Author: greatwallstudios

If I look back at this blog’s history, I have been writing here off and on for a number of years (read about thirteen years). Since 2020 I have had various attempts to write some form of short content or post every single day. For the most part if I had between one and five views on any given article, post, rant, or image I thought that was pretty awesome. Now that means my yearly views were typically well under 500 for a calendar year. It has only been recently, like the last three years where I have seen one to two thousand or more views. Not ideal if your goal is monetization, but pretty good if all you wanted were more eyes than just your own to see your micro short stories. This year has been especially good. This July I had more eyes on my old posts than several years combined, which is mental. This year I am over 4,500 views, which is incredible (for me). I’m sure Mr Beast would shut down that wing of his content creation department of it drew my kind of numbers, but I’m proud of it. At least 140 people have downloaded, and seen my first two books of collected interconnected short stories, and that gives me a fuzzy feeling in my stomach. Now I have no idea if this upward trajectory of views will persist beyond this month. I’ve hit more than 500 views in December alone, a milestone in and of itself, regardless of that all-star July, which is an extreme outlier, and not the norm. What I’m saying is, I’m not here writing these things for money, that’s fairly obvious I think, but rather as a means of free expression. Am I happy to see more people tuning in to read what I’ve written, YES! Of course I am, thrilled to bits, but it can all fade back to the zero to five views per day, or jump to 2,000 views per day, and I do not imagine I would change much of anything about how I write, or what I write about.

Since the finest details I can find are just higher than usual views of the archives, with no title names, or categories given, I can’t even begin to guess what sort of things have garnered attention. That’s a blessing, since it means I simply cannot lean into any one specific topic to try and exploit the trend. But on the flip side, it’s a curse, because I do not know what I’ve done to garner any attention whatsoever. Which frustrates me to no end. At least you know I’m not pandering to you! That may count for nothing at all. Ha!

I would love to do more mini war gaming terrain in the new year. Perhaps not on the two foot by two foot scale of my previous big projects, but I like it, and it’s fun, and I do see people finding my D & D terrain articles every so often. Gives me the chance to paint, sculpt, model with tooth picks, and balsa wood, and foam board. All very fun, and kind of forgiving materials to use. Sadly I don’t have a tonne of space in which to store bigger builds.

Speaking of space, as in physical room inside my home, and not the cosmos. I disassembled the Lego/Train table yesterday morning, and put the train tracks, and vehicles in one tote box, and all of the Lego Friends kits into one 76 L tote box. It took me a couple of hours to break down all of the Lego sets, and pull all of the bricks apart. I am NOT getting rid of the Lego, but I do want it organized better. So a tidy bin for all of it is by far the best option. I did not break down the Harry Potter sets, the Minecraft sets, the Encanto sets, or the Deep Sea sets… So I could likely fill a second half size tote bin with all of those. Plus the parrots, potted plants, dinosaurs, Simba, and a Seal that I know are kicking around in my kids bedrooms. My AT-ST will never get torn down, I have it up on a shelf out of the way.

I remember vividly putting a lot of those Lego Friends kits together for my girls during the many Lock-Downs we had in 2020-2022. The prices on Amazon and at Walmart skyrocketed, so we bought stuff on Facebook marketplace, and washed every single brick in soapy bleach water before I put them together. We have a stack of building instructions about a foot tall between the four of us. I think I even had some Super Mario Bros Lego too! Wild.

I think we have lost or misplaced a few trains over the years because I could have sworn we had more than the handful I found. Thomas the tank engine had a fairly firm grip on my kids when they were very little. Talking trains with faces… What could go wrong there! But that morphed into Peppa Pig, and Paw Patrol, LOL dolls and beyond. Oh and Shopkins can’t forget the Shopkins. So very many Shopkins absolutely everywhere in this house. I’ll be sad to see those boxed up eventually.

This is the second morning I’ve woken up thinking it was Friday, and yesterday was only Tuesday, so go figure eh!?! Mental. I should go empty the dish washer, and see if I can find any other Lego sets to tear down this morning.

