Ravings of an Undead Cheese Minion

Quick and fast. First off, it's been a weird few weeks for me. I still haven't left California after coming here after my layoff. I'll need to next week. But weirdly, despite the occasional conflict over "why are you not married yet, you need to get an in person job and go to FHE", it's peaceful here.  Still unhappy though. Nothing is going the way I'd hoped in my life. I should bounce back, I should say "you will not break me" and go hard, but I cannot seem to. Only for personal projects now. My trust in jobs and companies is gone forever and my interest in reality / the "real world" as a concept continues to decrease rapidly. The temptation to just mentally check out is strong. I have the ability to be extremely functional methodically while my mind is living completely detached from reality (deep within a fantasy) and I might enter that mode again soon.  Also the marine layer is both cool and depressing.  And I'm procrastinating ...

This does not surprise me .  Software engineering is so bad compared to the actual rigor and discipline of traditional engineering. The beautiful and fascinating world of code has been infiltrated by business bros and finance bros. This has caused managers to breathe down your neck trying to make you code faster, causing you to ship slop code that's poorly tested and not up to standard. AI is super useful for actual software engineering, but then you realize that 5000 LinkedIn bros are "vibe coding" their own shitty Unity slop without even looking at the code, then smirking at SWEs because they think we're toast and they won't have to pay us anymore. And then they sling the slop over the wall to prod.  Then management, being filled with dumb business bros who have never felt true passion, decides to make some "tough company decisions" and cut half the team.  The industry is going to have what's coming to it. I'm NOT saying to do something stupid ...

For me, trying to see the bottom two has sucked. However, I've seen the top four for a LONG time. And you know what else? Most days I didn't eat vegetables. And by most days, I mean I maybe had veggies like once a week at most  and that was while attempting to pick them out of the food lol I ate out multiple times a week  I ate apple cider donuts and rice a Roni and Mac and cheese and pizza  I just tracked my macros, micros, and calories. Weighed myself, weighed my food, and tracked workouts (running, lifting, walking, and prehab) using my smart watch. Apple watch even. Not Garmin. That's it. I was like...mildly hungry on weekdays for a year and when I was, I slammed Gatorade Zero.  Also, I've been kinda lazy with my eating this week since I'm with my family. And I'm still seeing my abs.  It's just math, man. It's all math. There's nothing beyond that.  I do NOT "eat clean". I have sensory issues which make it extremely difficult, so I simp...

Senior Software Development Engineer Your Mom Dot Com Industries Fully Remote Also, 100% In Person in Austin, Colorado Your Mom Dot Com Industries is the best place ever! You get free happy-ending massages, catered meals, Golden Corral every Saturday, and therapy pitbulls. Wow! At YMDC, we truly believe in our slogan, Your Mom is Always Right. We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to work on our Shart.io platform for your mom's crapped capris. We seek a Sharter whose identity has been wrapped up in shart.io ever since they were in Huggies. Duties: - Work in an exciting, fast paced, high pressure environment with someone's out of shape father breathing heavily down your neck - HIGH PRESSURE - did I mention HIGH PRESSURE and FAST PACED - Participate in our on-call rotation, taking calls at 3 am and on the beach on your trip to Bali. - mentor junior engineers (that we will lay off later)  - work 40-50 hours a day!  - Fix some Angular forms or something I don't give a fuck...

I don't know whether I'm determined to succeed or even more deflated than before. Somehow, it's both. I'm going to master 3d art and 3d programming and yet also I'm thinking about Kittie and Avatar.  I thought I found what I always wanted - bear with me.  The blood is on your hands.  Like I hate seeing the credits and going "I understand each of these departments. I want to be on this. I NEED to be on this." I would've just stayed there forever. I don't need the ladder. I don't WANT the ladder. I don't care. I just want to master art and code. 

I hate this Screaming, "Fuck patience" - Tyler the Creator I'm tired of doomscrolling 550 jobs and seeing things like  If you excel in browser technologies and platform architecture, this is your next challenge! No. Like, what? That's such a weird thing to say. Who excels in that?  I will become the unicorn I always wanted to be.  I will not spend hours doomscrolling job boards. I will hit my daily quotas but I will not waste time. Onto actually building my skills. 

