busybee fluffy rambles

Work

I finally have the musical motifs pinned down for the game I’m working on, and a pretty clear plan of what actual music needs to be made for it. A lot of the music I’ve made so far will not fit into the plan for the game but that can just be bonus content for the OST, so, yay.

Also it seems I’ll be writing some music system code for the game, which should be interesting, especially since I get to dust off some of the ideas that were behind Sprung’s music engine (only done right this time).

Meds and vertigo

I’ve been on Lyrica for a bit over a week now and so far I’ve noticed the following:

• My pain hasn’t changed much (which isn’t surprising, it’s a low dose and it usually takes a month to start having an effect)
• I have noticed my vertigo’s greatly lessened right now, although that might just be me having some good days unrelated to the Lyrica
• I’ve started gaining weight, just like with gabapentin
• So far I haven’t been noticing any significant bowel disruption, or at least nothing more than my usual IBS-A
• I’m cautiously optimistic

New computer

My new computer still isn’t working. After a few days of troubleshooting with the parts I ordered, it seemed likely that the issue was the RAM I bought wasn’t compatible with the motherboard, so I ordered new RAM and put in for a return of the original stuff. USPS got super weird and took an extra week to deliver the new stuff, which… didn’t work. So I’m thinking that either the motherboard or CPU is defective, and rather than trying piecemeal swapping I just ended up RMAing them both (but still going with the same models I had before).

Hopefully one of those things was the culprit, because this is getting really frustrating.

So far I am mostly just annoyed at the current landscape of PC components. It seems like the transition to DDR5 was problematic at best.

Next basement phase

Last year I finally rearranged my basement so that I could have a proper studio setup and a decent layout for my project space. But I was still using the janky crappy workbenches that were left behind by previous owners of this house, which don’t lend themselves well to actual storage or organization or whatever.

I’d recently seen a video about using Ikea cabinets for a workshop and that gave me some inspiration, but while looking at cabinets I found out about Ikea’s BROR system which seems much better for my needs, so I ended up drawing up a plan around those and I liked it so much I pulled the proverbial trigger and ordered some. They’ll be arriving on Saturday, although it’ll be some time before I’m able to unbox them and set them up since I’ve got a lot going on (including taking a small mini-vacation from Sunday thru Tuesday) and will have to do things in stages. But it’ll be worth it, I think.

The old workbenches would be a pain in the ass to get rid of so I’ll probably just dismantle them and use the raw materials for other things.

Vacation?

I’m gonna be staying overnight in Vashon for a couple nights. Sunday night I’ll be staying in a cabin in the woods and partaking in an intense multi-hour therapy session, and Monday night I’ll be staying at a bus that’s been converted to a tiny house in the woods, mostly because I’ve been curious about what bus conversion homes are like after watching way too much tiny house content.

My current travel plans are that I’ll be taking the bus to the ferry, rather than driving, and relying on bumming rides off some folks I know there, which will be super inconvenient. Vashon doesn’t have much in the way of mass transit and apparently nobody drives Uber/Lyft there either, although thete is a local “vashon taxi” service which sounds like it’s just one lady who is known by the locals but doesn’t have a website, and you just have to know someone who knows someone who knows her phone number.

Vashon’s a weird place.

But maybe I’ll actually feel up to driving myself? I’m driving down to Burien tomorrow to take my computer RMA parts to UPS so that’ll give me a better idea if the vertigo is actually gone (or at least manageable).

On the subject of vehicles

I ordered a bike online, because it feels silly to not have one. Most of the places I drive to I could get to by bike instead, in theory, and the exercise would be good for me, in theory. Meaning that as little as I drive my car I’ll probably be driving it even less, since about 90% of what I use it for is just going to the grocery store a mile away (which is certainly bikeable). But I’d still want a car for some things, especially if my vertigo issues can stay at bay for the long run.

Song Fight! Live!

Oh yeah and before I forget, Song Fight! Live! is happening in just a few weeks, here in Seattle! It’ll be at Jellyfish Brewing Georgetown on August 8-9, and will hopefully be livestreamed on the Song Fight! YouTube channel. I hope you’ll come see me perform!