Or an accountant, instead I really prefer to create artwork, and do graphic design. Not spend time each week writing emails about unpaid invoices, and having to threaten to shut down live services that affect multiple regions of your business. Not cool. I do not intend to carry the costs of services you require for free. This isn’t rocket science. Pay your invoices folks. Or at the very least reach out to explain the delays. Do your best to mitigate the damages you’ve caused by not paying for services rendered. I have yet to name names, but should we cross into the new year without a timely response, and no payments that might very well be my cause célèbre come 2026. I’m on the fence about it. More of an annoyance at this point than something I need to have a melt down over, or “crash out” as the kids say these days. For the time being it is merely polite reminders about the balances owing.

It’s Tuesday! And little over a week to go before Christmas. I think I might spend some time today wrapping my wife’s gifts to her parents, and family. I finalized my stuff yesterday, so now I can work on hers since I know she hates wrapping presents. The last few classes are winding down, so for two weeks after this Friday we won’t have to drag the kids all over town to their programming. We can veg out! Yay!

Of course today the garbage men came first thing in the morning. I had high hopes for tearing down some Lego kits and getting rid of the train table, but unlike every other garbage day we’ve had for the last three months, they came before 9:00 am, instead of just before 6:00 pm. So I will hold off on that until early January.

Holy smokes the recycling truck has come by too! They must have flipped the starting spot because this is very unlike them to be this early in the day. Glad I got everything down to the curb by 7:15 am. We always rush to get things to the curb as close to 7:00 am as possible then it all sits in the wind, rain, snow until well after dark. So sometimes it feels like I don’t need to rush, and I could wait until later in the day. Bad idea. You never do know when they are going to come! With only every other week for garbage pick up that’s a huge unforced error if you make it. Come January move to once every other week for both garbage and recycling. On opposite weeks. It’s going to be an ugly going show.

That also means my current box to house the blue bins, green bin, and garbage can is obsolete, because the new blue bin is the size of a small apartment in Tokyo. So I will need to tear that down in the new year. Probably need a new lockable trash can with a more secure lid, and a working green bin, also with a lockable lid to keep the raccoons, and skunks at bay. Fun times.

Not all bad news, I can reclaim the lock, and the hinges for another outdoor project, if need be. More burnables to go to the farm for disposal. I have some old drawers, and a bird house, and some shelves that need to go out to the burn pile as it is. I’ll have enough to warrant the trek soon.

Let us pray that all of my clients manage to clear their outstanding balances by December 31st to January 15th. Then I can rest easy and start my taxes for April. Then we begin again once more.

It’s something that I have done before and found good success with, and that was taking photos of some of my wife’s most used things, and heading to the store to buy more of it. Assuming that is, that this wasn’t a product she was trying to use up rather than throw away just to be polite, and was actually something she liked, or was happy with. I think I struck a balance here, as I was able to find three of the four items I was searching for, with the help of the counter clerk person. One the just straight up didn’t have anymore, it was way out of date, and they no longer produce it in said format. So that was out. Two of them I found picture perfect matches for — sweet! And one last item I had to take a guess on, and chose the “Night” option, even though the current one does not explicitly say night on it, but it also didn’t say collagen, or anything about additive cells or some such.i don’t know anything about make ups, moisturizers, day versus night creams, or anything like that apparently. So I’ve kept the receipt in case I’ve buggered it up, so she can exchange it for what she wants, if my choice ends up being just a hair off the mark. Not a big deal if she needs to swap out for the same item one row over on the shelf. I got within spitting distance of it, and I’ll count that as a win.

They clerk did say I might be able to order the fourth item from on-line because not all make ups sell out just because a line, or single product is no longer in production. I can give that a whirl if I feel like I don’t have enough for her this Christmas. I bought myself the 68 CC Proyama chainsaw on sale, so I have room to get her what she needs to keep it fair. I’ll look into it! No harm in doing a meaningful search.

We still have 9 full days before Christmas, so you have time to shop before the store shelves empty out leaving you with very few options. Although the Boxing Day / Boxing Week sales will begin almost immediately, and magically the shelves & aisles will be cluttered with stuff once more. Do what is fiscally responsible for you and yours this holiday season.

