Yahtzee!

Yahtzee!

The month of mayhem is done. And to be honest, some of these elements I think I'm going to be carrying with me, as lifestyle adjustments. But not:

40. Shave every day for a month
Sure, sure, it's nice to be relatively clean-cut. Whatever. But do you think I'll be shaving before going in to work tomorrow morning? Unlikely at best. As a "challenge", this was more just a pain.

53. No fast food for a month
Certainly a good money-saver, for sure. When you add in the "no caffeine" bit below, my bank account is downright comfortable. Moreover, this challenge just forced me to actually plan out my week a little better. Go to the grocery store, stock up on food, and so forth. There were a few times I was absolutely jonesing for some tasty Jack In The Box, but alas, willpower prevailed.

76. Bring my lunch to work every day for a week
Likewise, a little planning in advance. Though after a whole week, I got really really tired of the sandwich fixin's I had picked up. There may have been longing, wistful looks at the food court (I will not confirm this). But it wasn't the actual making of the food that bugged me--I would have guessed my bachelor-ness would have rallied against the inconvenience of having to make my lunch the night before. I mean, how domestic can you get?

8. Drink 8 cups of water every day for a month and
30. Stop drinking caffeine for a month
These are the ones I think had the biggest effect on me. A month ago, I would have sworn I needed that Venti Starbucks caffeine infusion, any time I had to be in at work at 8am (or 9am, or 1pm, or 5pm). And true enough, for the first day or two, I think my body had some adjusting to do. But popping a couple aspirin in the morning took care of any caffeine-related headaches, and by about three days, I was completely fine. Especially having a big bottle of water to drink. So I'm not saying I won't ever get Starbucks again or anything drastic like that, but tomorrow morning? My bottle of water will do fine, I think. A whole lot cheaper, a whole lot fewer calories, etc etc.

So with this, I declare five items completed. Pretty satisfying. Other items on the horizon--I've actually been mulling over a plan of action that could finally excise my ancient ISU debt, that's been hanging over my credit report for roughly one eon. That should be fun, if it works. The San Diego Comic-Con will be happening almost certainly this year--airfare and hotel already procured.

Anybody got recommendations for a good non-fiction book for me to read? I have a tendency to prefer history, be it military or otherwise--but I'm not opposed to a good biography or something like that.

2. Rip my entire CD collection to mp3 format

2. Rip my entire CD collection to mp3 format

WOW time consuming. The thing that really sucked about this one, though, is that the first program I was using to rip the audio tracks, Audiograbber, spontaneously changed the bitrate it was converting to, from my preferred 192 to a paltry 56. And I didn't actually notice this, until I was down to my last five or six CDs. As a result, I essentially had to rip almost every CD twice. That was good times. I ended up swapping to another program, CDex, was far superior. Aside from actually ripping everything at the proper bitrate, it also worked about twice as fast as nasty ol' Audiograbber.

Aside from the CDs, I've also whipped up an entire database for my comic books, and they've not only been entirely catalogued, I've got them sorted into the "keep/not keep" boxes. The only catch is, the sell/donate 75% part of #86 may have been unrealistic; my "not keep" books have gotten up to about 55%. To do any more than that, I'd have to actually get rid of books I actively like and want to keep. So since the idea for the 101 lists is to stretch, but not actively punish myself, I'll probably make one more pass through the "keep" books and call it good at that.

63. Make $1000 on eBay

63. Make $1000 on eBay

I've been stuck at fricking $995 for a week, waiting for any one of four jackasses to actually pay their fricking tab for the items they bought. For the record, if you're a greasy Spainiard, please check the auction notes. My shipping costs are written right there. You don't have to send me multiple mails inquiring as to how much the shipping would be if you bought two figures. Or how much it would be if you bought four. Or seven. It says RIGHT THERE. In addition, if it says "Payment due within five days of auction close," that does not translate to "eh, take your time, any time in the next month or so sounds fine." Grr.

Anyway, despite an agonizing slowness to make it over the finish line, #63 is well and truly complete. Given the sheer volume of HeroClix I've sold via eBay over the last two months, it may even mark the end of #72 (sell half my inventory of toys), though I won't know for sure until I do #71, which is to inventory them. The thing that's going to be really tough about #71, though, is that I have so many loose toys. I recently re-inherited virtually my entire old collection of G.I. Joe figures, I have at least one box full of misc. toys, and probably one or two boxes of carded toys. Ah well, the real nightmare is going to be inventorizing my comic book collection. That's probably going to be a solid weekend's worth of work. I have a feeling that's going to be a "year three" task, 'cause I really don't want to do it.