I wish my hobbies paid more

Unless I somehow actually get my book published, all my writing has thus far netted me precisely $0.00 profit. I've written hundreds of thousands of words, many of them in a row, some even in stories and books, and gotten nothing but a warm sense of satisfaction for my efforts. Dungeons and dragons is worse. Considering that I'm running a game wherein we play maybe five hours a week, I'm putting probably ten to twenty hours of work into the game almost every week. This week alone, totally while not at work, ahem, I've spent about ten hours designing a single encounter that my players will probably blow through in an hour or so. My only consolation is that there's a pretty good chance that I'll total party kill them at least once. Kung Fu? All told, I probably only spend four or five hours a week on Kung Fu, but I actually pay money to do that! My hobbies aren't money making.

The truly sad part is that I probably work harder at my hobbies than I do at my job. When I do have work, I work hard and get it done. But frankly, I almost definitely have more hobby work time a week than real work time these days. I've been complaining about not having enough work for, oh, years now, and while it's getting slightly better with my latest boss, I'm still idle a lot.

My ideas for making money, like publishing my books or freelancing for D&D, keep getting shot down. Book? Publishing is very bad right now (economy) and the actual publisher I want to work with is trying not to go out of business to boot. Freelance articles for D&D? Licensing issues since if I came up with an idea that they bought, they'd own it and I'd never be allowed to use it on my own ever again. Writing for 3rd party D&D people? That's all up in the air since D&D 4.0 came out and mucked everything up. Everything I'd like to do that could actually theoretically make me money? Bang, thud, dead.

Sometimes I really hate how life goes. At least my campaign rules.

Metal ladies

I am on a mission. I need bands, fronted by women, that rock. Evanesence, Flyleaf, Lacuna Coil, etc. Unfortunately they also have to be vaguely popular as I'm trying to plug them into my personal radio stations and the one I'm using that I won't name for fear of it also being blocked by the douchebags who work here only really knows somewhat popular bands. So if you have ideas comment or email me.

Hypermilling

Another cool word for a decidedly less cool concept. Anyway, hypermilling is a fancy word to describe "driving in a manner to get the maximum amount of gas mileage out of your vehicle". I've been trying some, and only some, of the techniques, and I've found they actually can be very effective. My car theoretically gets 26/34 mpg city/highway. I'm currently averaging around 32 mpg total. That's nuts. With gas a $4 a gallon, that saves me close to $20 a month, which is small but statistically significant. Assuming your car doesn't do 26/34 (hahahahahahaha suckers), if you can improve your mpg then you're really doing yourself a favor.

So how does one hypermill? Well, firstly, you need a manual transmission car or a true hybrid to do it. These techniques work best for the hybrids, but aren't bad for manuals. There are a few things you can do in an automatic, but I don't think you'll see the impressive mpg boost I have. So anyway, here's the techniques I use based on how useful I find them:

• Accelerate gently. Yes, drive like you're old. This is probably the biggest improvement you'll see in any car, including automatics. The reason is totally physics. If you jam on the accelerator from a total stop, you're bring potentially tons of weight to a speed quickly thus using more gas to get to the speed limit. If you accelerate more slowly you're using far less gas and still getting to the speed limit (eventually anyway). Don't be a total douche and drive über slow if there's people behind you, but you don't have to try to do a 0-60 in 5 seconds every time you take off.


• Maintain steady speed.I thought this sounded like a load of hooey (or bullshit if you don't like my 50's cursing), but according to Edmunds.com (car review people) if you can maintain a single speed it will markedly improve your milage. Even better, if you have cruise control a computer will control a single speed, taking your foot out of the equation. Having tested it myself, I have to say I'm pretty damn sure this works.


• Drifting in neutral. Now we're in slightly dangerous territory, especially if you're stupid enough to try this in an automatic, but this works wonders. If you're on a hill, and you're going down said hill with your foot on the gas the whole way, or using your engine to control your speed, you're using gas. If you drop your car into neutral and control speed with your brakes then you're using considerably less gas. You can test this by just looking at your engine's rpms. One thing worth noting is that some hypermillers say you should turn off your car when going down a hill and then kick start your car at the bottom. While this is a way to save even more gas, it's VERY DANGEROUS since most modern cars have power steering/brakes/etc which could easily get you killed if there's any kind of situation you need steering or braking for, like, oh, the bottom of a hill with a kid crossing the street. Got it?


• Sitting still? Turn off your car.While this makes some sense, there is the valid question of how much gas you're actually saving considering that, depending on the car, it can take a considerable amount of gas to start your car. The best answer I have is that if your car starts really easily, twenty seconds or more means you should turn off your car, otherwise just skip this one.


• Drafting larger vehicles, especially tractor trailors. This definitely works really, really well. It's just illegal to follow a truck really close. Though you literally can drive within six to twelve inches of a big rig and turn off your car and drift in neutral behind it, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T DO THAT. So dangerous. However, following a truck at two to three seconds is still enough to get remarkably better gas mileage. So don't be a dick, but following trucks will help even if you're following at an appropriate distance. Neat.


• Lighten the load. Take every unnecessary item out of your car. Seriously. A lighter car gets better gas mileage. Granted taking ten CDs out of your car won't do shit, but if you've got extra shit you don't need in your boot (trunk), get rid of it. Some hypermillers say you should take out your spare tire and jack, as they're heavy, and rely on AAA to save you. PLEASE DON'T BE THAT STUPID. The emergency wheel is there for a very fucking good reason, leave it alone.

The only other nonsense I have tried is, as far as I can tell, either just nonsense, fucking dangerous, or gives such an imperceptible improvement, if any, that they're not worth the effort. As far as I'm concerned hypermilling should be about bang for the buck. What I've listed are the easy and relatively safe things that I do that I have found to be effective. If you're looking to save some coin, try 'em out and let me know how you do!

When it rains...

What the fuck? Isn't one enough? Do I really have to have two fucking women messing with my head? Can't it be one at a time?

Time to get drunk.

Neat sand sculpture.

Super neat sculpture.

So I enjoy sand violence. So what?

The coolest name for the lamest profession

vexillology \vek-sil-AHL-uh-jee\, noun:

The study of flags.

What the fuck? That's the single coolest sounding word of the day I've received ever. Ever! And it's the study of flags? That makes no goddamn sense. This word deserves to be about something cooler than this! Seriously.

I got the blues.... radio station

Ok, I may not actually have the blues. Yes, I am a tiny bit depressed that I'm not having much in the way of luck finding the right girl for me, and yes my whole work situation is stressing me out, and yes my book publishing situation is irritating me... Ok, so maybe I do have the blues. And I love listening to the blues. How does that make sense?

See the blues don't help people who are depressed. As much as I've paid attention, the blues songs I've listened to so far today include a man begging a woman to treat him fairly, a man complaining that the woman he loved left him for another man, a man promising that he's ready to do anything the woman he loves wants while she shuns him, a man considering suicide after ninety days of hoping his woman would come back, and a long description of what the man's night was like when his woman left him (cold and dark apparently). None of these things make me feel better about anything.

So why the hell do I listen to this music? Because I love it. My favorite kind of blues is an old black guy playing a guitar crooning about his crappy life. Why? Well, I suppose you could call me a racist fucker who enjoys the misery of black people, but really I love how much skill, how much passion is put into these songs. They may not be the best guitar players in terms of technical skill, but they make guitars sing. Combine that with a truly heartfelt story of a man having a bad day/week/month/life, and you get some really amazing music. As a person who loves death metal, punk rock, and other fast music, I guess the blues balances that shit out.