Dear Diary: If only I WERE a Mobster...

October 17, 2008 2:05 pm

... uh, financially speaking, mind you.

So, about a week or so ago, this guy at work--uh, we'll call him Gears Dude or GD for short-- told me that he invited me on Myspace to join his "mob" in the online game Mobsters.
I'm like, "Okay..." but I was a little thrown because I really don't do any computer games or online games at all.
But, I could at least join up and support him by expanding his mob.

Well, since then... I've been playing the damn thing fairly regularly.
I don't know if it's just a Myspace thing/application or if there's other variations of Mobsters online, but it's been an interesting time waster.
And I guess it's a text game versus an actual, uh, what, role playing game? There's no character online, other than my name (which is il bovini fabbrica, and about the closest I could come (with my very limited, non-existent knowledge of Italian) to "cattleworks") so I'm not watching myself running around on-screen armed with a tommygun or AK-47 or whatever (actually, tommyguns aren't an "equipment" option, I guess that's too old school). The computer does most (well, all) of the work.
You pick a fight from a list of other mobsters online, pressing a button and then a couple seconds later, it tells you if you won or lost.
Which is fine by me.
Right now, I'm 26 - 46, wins/losses. Yeah. Luckily this is all virtual or else my "recruitment drive" would suck even more (and I'm being very sarcastic here-- I don't really enlist other people from Myspace friends list at all, even though the game is constantly suggesting/pushing that tactic. But, I only picked one or two people that i thought would even be halfway interested (and so far, no takers, so my mob has just GD and me, plus the "500" invisible, virtual mobsters that automatically come with your mob when you start).
But the thing I'm really getting into, and I don't know if this is a reflection of the current headlines regarding economic meltdown, etc., is that you can buy property and develop it, and you earn money.
Depending on the type of property you purchase, you get a certain amount of financial return, interest.
Currently, I seem to be making just under $2000 every 55 minutes-- yeah... if only.
And this goes on while you're offline as well.
So, it was really cool leaving the game yesterday with zero money (well, I keep all my money in the "bank" for safe keeping. Your money accrues outside of the bank. Uh, maybe when I go to the mattresses, I check underneath them first for any dough?).
Yeah, I'm a laff-riot.
Whatever.
So, yesterday my money was zero in the mystery virtual money area.
Today, I go online, and I'm to the good-- OVER $40,000.
Uh huh-- like, holy mamma mia, right?

Ooooh, I want that money!!!!

So, while I'm getting mildly massacred in various fights daily, I'm doing well financially.
And THAT'S all I really care about, baby!

*sigh*


However, in the real world:
Well, it looks like a significant event will be occurring in my life in the near future. Next week, as a matter of fact.
It looks like my dad is going to give me the money to buy an iMac, which I'll be setting up at his house.
Ostensibly, he'll be using it for very mundane purposes; specifically, to reformat all his various notebooks that are cataloging his hundreds of VHS tapes. Each of these tapes have several different programs he's taped off the TV and he has a listing of what they are and roughly how far in each tape each program is.
It's all in his handwriting and he wants to type it all out neatly.
This is something he's been talking about for a while.
He bought a computer several years ago, a PC, maybe over 10 years ago, but he never really followed through on it. And now, it doesn't seem to work, perhaps through years of disuse?
I dunno.

But, this may be the perfect stone that kills two birds.
He gets his computer to work on updating and converting his notebooks and I get my computer for art and movie applications. I'm probably getting the best out of this deal, totally exploiting my dad's finances, but it's with his blessing, so, I ain't friggin' complaining, by god!

So, barring any awful new turn of events, this should happen next week.
And then-- and THEN-- we'll see how long it takes for me to produce a short film.
Hopefully in time for the November meeting of the Buffalo Movie and Video Makers Club (BM-VM), which I believe is 11/9.

*deep, hopeful and excited breath*

Stay tuned!
And who knows, by next week, I may be able to afford a bulletproof Escalade! (I'm back to Mobsters! Come on! Try to keep up here!)

Okay, later.
I need to go to sleep before tonight's night shift.

PS: "DD" stands for Dear Diary, natch!

Dear Diary: Man, I'm just really out of it...

... or at least it seems that way judging by my blogging output.

All sorts of things are going on here.

