Mixed Media Self Portrait

This work was done with marker, pen, and pencil on paper. It's a self portrait from two angles, completed a few years ago.

Today started unfortunately. I woke up way too early, which has been happening too much lately because of remodeling work in the room below my bedroom. I felt awful from lack of sleep but completed my workday by 1pm. After trying and failing to nap, a temporary water shutoff due to the remodeling prompted me to leave the premises. I headed to the coffee shop and sat there for several hours, mostly talking with friends.

@kommienezuspadt fed me a bunch of awesome Indian food. @tarotbyfergus explained the mystical properties of buckthorn. Another friend talked about a recent serious injury. Then UFOs came up and we speculated on the phenomenon. My suspicion is that UFO experiencers are the key to unlocking the mystery of UFO sightings. And I think the root of these sightings is way weirder than physical ships piloted by animals from elsewhere in the galaxy.

I didn't work much on Rstory today, for the first time in weeks. Still did some communication and writing, but casually. Getting the project to where it is now required serious effort. And the real work hasn't even started yet. Being tired all day forced me to relax and enjoy the downtime. I didn't feel great, but neither was I stressed out.

On a few occasions now, one guy at the coffee shop has compared Rstory to the Pet Rock. He's not wrong. Rstory isn't really solving a business problem. It's designed to draw attention to work that makes the world a better place. To combat the tyranny of negative news bias and give people a form of gratitude that can be seen in their crypto wallets.

The project is also built on the idea of token possession granting certain privileges. I've already declared that anyone holding Rstory has permission to read my novels for free. In the future, similar privileges may be announced, and may be contractually enforced, instead of simply depending on the honor system.

It's easy to envision an app that serves content up only if you've got a TUDE in your Metamask. Such an app might end up being my first Rstory development project. Further investigation is warranted. It could be called 'Got a TUDE in your Metamask?'. Which would be hilarious.

I mean, I think it would be funny. The term tude was chosen in part for its comedic value. After finishing up the somewhat serious whitepaper, it'll be time to make the first Rstory video. That little project is still in the brainstorming phase. The question of how long to make it hasn't even been answered yet.

I'm leaning towards 3-5 minutes. Maybe closer to 3. Just enough time to introduce myself, introduce Rstory, and say why it makes sense that Rstory is owned by a private individual. I might ask @greatdabu to shoot it, but he seems pretty busy right now. The same is true of the other videographers I know. I hate setting goals, but my August goals are to have the whitepaper done, the video out, the Etherscan token verification well underway, and at least one conferral celebrated by an article on @rstory.

This all seems feasible. Hopefully it'll set the stage for the work I really want to be doing, which is just telling the stories of the good things that are happening.