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Current Events

Tim — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:04:32 +0000

I’ve been going through a really bad depressive episode and my cocktail of medications is not working properly right now. That’s my excuse for not posting anything in quite a while. It’s been so bad that I’ve had to be off work. I really want to get back to work. I’m getting pretty tired of not having anything to do except lay around and wait to see if the newest cocktail of meds is going to work. Luckily my family has been very supportive through this whole mess, and that has helped a lot. I don’t get to see my doctor again until Tuesday, when we have to decide if the current cocktail is working or not, ( so far I’m saying no to that one ) and if necessary we have to decide what to try next. I’m going to push for the off-label use of Mirapex as an addition to what I’m already taking, as well as backing the Abilify back down to where it was at 10mg/day. ( Don’t worry if you have no idea what I’m talking about, this is mostly for me to be able to refer back to later if I need to. )

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timtucker — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:52:35 PST

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timtucker — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:59:50 PST

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timtucker — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:29:20 PST

Revised Font Stack | A Way Back [del.icio.us]

timtucker — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:58:04 PST

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timtucker — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:34:35 PST

Short tip

Tim — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:45:14 +0000

Here’s a simple tip for Farmville. Need some cash? Super Pumpkins. That is all. Expect to see some tips start showing up for Farm Town soon. I’m playing that more than Farmville. Also if you want some classic fun, you can play Uno on Facebook. Just remember to click the Uno button before you play your second to last card. ( I constantly screw that up. )

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timtucker — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:39:09 PST

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timtucker — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:55:38 PST

I think I touched a nerve…

Tim — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:19:44 +0000

You may have noticed I posted a few tips and tricks for the Farmville game on Facebook. Let me just say, I don’t plan on stopping that. As I learn new things that I think can help other people I’m going to post them. With that said let me explain the reason for this post. I’m starting to get hits on the Farmville posts from search engines and evidently this is pissing off the people that create “junk” sites that have a few tips and then try to sell you something to help you with the game. They have started leaving threatening comments ( with a link to their site of course ) claiming that I copied everything directly from their site. If you’ve ever read my site you should be able to easily tell that my tips posts were written off the top of my head, with my own personal style. ( or lack thereof ) I say let them come after me if they want. If you stuck around for the end of this post, you get a free tip for Farmville. You may think this is counter-intuitive… Master a crop completely ( all three stars ), but DON’T stop growing it. Growing a crop you have the mastery sign for yields bonus XP when you harvest it. It may be boring, but it works.

Anhedonia

Tim — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:56:06 +0000

The reason I didn’t have much fun while I was in Cleveland is because I have severe depression which causes anhedonia ( the inability to enjoy things that should be enjoyable ), anxiety ( the closing of the Cleveland airport on Sunday really helped with that ), a complete lack of energy, and a few other “fun” problems. Even before I booked the trip I knew that my balance of meds was slipping. For some reason I thought that trekking out there and seeing my friends would somehow break how I was feeling and let me have some fun. Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out that way. Right after I got back, I got an appointment with my brain doc. He upped the dose of my Cymbalta, and also my Ritalin. Soooo, now I’m enjoying the side effects of Cymbalta without any of the benefits yet. The early morning nausea is fun and the day long headaches just can’t be beat. I think that’s enough self-indulgent whining from me for right now…

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timtucker — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:57:56 PST

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timtucker — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:13:42 PST

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timtucker — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:09:07 PST

The end of Cleveland

Tim — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:35:40 +0000

( My friends on Facebook know this story already but I’m posting it anyway. ) So following up my last entry, I went to the Cleveland Airport about an hour and a half to an hour and forty-five minutes before my flight was supposed to leave expecting to find mass hysteria since the power had only recently been turned back on. Much to my surprise I found the place to be almost completely empty. There was no one in line for security so I breezed through. ( It was easy enough to remember the process I had followed at O’Hare only the day before. ) There was no one waiting around most of the gates. Almost everything was closed. At this point I was thinking “okay my flight is still listed as on time, so I just have a while to kill.” No sooner had I sat down and started loading up a movie on my laptop, and my phone buzzes. Somehow I knew it wasn’t going to be good news. Text message, Orbitz, flight delayed by 20 minutes. “Whew” I thought, 20 minutes is nothing. Back to the movie. Jump ahead about 30 minutes or so. Another text, flight now delayed by over an hour. I start to think “this isn’t looking good for getting out tonight.” Another reasonably small chunk of time later, I see several people around me start getting up to look at the flight board. “What fresh hell is this?” I say to myself. Flight board indicates that we should see the agent at the desk to be switched to a different flight that is now leaving earlier than ours. As I wait in line I begin to wonder how we will fit two planes worth of people into one plane. Fortunately when I get to the counter I get a reserved seat for the other flight, NOT a stand-by ticket. As it turned out the plane we were moved to was MUCH larger than the one we were originally supposed to be on. We boarded on time, and after de-icing the plane I had a very pleasant flight back to O’Hare. We had to wait a decent amount of time for our gate to clear, adding to the overall lateness of me getting home, but I was just glad to be there. Overall the weekend should have been more fun for me than it was, and I’ll explain why in my next post.

