluster, the third star system has planets that really aren't very enjoyable at all and the number of enemy cybrids makes battles kinda take a while.  To make matters worse, the new weapons and systems that you get have lesser and lesser marginal "coolness", to say nothing of utility.  Really I think Cyberstorm is most exciting in the beginning 20-40% of the game, when you only have a few hercs, and are upgrading your way from the lowly remoras eventually to ogres and then finally to demons.

A couple of things are pretty lackluster in the game in general -- particularly the weapon balancing, which often means the new toys you get aren't actually useful in any capacity and you just stick with good ol lasers and missiles.  There is still something pretty fun about it, but it kinda gets old pretty fast.

=====

My SP Star Magic Girl switches came in and I realized (too late) that they actually don't have SMD cutouts for my LEDs, oops.  After some experimentation, I realized that even other switches that do have a cutout probably aren't good enough, I really need full clear transparent top housings (or better yet, diffusers/condensers) to really let the light fully shine through my pom jelly keycaps.  It's too bad because the star magic girl switches are really not too bad.  They've got a softer bottom-out, which is something I'm missing a bit from my U4Txs, but they are a bit inconsistent in their sound; probably would benefit from some lubing.

For now I'm back to the U4Txs and actually enjoying them, I'm also back to using doubled-up orings to dampen (mushy out) the bottom out, which I'm sure mech keyboard enthusiasts would turn their noses up at, but eh, whatever.  There are a couple more things that I purchased to try, just because I felt like treating myself to more new toys.  One thing I'm worried about is that I've already had a few of the bottom housings break in some way, whether it be the leaf, or the (really brittle) pins; if any more of them break I'm going to have to order some replacements, ugh.

=====

I made chicken wings today!  Been a while since I did oven-baked wings.  They turned out yummy, I made a couple of different sauces for them, and was also smart and put veggies underneath them so that instead of the drippings just smoking up the oven they'd get absorbed into flavoring the roasted veggies, which worked well.

=====

Sota F - Start a New Day is my new "chart to pass" in DDR -- I'm going to try and work up to it.  You know, for a very long time, I really didn't see the appeal of more "modern" DDR charts (anything after DDR Extreme).  It seemed like there were a lot of random pop songs, more 16th notes but less fun charting somehow.  The lower bpms meant the songs were a little less energetic and somehow I felt like many of them just didn't flow as well.

But I've seen some charts that I've really liked.  Some of the official vocaloid charts, actually, and then here and there some random charts that stand out as good ones.  Start a New Day on heavy/expert is one of those, I can really understand the appeal of the 16ths and they feel really good to be able to execute, though I can't really do it all at full speed yet.  Well, I can do a good portion of it with no problem, but the "candle" stepped 16ths and stuff, it's just a little too fast for me at this point, I've gotta work on pretty much everything to get better at it -- foot speed, stamina, even chart reading speed.  But it's a really fun chart!

=====

I'm supposed to write some letters, but what am I supposed to write about?  Who am I supposed to put my faith in?  There is one person, maybe.  I don't know, if I can really believe in anybody else.  It's feels like it would be too tiring to try.

=====

Part of the depression symptoms that I was noticing (also probably just due to lack of good sleep) was general crankiness.  I can feel it as just a reduced sense of patience for negative things, like when people fail to get back to me, or carry through on their jobs.  Why is it that I have to pull teeth all the time?  That crankiness in me also manifested in a tendency to just imagine negative scenarios, and remember bad situations that I have been in in the past.  Thankfully, I'm feeling better today.  With any luck, it'll last...

Summer heat...

My motivation was already kinda low to begin with, so the heat isn't necessarily really helping things.  I still managed to push out a Rhythm Quest update, along with the associated bugfixes and announcements and devlog and everything.

I took another stab (hah) at tweaking my keyboard's stabilizers.  They're not perfect, but good enough to call "done" now.  Now just have to wait for my new switches to come in and then have another dilemma about which ones to use, hahaha.

I had a whim to play an old game again...this time, a hex-based mech strategy/tactics game called Missionforce: Cyberstorm.  It's still kind of fun, though a little bit lacking and repetitive sometimes.  Games like these (and Caesar 3 maybe?) make me think about the balance between games that are informative and games that have what I would describe as "hidden knowledge".  I think the best way to illustrate exactly what I'm thinking about when I say that is to think about items in Diablo 2 vs Diablo 3.  Diablo has all sorts of interesting modifiers on weapons, things like "adds 1-24 lighting damage", to "+20% increased attack speed", to "200 poison damage over 4 seconds" or even "% chance to cast ____ on striking".  Each one of these has some intricacies, some of them really not obvious, such as how they stack (or don't stack), how increased attack speed only has an effect at certain (character+weapon/dependent) breakpoints, how each separate instance of cold damage adds to your freeze duration, etc.

