Linkin Park

One of the most touching moments from the celebration of life for Chester.  Marked for future reference.

You can say I'm paranoid
But I'm pretty sure the world is out to get me
It's not like I make the choice
To let my mind stay so fucking messy.

Heavy

Jillian Jensen

This blog entry might be a bit rough (I apologize ahead of time)

So I mentioned this before to Jon and Brendan, but one of my previous co-workers committed suicide a few weeks ago by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.  We had worked together at three different companies - we were both in HR (it's a fairly small community up here!) but it wasn't like I was that close to her.  We didn't hang out very much outside of work and I literally haven't talked to her for about a year.  But I bring it up again because I had to cross the Golden Gate for the first time since she died.


I couldn't get the picture of her leaving her car, purse and keys behind in the parking lot and walking to a "suitable" spot out of my head.  I notice the chain link fences at the start of the bridge.  I get irrationally angry about how the suicide barriers haven't been installed yet.  I feel maybe a bit sad and lonely that there was no one there to talk her out of it.  I don't know if either of those things would have helped.  I think about her family and all the love being posted on her facebook wall.

I wonder if she found peace.

I know this is cliche, but if anyone out there is hurting and is thinking about suicide, reach out to SOMEONE.  ANYONE.  Hell, even me.  Even if you feel at your worst, talk it out a bit.  It might not solve all problems by talking, but it should at least be a small step in the right direction?

Anyway, I am still working through this - apparently it's still a bit raw.

Time off the blog!

On that cheery note, I completed my 5 day blog challenge!  It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and it did feel good to spend some time with my thoughts (as random as they may be) rather than my usual activities of playing video games or catching up on movies.  When I come back maybe I'll try a 10 day challenge!

Until next time!

Tangents

So my blog today was going to be about extremism.  I started doing a bit of internet research but then my mind started wandering.  So instead of a serious post, I'm going with random thoughts.

My first distraction was a word I never knew existed in the English language:  Exonym.  (I would glare at my high school teachers, but to be honest, I may have slept through the lesson.)

exonym
[ek-soh-nim]

noun

1. a name used by foreigners for a place, as Florence for Firenze.
2. a name used by foreigners to refer to a people or social group that the group itself does not use, as Germans for Deutsche.

Tangent 1:  Exonym is not considered a word according to blogger spell check.
Tangent 2:  I can't figure out what service is being used by blogger for spell check.  I have no one to blame but blogger/google?  Microsoft word recognizes it.
Tangent 3:  I guess I'm old school and I need to update my habits but I still put 2 spaces after a colon and at the end of a sentence.

Do I have ADHD?  Maybe!

Twitch.tv

 Streaming Entertainment

The last few months I've been watching a lot of twitch.tv streams.  I've always known that this streaming service existed but never paid too much attention - I'd hop on when they stream EVO (Annual fighting game tournaments) but then promptly forget about it.

On a whim, I decided to browse other streams and came across a few of them that I really enjoy.  Most of them are music streams, but I'll start with another gaming one first:

Games Done Quick

This stream is only active twice a year for one week at a time but there is some amazing content here.  The premise is that for 40 hours straight different video game speed runners run though their designated game.  There are classics like Zelda 2 in 49:31 or Super Mario Series - Warpless Relay. 

Anyway, the reason why I like watching these streams are three fold:

1. These guys destroy games that took me forever to beat as a kid.  There's some perverse satisfaction knowing these games can be beat so quickly.
2. People can donate throughout the stream to Doctors Without Borders and Prevent Cancer Foundation.  I don't know who's watching these streams but there are some insane donations.  According to the website they have raised over 12 million dollars in the seven years they've done this.  (yes, more than a million dollars raised per year!)
3. Some of the commentary on these games are actually interesting.  Some people go into the logic behind the games and provide some insight to how the games work on the back end that only nerds would love.

Raquel Lily

Sorry the last three are going to be music streamers!  Raquel is a singer/songwriter from Birmingham, AL.  She usually streams with a bass player and together they play some fantastic music - her covers are interesting and her original music is pretty great too.  She opened for All American Rejects and BoB earlier this month.  She will also occasionally stream her gigs as well - it's like sitting front and center at a concert.

Tammy_BlackMedia

Another singer/songwriter but local - she's in the Bay Area.  I like her music but her story kinda resonated with me (Probably because I had seen La La Land recently).  She had quit her CPA job to pursue music full time earlier this year.  She's mentioned a few times that she didn't want to take the safe career route and wanted to follow her passion (music).  She is still writing music but what she has so far is pretty good.  She plays guitar, piano and flute.

Sunny_BlackMedia

This guy is also a local musician but he gigs with his band (guitar, bass, drums, 3 backup singers).  He sings, plays piano and ukulele.  I like to catch his stream on Tuesday nights when he streams with his full band.  He does a lot of improv work and is pretty interactive with his viewers (he's been known to ask the viewers for song lyrics on the fly).  I don't have any lasting samples of his work since he doesn't have any presence outside of archived streams but he has a diverse musical selection.

