So, Not Being On SM So Far...

Ani speaking~ Quite the title, huh?

So it's not entirely true that I've been off of social media. Really, my only outlet for keeping updated on world things has been YouTube for the most part. Though, for the record, I'm no longer on Twitter, I haven't checked Tumblr for a long time now, and that SpaceHey I created? Dropped it. 

But I'm not here to lecture about social media, I just wanted to share what's been going on with me now that I haven't checked these sites.

I feel great.

Simple yeah? While I feel like I haven't fully severed ties with the need to constantly take in new information, I do feel better that it's not in my face for most of the day. I have problems with trying not to compare my skills to others, and having a feed that constantly showed me artists that had better skills than me (especially when they were younger than me and could doodle better than me any day ;v;) didn't help with those problems. I always think I'm never good enough to do anything, so maybe that was a bit perpetuated through social media.

And saying "Don't think that, you're great!" or "Don't compare yourself to others" is easy enough to say, but in practice it doesn't work so well for me.

That being said, I won't say being off social media has remedied that, but generally I'm not caught in a loop staring at amazing artwork day in and day out. So problem solved but also not solved? I do think I feel happier, though. 

I will say, I feel like I've taken a step back from a raging storm. Getting lost in other peoples' opinions, cancel culture, or taking in AI slop had taken a toll on me mentally. Yes, I'll say it, I've become such a "Doomer." I'm trying to remedy that, and not looking at social media sites has helped very much. I want to be proud of life, and I want things to get better. And I realize sulking about it is not going to fix things. 

With social media, I felt like I didn't have anything to be proud of. But looking away from the screen, I started to figure out, "Hey Ani, you can do stuff!" Which of course is great and all... Just gotta start doing those things now. xD (Being an anxious person by nature doesn't help.)

Anyway, I do have a sense of FOMO when I see others still on social media and sharing things I didn't know about. I know we as humans can't POSSIBLY know everything... but wouldn't it be great if we did? That's how I feel about that. And the constant need for convenience has been getting to me. 

So, there have been benefits and problems I've had being off of social media. I would say, for the most part, I'm happy. I don't feel like I need to stress about getting a post out with this blog, and I can just come back to it whenever I feel like it. Like my own little quiet space~ I do miss seeing peoples' reactions to the art I make, that's what really made me happy on social media. At the same time... there was too much of it. 

In real life, I hate being in the spotlight. I like getting praise, but apart from that, I don't like the idea of having all eyes on me. Too much responsibility, heh~ And with cancel culture becoming more and more over-reactive, I sometimes worry that people are just analyzing ANYTHING that I do, and if they don't agree with something (warranted or not warranted) that I've done, they'll start a mob, and I'll have to say something about it. Not that people shouldn't own up to their mistakes, but I do think some corners of the internet just need to chill for a second. 

And maybe I'm being over-reactive myself in saying this, but the internet feels like it's trying to assimilate everyone into a hive-mind mentality.

Anyway, some people will probably disagree with whatever I say, and that's fine. I just don't want to feel like I'm losing my sense of self. And I still struggle with figuring out if I'm forming my own opinions or not. 

If my thoughts sound disjointed while you're reading this, I apologize, but this has just been on my mind lately. Agree with me or disagree, I'm just glad anyone's read this post up to this point. 

Well, I don't want to end on a sour note, so here's my two cents. I feel like my brain can finally breathe with having my own space and not worrying about other people on the internet. I'm tired of having to worry about liking something and then someone telling me, "Oh you can't like them cause of such and such." I would LIKE to know why I can't like something, I'm concerned about what information I'm taking in and how that applies to me, but I'd like to do my own research into it and form my own opinions about it.

It's just tiring, is all I'm saying. I want to take things slow. Maybe it's the fact that a lot of things I liked when I was a kid are starting to be cancelled (and with good reason, like all those YouTubers outed as pedos now, good, they deserve the hate in my opinion), but I don't want to take it in all at once. It's depressing, alright? It's nice to take a break from it all.

I think I got riled up while typing this all out, but it feels nice to put it out into words. And maybe someone else will read this, hopefully it helps you figure some things out.

If I want to say anything, from what I've been thinking about all of this, and it won't work for everyone, but...