I admittedly didn't play D3, but one big thing they added was a derived "DPS" stat on weapons that is prominently featured.  They essentially take all of the affixes for each weapon and then (try to) crunch the numbers for you so you can just compare different weapons on a linear axis instead of having to reason about "is 200 poison damage over 6 seconds better, or 24-60 fire damage each swing?".

Of course, this makes things easier, but it also makes things less interesting, doesn't it?  Trying to compare and reason about different choices like this is an aspect of the game that is nontrivial and demands a type of critical thinking (and, yes, sometimes obscure knowledge).  Playing chess with a ranked list of each possible move and how optimal they are is not fun at all.  I think part of decision-making in games is relying on estimations and imperfect information -- this is also what makes things like ALTTPR fun.

That said, cryptic knowledge or unclarity about how things work isn't necessarily a good thing.  I guess ideally the numbers should be hard to reason about with certainty, but it should be easy to understand how they all affect the outcome.  If you look at dice-based board games, a lot of the time they will use mechanics such as re-rolling dice, picking the highest of multiple dice rolls, or rolling different kinds of dice.  I think part of the reason this is effective is because it's simple to understand, yet creates probability distributions that are hard to calculate accurately -- it forces you instead to rely on probabilistic intuition.  Is it better on average to have 3D6, or to roll 2D10 with one reroll?  What about 6D4 and take the highest 4?  You can think about expected average output, but what if you need to think in terms of number of turns it takes to defeat a given enemy? -- in that case, it only makes a difference if you can hit certain breakpoints.  What if the enemy has an ability that restores life?

Different people will have different answers to "which is better" in these cases and I think that is part of the fun of it.  So while I bemoan the lack of concrete information as to how exactly everything works in Cyberstorm, I appreciate how there are nontrivial choices for weapon loadouts, secondary equipment, and even armor types.  Laser A has the highest damage output, but has a shorter range.  Would laser B be better?  Is it more important to have reinforced leg armor to withstand attacks, or do you skimp on it because it allows you to have more movement points each turn?  That kind of thing.

Hmm, it's going alright, actually.  Made it through the week...today was a good day too, although of course there's still a little bit more to accomplish (tomorrow, hopefully).

Let's start with the keyboard stuff.  I still haven't fine-tuned my stabilizers yet (I'll get around to it...), but after a while with the gateron red linear switches, I decided that I did miss the sound of the heavy tactile U4Txs, so I went ahead and swapped them out again, also adding a layer of thin foam inside the keyboard to bring down the sound pitch (ish) a little bit.  I got a new typing record immediately after switching back to those, so I guess I know which ones my fingers want to cast their vote for.

I tried opening up one of the U4Txs and lubing them -- legs included, even though it reduces the amount of tactility, because my main concern with them is actually that they're a little bit too heavy for me, a bit tiring on my fingers after a while (though I seem to have either broken them in a bit or adjusted to using them).  Lubing one of them did improve the sound very slightly, and also smoothen the feel / reduce the force needed slightly, so that is another option.

Of course since I guess this is one of =those= types of hobbies, I went ahead and ordered a set of SP Star Magics to try.  I was conflicted for a while as to what I wanted to try, but I settled on these, I'm very curious to see how I'll like them.

Rhythm Quest work has actually gone kind of well, I did quite a lot of work earlier this week on Tuesday; just need to spend some time tomorrow writing up a devlog and getting a new build out and such.

Somewhat unexpectedly, I decided to upgrade my system from Windows Server 2016 to Server 2022 (after a backup).  There were a few minor hiccups to resolve after the update, but overall things went okay.  It seems to handle the scaling of apps a little bit better (or at least offer more options for fixing it), as well as the relative mouse motion across different monitors, so that's a plus.  One ugly thing is that the transparency effects for the taskbar/other UI elements seem to randomly flicker sometimes, so I had to turn those off.  I also lost a whole bunch of time because I saw that windows anti-malware service was hogging my disk usage an ungodly amount through the entire day and appeared to be doing a complete scan of my disk despite purportedly not doing so in the UI.  I tried a bunch of stuff trying to debug that, but eventually it must have just finished going through all of my files since it seems to have resolved.  Maybe just some thing where windows wanted to do a full scan or something or other, maybe related to the OS upgrade.  Well, all's well that ends well.