The news in the last weeks of the economic meltdown nationally, and then internationally, has been in my head. Can't help but wonder what shoe is going to drop in my life because of all this crap.
Prior to the meltdown news, there were already rumblings at work that things weren't going well.
They aren't selling as many ads as they like, so that may affect us, like in terms of lay-offs.
Okay, actually, my boss said (more or less), that ads are down and the owners are going to be taking a much more hands on approach to things. The various managers of the departments are going to be giving a report of where they think they can save money and then they'll see what shakes out from those reports and recommendations.
Meanwhile, my boss intimated that if there was a layoff (or more), I wasn't going to be affected. For now (that's me saying THAT).

This info was passed on to me and a couple other employees because we were in my boss's office complaining about a particular situation and then he dropped this news on us. He said that if there were any layoffs (and specifically, I think he had one particular person in mind) it wouldn't affect us three.

But the bad news regarding the company's situation was news to me and sort of overshadowed the main reason why I went in to see him.
My reaction was this: prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

And then, a week or so later, the whole $700 billion crap hit the news and fans.

I had been idly thinking about getting another job already, like, for the last several months, primarily to escape my two overnight shifts a week. If I it weren't for those two days (well, nights, actually), I'd probably be more content to simply working there and trying to do my creative stuff on the side.
But, I didn't have any real options that I was considering in terms of other jobs.

Really, I'd like to do something with film and/or comics.
But, I'm not really prepared with either (in terms of a resume or portfolio), and even if I was, the job(s) I kept envisioning was purely an impractical fantasy, like self-publishing comics.

So, now what?

I don't know.

The good news is, I'm not laid off yet.

So, I think my current game plan is this: impractical fantasies be damned, I need to work on my resume/portfolio so I'm not starting from zero if the big layoff bomb drops on my head.
From an art standpoint it first means: get off my ass and draw a lot more. Like, at all.
So far, I'm still in the talk more and do (draw) less mode, when I should be in a draw more, talk less mode, obviously.

Regarding film(making): this year I've been elected to be the co-programming chair (along with Phil Utech) of this years's Buffalo Movie and Filmmakers Club (or BM-VM), which is in its 75th year. We meet once monthly, and Phil and I are in charge of coming up with the meeting's programming.
But along with these duties, I still occasionally help people out with their films, doing whatever they want me to.
But I haven't made my own film yet.
And I'm currently looking to finagle an iMac in order to enable myself to make some movies.
In order to do this, it looks like I'm content to exploit my retired 82 year-old father's finances. I won't go into the specifics, but that's basically the situation. Actually, more or less with his blessing. But still... I feel a little guilty spending his money.

However, if it means I actually start to make some damn movies, even short ones, instead of just whining about other people's films, then I really don't care.

Alright, this was just getting my toes back into the blogging water.
And, I think I'll be whining more often here, using this blog like a diary, ya lucky sucks. Whether that's good news or bad news for you "readers", I don't know (uh, althoguh I have a hunch).

Anyway, thanks for checking this out if there are any of you out there!
Later.

Weigh-in Monday, April 28

Another good weigh-in!

165.o lbs.!
That's another -1.5 lbs.

This week: 165.0
Last week: 166.5

I've started eating Oatmeal bread, which isn't bad. Since I'm not a fan of oatmeal, we're trying to figure out creative ways to beat the stuff into me. Hey, I like the cookies!

We also got some Quaker Oats Oat Squares, which is tasty, but has much more calories than the Doctor would like-- for her, mind you, because she finds the cereal itself tasty.

I'm also eating lots of pretzel rods to get me by on the road.
The sodium issue is starting to creep in, of course.

Weigh-in Monday, April 21

Oooh.
I'm bad.
I've actually been doing my weigh-ins, but I haven't posted.
So, uh, here's a bunch of catch-up posts. Sorry!

For April 21:

I lost 2 more pounds, improbably.

I'm at 166.5, down from 168.5.

Well, that's what happens when you make a point of watching what you eat and attempting to make some wiser choices rather than just saying, 'I don't give a damn" and eating vending machine food left and right and then, stopping at the nearby 7-11 after work and getting a 1 liter Diet Pepsi, a 'monster" cold cut sub and an eclair. And maybe one of their fried "tube food" dealies, too-- I forget what they're called. They're wrapped like tubes and have either chicken or beef or cheese or whatever in them.

So I cut the tasty-ish, greasy, tube dealies and delicious eclairs completely out of my diet. I still get a sandwich of some sort, especially after an all-nighter shift, but I've been getting either a tuna fish salad or turkey on "wheatberry" which is actually kind of interesting, texture-wise. They have some kind of nut in them, too, that's kind of fun to chew on when i get one between my teeth.

Plus, Cheerios.