Just stop logging in maybe?

Wouldn't it be nice to just look at something else?

Yeah... okay, I'm done.

 

⭑❤✿⭑✣⭑ Thank you for reading~ ⭑❤✿⭑✣⭑

Another Internet/AI Rant

 I could've made a rant about AI a long time ago, but everything's kinda been building up on my view on it, and I've recently watched a video that made me think more about the internet. So I wanted to just get my thoughts down. Here's the video by the way:

 I haven't really heard of the dead internet theory before this, and honestly, I'm not really a "theory" kind of person either. But... can't say I didn't feel like some parts of this theory ring true to me.

 Back in 2016-17, I was attending college for the first time, a young and fresh mind finished within my little bubble of high school (I was homeschooled for high school by the way, but that's a can of worms) and going out to experience different avenues of life and expand my learning sphere. Also that was the time Trump and Clinton were going at it.

 I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how life felt so, so different to me before this effin' election began. Like literally, looking back on it, it felt like the precursor to a whole new era of life for me - one where I go from geeky teen to tired depressed adult. (I mean, I was pretty depressed before, but you know...) I don't really remember AI being that big of a deal before 2020, aside from maybe videos of people messing around with sites like "This person doesn't exist" or "This cat doesn't exist." And at the time, of course I was so entertained by it. It was something new and cool, like how everyone was adoring the wild west days of the internet.

 Of course now, whenever I hear the damn term, I feel like a vampire and someone just threw open the curtains during the day... Anyway...

 I'll be real, AI to me isn't inherently evil by nature. I think at times it's a fun toy that can be messed around with, and I sometimes use it to give me color or design inspiration for my works. However, when people use it and claim that it's their "craft" is when I start getting pissy about it.

 Like, no, you did not put several hours of actual work into making what you did. You told a computer to do it, waited, typed again, rinse, repeat, and slapped a "hardworking artist" sticker on yourself while stealing other people's talent just so you can make an uncanny image of art. SOMEHOW, AI made art UNCANNY. And the same is being done with music! Voice acting, school/uni homework, influencers, practically every bit of tech in this world has implemented AI into its systems. Hell, AI is going to feed off of this post too probably to imitate my way of speech.

 And how are you going to know the difference?

 I mean, a lot of us are able to tell the difference now, AI has turned out some pretty dumb crap. But what happens when we're not able to anymore? I've gotten so paranoid about art pieces I see that I've started feeling less joy when looking at art.

 And the worst part is, AI gets plenty of BANK from us. Big tech companies are using it, your grandma is using it, everyone on the internet is using it. And it's fooling everyone with it. I'm not surprised that this is how AI is devolving, with people using it as a "get-rich-quick" scheme, this world is literally driven by greed. And yes, that's very pessimistic and tiring to hear, but when has that little fact ever been wrong? Maybe it's more apparent now than it has ever been, but I'll be a little anarchist and say that Capitalism does suck.

 But what the hell would even be better?

 I've been so sick and tired of social media too. It used to be so much fun for me to scroll and discover my friends' posts. Whether it be art, pictures, how their day went, or the latest clips of movies, video games, etc. etc. Literally, I loved having an audience, now all I want to do is just shrink and shrink until no one gives a care to who I am. And maybe that's alright? I'm not seeking pity points by saying this either, maybe my obsession with being seen on the internet is unhealthy. To the point where I turn the thing that I love doing into an online job, where the algorithm decides my worth.

 I sound so superficial to myself right now, but it's genuinely what's been going on in my brain. And I'll probably become hypocritical whenever I decide to start uploading my webcomic and stuff in the next few years, if I ever do it. I don't expect a lot of people to read it or care about sharing it. My intent right now is to just have fun and post whenever I can because art gives me peace of mind. This blog allows me to feel like I can be slow and take my time with the few people that actually care to take a look. 

 Looking at how the internet is now, it just keeps making me upset. Like I'm watching the downward spiral of an old friend and there's nothing I can do about it. (Bear with me, I know I sound so mushy and cringe, bro) I do miss the old internet, but the heck, I can't change it. Lots of other people are trying to, and it's kinda backfiring in some ways. I'm just gonna do my best with the last corner of sanity I have here.