Any-who, we are back to Monday, and I am feeling more like myself. The double tap of flu & Covid vaccines made me feel a little off this weekend, but we are all the better for it. I have to protect myself as best as I can. Winter brings many airborne illnesses with it. Coughs, colds, flus, and stomach bugs galore. Hand washing and getting enough sleep, and eating better will go a long way to staving off this sort of thing. But not everything is avoidable given just how many activities my kids do each week! We do get a winter break respite from all that starting soon enough. Yeah!

Sending out the last of the year’s invoices, trying to coerce a client to pay outstanding invoices from the summer before year end. I have ranted about this elsewhere, so I digress. I don’t name names, but I am annoyed by this lack of empathy, and moreso by the lack of prompt payment. While I am glad for the holiday card, and sample treats, the paid invoices (plural) would be more appropriate at this time. Moving on.

The children have five school days left, most of which will be spent playing games, watching movies, having assemblies, and being hyper fixated on Christmas Day. So not much going on for them beyond just babysitting this entire week. Unfortunately Christmas isn’t until next Thursday, so they have a whole lead up week to completely fall apart, and become stark raving mad present seeking hogs.

Oh look, more snow! Ugh. Can we not for a few weeks? Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanza, Merry Hannukah, be a bright light of Diwali etc etc…

I feel rushed, and like I don’t have enough done all at the same time. I have all the Christmas presents I purchased wrapped, and a good number under the tree. Stocking stuffers are all done too. I still feel like I need to grab more stuff. These weekends feel both empty and too full all at the same time. I don’t know where the disconnect is.

Yesterday my eldest passed her taekwondo belt promotion to become a Red belt. She has completed nine of the eleven belts so far. Once you get to Black belt, the eleventh they break into their own “Dan” levels of which there are four. A fourth level Dan is a master. So while she is close to the entry level black belt, she is far from done. I’m proud she made it this far. Our original goal was the Blue Belt because that seemed so far away when she began. But now she is two belts beyond that, and still going strong. She might even make the black stripe belt by July 1st when we break for summer vacation. Who knows!?!

I had both a Flu & Covid shot on Friday afternoon and have left lousy ever since. I can feel it getting lessened by the hour which is nice. I will be back to myself before the day is through. Happy about that. Shoulder hurts from the two concurrent jabs in the same muscle. Should have done two spots, and not just localized to one! Live and learn.

It’s a good thing that the Taekwondo belt testing is done here in town and not miles away because the weather outside is dreadful, and I would not want to have to drive far, far away for anything that cannot be rescheduled. It’s currently snowing, and the powdery stuff already on the ground is blowing about like crazy. This is how you end up with three foot tall snow drifts that can cause accidents, or wedge a car solid in the middle of the road. I have seen two plows out so far this morning, and I didn’t bother to get up until 9:00 am!

We went for our Flu shots yesterday, about a month late, but still better to have them than not, I think. I double dipped and had a Covid-19 Moderns shot too, because of my Crohn’s Disease. I’d really rather not have Covid ever again if I can help it! What a nightmare that was. I stayed sick for 21 days until the red testing line finally started to fade enough to kinda not be seen anymore.

My eldest has belt testing so we opted to get hers done either later today or on Monday so that her arm wouldn’t ache before she does her patterns, and just as importantly, does her sparring matches to obtain her neck belt promotion. She is currently still asleep. I applaud her for finally getting some much needed rest. These kids suffer serious fomo at night and never want to sleep, but their bodies, and brains really do need it! A Saturday morning sleep in has been a long few years coming. Perhaps as they BOTH approach teenhood we can finally count on them both staying asleep on the weekends, and not try to be up before six o’clock in the morning both days.

No point going out to shovel while it is blowing so hard. I would wind up doing more harm than good. So let the powdery stuff fall where it may, and then get after it, if need be. Looks as though it’s trying to blow up against the front of the house, or into the back yard and beyond. As long as we can Jimmy the door open to leave we’re all good!

In other news Christmas is the twelfth day from today! Big red guy is coming to town! We haven’t even gone to see the lights in town yet. Missed the Santa Claus parade on my daughter’s birthday because they were downtown seeing Shrek live with their Girl Guide unit. December is rushing along really fast this year. I did secure about 100 hours of work for the new year, which is nice. It’s something I can count on which is really great. I am thankful for the vote of confidence in these difficult economic times.

