Tag: random

Decluttering and Amazon

Only a small sample of the problem

I’ve talked before about the clutter in my house… Mostly the accumulation of books. Recently, I based an entire month of giveaways around that fact.  Despite, giving books away to friends and donating them to libraries and non-profits my house is still full of the things. Sometimes no one wants to take a book off your hands… or a videogame, or piece of electronics.

Until now, these things have just been sitting in closets or on shelves, making me feel guilty every time I look at them. Then someone on-line reminded me of the Amazon Trade-in Store which buys books, electronics, video games, and DVDs! I rounded up all the books and such that had been lying around forever and started scanning them in. Amazon ended up taking almost all of them (they were interested in four books.) and I ended up with $70 of credit with Amazon (which is pretty much like real money anyway, is there anything you can’t buy on Amazon?)

They Take Everything

Even nicer, Amazon pays for the shipping and anything they don’t buy from you gets mailed back to you free of charge as well! This first round was quite successful, so much so that I find myself looking for other things to sell to them

Now I Feel Like Doing Something!

Khorne: helping you get things done since forever

I don’t know how many of you will get this… But, I found it strangely motivating.

Why Today’s Post Isn’t

Paperwork!

The last two days I’ve typed just over 16,000 words… None of which my own, in the sense that I wasn’t writing my own thoughts or works, but rather for work. The two days before that I probably wrote another 10,000 plus. If this was NaNoWriMo I’d be half way done?! For my office, this is one of the two busy times of the year, after the Appropriations committee has held their suspense hearing and lots of bills get moved to the floor. All those bills need to have an analysis done for them and that is my office’s job. This was compounded this year by the fact that I was given new policy committees, so I’ve had to learn a lot in the past six months.

So, no post today. Just these pictures of my work area covered in Fact sheets, bills, checklists, drafts, and letters of support or opposition from interested parties. Enjoy…?

My recycle bin full of drafts and bills
These are bill information packets I haven't processed yet
My couch covered in amendments and drafts that need to be revised

FOUND: A Letter I Wrote to Denny Atkins and His Reply

My Letter to Mr. Atkin and his Reply
My Letter to Mr. Atkins and His Reply Cont'd.

I was going through my old journals (yes I keep one and yes it goes back 13 years or so!) and found this printed out old email exchange. It appears to be a letter I wrote in 1999, to Denny Atkins, who at the time had just left Computer Gaming World. I don’t recall ever writing this email or getting the response. I do want to thank him publicly now though for taking the time out of his busy schedule to write to me! I did take his advice, by the way, I started reading video game magazines and websites earnestly as well as emailing various authors/editors. I even landed a gig as a reviewer for Gamepen.com and then after that at UGO (2000-02). Sadly, I didn’t cultivate relationships with the people I worked with and I couldn’t tell you what most of them are doing today or if they even remember the young, eager high school graduate they were working with back then.  When the dotcom bubble burst, writing assignments dried up and I found myself with a girlfriend, friends, a part-time job and a full-time students’ workload. For me, video game journalism  fell by the wayside. I never picked it up again…

PS – well maybe a little, I’m still listed as a senior writer for GameStooge.com, a small news site, where an old friend from the Gamepen days is the Editor-in-Chief.

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