IMGP1515 [Flickr]

timtucker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:38:48 PST

timtucker posted a photo:

IMGP1514 [Flickr]

timtucker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:38:43 PST

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IMGP1513 [Flickr]

timtucker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:38:38 PST

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IMGP1512 [Flickr]

timtucker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:38:34 PST

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IMGP1506 [Flickr]

timtucker — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:38:29 PST

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timtucker — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:38:45 PST

Just my luck

Tim — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:44:03 +0000

Exactly as I predicted, I decided to fly to Cleveland ( where it just so happens I still am ) for the weekend to take pictures of the guys rocking RaysMTB. All the spots in the cars were full and I knew if I booked the plane tickets, that someone would drop out leaving a spot for me. And yes it happened. To top that off, when I went to check out of the hotel this morning I found out that the power to the Cleveland airport was totally out. Meaning that I didn’t know how I was getting home. For a while I thought I would have to try and cram in with the guys that had an extra spot. It turns out they had to take some extra stuff home so there wasn’t really space for me. ( I didn’t want to be crammed in a car for 6 hours anyway. ) As far as I know now, the power is back on at the airport so I should be able to fly home at the expected time. We’ll see how that turns out. For the moment I’m relaxing in the hotel’s business center playing on my laptop. I’m going to head out for the airport pretty soon since it will probably be a madhouse with the power outage and all. Wish me luck getting back to Chi-town. TT

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timtucker — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 04:36:57 PST

Another Farmville Tip

Tim — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:56:30 +0000

Here’s another quick Farmville tip before I head out to start my day… Since Poinsettias are gone now, you can’t use them for quick XP by planting then deleting them and planting again etc. I did some quick calculations and found that Soybeans are actually the same deal. ( coming in at 15 coin / XP ) Plow, plant, delete, rinse and repeat, level up quickly. Good luck and Happy Farming.

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timtucker — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:44:32 PST

Tim — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:37:15 +0000

The sh*t ain’t over till the last record spins – Groove

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timtucker — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:13:35 PST

Farmville Tricks ( Yeah I play )

Tim — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:16:35 +0000

Yes I play Farmville on Facebook. It started as a bet to see how fast I could level past my mom, and it has grown into an addiction. I thought I’d offer up a few things I’ve learned in the few weeks I’ve been playing. These aren’t really cheats or hacks, just some things you might not have tried before.
As I see it there are 2 major ways to play. Method one: Fun/Style If you aren’t really interested in what level you are or what size farm you have, and you just want to play the way you want and have a cool looking farm, stay the course. It’s just a game after all so you should have fun with it. Method Two: Competitive/Leveling If you want to level past your neighbors, have a huge farm, and don’t mind putting in some time to keep things going, this can be a fun ( if sometimes tedious ) way to play. Anyway, on to the tips…
First is the locked farmer trick. This has become widely known but I’ll repeat it anyway because it saves you time no matter how you play. When you load your farm see where your little farmer shows up. Make sure the square he/she is in is clear. Delete anything in that square if you need to. Now we want to trap that little guy/gal with either decorations you already have, or buy some hay bales to make a square around them. This will cut out the time it takes your farmer to walk to each task you have them perform. The time saved is substantial. Any action is stared immediately after you perform it without any walking time. Bonus!
Second is the quick XP trick. Have you had your farm going for some time now? Do you have some extra Farmville coins you aren’t sure what to do with? This tip is for you. For a limited time ( 11 more days ) this tip is better then ever. It started as the hay bale trick and will always work as such, but for the holiday season you can do the same thing with poinsettias for less coin. Here’s the trick. Plow and plant an area with poinsettias. Then use the delete tool to get rid of them. Lather rinse and repeat. Whhhh, what? I just paid for those? The poor things didn’t even have time to grow!?! Since you can’t master poinsettias, and they don’t net you much coin there is no point in letting them grow to maturity. You get 3 XP ( +1 for plowing ) per plot with a cost of 45 coin. ( +15 for plowing ) I’ll save you the math, this nets you 4 XP for 60 coin. ( and a little time ) AKA 15 coin/XP. This is by far and away the most cost effective way to gain XP right now. When the poinsettias are gone you can do something similar with hay bales. ( and it take a little less time, but isn’t quite as cheap ) Fill up some open space with hay bales from the market, delete, and repeat. Hay bales are 25 coin/XP. Not as good as poinsettias, but still not bad, since the normal coin/XP by buying things from the market is much higher. Mid thought update! I was just browsing the market and found that the Horse Topiary is 100 coin for 5 xp and it re-sells for 5 coin. After the math this makes it weigh in at 19 coin/XP. I suppose the Horse Topiary is the new hay bale. There might be more hidden deals in there, I didn’t go through the whole thing. If you find something better let me know. ( Wow this is getting long )
The third tip is be smart about what you grow. This can apply to either method of play unless you just really like certain crops. A quick google search can find you some charts of the best paying crops. Here’s a few of the highest paying ones to get you started: Grapes, Sugar Cane, Tomatoes, Sunflower, Green Tea, Ghost Chili, Coffee, Black Berries, Blueberries. ( Those are in order from the top down. )
Fourth, plant crops based on the time you have to devote to your farm. The trick here is that if you plant a 4 hour crop you DON’T have to be back at your farm in 4 hours. Yes you heard that right. Whatever the time to maturity is, you have that amount of time over again before it withers. So 4 is really just short of 8, 6 is 12 etc. You can use the handy calculator located here if you want to plan things out.
Finally ( since I’m running out of time before I have to go ) my best tip may be the hardest one to pull off. Get a LOT of neighbors. Invite all your friends and see if you can get them started playing. The more neighbors you have the more gifts you will get and the more opportunities you you will have to get free animals. All the animals on my farm came from neighbors. Also, and this is key spend the time to tend your neighbors farms every day. This is free XP and coins at the cost of a little time.
Ultimately if you want your farm to grow and prosper you need to do what real farmers do which is spend time working on it. Just don’t forget it’s a game, so have fun with it and happy farming.

Um, what?

Tim — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Yes I can hear pretty well out of my right ear again. The ENT specialist said it looks like the infection is clearing up. They want me to go for a hearing test though. I’m not thrilled about that because I don’t want to learn that I have hearing loss. ( Maybe I don’t, maybe I do ) At least I don’t have to take any more antibiotics. ( Those things suck. )