Hoo hah! Or: A journey of a thousand miles begins with 1(.5) step(s), and that means YOU, fat ass!

Well, hopefully this will be an indicator of good things to come:
at today's weigh-in (in my bathroom) I was 168.5!
So, I lost 1.5 lbs. this week!
Yay, me!

Meanwhile, I actually ate two apples in one day yesterday. It's astonishing that I even ate one.
With Dr. Sugar Lips' able assistance, I dug up some dietary information off WebMD and learned that apples are pretty good in combating cholesterol as well.
We also went shopping yesterday and we bought ridiculous amounts of cereal. Although, the responsibility for oat, bran and miscellaneous fiber cravings are split between my wife and myself. I will say, I was originally content to just eat Cheerios for the rest of my life, but I guess I'm getting more "reckless" in my old age and trying new foods: I bought some Quaker Oats Oatmeal cereal.
I'm not at all thrilled about oatmeal, but perhaps in cereal form I'll embrace it more.
TRIVIA(L) NOTE: I don't like coffee, either. Although, I generally make it for my wife in the morning. But, I do like coffee ice cream.

I was depressed to learn that the difference between beef and chicken wasn't very much, at least, for my current needs. I've been eating primarily chicken for years, figuring it was healthier than beef. That, or turkey substitutes, but mostly I focus on chicken.
Well, this one article on dietary suggestions pretty much didn't draw any distinctions between cattle or poultry.
But it highly recommends tofu.

So, it looks like I'll be going more vegetarian as the days and weeks progress.

But, the biggest challenge for me is NOT eating certain items (like, snacking at work from the vending machine, as a for instance) AND increasing my vegetable and fruit intake.

Gah. Particularly to the latter. Although, during my overnight shifts, the former will muy gah, as well.

But, for now, I bask in my -1.5 lb glory!!

More to come.

Dear Diary: Huh, I thought it was going to be the diabetes...

A real quick post here.

I actually have to get my ass moving and off to the mechanic to get my wife's passenger side door fixed. The window no longer works and our solution of lots of duct tape keeping the damn thing closed just seems, well, lame.

Meanwhile, last week I had my physical and it turns out my cholesterol is 390, which I guess is pretty high. I'm like, oh, nothing about diabetes in the blood test?
My dad and several members of his side of the family have diabetes, and occasionally I wait for that hereditary shoe to drop.
So far, nothing indicated there... regarding that, at least.
But, my cholesterol levels, well, that's another story.

So, the Doctor's freaking out, more or less, and I'm now eating lots of Cheerios, which I'm told is some sort of cholsterol scrubber. Curiously, it occurs to me now, this nutritional fact was pointed out to me by my wife and her mother, but not my nurse practioner who did my physical.
The NP did go over dietary change stuff, though.

Also, I've been off Weight Watchers online for a couple months because I really wasn't doing anything with it, so I figured, save the money.
But with my wife now weighing significantly less than me (she's in the lower 150s), and also this cholesterol crap, I'm trying to psyche myself up to lose some more weight again. Besides, I never hit my target weight of 140 and my 30-year high school reunion is in three months (shut up!). The closest I got to my target weight was, like, 156 lbs.
Last Thursday, before we went out of town, I weighed myself and I was 170.5, merely 1.5 lbs below where I was when I originally joined WW last year (which was around this time of the year).
I weighed myself Monday (my former weigh-in day) and I was at 170.
So, half-assedly, I lost .5 lbs this week.

More to come.

Besides, my cereal's getting soggy.

Meanwhile...

This isn't much of a post, but it pertains to writing, which has turned out to be one of the subjects I ramble on about on this blog.
One of the blogs I occasionally check out, The Groovy Age of Horror, is written by a dude who's writing a novel. Well, the "fourth draft" of that novel can be read here.

Someone asked him in the comments to the above site if he didn't think posting a draft of his unpublished novel would be counter-productive to his efforts to getting it published.
To the contrary, he cites this writer's success with doing something similar.

Something to think about, and when I say "something to think about," I mean, some info to inspire me to get to writing again.

What the--?

Well, okay.
This really isn't much of a post at all. But I can't believe the last time I wrote anything here was back in November! Cripes!
Anyways, I bought a new pair of glasses yesterday.
And I shoveled this morning. Oh, yeah, LOTS of snow, less than a week after almost everything was melted away and we had 60+ degree temperatures…
Grrrr!

Um.
But that’s all for now.

But I’ll be back and sooner than in four months, I promise!