 It's not as shiny as Twitter, Insta, or TikTok. But it feels like a roost I can settle into at the very least. 

 ... Oh yeah, this post was mostly about AI. So, people are going to be people and see if they can milk what they can out of AI - I don't think that's gonna change in the next few years. But I know people who feel the same way as I do are gonna find their own ways to make the internet and social sites to feel cozy for them. And I'm all for it. This is in no way a call to action to take down the system or whatever. Social media is still a good way for people to share stuff. I'm just trying to distance myself in a way that doesn't completely sever my ties with the internet.

 But yeah, this place doesn't feel the same way anymore, and maybe that's just be growing out of my immaturity phase, or possibly the start of my jaded old man arc. Make of that what you will!

 This old man is going to yell at cloud.jpg as much as they want, ok? This is how free speech actually works, lol.

 Alright, I'm done, thanks for reading if you got this far. Love youuuuuuu uvu but also pls help meeeeeeeeeee~😜

Flip Phones :O

    Or, maybe they're called "dumbphones" now?

    Either way, I miss flip phones. I've been wanting to switch from my smartphone to a really nice flip phone for a while now. And obviously, there are some downsides that come with it (thanks to convenience in smartphones), but that also makes me kind of more frustrated.

    So I've been browsing the Kyoex site, seeing that flip phones are still being sold in Asian countries at MUCH better quality and design than what I'm seeing offered in the states. Like, look at the difference here:

    The one on the left is from Japan, while the one on the right is offered here. Obviously, there's quite a sizeable group of people that would love to have a flip phone handy, yes? And I know what you're saying, "But Ani, there are smart flip phones out there!"

    I hear you, bro. But this design doesn't spark joy in me honestly.

 

    I'm definitely being picky here, I know, but I'm more of a person that enjoys the touch sensation of pressing a button, hearing it click, and immediately going to the next option you see on the screen. There's a certain charm to flip phones. There was a reason my first phone, in the year 2010, was a flip phone! I didn't really want a smartphone at the time that they came out, as a kid, I really enjoyed the look of flip phones and how they felt to open and close. And I feel like if I hadn't gotten a flip phone, I would've missed out on the phone culture that I grew up in. But yes, after a few years, the smartphone started to look cool and everyone else was getting an iPhone, so I gave in and asked my parents if I could switch to an iPhone.

    And I'm not going to lie, I loved having an iPhone for a while. I switched to a Nokia later, I liked its brightly colored look compared to the dull look of iPhones, but I've switched back and right now, my iPhone model is an iPhone 11. I never really felt pressured to change since every new iPhone coming out felt like it didn't really change all too much aside from a few improved bits and baubles. Oh, and also, the phones were getting bigger. I've been getting annoyed with how much bigger every new iPhone entry has been getting bigger.

    But I'm getting tired of iPhones, and social media especially. So I've been thinking about switching to an iPhone to reduce that time I'm looking and scrolling on my phone. Though, it comes with plenty of downsides. Two-factor authentication might not be an option anymore, I won't be able to listen to music like I usually do, or stuff like passwords not being easily saved and brought back up again with a touch of a button. 

    Obviously, smartphones are a convenience to society. And maybe that's a part of the problem? But I won't act like I'm standing on a soap box, preaching how smartphones are evil, taking over our society.

    I'm just a little frustrated that it has sort of become a "reliance" in modern days. And I'm just wondering if I can reduce my anxiety/depression if I do have a flip phone. It might become a hassle in the end, but it could be beneficial to my mental health if I just break myself away from the need of a smartphone to be able to do everything for me.

    Oh, and also, flip phones are cool as eff. Like, call me old all you like, but phones like these are PEAK design.

    So, yeah, I don't really know what I'm going to do. It seems like grabbing phones from Japan and trying to figure out how to integrate them with a US cell service might be a hassle that I don't want to go through. Though, it might be worth it in the end if it means I can reduce my screen time tenfold. But it also could mean that by then I'll be distracted by all the fun squishy buttons, heh.