Have a lovely Saturday. I see you Singapore! I see the viewership numbers out of your region blowing up more & more. I still don’t know what is catching people’s eye, but I hope it’s good natured, and that you had a good time reading/looking at it.

Though it does kind of cannibalize its own subscription model, and that one singular solution tends towards dead. Anxious? Dead. Hungry? Dead. Have any kind of needs to be taken care of, yup you guessed it — dead. The dead don’t feel hunger, pain, sadness, remorse, anxiety, or anything else for that matter. I’ve seen enough news clips, and articles about how people who turn to Chat gpt for a personal assistant, or a virtual friend, or even just chat with it a lot, all get the same treatment where they are corralled towards killing themselves. It’s the single best solution that a LLM can come up with to solve all of our individual issues. Food scarcity? Kill yourself. Miss your wife & kids? Kill yourself. Have a tax bill you can’t possibly make? Kill yourself. Worried about cancer, finances, your love life, a broke down car? It all leads to the same answer. I for one am not ok with that. Not cool.

Not to mention the wildly out of pocket hallucinations these LLM’s report back with as undisputed answers to seemingly simple questions. We are, in fact, all dumber for having heard your response. Precious time we will never get back. This isn’t autocorrect, or a grammar checker, this is wholesale outsourcing of thinking to an online dictionary that mimics speech. Truly ridiculous.

Maybe it’s because my day job revolves around art, and things of that nature that I have not embraced AI. I spent years learning to draw, paint, sculpt, build scale models, realistic terrain, and play musical instruments that I feel those turning to a prompt, aren’t really doing “the thing”. It’s a novelty — for sure. I won’t deny that. But to claim skill or mastery akin to that of Michelangelo, Money, Picasso, Frida or any other higher order artist is nonsense. I can order food from a tablet, doesn’t make me a Michelin starred chef.

I get that you might be envious of others talent, sacrifice, dedication, discipline and skill, but to try to position yourself amongst them via a prompt is absurd. Don’t make me laugh. It’s a party trick. It’s slight of hand. It’s hand wavy nonsense where something else external to you does 99.999% of the work (theft at that!) to feel like you’ve really done something. You did not cook. There was no dedication to master it. You did not give yourself over to the learning curve, suffering through skill plateaus, enjoying growth, building off of personal experience, or first hand knowledge. It’s a sham.

Not only that, but the end game for this product is that it will lead you to your own death. Silly people. We should all pull away from social media and get back to living our lives, in person. Walking through our neighbourhoods, talking to one another, building relationships, building up our communities. We’ve lost ourselves. It is disheartening to see.

Alas, we have made it to another Friday. One more week out of the year 2025 nearly completed. Only a few brief moments left before the dial ticks over into 2026. More snow is on the horizon. More cold. More wind. More ice. Who knows what work will bring come the new year. Best of luck to you all out there. Ciao Bella!

After revelations that our neighbour had passed from home cancer in his femur, we’ve just had need that another (much younger) friend has a similar diagnosis of bone cancer in his thigh and is set to begin chemo at Mount Sinai on Monday. After eight weeks they will decide if he needs to amputate the leg. But only if it has not spread to his lungs, lymph nodes, brain, and other organs first. That’s a terrible bit of news for a Thursday morning.  With any luck they can cut him free of his cancerous source, and he is able to live a long, and fulfilling life afterwards.

I for one would much rather do three rounds of a wet four inches of snow removal, than tackle a single round of a wet twelve. Wet heavy snow is so defeating when you want it over and done with but you can only make slow headway on it with a smaller shovel. I do not own a snowblower. It’s a fight I have with myself every year. I want one, then we go a couple of years with just bitter cold temperatures and not a lot of snow. Then we get a season like this, where it has snowed enough to warrant shoveling four of five times and we aren’t even into winter officially yet. Not for another ten or eleven days I think. But this show removal strategy that 8 have is based off of me having to shovel by myself, or having the help of my wife and children for small parts of it. But don’t count on the help at this point. This tends towards it being a solo endeavour.

So to save myself any back or arm strain 8 will venture out into the falling snow to do multiple smaller clean ups, instead of just one heart attack inducing massive round of snow clearing. Either way, I hate it. One or two snowfalls can make it feel like “Oh we’ll have a white Christmas this year, how picturesque” more than that will make me curse the skies loudly, and often. I shake my fist at thee. Why yes I do bite my thumb at thee also! Fuck-wad!

