It’s been 20 days of giving a shit again and minding what I eat. I think it’s also helping my mother a bit be less blasé about her own eating and health. I’m down either 8 or 16 pounds if you count my first weigh in as the night before or the first morning since I lost like 8 pounds in a day according to the scale.

Still been a struggle though especially as work drama has been making me want to stop caring but I’m worth more than that drama.

In some ways I think it's what makes working with dementia patients the easiest, as long as you don't know what kind of person they were beforehand, you just sorta see the disease more than them which makes it easier when they go off the rails and start screaming at you. What I wouldn't give to see Biden get worked up on the debate stage, walk over to Trump and start hitting him because all of a sudden he forgot where he was and this man is yelling at him, extra points if he grabs a finger and bends it backwards, a favorite of confused old ladies in the hospital.

My mother signed me up for so many of those when I was younger because they offered immediate employment and then when I was placed on the call it was the shadiest sounding shit, then there were the non-scam but also scam sales rep things where they called you a manager, offered intense executive training to fast track you to the top of the org but you were just going door to door trying to sell some shitty product.

For some reason that I'm not sure of myself this was the week that finally hit right and I felt like I should start caring for myself again rather than just not giving a fuck and hoping I die in a few years as a result. Last time I gave a shit was probably 2019 but after getting fired and COVID and everything I just haven't cared. I hope maybe I can keep this up for a bit and also help my mother with it as well since we've both been bad influences on each other for a while now.

I've gone a solid 5 days now limiting how much I eat to 2k calories when I'm pretty sure I normally average around 3k. Today I even stopped myself from just ordering out and rationalizing that it was probably close to my allotment left for the day. Today was more of a struggle though since I started getting lightheaded and ravenously hungry so I allowed myself a bit of chocolate and that helped me last until dinner.

How do people remember which white car is theirs?

I'm always taken a bit aback when people at work just go wild with slurs. You have the r-slur getting used just kinda flippantly for so much stuff where they could easily just pick another word, only had one person at my previous job really say it so this new job with like 4 people that use it is kinda disheartening. Also had a coworker use the f-slur when talking to me, they were quoting one of their children saying something along the lines of "X is for ..." but I'm kinda visibly queer so the sheer gall to just go with it anyway was something new.

Then the conversations I overhear about politics every so often make me just never want to hear them since I'd rather just not know how terrible everyone I work with is, it's easier to just maintain that professional friendliness when I don't have the back of my mind screaming 'THEY'RE HOGS BRAYING FOR THEIR TREATS OVER ALL ELSE'

The Case of Who Shit my Pants

I love how for the first time since I started this job I have a 2 day span off in the middle of the week timed perfectly to let me jump right in, but the bastards had to set it for the evening. Guess I'll just play Rimworld and pick it up on my next weekend off.

This sounds like a fucking parody

I remember looking it up online and I believe the actual capsaicin levels were like 8000 for the regular but that there was just some funky chemistry that made them feel more spicy. Though I do feel like I might have made them spicier by forgoing making any broth and treating them more like an instant yakisoba.

Oh hey it's that company that protected abusers for years.

I have very little hope for this actually being any good. Studios are made of people that make games and the people that were around to make the previous titles really aren't around any more. The spotlight of Inquisition for me was the excellent weaving of previous world building into the current plot in a way that felt organic and exciting. Now after going through the nightmare of Anthem and then clearly some development hell with this game I have to wonder how many people ended up sticking around and how that will reflect on the final product.

The stories I've read on how Arkane lost a lot of talent often line up with how Bioware has gone. Making a game in a genre the team wasn't interested in with an overall goal to just make more money jumping in on a live service which led to major staff departures means that even should they try again, the studio isn't made of the same people anymore and that expecting another great game is shaky at best and should be approached with at least some realism.

I want it to be good because I've enjoyed the series but it's been 9 years since the last game and the people that made that game good did it despite everything. When they put out cinematic trailers and in-engine screenshots not even 6 months before the announced release, I'm left wondering why they can't show actual stuff from the game. They should be done with the most major systems by now, environments should be made. I've seen this song and dance one too many times in the games industry and until I see people actually playing it I'll temper my expectations.