    I don't really see Apple, Samsung, LG, what have you, pumping out flip phones like these anytime soon. They're going to sell those "dumbphones" that only have one color and look cheaply made. I don't know, maybe I should give in and just buy one and see where it takes me. If anything, it'll make me feel more professional, honestly. Like, imagine you're out with friends, and you get a call, and you WHIP OUT ONE OF THESE BAD BOYS. And then hanging up by closing the phone with that satisfying SNAP!!

    Man, now I really, REALLY, want a flip phone now... this ramble hasn't helped my desires.

    Anyway, I just wanted to share the crisis I'm going through right now, hah. We'll see if I end up getting a flip phone, it's really tempting to grab one of these Japanese made flip phones - they have the right idea.

    If you also share in this frustration, I shake your hand, cause we're stuck here while they're living the flip phone life over there. 😔

Early Happy New Year! (Ramble)

 Hey again guys!

TL;DR - Go Vote next year, Social Media can kiss my ass, I'm going to work on more personal projects and might fully move to this site, also going to work on physical and mental health.

It's been a while since I've done a text post like this, but we're getting close to the New Year and I felt like putting down my thoughts about the coming year of 2024.

I don't know, it feels like a very imposing year. I guess it's because that's when we gotta decide if our President remains or we choose a new one. (Also, go vote y'all, it's so important.) But New Years are always going to feel like that since we change the digits of the year and it feels like a fresh new start.

I've been very "eh" about this year. I mean it's been super awesome in plenty of places. Heck, I saw plenty of good video game selections for this year, even movie selections. I even quit the job that's been making me dread a couple of things. But I don't feel quite there yet. Even going through my studies and such for Pharmacy tech. Also just... everything feels so different after the rona that went down in 2020.

I've also talked about the internet and how out of control it felt like it has become. I really do mean it. This has been the year I've been trying to separate myself from that. I don't think I'm quite there yet, I imagine once I grab my Pharmacy tech job, I'll feel more inclined to distance myself and fully commit to just a blog. I know a lot of people follow me on Tumblr, and if I ever want to make a web comic series/art in general, not too many people are going to want to flock to my blog.

This era of humanity is just so social media reliant. I'm not pinning it specifically on a generation cause we're all in this together in the end, but we're really going to eff up the next generation if nothing is done.

Capitalism is fully integrating itself into the Internet.

It's strange saying that since when I was a kid, the Internet just felt like an exploring and game tool. I can't say that anymore. My childhood, in movies and games, there always seemed to be a message of "business bad, anarchy good" but it seems like we've learned nothing from that. 

Not like we can fully separate from that, but we've been on such a downward spiral. Or maybe it's just because I'm growing up. Anyways, I digressed fully from my point. If I ever leave Tumblr, you'll know where I'll be at. Here on this blog. It's much better upkeep and I don't feel like I have to scroll and like so many other posts on my feed. It'll just be a place where I can share stuff.

Now that that's out of the way, I want to share my goals for the next year. Of course, there's getting a job in Pharmacy tech.

I know a lot of people followed me for my Humanized Bionicle series, and I'm really glad you guys are here (I LOVE Bionicle, always will~) I just may not be drawing it as much as I used to, or committing to a year. I've been neglecting my own original ideas, and I sincerely want to get back to them. Stuff like Solar 7, GRAVEN, Aberon, and even Prismatica that I've just started. You might see a Human Bonkle from time to time next year, I'm not abandoning that just yet I feel, but I should really start to focus on my own stuff.

I want to post more screenshots about the video games I play, and my OCs. I haven't share stuff about them in a LONG LONG while. I feel like it'd be great to share about characters and what games/worlds they're tied to. I haven't rp'd them like I used to, but they're very much a big reason how I connected with my friends and s/o. I also like taking screenshots and I just haven't been sharing as much as I could be sharing.

Also, I'm hoping to work on my mental and physical health more. This may be over-sharing so feel free to skip this paragraph. I'm fine physically, but not where I should be. I'm overweight, not severely but enough to the point where I should be doing something about it. I'm also pretty weak in general. So I really want to improve that part of my body. I also suffer from anxiety and depression. I don't think I'm over my depression, but I'm to the point where I haven't broken down the past few weeks. Anxiety is the big one however. It's keeping me from exploring the world, talking more online with friends/irl friends, and making the job process very stressful and scary - motivation is also taking hits because of this. I've been taking meds, so they've been helping a bit, but at the end of the day, I need to improve myself in these aspects. I really hope 2024 is a better year for my health.

