Personal Log

Well I've added a cool Github Action to automatically deploy this site to neocities, so I don't have to use the (really awesome but sometimes clunky) neocities web interface, and can edit my files with whatever text editor happens to be handy. I may try to generate some parts of the site dynamically, now that I have a decent deploy situation. I guess this post itself can constitute a test to make sure the system works as expected.

OK so I finally finished my book, the one about Taoist Meditation. It was really good, but definitely a very dense read, full of footnotes and references. It also contained a full translation of one of the original sources that were indicated. I'll be trying something a little lighter now, ad hopefully can finish it in less time and that's the RPG book Errant. I'm obsessed with small RPGs that are not D&D so this should be a fun one. well that wasnt so hard, I've updated my Oracle with the 3 card spread. Hopefully it displays alright, i havent tested it much. I have some plans to make a three card spread option for tarot, i just need to work out a couple of details. I actually do have a working test, just need to add a few things to it first, ill get to it slowly. Anyway, i am going to be pretty busy here in meatspace for a while so my updates will be fewer in number.

I added a chance for the card to turn up Reversed on the oracle page, which was way easier than i thought it would be. Adds a little spice to the daily card pull.

I am really close to the end of my book, and excited to move on. i think the next one im going with is going to be the Errant RPG book, for a little something light.

Expanded my reading list a bit after soliciting for some recommendations on mastodon. I'm about three quarters through the Taoist meditation book and am enjoying it but also i want to get to the next thing before wednesday. just for reasons. its been a very dense book, itll feel good to finish.

I've added an oracle page to the site. I made this because I was wanting to draw a daily random card but all of my decks are packed away in boxes due to my current weird living situation. Feel free to use it yourself, hopefully it's light enough on use that the image host and random api host don't get too annoyed. i might make some improvements at some point when i get time.

I've been reading a book on Taoist meditation (as seen over in my reading log) and it's really hitting home how intertwined taoism and buddhism are, and especially were during the periods when meditation practices were being developed in China. I think it's fair to say there is no real dividing line between the two, at least in the early period. They used the same or similar terminology, the same practices, referred to the same texts, and sought much the same end goals. Most of my reading has been in buddhism up to this point, though I've read a few translations of the Tao de Ching, and it's wild just how much of what I like about Zen/Seon/Chan is also contained within taoist writings. This book has been really helpful, and is very academic and well cited. I've been taking notes on it for future reading it's just that detailed. WHile there were a few longer slogs it's also been mostly very readable and not too bogged down in technical language so I definitely highly recommend it.

You ever spend way too long looking at a computer screen and like your eyes feel like theyre going to fall out? I am getting so old, like old enough that i need to squint at my computer screen anymore, and I know for a fact i should have bifocals. That is definitely going to be something i take care of, maybe next month. It'll be exciting to be able to see again. I lost my glasses a long time ago, and my eyesight is not really all thaaaaat bad for most purposes so I've just gone without. Big mistake, don't belike me.

I just bought a one-way plane ticket, so that's pretty wild. I'll be moving from the town I've lived in for many years, back to the place I came from. I'm largely happy about it, but there are still some things unresolved here. It's fine, I can come back to deal with those at some point, but I just wish I could get it all done at once. There's things that are just too much out of my hands. I don't want to get into specifics, for security's sake, just. I hate leaving things undone and I feel guilty about not being able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. But, airplane! Yay!

Ugh, daylight savings time is the worst. I wish they would just pick one and use it all year round. I feel like i lose at least three days of being productive while my body is trying to adjust to the new daylight situation. Both going forward and going back hit me equally hard, I think. That's one of the reasons I decided to use ISO standard UTC on this website, is that it's like a universal standard that doesn't change relative to anything else. We as like a society need to all get on the same page if we're going to go to like space and whatever.

Also I just like clocks, and calendars of all kinds. I think I may incorporate a Mayan baktun calendar on my front page here at some point, in addition to the Unix Epoch and ISO time. It would be nice if the mayan glyphs would get put into unicode already, but i bet i can find a webfont somewhere that has them.

I started a reading log, over on the about me page. I'd like to maybe get through ten or so books this year, just as a personal goal because i havent been reading much lately and i miss it. I'm going to try and split it up at least sort of evenly between fiction and non-fiction, but also I'm going to include game books in there as well. I'm not sure, does that count as fiction or non-fiction? The game rules parts are certainly non-fiction, after all its a real game. But most of them take place in a fictional world, and contain at least some story parts in them. Either way, I love reading RPG source and rule books, even if I don't get to play very often.

I schlepped all my old entries over to an archive page so I didn't have to look at them anymore. I didn't want to delete them because I don't roll like that but I just wanted to start fresh again here so here we are. I'm going to try and write in here a little more often as time becomes available, we'll see. I like this goofy website.