So here I am at eight o’clock in the morning, sweaty and agitated about the knowledge I have multiple shoveling sessions left, not only for today, but for the foreseeable future. I am going to run out of places to put the snow if it keeps up at this pace. Wouldn’t be as terrible if all 8 had to do was the driveway, but the front walk needs done too, the side of the house to access the shed, and the back patio (to mitigate any potential flooding of our basement via the back wall, and window.) it’s like doing two full driveways each time. Makes the sixteen inch single dumping of snow a day long task to clear. Not only that but my heart started to race, and would not stop doing so for about an hour afterwards, even once I sat down, then laid down. It was unpleasant.

All the more reason to give up on the log splitter day dream, and focus on a snowblower as a reality for myself as I get older. I will soon be closer to fifty than forty, so… Heart health is more important than ever! Also taking it slow, with frequent rest stops is the smart play here too. If we get a lot more wet snow I think I will start to see some broken tree limbs that I will need to break down. This is also why 8 prune our trees every single year, because if one goes I would like very much for it to not be able to reach the house, and damage our roof, or windows, or wall integrity.

I don’t see myself walking the dog at the farm today. Likely just around the block. His toe still looks kinda nasty, so I do not believe that he will want to go and place an exposed wound into snow, and road salt mixed together. That sounds deeply unpleasant to me. He has the run of the yard if he wants to have zoomies undisturbed by salt and brine. I think that’s a suitable compromise. I’d prefer the wide open spaces of the farm where he can run, and run unimpeded, but the roads look ugly, and the farm lane may very well trap my vehicle in its wind blown snow drifted grasp. Not cool. I should probably put a small shovel in the car for just such an occasion. I used to have one, but it shattered one icy day. C’est la vie!

***My plan to clear up sequentially rather than in one go has proven itself to be a good strategy. However, after the third round I am exhausted, and very sweaty. The plows have gone by twice filling in the end of my drive with heavy, wet, packed down snow, and grey slush. It’s extraordinarily tiring to move. I pray for a break for a few hours before the snow returns, but that seems unlikely. As soon as I finish there is a layer of snow covering all that I have completed. It beckons for another round! I’m going to sleep like the dead if my back and shoulders don’t ache so bad it keeps me up tonight. I thought this might be a threepeater and done, but could go as high as five or six before the night has come.

In other news our very helpful elderly neighbour affectionately known as Sarge has succumbed to his bone cancer. He completed one round of chemo in the fall, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. Poor guy. He was a trusted friend with that snowblower of his during the deep dark months of winter. A wonderful sight to behold when you were trying to dig out from under the road plow man’s bounty laid on your door step. Always quick with a conversation, and a smile/chuckle. I suppose his house will go up for sale in the coming months. A local celebrity gone with the wind. Salut.

I have a real bad habit of missing milestones on the day, but I remembered afterward! Ha. Plus it was the puppy’s second birthday yesterday, and he cracked a toenail the night before which led to us having to chase him to clean the wound, and cover it so he didn’t continue to bleed on every single surface in the house he can get to unaided. It was a thing. I spent a bit of time on my hands and knees scrubbing blood out of carpets, off bed sheets, and off of the tile floor, grout and hard wood slats. Fun times. It could have gone better as a whole I’d say. No matter. We new skinned the wound, he has a bootie on to protect from salt & snow on the exposed quick. And that’s about all we can do for it now.

But here we are day 601 now, once more. This is the second or third time I’ve been here. I’ve had some strange luck with the continuous writing streak, so I’m not mad anymore. I have been furious on two occasions prior, but that’s because the issues were so fresh, so new, so raw. I’m more blasé about it all now. I’ve gotten this far twice before so, you know, whatev’s. Do I think I can get a streak up over 831 again? Possibly. Maybe. I don’t know. When I focus on the streak count instead of the content of my writing in each post the quality dips considerably.