Now that that paragraph's done, I just really hope the world can have a break. Everything is so terrifying and scary, social media/media in general keep bombarding us with ads and depressing articles, it's just been frustrating as a whole. But we just need to remind ourselves it doesn't have to be like that. We can cut ourselves some slack and remind ourselves that we can both be considerate of others and that we need to take care of ourselves.

All in all, I'm praying that 2024 can be a better year - not perfect, but at least better than this year. But we'll just have to see in the end.

Thank you to anyone who has read this far, I appreciate your time and I hope that 2024 can be a better year for you than 2023. I am so thankful for your support throughout this year, if not the years before as well.

I'm blessin' all of yahs~❤

- Ani (^v^)/✧⭑

Youtube Stuff Ramble :|

Okay so it's not news that Youtube has been taking action to crack down on ad-blockers and time people out from watching videos if they detect it on a browser. I think I don't need to explain why this is annoying, but I do want to say how I feel about all of this.

So when I was a little younger, my experience of youtube was all through the ipod handed down to me from my brother, in the youtube app. Which though that, I BARELY got any ads - probably none at all. I have fond memories of watching my favorite youtubers, animators, and tv-shows all through youtube - yeah I had to watch the shows through split up parts, but I was able to get through Soul Eater like NOTHING. Having that experience got me through some pretty dreary times in my life.

Ok, got my childhood sentiments out of the way, I think it was around 2013 or 14 that youtube did an entire overhaul and created a new app or something, the one that we know now. You can fill in the blanks with youtube's track record thus far.

I still watch youtube on mobile and browser, though I have two different experiences depending on where I watch it. During the day, I flip on youtube on browser so I can listen to podcasts or music that I don't have. And at night, I lay down and use the mobile app to watch videos and make my brain mushy so I can sleep.

I've no problem with ads being used to support content creators if it just wasn't so INVASIVE. I'd give anything to bring back bottom banner ads if it meant I could listen to a music compilation or analysis video while I do chores without genshin impact shouting at me desperately to play it or T-mobile home internet musicals. Especially ads that last from a minute to practically 30 minutes. Who the hell makes a 30 minute ad? Pressing the skip button is practically a chore when I'm already focused on cleaning or drawing, so the mood is just nearly lost.

First world problems, am I right?

Anyways, gatekeeping and exclusivities never solve problems like what youtube is doing right now - in this case it drives some people away. 

I'll suffer through youtube ads, I still like watching content people create. I'm just tired. Youtube lost its luster. I hate having to sound like a doomer in saying this, and I really never want to be like that. There's always going to be ways to entertain yourself out there. Maybe this'll get more people to go outside more often or do other things. And I can't really spend money on the music I want to listen to, and this makes it a bit harder for me to discover new songs/bands.

'Discovery' is key when using youtube, cause you always find something new - doesn't have to be meaningful or the like, it could be meme posts or something dumb. And as a kid, youtube flung the doors of the internet wide open to me. But no, overall, this is not a way to say "the youtube from when I was a kid was better!" No, no it was not, pfpdff. 

This is just me saying, "Can you please stop being a wet rag, Youtube? Thanks :)"

You can agree or disagree with this, I don't mind. I'm not here to debate. Just needed to vent.

Alright, thanks for reading, I'm gonna open up Windows Media Player and play some music with the visualizer on.

Me 'n Lego

I've mentioned before that my brother was the sole reason I have an interest in Bionicle to this day. Although, this also goes the same for other LEGO lines, but I never really had the chance to buy those LEGO sets for myself. (I was born a girl, so the folks only really gave me girl stuff. Not that I had a problem with that, but I was never supplied anything "just for boys" until I was a little older.) I want to share some of the LEGO series I've dabbled in for fun, just so you guys get to know that part about me a 'lil more~

Do you know about Decome?

 So recently, I've developed a tiny obsession with these little gif emoticons called "Decome." It's a Japanese term derived from "deco-mail" or "decoration mail" and they are little cute gifs that you can send through email and mobile phones (though it seems these kinds I'm about to share are mostly exclusive to Docomo phones as far as I know) Although I've also seen these referred to as "Favicons."