Musician Streams - Donations

I'll occasionally donate to the musicians - it's crazy to think of how many hours they dedicate to their craft a day!  When you're not on top of the heap, there's a ton of grinding for gigs and traveling.  Some of these people put in 8+ hours of music streams at a time.  What they do for their passion is something I can never do so I live vicariously through their streams!

Anyway, if you find yourself with a few hours to kill, it's interesting to hop on twitch to see what's going on.  I ran into a few game development streams that I might follow as well...  Twitch is not just for games anymore!

Computer Upgrade - Monitors

New Toy!

For the past few years (literally), I've been playing with the idea of getting a new monitor.  My set up was a 24 inch 16:9 monitor and a 19 inch 4:3 monitor - I've had these monitors since college.  They've served me well, however I've been thinking about upgrades...

2014

Monitor upgrades are one of those essential research pieces (much like headphones).  We stare at these things upwards of 10 hours a day so it's good to invest in something that's worth it...  We also don't upgrade these things as often as other components (I believe I'm on my 3rd computer upgrade but with the same monitor set up).

If I were being traditional (spoiler, I wasn't) I would probably buy two monitors of the same brand and pair them side by side.  This way I wouldn't have to deal with weird contrast ratios between monitors and I'd have a uniform set up.  I found my problem with this set up was the amount of space on my desk.  The riser you see up top won't carry 2x 27 inch monitors.  I could try and get 2x 23 inch monitors, but why upgrade if you can't increase your resolution some?  I didn't want to grab some 4k monitors either because windows still haven't figured out how to scale things properly.

I ended up going with a 34 inch ultrawide monitor (Dell U3417w) and my life has changed.  This thing is amazing and I am going to have a hard time going back to standard dual monitor set up.

For starters, the amount of resolution allows me to do something like this (Don't judge my lack of coding skills):

I can have roughly three side by side web pages (or 2/3's code 1/3 web page) on one monitor.  And for all of you spreadsheet nerds out there, you can have ~53 columns of data viewable at once - no bezel to interrupt your flow.  If that doesn't make you giddy, I don't know what will.  I hear having this extra space also makes editing videos and such a better experience, but I don't have any practical knowledge in that area.

For gaming, having the extra peripheral vision makes a big difference...  You won't notice not having the height (because who looks up or down in video games anyway?) and you don't have to break the bank to buy a video card that is beefy enough to power the resolution.

There's also something to be said to going back to having one main monitor on the desk rather than focus on the left or right monitor (ignore the monitor you can sorta see on the left.  I'm testing some things there!)

 There are a few downsides to these monitors though - there are still some backlight bleed issues.  It doesn't bother me, but some of the corners can have a light tint to it.  You won't notice it unless you're looking at a pure black screen but some people don't like the idea of it...  Also, 21:9 content is still not mainstream (and probably never will be).  This means videos on youtube or netflix end up with black bars on the left or right since they're set up for 1920x1080 (which then can lead to annoyance with backlight bleed).

I don't mind the downsides to this monitor though.  If you're in the market for a new monitor, head down to a Fry's or something and give it a look.  I actually like this so much I may one day mount a second monitor above this one for even more visual space!  This monitor typically sells for ~600-800, however you can probably find some deals if you're patient (I ended up getting mine for about 525)

Making a comeback?

A Comeback?

I heard there was some interest in bringing the blog back...  Something about us not running into each other frequently or living in different states - we're trying to maintain some public record of friendship?

Blogging Challenges

When Jon mentioned starting the blog again, I had some conflicting emotions and thought about the challenges of going back to the medium.  While I like the idea of using a blog to keep in contact (because it's been literally years since I've seen some of you!) it's not easy to write more than 140 characters at a time or come up with something entertaining that doesn't include cat videos.  A blog doesn't blast our business to our immediate friends - people actually have to make an effort to come here  As writers we have the responsibility to our audience (all 3 of them) to make sure time isn't wasted! (so to be clear, I'll be judging every post from here on out on a wasted time scale)

Another challenge I face is that I honestly don't write anymore. I can count on one hand the number of times I sat down to write something personal for more than 5 minutes.  Yet somehow when we were in our twenties, we would write these long posts about baseball, poker, college or life problems.  It came so easily too...  I remember busting out these posts quickly whereas I think I've spent more than an hour just to get these three paragraphs done.

Why we should do it anyway

For science/inspiration, I read through some of our old posts...  Dear god I wanted to poke my eyes out.  I've posted things that are so cringe-worthy that if Alycia were to read it, I'm sure she would start questioning her life choices.  Yet I think there's still some beauty in it.  We're not the same people we were back then, but I can still remember where I was or what frame of mind I was in when writing.  It's a painful but truthful record of who we were 15 years ago.


So for the memories, I'll try to keep this up for a bit.  I'm going to challenge myself to write a post a day for the next few days to see how it feels - hopefully in 15 years all of these next few posts will be insightful and smart (but I doubt it).

I hope you guys will occasionally write too.  I really am interested in hearing from you guys outside of regular conversations - what's going on in your lives, what annoys the crap out of you, etc.