2023 Resolutions

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

God dammit. Lost a post for the first time ever. FUCKING STARLINK.

[AArdvark]

But you loved them three days ago, is the new carrier honeymoon over so soon?

What resolutions are we all shooting for in 2023?


THE
NOT ONE
AARDVARK

[Tdarcos]

What resolutions are we all shooting for in 2023?

I resolve for 2023 to
* Completely abstain from drinking
* Not doing any cocaine
* No crustal meth
* No visiting whorehouses
* No smoking cigarettes or watching Captain Kangaroo
* No drunk driving
* No robbing banks or liquor stores

"But Paul," you'd say, "You don't do any of that now." Of course, that way I can keep all my resolutions. What good is resolving not to do something you like or are addicted to doing? Where's the fun in that?

[AArdvark]

I don't know about the Captain Kangaroo one, you can see all his episodes on YouTube. That's going to be a tough one to kick


THE
MISTER MOOSE
ON YOUR BACK
AARDVARK

[Tdarcos]

I don't know about the Captain Kangaroo one, you can see all his episodes on YouTube.

I never really watched that show much, probably caught 5 or 6 episodes or pieces total. I just wanted to use that line from the song Flowers On The Wall by The Statler Brothers as used in Pulp Fiction.

While you and your friends are worried about me, I'm havin' lots of fun
Countin' flowers on the wall
That don't bother me at all
Playin' solitaire 'til dawn with a deck of 51
Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo
Now don't tell me, I've nothin' to do

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I got a lot of problems with you people.

[Tdarcos]

I got a lot of problems with you people.

Well, as the saying goes, "That's a you problem, not a me problem."

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

No, it's definitely a you problem.

[Hugella]

1 - no more ponies, at least until they shape up and start pulling their weight.
2 - no more all-night stake-outs.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

ponies????????

[Tdarcos]

ponies????????

I think Hughie missed typing a couple of words before "ponies" in the item, "no more ponies, at least until..." The missing words being "playing the."

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I am tired of fighting the world. I have fought the world for a long time. No more.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Rather than make them for a year, I am going to make the following resolutions for the first half of 2023. I am determined that - as long as no human, dog or cat in my life dies - that this will be the best year of my life. A year is too long for me to consistently battle something, so these are going to last until June 2023, and I will check in with this thread monthly. I will sticky it for the first time ever. So between now and June 30th, 2023:

- Lose 30 pounds.
- Get my blood pressure rolling average for the previous 7 days to be under 120/80
- Get my resting pulse when I wake up to be under 65
- Work on Cyberganked every day (with an eye to releasing it finished on Jan 1 2024).
- Sell my 4-player X-Men game so I can park a car in the garage again
- Get our snow blower working and use it to blow snow.
- I want to get my parts done for 5 songs for the next Beaver album
- I want to do one full length video game review done a month, probably for RFTK

The biggest waste of time in my life is pursuing the internet, usually on sites I despise like Reddit, and I want to stop that. I am also trying to occupy my mind with stuff to get #1 accomplished. I don't get bored like I did when I was a kid. Every entertainment device I cared about when I was a child is in this room. I eat when I am "bored" and undisciplined. The deal I am making with myself is: I've been having fantasies about getting self-disciplined for years. I've gone far in life doing things the way I have been doing them. If I truly don't feel better on June 30th, 2023 after trying self-discipline for half a year then I never have to do it again. (Weirdly enough, I am the disciplined person I'd like to be when I am working. It doesn't translate to my own life.)

I just want to try one half-year where I discipline myself. Just six months. It is starting today.

[Tdarcos]

A year is too long for me

Hell yeah! That's like, 20 years in Internet time.

I will check in with this thread monthly. I will sticky it for the first time ever. ... The biggest waste of time in my life is pursuing the internet

Yeah, really, there's nothing of any use there, it's all one enormous dumpster fire and every website is a match, and every posting is a can of napalm, made from Styrofoam marinated overnight in gasoline. Plus all those people telling ways to construct explosives, like telling people that you can make the same explosive (ANFO) that Timothy McVeigh used by mixing fertilizer and diesel fuel, or how to make anti-personnel chemicals, like mixing bleach and ammonia makes poisonous chlorine gas, but it can become even more dangerous by adding hydrogen peroxide. That sort of thing, telling people how, that's a thing nobody should ever do.

I am also trying to occupy my mind with stuff to get #1 accomplished.

Just keep drinking lots more water, you'll soon be accomplishing #1.