My ALTTPR mentee is on a little bit of a break, so I haven't done too much ALTTPR lately, though I have a number of additional educational videos that I'd still like to make, plus just playing is fun.

It'll be really nice to sleep in tomorrow, the whole waking up early thing is just really not working out for me lately.  But yeah, despite that, today was a fine day, I got some work done, am happy with my keyboard stuff, did vacuuming, and even grocery shopping.  I love shopping for groceries most of the time, so many possibilities!  After cooking a lot of meals back-to-back I had taken a little bit of a step back, but going to do groceries really just put the spring back into my step as far as that went, just so many different meals to get excited about.  There's a bunch that I didn't even end up getting ingredients for that I still want to do...ah, well, there's always next time.

It's been a bit of a mix, really.  You win some, and you lose some.  That's just how it goes sometimes.

=====

I helped an ALTTPR mentee to a victory today!  Always feels good, though of course not as rewarding as the real training sessions that lead to improvement and understanding.  But eh, props to them.

=====

I had a good session of working on Rhythm Quest yesterday, but didn't really do much "work" today on anything at all.  That said, I did spend a bunch of time on my computer setup, and that has actually been relatively fruitful!

I've switched over to the gateron red linear switches on my keyboard, and overall they're nice, it probably fits the board better, and I don't really have much issue with them (they do have a bit of wobble I guess).  I do still miss the sound of the heavily tactile U4Txs, so it's hard for me to give those up, but for now I'll just run with these.  I haven't been inspired to give another look at the inside of the case or the stabilizers, for now I'm just leaving it be and I'll deal with it some other time.

In the meantime, though, I bought a new monitor for the first time in umpteen years!  Not something that I expected to do, but after getting my new work laptop I started to think about if I should get some sort of updated/upgraded display of some sort.  I've been pretty uninterested since I don't use widescreen displays and....that really limits my options.  I think there are one or two 1600x1200 monitor out there, but they're pretty niche/expensive, so most likely I would have been looking at just replacing my monitors with more 1280x1024 ones -- just, slightly less old ones, maybe with actual hdmi support.  And then I could get a KVM switch or something so that I could swap between my desktop and my work laptop.

Then I discovered the LG "Dualup" monitor from last year, with a resolution of 2800x2560 (18:16), which seemed almost too good to be true.  Marketed as a "productivity-based monitor" designed to basically be the equivalent of two 16:9 displays stacked on top of each other, the idea is to use it in portrait orientation, either for viewing documents/code, or by using an interesting "picture by picture" mode where it splits the monitor into two separate virtual displays (that can come from different inputs).  It also has usb slots and kinda functions as a (sort of) KVM switch as well for your keyboard + mouse.  Ironic that the aspect ratio is seen as this sort of "revolutionary" unique thing, when.....it's really not much different than what we had years and years ago...sigh.

I pulled the trigger on it and am pretty happy with the purchase, though it has definitely took a bunch of work to get it working the way I want for me.  The functionality is an interesting mix of pretty useful while also being jankily unhelpful.

Step one, the c-clamp mount that I got it with (maybe I should have went with the standard stand...) didn't actually accommodate my desk, so I had to macguyver an interesting alternate solution where I clamped it to.....a different clamp.  I had to push my desk out a couple of inches to make room for the arm, so my room feels ever-so-slightly smaller, but I think it's worth it.  I definitely want the monitor to be as far back as reasonable, otherwise the screen is just too big.

Interesting point number two, the picture-by-picture mode.......only supports a top/bottom split, and that's with the monitor in portrait mode.  Since I'm using it in landscape mode, the PBP mode would result in two really tall and narrow displays, which is....pretty useless.  The LG software comes with a janky "screen split" configurator which I thought might control the PBP split, but it turns out that is not the case at all, it basically is just a bad version of desktop splitting where you can pin windows to different arrangements (in other words, completely useless).

Unfortunately the KVM functionality is also a little scuffed.  You can plug USB devices into the monitor and it will either connect them to your computer via usb-B, or connect them to a different device through usb-C.  This works fine for the most part, but there isn't actually a great way out of the box to switch inputs without dealing with the little physical menu knob on the side of the panel (which is a little annoying).