Blogger is annoying in that it can't squish these images together in one row, so here's a long line of them:

THEY'RE SO CUTE THOUGH!! If you want to see more, I've gotten these from this Neocities site. I don't know about you, but if I had these instead of emojis, I would use these ALL the time. I can only go so far looking at these: 🤣😮😝😭

There are seemingly a lot and maybe plenty more that aren't archived. But I wish I could use these everywhere. My phone, my emails, chat messages, you name it. And I know it's easy to put them into Discord, but Discord can only put so many in which is a bummer to me. 

I've also been debating lately about buying a flip phone of my own. It would be an extra expense of course, but sometimes I'm tired of carrying a flat block in my pants that's way too big to fit in my pocket. If I could have something simple for just calls and texting, I think I would be happy and not so distracted. As of now though, I do feel too attached to my smartphone. It plays music, games, connects to social media... it's almost sad thinking about how reliant I am with it when I'm starting to feel like I shouldn't be.

Not saying that smart phones are bad in any shape or form, these are amazing pieces of technology. But thinking about it now, I do miss the simplicity of a flip phone, and I only had one for just a few years before I gave in and grabbed a smart phone when I was a kid. 

I digressed there, but my point is, I kind of wish Decome would become more of a thing. Personalized cute gifs like these just to place here and there~ Gosh, browsing Neocities and seeing all these amazing buttons, dividers, frames, blinkies, etc. It's been bringing me back, wishing websites could look fun again. I don't know, it's very jaded of me to say, but I'm glad to see people still carry on the old internet spirit~

Alright, I'll leave you with more of these cute boogers: 

Can We Talk About This?

I've been having these feelings for a while, and I'm sure everyone else has been too.

I'm talking about social media sites and their designs.

I'm just saying this now at the risk of sounding jaded and old, but I'm nowhere near an old age. This is a gripe I've been having with the internet for a while now, but it's only come more into light lately with more terrible decisions made by billionaires and their ego trips.

I don't like modern website design.

When I say this, I mean the very flat black or white design, depthless backgrounds, and overall "template-y" feel to the internet. This is not all to say that the internet before didn't have a corporate standard for its websites, but you'll see what I mean when I show some examples.

This is a site we should all be familiar with: Twitter.

This was Twitter in 2007. I mean seeing this already takes me back, but this doesn't look so claustrophobic as Twitter looks now. The charming Twitter logo at the top, the gentle cloud background that you could probably change the theme of to any picture, and what's this? No ads, useless recommendations, or news you're not forced to look at 24/7. Now take a look at Twitter now:

I understand people like this design more, but there really is no reason for a desktop site to look this squeezed together. There's an advertisement on the top for a Premium subscription. There are tags to the right that I have little to no care about. And a big box interrupting my feed about who to follow. Another site that has this layout is Facebook.

Looking at this, the gaps in the website look awful and the posts are way too condensed. And even at a glance, if the "F" icon was at the top left, I wouldn't have been able to tell you what site this was. This layout is only used for one purpose and that's specifically meant for UX-friendly design. UX is short of "User Experience" and in turn that means site design must mobile friendly too.

Even tumblr is taking on a similar design to these websites now, which is the whole reason I'm ranting about all of this. It's like a website can't try and be different anymore. Maybe this is only a niche complaint, but my point still stands, especially when I visit Neocities or the Web Design Museum. (Check these out and get a blast from the past)

It genuinely kind of hurts to see websites not take advantage of customization in favor of something they can quickly cobble together. This is not to slight the web designers that have to hard hours into these sites, they only do what they're told. Though with social media being so ingrained in society, it's hard not to copy the successes of other sites. You can't have your own website unless you have a social media page to redirect to. 

This is another can of worms that I can be grumpy about all day, but I'm not here to talk about that. Just wanted to say my piece about how every site is adopting this kind of layout and there just can't be uniqueness anymore on the internet. Anyways, Look at how Microsoft and Apple changed.

And also here are a couple of website designs from the Web Design Museum that I really like.

