Hi Everyone!

Long time no read!

Frankly, it’d been so long that I was desperate to update my blog. I have so many pending posts piling up that are of a nature that requires a lot of concentration or focus to write. Unfortunately, due to where I am in life right now it’s been extremely difficult for me to focus for extended periods of time. It is for this reason and more, that I’ve decided to do something different.

Introducing Dailies

Starting today, I’m going to be keeping something of a journal on my website, and updating my blog everyday. No matter how inconsequential, or how incomplete– I will at least post something everyday.

The haters may say:

But Chef, it’s a given that anything you post will be incomplete!

To which I respond– Ah, who the fuck am I kidding, that’s what my closest friends say, lol. Shush, y’all are mean.

Digressing, uh, today’s June 10th, and the last time I made a post was January 20th. So what happened in between then and now?

Reflecting on the Recent Past

If I had to sum up what happened between now and then as briefly as possible, it’d probably look something like this:

1. I hung out with Creator.
2. I had a falling out with my ex-boss that heralded the end of my career at his company.
3. I slacked off in Hyderabad and ate as much of the local food as possible before returning home.
4. I ended up moving in with my bestie’s family.
5. I looked for work for a couple weeks before ending up at Domino’s Pizza.
6. I wasted a lot of money trying to fix the computer I got in India, and ended up just rebuilding it (PC of Theseus style).
7. Now I’m unhappy with where I am financially and looking for another job.

Well, first and foremost, after resolving to get the fuck out of India, I did one of the main things that encouraged to go there in the first place, which was hang out with fellow 天狐団¹ members. Flameboi was unavailable, so I headed to Bangalore to hang out with Creator.

I’ve got to say that being able to be in the same country as Flameboi and Creator were a major factor in the calculus that lead me to take the leap and go over there. If I weren’t able to ask them questions about stuff, or complain about stuff to them, I probably wouldn’t have lasted a few weeks.

Hanging out with Creator (2/14 - 2/16)

I told Creator that I’d write a whole post about that weekend, so I will. But for now, I just wanted to summarize our hangout and sing his praises for a few minutes.

Well, first thing that happened was I missed my stop on the bus, and had to walk like a kilometre to meet him near our rendezvous point, lol.

After that, because of my ears being fucked up from the plane, and the sound of the traffic I found it difficult to hear him very well– although I could tell immediately that his English was very good. I don’t recall if we shook hands and exchanged pleasantries at the rendezvous point, or after meandering through the nearby grocery store and then arriving at his place, but I do recall the impression the exchange left me with very clearly.

I was immediately certain that I was in good company.

After arriving at Creator’s flat, we didn’t really venture out much for the next two days. We basically just drank tea, ate, talked about common interests, current events, and politics.

Frankly, Creator was a great host, perhaps the best I’d ever had. He spotted me for all the food/drink that weekend, and took excessively good care of me. I was so comfortable that it felt more like visiting a family member, than it did visiting a friend. I only regret that I couldn’t stay longer.

Reflecting on the time we spent together makes me feel nostalgic as Hell, tbh. When the time comes that I have my finances in order, I’ll definitely make a trip back to India just to hang out with him again.

Burning out at my company (All of February and March tbh)

Anyone I’ve ever spoken to about my last workplace is more than aware that my then-boss had something of a mercurial temperament, putting it lightly.

Well, the moment that in my heart of hearts that I reached something of a spiritual certainty that I couldn’t stick around anymore went something like this:

[Redacted]²

I was constantly given tasks that were unrelated to my job title and I was having difficulty focusing on them and the rest of my responsibilities at the same time.

One day I only managed to write about a page after looking through a lot of resources and other companies' pages for reference. That day he called me and basically said something to the effect of

“this is all you did in eight hours? How can you expect me to give you eight hours of pay for this, I could write this in 30 minutes”

Well, if he could write it in 30 minutes, he should have. Immediately after that exchange, he started playing games with my hours and looking for ways to avoid paying me. After failing to give me a raise that I was promised like 6 months ago, and after failing to pay me for the PTO I took the previous year. I suppose I didn’t have promise of either of those things in writing, so in the end it was my fault. Lesson learned.

Slacking off (March)

Well, I basically was out of a job for the most part. So I just did fuckall. I did the main things I enjoyed doing in India, watching Hololive streams live (because of being in a closer timezone to Japan), ate good food with a couple of local acquaintances, and played video games³ with my mates Serel and Dmitry.

Returning Home (March)

Packing is always the hardest thing, imho. Disassembling battlestations even more so. I had a little bit of help from the local network guy at the office, and he sort of yanking my cpu out of the socket in a really brutal way and probably bent the pins. And my PSU from there didn’t work in the States for some reason. So I was out of a processor, mobo, and PSU. I also left my case there because it took up too much space in my luggage.

At the airport my two local acquaintances who acted as my guides basically guilted/strongarmed a few tens of thousands of rupees out of me, because I was in a much better state than them financially, and they took care of me the whole time I was there. I ended up folding and giving it to them, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth.

The flights were long and tiresome. At some point I got stuck next to a Telugu speaking family who had a young son who kept kicking my backpack and spilt orange juice on me, that was fun.

Then after finally arriving back home, my bestie picked me up from the airport, and on the way back to his place we ended up with a flat tire 😩

Moving back to Mesquite (March)

Sometime in January or February, I ended up with the notion that I could live in my mate’s old bedroom since he’d moved out and gotten his own apartment. He negotiated the terms for me and made it happen, and I ended up with a pretty nice room.

I’ll probably make a post about this place and some of the stuff that’s happened here at some point, but I’m growing weary and am pretty eager to end this post.

Domino’s Pizza (April to Present)

In the immortal words of Serj Tankian

Pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olives, chives… PEPPERONI AND GREEN PEPPERS MUSHROOMS OLIVES CHIVES!?⁴

They hired me on the spot after I got car insurance. I still work there. I like my boss. Sometimes I eat pizza.

Rebuild of Chef-vangelion (Like last week)

After agonizing over it for a few weeks, and being sleep deprived because of losing sleep over it, I recruited my mate E-man to come help me put my machine back together. He ended up doing most of the work. It was ridiculously hot that day and the AC wasn’t on for some reason.

The lady of the house made some sort of tortas called Pambazos, they were delicious.

When testing the build after completing assembly and eating the pambazos, my new PSU fucking died after I opened GIMP to show my mate the doujin I was working on.

We fit in my workstation’s old PSU, and I’m still using it today.

If anyone knows E-man, and sees him around, give him some respect and do something nice for him, lol. I owe him a lot.

I wish I had more money (Always)

pls gib shekels. I like eating good tasting food, and drinking the finest preparations of bean juice. Also fermented &or distilled grain juice.

If you’d like to support me or the services I host for the 天狐団 please consider contributing

Additionally, if you know of any places in which they offer easy jobs that I qualify for and they pay more than $9-10/hr, please let me know.

I suppose that’s a wrap.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

I reckon I’ll see you tomorrow.