You can download this "dual control" software from LG, but instead of actually controlling the monitor's input switching or PBP at a hardware level, it's....just a jank version of mouse/keyboard sharing over LAN/wi-fi.

Fortunately, after a bunch of twiddling around, I have actually come up with pretty good solutions (so far) for everything that I =actually= want to do.  The monitor itself is very nice for me, it's a big 28" display with an excellent shape for my uses.  The usb-c connection is particularly nice as it lets me hook up to my macbook pro for work, have the usb devices pass through it, AND charge it at the same time.

For switching inputs, some people doing god's work have managed to reverse-engineer a way to switch the input selection through software.  Unfortunately, it's a bit of a hack since LG's monitors apparently don't actually use the normal channel/message for that, and as a result that's only been implemented on the OSX side, and even then, I can't assign a hotkey to it.  But when I'm working on my OSX machine, I can at least switch to windows via software.

I then discovered that if I just disable the display on the windows side (which I can do via a script), the monitor will automatically switch back to the USB-C side.  So I can actually switch back to OSX via software too.  I have a USB hub connected to the monitor, so when I switch between my two machines, my keyboard, mouse, microphone, and webcam (which is an old iphone) switch along-side of it.  I also set up my own keyboard/mouse sharing...

So now I have my work laptop running in clamshell mode, and normally I run the new big LG monitor, plus my two other monitors, all displaying content from my PC Desktop.  But then I can switch the LG monitor in the middle to show the macbook, plus my devices will switch over as well.  =And= while I'm in that mode, if I move my cursor over, I can still control my PC (over the wi-fi/LAN connection) as well.  So I can continue playing music from my PC or do other things there too.  I even have the macbook playing audio through both the macbook speakers as well as the LG monitor speakers at the same time, haha.  Anyways, lots of tinkering!  There were definitely some annoying stumbles along the way, but I'm starting to be really pleased at the end result, I think it's going to end up feeling really nice.

=====

Unfortunately I seem to have not taken care of myself that well physically this weekend though.  Hopeflly I don't end up paying too much for that.  Well, tomorrow is another day...let's try and get both some good work and some good play done tomorrow.

I mean, I dunno....yeah, I dunno.

=====

Okay, so my new keyboard arrived -- a Gamakay K87 with a TKL layout and beautiful RGB lighting.  It doesn't quite have the nice "pastel pink" aesthetic as my previous board, but it's much nicer overall -- hotswappable switches, looks a bit fancier overall with its acrylic case, and of course the RGB which is one of the main reasons I got it; I felt like it would go pretty nicely with my pastel pom jelly keycaps.

Surprisingly I'm torn as to whether I prefer linear or tactile switches in this board.  I had ordered a set of gazzew U4Txs, which are certainly much more tactile / "snappy" / firm than those old cherry brown switches in my old board, but I also ordered the new board stock with gateron reds and I sort of like the feel of those two (who knew?).  That said, I like the sound of the U4Txs, that sort of nice thocky typing sound is kind of nice, though maybe it's edging on being a bit too tiring on my fingers.  For now I have the tactiles installed so I can really get a nice feel for them, but I'm going to swap them out for the gateron reds again in the next couple of days and compare to see which one I truly like more.  My initial guess is that it's going to be the linears, but I'm not 100% sure, which is why I'm test driving both.

The stabilizers took a lot of fiddling around with, and I think I can still make them a little bit better -- though they already are worlds better than they were stock.  There's still a little bit of ticking for some of them; I may have to see if the wires are properly balanced, or just add some additional tape / do some more modding.  I was tearing my hair out trying to get the spacebar working -- it was getting stuck down when I depressed it, and I was trying to debug my stabilizer mods / tape / etc. to no avail, until I realized the real issue, which was the pom jelly keycap!  It was slighly bent out of shape, which was enough to put force on the stabilizer stems and cause enough friction to get the key stuck, especially with the U4Txs that have the (silent) bump on the upstroke.  I was able to fix that up with some hot water, thankfully, but the space bar still feels a little "heavy" or sticky coming up, probably again due to the keycap not being quiiite big enough.  I suspect that's another thing that will be a little better with the gateron reds.