Haven't cruised since 2017-18 (over New Year's) and my parents paid for it then since we all went together. That's, well, probably not going to happen again now that I'm well past undergrad. :p But when I'm not freaking unemployed... Think about a nice Royal ship: Water slides! Pools!  Hot tubs! (I think) Bookstores! Hot weather! A park you can walk around in! And read books in.  Lifting at the gym! Going to cool islands! Especially CoCo Cay! Running with a view of the sea + trying not to fall on your face! Dying of norovirus on the toilet in excruciating agony with flooding in both the attic AND the basement -  Oh wait.  But yeah, at least while funemployed you can look up cruises you are 100% not taking, all while dying on the toilet. 

Taste my own tears. I felt the same when you were staring at me, with no regrets.  I'm all alone, hunted and weak. But I'm stronger than you may decide.  - The Lust, Dear Diary

Yesterday I did SFMM with no Fast Lane (because #FUNEMPLOYMENT, I am NOT having fun) and it was wicked. 98F but without my knowledge of how to navigate Lagoon in the heat and only the river rapids ride open for water attractions, which I didn't do.  11 rides from 10:30 (well, more like 10:50) to 6 (more like 6:15). No purchases except lunch because #FUNEMPLOYMENT (I am NOT having fun).  Cherry Hill, Splash Summit, and Cowabunga Bay have all released their summer 2026 hours. Not sure if I'm going to buy a pass to SCERA because #funemployment (I am NOT having fun). Lagoon is still slacking on the Lagoon a Beach hours specifically but we know the regular park hours and they need to hurry up and fix their Cloudflare. 

  I thought I found what I always wanted  I got what I wanted  I got just what I always wanted.  - Kittie In a way I did find what I always wanted at DreamWorks. Or so I thought. I thought I'd be there forever. Laid off, landed somewhere else, laid off again.  No more faith in tech. It's gone. 

But we are IN. If I don't have a job by 2027 we will have a lot more serious problems than just being able to hang out with mickey for a weekend.  Pro-tip: caffeinate your Macbook once you're in the queue and have the dang thing PLUGGED. IN.  And don't predict your real time right away. You can fix that later. Instead, pretend you're gonna run it in 5 hours so you don't need POT as this is a waste of time. Remember, there is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy, and there are no cart holds in RunDisney. (Santa Claus is real though. Jussayin) iPad Pro: Safari iPhone 14: chrome  MacBook Pro: Safari, Chrome, Firefox + 1 private for each  Windows PC: Chrome, Edge, Avast Secure Browser + 1 private for each  I'm pretty sure we got in via the incognito Chrome on my windows PC but I was in the ZONE. I thrive on this stuff. It's my inner competitive streak. PWN THE N00BZ like it's 2010 again.  I had to remote into my PC using Chrome Remote Desktop because I...

why?  It's crap. It's extreme crap. The whole course after the customer support module is AI slop. The quizzes are badly formatted -- short answers that want hardcoded strings -- tons of typos. No, no, no, no.  I pushed for months and eventually realized that investing time into it was counterproductive.  I have already bought a "Learn computer repair" course on Udemy which should be roughly similar to what Dell was supposed  to teach me, in addition to Tech+ and A+, which are also on my learning path.  Apple's support certificate makes way more sense because, you know. it's Apple. And therefore it's actually good. I was already going to do it. 

Matiks has been throwing me division sometimes, I didn't get it this time, but I fumbled the last multiplication problem and this was the result: narrow victory by 1 point 😵

I have to remind myself that THIS is why I do what I do. Take out any pillar, and the whole thing collapses. But stay the course, and no one can stop me. No company can take this away from me.  Fitness too: Boston qualifier  Visible muscle. 

in this post, I announce my inevitable exit from the corporate world.  Not now, because I still need funding. I unfortunately need a new job.  But I'm done after that. After this next job, once I can actually fund myself -- if I lose the job yet again, I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm tired of being a spreadsheet item. I work my ass off every single day  to learn computer science, cybersecurity, mathematics, engineering, and physics. And music, art, and writing. At work, I wrote the entire documentation, automation, deployment scripting, QA testing docs and standards, unit tests, pipeline runners, I reduced deployment time from 5 hours to 2 hours, and I got cut off anyway and all my stuff was instantly deactivated. Why - Because some sociopathic, elderly, uncaring business bro with no drive or passion for learning or loving anything other than money cuts me off and forces me to eat away at my savings. Again.  Three times in a row. All full-time jobs ending in layo...

