What I’ve done this week! 7/15

It’s not exactly a week since my last update, things happen, you know how it is. One on hand, I did accomplish some of the things that I set out to do last week, and did some things that I didn’t plan to, so in all, it was still a pretty productive week, and I’m not going to beat myself up for not finishing all of it.

Surprisingly, I was barely able to keep on top of my podcasts for the week. I’m subscribed to so many that if I stop listening just a day or two, I can fall pretty far behind.

On the book front, I did it, I finally finished Utopia, and on top of that, I got through Terry Pratchett’s Wintersmith, and now I’ll make some headway on another book!

On the gaming front, I ascended in Nethack with my samurai character! It’s a thing I’m proud of

On the marble racing project, I made no direct progress, other than my indirect progress via learning 3D modeling. But that latter bit still counts as progress overall!

And on that note, below are things that I made this week! Please enjoy them!

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As for my work work, I’ve managed to put in enough hours to support myself. That I live so inexpensively certainly helps, but the money has also been pretty good in the gig delivery business, I’ve been pulling in a solid average $20/hour, though of course I’d prefer to spend that time doing, well, more of the above.

As for goals for the next week, while I managed to make some progress on some of the tutorials I’ve been watching, they are piling up faster than I can go through them, so I would like to make some more solid headway.

The still renderings that I did above took a bit of time, but if I plan out the render times better, I can have other things queued up to do in the meantime rather than simply staring at the progress bar, especially now that I know that it takes several minutes per frame at that high quality.

In one last paragraph of self praise, I’ve managed to actually make a number of posts here on my blog this week, which I am going to continue to try to maintain!

Good luck!

A movie review of a rare obscure movie gem: The Convent

In the song “Prince of E-Ville” by Combichrist, there is a breakdown wherein a couple of lines from a movie are said.

A female voice laughs, “Could you be any more Gothic-pretentious?”

Another female voice haughtily exclaims “How dare you speak to the prince of evil that way you slut!?”

The first voice answers again incredulously, “The prince of evil? You work at fucking dairy cream.”

I heard this song in my industrial teen years, and could tell that the line must have come from a movie (in fact the whole song is actually about the movie in question). Eventually my curiosity could no longer take it, and I had to find out what movie it came from, because that short exchange was so great that I just had to know the context around it. I was not disappointed.

So after much furious googling, I finally discovered that the lines came from the horror film, The Convent. This movie ended up being my favorite horror film, once I finally managed to see it.

As far as horror plots go it’s not too complicated, a bunch of demon nuns haunt an abbey, and want to incarnate the anti-christ. A bunch of college kids go to the nunnery, and come across a few cultist kids who summon back the demon nuns. Some of the surviving kids get the survivor of the first incident to help them burn down the abbey in a blaze, though a number of the kids are of course killed.

I love this movie because of its execution, in fact, the movie is so solidly made that there is little that I can criticize about it, except for maybe that some of the sound during the transformation sequences is a little loud compared to the rest of the movie, and that the stereotypes are a little on the nose, though what one might expect from a late 90’s movie playing on 80’s tropes. The movie is not expensive, nor is it masterfully shot, but it is certainly entertaining, and contains some of the best dialogue in a horror film that I’ve seen, such as the amazing exchange. “My brother’s going to be the new anti-christ?” “Afraid so.” “Mom’s gonna be pissed!”

The effects are as good as they need to be to get the point across, with a sort of neon, glow in the dark, metal-rave aesthetic to it.

Normally, I wouldn’t bother to write about a movie like this, since it would be extremely difficult to get your hands on as an audience, but fortunately, cheaply licensed horror films are practically part and parcel of Amazon’s video service, which means that you can rent or buy this enjoyable little gem to add to your collection, or maybe just check out for a few laughs.

Food Delivery in the time of the Coronavirus

I’ve been doing food delivery for Doordash for like, 4 years now, in addition to the years of doing food delivery for other services in the years before that, so I’ve had a lot of experience in the field. The onset of our current pandemic though has changed the business in a number of ways that I could not have expected.

Of course the lower cost of gas that has precipitated from the crisis has been a boon to my wallet, enabling me to fill up my car at a greatly reduced cost. Additionally, as there have been few places that have open lobbies, there have been far more delivery orders than we would normally expect. However, since there are so many orders, and the reduced capacity to meet those orders due to reduced staffing and fewer open places has pushed the orders onto fewer places, and has extended the busy hours, especially for places that are open late at night. With many places closing early, the places that are still open late are packed with orders. The less strict hours that many are adhering to means that there are many more orders outside the typical rush hours (11a-2p for lunch, 5p-8p for dinner, 11p-1a for late night). In the early days of the pandemic, tips were larger than usual, with people being highly appreciative of those doing delivery. Now, the tips have started to become more conservative as the financial stresses have started to more families, though this has been offset a little with the increased base pay that many delivery services have been imposing.

 

I think that one of the most surprising things that has changed during the coronavirus crisis that I have noticed has been the availability of restrooms has significantly dried up. Many restaurants have closed accessibility of their restrooms off to customers and delivery folks alike, limiting the ability of drivers to work long, continuous shifts. Now I find myself taking breaks to find a gas station with an open restroom, or even going home to use the one I know is always open. It used to be that with nearly every restaurant being open that there was always a place to stop for a couple minutes, between fast food places, gas stations, and the restaurants where I would have to take deliveries from. Now I would consider myself lucky if a restaurant even has an open lobby, so I’ve got at least a chance of it being open, instead of being relegated to the drive-thru, or the order being brought out of the restaurant to my car by a staff member, effectively turning everywhere into a Sonic Drive-In.

 

Another observation has been that many of the orders I’ve taken more recently have ended up being farther out to more rural areas, presumably as it is more difficult for them to find places that are open and nearby, especially late at night, resulting in a lot of longer drives than the short hops that would be more typical a few months ago.

 

Overall though, even with the forced breaks, and the unreliable tips, things have actually been pretty decent as a delivery driver the past few months, and it has been quite a relief to know that my bills are paid in this concerning time!

 

Interested in signing up to join Doordash or Postmates in this crazy time to secure a side income? Get a sign up bonus by using the links!