And for my next trick...

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Community title card, used under fair use for identification and critical commentary.

       So lately I have been quasi-obsessively binge-watching television shows on Netflix (etc.). The most recent has been Community which, after watching all five seasons in the last week and a half, could very well be my new favorite sitcom. It has been a somewhat tragic experience since I knew all along that there were only five seasons, but just now as I was writing this post I looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered that Yahoo! Screen (of all things) has picked it up for a sixth season (#sixseasonsandamovie). A modicum of faith in humanity restored.

       What I'm getting at, though, is that my escapist nature has been at its finest. Writing? Resolutions for 2014? No idea what you're talking about. Heck, even my most attainable resolution, getting my passport, has been actively deferred. I mean if I'm going to have to carry around that picture for ten years I want it to look damn good! I kept thinking -- just a little more time at the gym. Almost there. Nope, my cheeks are still too chubby -- one more month. So now I've spent way too much on Christmas and this new computer that I'm currently building, and the extra hundred bucks to get a passport is both daunting and a relief (one more month!...).

       To be fair, I have been writing some. Not nearly as much as I want to or should do if I ever want to write my way out of here, but I was able to take off work for my annual writing holiday (October 24th -- it's too nerdy of an explanation) and I've made some solid progress on this damn outline for novel that I've been working on for, oh, about TEN YEARS. Grrr.

       Nothing happening on the whole quest to not die alone. Well, mostly nothing. There is a super-faint spark of hope on the horizon, but it's flickering like crazy lately and he seems hell-bent on this pseudo-self-destructive path of letting it die out in favor of -- I don't know what -- video games? Surely it's not my fault. I'm wonderful.

       And I've just remembered why I don't blog anymore.

Optimization.

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My day so far...

       As of today, I have lived 11,111 days. Average life expectancy of a human being living in the United States is 28,703. That gives me, barring any unfortunate circumstances, approximately 17,592 days to live. Given my fitness level, more or less healthy diet, family history, etc., I'll probably have a few more than that, but this is all for illustration purposes.

       Yesterday I was surfing a news reader app called "DuckDuckGo" which pulls interesting stories from various news agencies, reddit, lifehacker, etc., which I love but really don't have the time to explore individually, and I stumbled upon (yes, I love that one too) an article from lifehacker touting the benefits of an iPhone app that basically invades your life and destroys your privacy. So of course I downloaded it.

        I'm on day 1 of using "OptimizeMe", and the first thing I've noticed is that it makes me acutely aware of the passage of time. Today I slept from 12a to 9a, fed the cat, took a shower, and did some groggy grooming until 9:24a, cooked and ate breakfast (this exact one here, except with whole wheat toast instead of sourdough -- so freaking good) while watching an HBO documentary "The Out List" until 9:55a, continued watching the documentary intermittently while doing some laundry and cleaning up, brushing my teeth, etc., until 11:38a, at which time I sat down to start writing this post. I have now been working on it (including a break to continue the laundry) for 32 minutes and 36 seconds.

       It kind of sounds like a nightmare, logging all of these activities, but the app makes it relatively simple. And the reason I'm doing all of this? I'm kind of terrible with my own personal time management. At work I'm on point and I get my stuff done, but after 9 hours of focus, another ±1.5 at the gym, I get home and things tend to fall apart. I've already failed that "3 hours a week of writing" goal that I set for myself earlier this month, so this is an attempt to reclaim that. The app breaks everything down into 4 categories: health, creativity, routine, and pleasure, with the goal of finding balance and optimizing behaviors to become more effective and improve your mood. It lets you set clear goals and gives you insights into how to improve. Basically: I'm excited. I'll let you know how it goes.