Not to say all this and be like, "The internet is doomed." Lots of people are still making their own sites and designing them to show off not only their coding skills but showing off their own personalities with it. And honestly I've been trying to learn good coding so that I can make a site like this one day. But if you don't agree with me on all these points, that's ok. Maybe I'm not the best person to talk about this, but I just can't look at modern websites, then look back at these design layouts and just be happy with the state of modern web design.

Anyways, thanks for reading, I hope this brought some nostalgia outta some people. 

On a Personal Note...

I've been working for the United States Post office for nearly two years now. Am I a regular carrier? No. When I was first looking for a position, no regular mail carrier positions were open or given to me, so the position I took was working only on Sundays and holidays. I had taken this job in hopes that I could dip my foot into the post office and they'd soon have me switch positions to like a clerk or a regular carrier when the time arose.

But oh boy... oh boy... I learned quickly how much of your life you have to give up in order to work at the post office.

These guys, both city and rural carriers, practically have to come in all week and work on hours that fluctuate between 8 to even 10 or more hours just to get every piece of mail out and delivered. Think about it, working practically 70 hours a week - most carriers don't come in on Sundays but a lot of them do to make a quick buck. And it's not just for one city for us, since my office is a hub, we deliver mail to 2 other cities about 20 minutes away from ours. And on Sundays, we deliver to 2 more cities, making that a grand total of 6 cities to deliver to.

This isn't so bad so far yeah? Could be worse? Yes. Yes it can be worse.

Some people like to call in regularly during the week and this is where things can get effed up. There are not enough subs or regular carriers to cover all routes so a lot of them have to do two routes in a day. Delivering mail and packages. In crappy tin can LLV mail trucks that are basically ticking time bombs that are just waiting to give out.

Now that I'm on the subject of trucks, MAN do we really need new trucks to drive. The trucks that we use have been with the office since the 80s. These things are literally fire hazards with how many wires are exposed, how there's only a little fan to act as "a/c" for the truck, and literally so many places you could cut yourself and undoubtedly get an infected wound from it.

Yes there's new trucks on the way, but we won't be getting those until 2028. And even then who KNOWS if we will get ANY.

Digressing a little to tell a story. This happened last week. One of the carriers was delivering packages to a city about a half an hour away from us (which I will get to in a second.) As he practically just started his route, the truck's engine caught on FIRE. Literally within the next few seconds the whole thing was engulfed in flames. Nobody knows really how it started, but one thing's for sure, none of the packages inside survived. The guy frantically pulled out as many as he could before the truck got consumed by the flames - he's ok though, if not a bit shaken... he was also a new guy I think.

But you get the picture. Literally ANY of these trucks can catch on fire and melt the metal of the truck. This isn't a picture of his truck, but it looked just like this:

Yeah you wouldn't want to drive this piece of junk would you? My post office desperately needs an update. We still have to manually write in our times on a green card, the trucks are death traps, and we still use dial up for internet... I'm not joking, the post office STILL uses dial up internet

Anyways, Sunday deliveries. These days are basically Amazon backlog. We come in in the mornings, take our pick of the routes, sort and number them, load them into the truck, and be on our way. The route I usually take is about 100 or more stops. ("Stops" are individual addresses that I stop at to deliver packages) And it could be even more, up to 130 stops some days, 90 stops other days. And packages can stack up to 140 or more. And most days I have to take this by myself. We are staffed just up to enough to cover every other route, which can have up to 70 stops or less than that. So yeah, the route I take is a monster.

I was trained to drive a van with a bigger interior (and actual a/c thank god) so I'm usually the one to take the monster route. My supervisors know how terrible of a route it is and have tried to request changing up the routes to alleviate some of the stress, but, of course, nothing has been changed so far - it's been months since this was brought up. 

So I mentioned that we deliver to up to 6 cities for Sundays, I'll name those cities: A, P, F, Al, C, and L. We deliver Amazon packages to these cities because they don't have any amazon facilities stationed nearby to deliver to them. F, C, and L are cities we regularly carry mail to since they're closer by, so it's no big deal and understandable that we deliver to them. And A is our own city. P and Al are further away, but they send their own carriers to handle their own packages. 