Something else that I also noticed on the U4Txs is a very slight "squeak".  I fiddled around a bit and realized just recently while typing this that this isn't actually due to the keycap or even the internals of the switch, but rather the switch squeaking against the board / socket!  I was able to fix one of them with some light lube on the socket itself, but I probably won't bother doing that in general unless I actually decide to go with these U4Txs in the end, no point in worrying about it if I'm just going to use the reds anyways (which don't have this issue).

Anyways, it's been fun.  Certainly worth the wait.

=====

Upgrading my station isn't over yet, either, as I decided to pull the trigger on buying my first new monitor in.....I can't even remember how long, probably 10 years?  I'm still using my two trusty 19" 1280x1024 screens, and wasn't planning on changing that, but now that I'm getting a new laptop for work, I was thinking about KVM switches or something, and wondering if I should upgrade to something that actually has HDMI input, etc etc.  After checking out a few options I stumbled upon the LG "Dualup" monitor which is actually 2880x2560 and 28"...at 18:16, that's even more square than my current 5:4 screens!  The Dualup is designed to be used in portrait mode, which looks really funny to me (I guess it would make sense if you have two of them...?), but I'll use mine in landscape mode as a primary monitor, probably with one (two?) of my other monitors on the side.  Besides the obvious increase in screen realestate (without compromising my nice aspect ratio), something else that's nice is the built-in KVM functionality, which should in theory be good for switching between two machines.

Of course, I got a desk from IKEA (along with building my own monitor stand) specifically to accommodate my current two screens, so before I pulled the trigger I needed to see if I could actually manage to get it to fit with my current setup somehow.  I ended up adding another small table off to the side of my desk and putting one of my two (huge) speakers there, which seems like it'll do quite nicely.  I had to move some other things around in my room to accommodate the change, but honestly I liked those other changes too; overall I think this is how my room should have been to begin with.  While I was moving things around I tried to do some closet organization too, trying to push some things more into compact storage and free up room for slightly-more-organized storage.  There's still more stuff that could be pushed around and moved around to make my displays and such nicer, but one step at a time, eh?

=====

So, all that has been good, I guess.  There's been some not-as-good too.  My ALTTPR mentee can't seem to catch a break, which makes me sad to see.  And then there's the social dance stuff.  I realized recently that I haven't actually been having much fun at the dance stuff.  It's been a bit enlightening, admittedly, so I am thankful for that.  I think before whenever I didn't have fun at dance I had always assumed it was sort of my "fault", that I could just try harder, or be in a better mood, or whatever.  But there's this realization that I started to have, that I really shouldn't have to force myself to do anything, least of all something that doesn't make me happy or that I don't want to do.

There's all these thoughts that I've had over the years about asking people (or not asking people) to dance at these social dance events.  I think there's always been this base assumption that asking people to dance would make me happy, but sometimes I really didn't feel like it, I either had to sit with it and make peace with that, or just push and force myself to do it.  But I think more recently I've become conscious of the fact that sometimes, it's not actually going to make me happy if I ask people to dance.  Again, why force myself to do something that isn't actually going to bring me joy?  Yes, of course, there is something to be said for sticking to what I've always done in the past, and giving things a second chance.  But I think, for both asking people to dance, and also socializing with people, I began to realize that maybe I was making a bigger deal out of it than it deserved to be.  Maybe this wasn't actually important in my life after all.

I mean, I guess that probably reads pretty terribly, but I don't mean to say that I hate dance or anything, more just that I'm finding my own balance and peace.  Lord knows I've already outlasted countless other people who left the scene at the first sign that things were not fun for them, I think at this point I deserve to be cut some slack for not going at it 100%, okay?

I had been stressing out a bit over what I'm going to teach in my JaSmix workshop, until I realized that it's my own event, I can do whatever I want, including =not= teaching a workshop.  Like I had discovered above, there's no sense in forcing myself to do something if I'm not truly going to enjoy it, right?  Maybe if something comes to me and I feel like it, then sure, but I've got my hands full enough trying to pull teeth getting the room reservation to happen...I should just focus on balance and make sure that I'm not burning myself out.  At worst, it's egotistical to think that I have some "responsibility" to uphold in order to teach the community at large.  At best, it's simply not necessary.

=====

I played a bunch of unranked melee today.  That was a mistake, haha, it definitely didn't bring me as much happiness as it was worth.  But I had just finished cleaning up my room and such, and felt like just chillaxing with something easy.  Next time I had better just run some ALTTPR or play some Caesar 3 instead or whatever.