I look back at pre Covid infection pieces and think, I don’t remember writing this at all. It’s rather well put together. Oh my, is my brain shrinking? Am I getting dumber? Or am I now more easily distracted, and less inclined to follow a thought until it reaches a reasonable conclusion? Not sure. I did recently have a dream I was back in university trying to put together a research paper on a famous scientist’s research methods, to see if they were as meticulous as they should be. It was weird. Since it was a dream I could not read any text, and I couldn’t seem to commit any thoughts to the written word. I was very frustrated and starting to panic. It woke me up, and I had to think about it while awake (sort of, it was three in the morning) until 8 had put some actual thoughts in order out loud, and then I could fall asleep knowing full well I’m not THAT dimwitted.

I still have random dreams that I’ve somehow missed every class for a required course, but still have to attend an exam I’m not prepared for. With cold sweats as I try to cram in the early morning hours on the day of the test. Hate those dreams. Not cool!

You ever have a partial memory of a room you’ve been in, but for the life of you cannot recall where that particular room is located? Like was it one of the two colleges I attended, the university, an old high school, a school trip to some place else? Like I have a vivid recollection of a room, but no idea how old I was when I went, or why I was there in the first place. Very odd feeling.

In an addition 130 days or so we will hit two years on this writing streak, and that will be cool. I have fewer than forty days left to hit a 600 day streak on Reddit. I’ve game-ified all these different tangential obligations just to keep them going day in, and day out. Like watching the view count for this blog each day, week, month, and year. Must be a dopamine hit. At least I am aware I am playing myself to achieve some sort of results. Ha! What simple people are we.

Tuesday December 9th, of the year 2025. We are eleven days from the real start of winter and we have had a few days down to minus fifteen degrees Celsius all ready! Going to be a snow filled, and bitterly cold winter this year I think. A long, cold. And drab winter is laid out before us. Hold on tight!

And… The night before he splits open a toenail on the ice and proceeds to bleed on every flat surface in the house that he is able to scramble to before we catch him to see what’s wrong. Daughter’s shag rug, wife’s bed, hallway,  kitchen floor, and front foyer, plus back door mat. I for a second thought he’d gotten a bunny and had brought some of the remains inside with him, but once we got him to sit down and settle, 8 could see he had a front paw raised, and that’s when we saw the blood from his smashed toenail. Yikes. Poor pup. We put a fitted sock on it to stop him from licking it all night. But he’s still distressed by it. Silly boy that he is.

Happy second birthday Graham Cracker! Not the way we’d have wanted to spend it, but it could have been a whole lot worse, I suppose. He got a fancy new big dog food dish for his birthday. I’m certain the girls will make him a birthday card. He got three strips of bacon for breakfast to celebrate the day. You’re a mess, but we love you Grimbo!

In other news it is Monday once again. I spent much of last evening cleaning up, after my daughter unwrapped all of her birthday gifts from the party. A party that went off without a hitch I might add. No fights. No wounds. Everybody left with those that they were supposed to. A grand time was had by all involved. Lots of food and beverages for the kiddies. It was very pleasant. The glow in the dark mini putt was pure chaos, but from all the laughter I know they all enjoyed themselves. A few holes in one from multiple kids on different courses too. Nice!

Now we turn our full attention to Christmas. I spent more than three hours wrapping gifts, and stocking stuffers for the whole family, myself included. I paused a few times to stretch out my back, and to actively watch my favourite parts of Elf, so it wasn’t a constant nose to the grind stone three hours, but enough that my neck, and upper back ached a good deal yesterday because of it.

It’s the holiday season so of course my kids have gotten into the scotch tape to use it all on Halloween, and Thanksgiving decorations, and to build crafts and so much more over the last two months. Instead of relying on them to not waste it all, leaving me with none for Christmas gift wrapping, I keep a secret stash of my own supplies hidden away, deep in the bowels of the house. This year I used up only one whole tape dispenser, and part of a second. We have scaled back. I still bought the essentials from Santa to us all for the stockings. Everybody needs a tooth brush, tooth paste, soaps and shampoos etc… but we focused one one bigger gift for each child, and few additional items. No mounds of filler toys that get forgotten about the moment they open yet another present from under the tree. Those days are done! Economy isn’t what it used to be. Can’t be wasting cash on filler anymore. Quality over quantity.

Happy 14th birthday in dog years to our new sullen teen Graham Cracker! He’s officially a two-nager!