It looks fancy, with a cute UI. However,  It's riddled with spelling errors.  It's more of an art BA than a BFA that trains you for animation and/or illustration. Compare to the Catalog for BYU Animation and BYU Illustration and see how divergent it is from both.  It's the most grindy thing I've ever seen  There's so much traditional art  that it loses the majority of its audience -- most of us want to do digital concept art, illustration, or animation , with a traditional drawing foundation as backbone, not set up shop in an art gallery as much as I love going to galleries :)  Where's the 3D? Oh...at the very bottom..."lol there's blender guru, do it...somewhere"  When do you get into digital? At the very end of the curriculum, and you're not supposed to use undo or multiple layers (????? That's the dumbest thing I've ever read) I have heard of exactly ZERO people who have ever completed it. Including radiorunner.  😂 WTF.  We're f...

The feeling of letting go, I guess we'll never know. - Owl City maybe one day you'll understand why, everything you touch surely dies - passenger I don't know which one rings more now. I guess it's a bit of both. 

And these are not going to be very reliable because I'm not a meteorologist.  We have Lagoon opening on 3/28/26 (Saturday), though this is, as always, tentative.  There's a crappy screenshot.  I doubt Nutcracker (snicker) will be open on time, but it's possible , because it's just a standard Screaming Swing - albeit with some custom scenery and art.  Lagoon-a-Beach is still showing 2025 hours, unfortunately, so there's no way of knowing yet if they're going to have a 10 AM, 11 AM, or 12 PM opening this year. Last year the return of 10 AM was quite nice, even if I myself never quite made rope drop.  Accuweather is showing pretty standard weather for opening day (again, assuming the target is hit, you never know with seasonal parks) meaning that crowds should be somewhat low. I myself will probably only take a 1/2 or 1/4 day if this is the forecast that holds. 

The room is spinning like a roulette wheel landing on the black I put a wager on my sanity  and I ain't getting it back So raise a glass to the lady who thinks she's won the pot I traded heaven for a hangover, it's the only prayer I've got  smear the lipstick, drown the whiskey thoughts inside my head I'd rather feel the burn of bourbon than wish that I was dead -  one project

A few observations:  attacks happen seemingly constantly . It's almost too much in my opinion -- there is very little breathing room -- but I tend to have the exact opposite problem; too much  breathing room. So, it is good to study this.  When POV characters are attacked, it is seemingly random... ...but it very much is not actually random . Cannon's villains have already all devised their own plans and are executing them. The main cast pieces those plans together as they go.  Whenever my stories were starting to feel slow and clogged, I instantly went "yeah...make something blow up" which is fine  as an instinct, but the attacks were feeling disjointed.  I'm more of a plotter than a pantser, so I am now going back to the drawing board. The antagonist's plans need to be fully defined and executed so that way everything starts to connect.  I will say that the books do tend to weaken slightly in what is effectively this series' "war chapters" (tha...

There are way too many games I want to play.  My parents never explicitly forbade video games, but they did limit our hours severely.  By the time they stopped, I had accidentally developed an irrational guilt complex over playing games, even though my logical brain knew it was stupid. So it was hard to sit down and just do it  even though I knew it would make me more creative.  when I played adastra in 2021 I somehow managed to break through and play for at least 30 minutes a day, but usually 1-2 hours. This was extremely effective for immersion. I LIVED in that world.  So I am going to allow myself to do the following:  Backlog and sandbox games on the weekend. pokemon, portal, donut county, halo, skyrim, mass effect, dream logic, cattails, VR with Orion Drift and Dungeons of Eternity, etc. Replaying vns is allowed also. I realize this means it will take forever to get through them  But pretty much every day I want to be in: Genshin Impact and BG3. Y...