Now, if I may offer some advice, which is worth every cent you're paying for it, is that if you really want to accomplish something, you need to do two things.

First, have metrics. List each thing you want to do. Divide each item into task blocks of slightly less than what you're capable of over a period, and measure the progress for each period. You make the goal something you can reach, even if you slack off occasionally. If you don't, you can congratulate yourself for exceeding the period's goal. Next, I think your period of one month is too long; it doesn't tell you when you're falling behind until you seriously are. I'd recommend weekly periods or milestones.

Let's take 1 example: Lose 30 pounds. If you only check once a month, if you don't lose, now you're behind at least 5 pounds so far over the six months. Catching up can seem impossible. Divide by weeks, and it's 1 1/2 pounds, which is doable if a bit aggressive. So, if at the end of a week you've only lost 1 pound then you either have to do better, reduce the goal, or increase the time-line. But you have time to change your actions or change your goals.

Second, have explicit time blocks set aside for these tasks. You can either assign some tasks to an everyday basis (like 1/2 or 1 hour a day on Cyberganked), every other day (1/2 an hour of exercise), every three days (an hour fixing the snowblower), etc. And consider the ways that you can make activities desirable as opposed to a chore (instead of exercising alone three times a week, make love to your wife three times a week.)

Each week, you can check to see what you need to improve (only exercised twice last week, have to tell her we need to make love four times this week), whether the pace you set is doable, and if you're consistently falling behind, maybe readjust the schedule (Now I discover the wife likes lovemaking four times a week, have to cut some time from snowblower work and the musical composition since I have a different beaver I have to work on).

If you don't measure on a regular basis, you can't tell how you're doing. If you don't measure often your goals can slip badly before you know it. If you don't set aside time to do them, you'll complain you don't have time.

Good luck to you.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Oh boy. Here we go

/rolls up sleeves to start reading reply

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Way too late to start for 2024, but we'll get on that. Here is how I did, a year later, for 2023.

- Lose 30 pounds.

Done. I have lost 36 pounds and counting.

- Get my blood pressure rolling average for the previous 7 days to be under 120/80

Done. It's lower than that, in fact.

- Get my resting pulse when I wake up to be under 65

Done. My watch tells me this.

- Work on Cyberganked every day (with an eye to releasing it finished on Jan 1 2024).

FAILED. Didn't work on it EVERY day and didn't release it in January.

- Sell my 4-player X-Men game so I can park a car in the garage again

Well, I did sell X-Men, but my wife didn't start parking in there. Instead, she filled her side up with crap that we don't need. Then a tree fell on our car. But I did my part.

- Get our snow blower working and use it to blow snow.

Done!

- I want to get my parts done for 5 songs for the next Beaver album
- I want to do one full length video game review done a month, probably for RFTK

I didn't do the first item, because Ableton is the worst program in history, and I didn't do the second one because of untreated ADHD.

The biggest waste of time in my life is pursuing the internet, usually on sites I despise like Reddit, and I want to stop that.

This is also still true.

Okay, we can do a thread for 2025 resolutions.

[(ᵕ˵ ૩ᵕ)━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ]

The biggest waste of time in my life is pursuing the internet, usually on sites I despise like Reddit, and I want to stop that.

This is also still true.

Despise is quite a strong word: what did Reddit due to earn such ire?

[Tdarcos]

Despise is quite a strong word: what did Reddit due to earn such ire?

Aren't they the ones who decided on excessive monetization, so that using the search API is now a paid feature? IIRC a guy who had developed an open source tool that Reddit forum moderators, who volunteer to do this, were using. The guy had to discontinue it, because under the new terms of use, he would owe Reddit millions of dollars a month!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The biggest waste of time in my life is pursuing the internet, usually on sites I despise like Reddit, and I want to stop that.

This is also still true.

Despise is quite a strong word: what did Reddit due to earn such ire?

#1. They make nothing, they rely on creators and then siphon off the engagement with discussions on Reddit.

So. If a creator posts their own content, they are cruel to that person. The consumers.

It's not happened to me but I see it fairly often. That's terrible, right?

[Da King]

Aren't they the ones who decided on excessive monetization, so that using the search API is now a paid feature? IIRC a guy who had developed an open source tool that Reddit forum moderators, who volunteer to do this, were using. The guy had to discontinue it, because under the new terms of use, he would owe Reddit millions of dollars a month!

I dont think it was just the search API. I think it was Reddit's ENTIRE API for 3rd party developers. Nobody could afford it.