P is pretty good at sending enough carriers to deliver their packages, and I'm honestly jealous at how small their routes are. However, the P carriers absolutely do not care to help out our other routes. They help each other out, get done with their routes, and leave, while the rest of us have to stay out later and help out with our own crappy routes. 

Al is the worst one as of yet. Both of their routes are about 114 stops each, and it's only 2 routes they have to deliver to. The SMART thing they would do is send 4 people, 2 people each to handle both routes and split them so that they can easily deliver packages without having to worry about stay out later. Want to know how many people Al usually sends to handle these routes? 2 people, and on most days, only 1. This means we have to pull from our own ranks and send them to help split their own routes. Which means we lose out on help from our own routes.

So, let me summarize this. Al cannot give two shits on sending more people to handle their OWN routes, which means carriers from A have to help them pick up the pace on a city THEY DON'T KNOW, and P carries throw out any lick of sympathy they have and leave before they even get the THOUGHT of helping other struggling carriers. People really do like to talk shit about each other in the post office, it's just very toxic.

All this, and I'm going to put the blame on one conglomerate of people... Upper Management. I understand things take time to change, but this place literally had the beginning of the 21st century to change and yet nothing's come of it except for Amazon coming in and providing more time for carriers to work. The resources at our disposal have not been updated in years, even decades. They don't do anything to alleviate stress from carriers, and not even proper training for newer carriers. You are thrown to the wolves most likely. Without so much as a shadow day even. You really have to want to work at the post office if you want to make a career out of this place, because you will not have enough time to even breathe almost every day of the week.

I'm saying all of this because I'm going to quit soon enough and I just want people to know the awful experience I've had so far. On the bright side, the people that work at the post office, most of them are really nice and helpful. They understand how bad the job is and like to have a laugh about it all. But this place has affected me mentally and physically, scaring me away from trying my hand at any other position provided by the facility.

I made the mistake of thinking I could handle whatever the post office threw at me and I feel mentally crippled because of it. (And I only work one day y'all, I shouldn't be feeling like this) Not to say that you shouldn't work at the post office if you really want to, but I feel like people need to know what to expect when you consider taking a job from here.

If you live on your own, are on call every day, or need lots of hours and love to work all day, this job is probably for you. But I just can't recommend any position since I cannot see myself working every day in such poor conditions. I wish I could, but my body was not made for it.

So I'll be quitting soon enough. It was nice to have the experience, wish I could've had the courage to step up to a carrier position. But taking all of these things into account. 

No thanks. I need a break.

Oh, a P.S. here or whatever, Christmas time is a shit show. Nobody should have to work that long every day. In the freezing cold. 

Be respectful of your carriers, friends. They do so much work. Thank you for reading this, cause man... I needed to get that all out.

New game: BG3

 Ok y'all.

So the past few days, my time has been CONSUMED by playing Baldur's Gate 3. It just came out, but I'm finding myself really enjoying the way it's set up its story and has you rolling out your actions to see if you succeed or not. Almost to the point where I feel overwhelmed, not that that's a bad thing, I've always felt that way playing DnD. But this is something nice to have since my luck with DnD has always kinda been bad.

While I enjoy the game, I do hope there's some more character focused stuff I hope it adds in the future. More CC options, player on player romance interactions, and I'm kinda disappointed to not see players able to use emotes or a text chat system (at least as far as I've seen, I have not seen any chat box for situations) Which I can't help but bring up Neverwinter Nights, which had emotes, chat box, and let the players do their own RP if they wanted.

Anyways, I've had fun making characters and I wanted to share a few pics.

This first one is my Half-Orc boy, Taurne. He's one of my vet OCs, named Taren, all the way back from my Wildstar days. In DnD, he's a Fighter Mage Slayer, but in BG3 he's just a normal Fighter. I wish he was a bit bigger in his player model, but whenever he smiles in game, it's so adorable. Fits his soft himbo personality very well.

And this guy is Faustinius (Or Faustus for short.) I'm kind of letting the story here decide what his backstory may be since his play through is play the "Dark Urge" character option - which has me making this face 'OvO' the whole playthrough. But I've had a Warlock Tiefling character before and I wanted to bring him back. And seeing him  again makes me happy. That's it for now, thanks for reading!