The Big Picture is Starting to Wear on Me

Posted
Azure Coding Overload Teams League Six Gaming Trax in Space roncli.com
Eight months ago, I wrote on The Big Picture, a summary of my initiative to get off of my Azure Windows VM and on to Linux VMs running Docker containers with Node.js websites backed by MongoDB databases. It's a meta-project of sorts, and it has taken a certain mental discipline to keep at it.

The Trax in Space 1 archive was easy to port, and since porting it I've learned that I didn't need to restrict downloads so much on it, so I increased the download limit. Six Gaming was full of challenges, and even today I find things I have to change with it because I didn't do it right the first time. I'm currently working on rebuilding this site and have been for several months now, and I'm itching to get back to the Overload-related projects, and to move on from this whole thing.

I said this back in February:

This is, of course, a multi-part project that has taken on a life of its own in recent months, and it's one I am enjoying greatly so far. It's really expanded the boundaries by which I am able to operate websites and related online services.

Boy, that's an awful lot of enthusiasm. Sigh. We were so young back then.

Since then I've worked through major bugs, tackled big architectural design questions, learned a hell of a lot about MongoDb... and have bored myself to death with this project.

Look, it's not like I knew this was going to be a huge project. Just the opposite, I knew what I was getting into. I remember how long it took me to complete roncli.com the first time, and I'm still looking at coming in at well under a fifth of the time it took me to complete it the first time around. I've learned a lot in 7 years, and it's showing with how fast I'm getting stuff done. But when I take a look at the big picture, it just seems so... slow.

I am to the point I want to work on something else. I want to update the OTL for season 7 and beyond. I want to add some amazingly cool things to olmod. I want to make games of my own. And, I want to get back to regular streaming again.

But every time I sit down to code, I am reminded of the plot: get off that monolithic Windows VM, and you'll have the freedom to do what you want and when you want when this is all done. So I go heads down, jam my EDM playlist, and spit out another couple of files on whatever I'm working on, making a bit of meaningful progress until I get bored and go for a walk, play some games, or write a blog post.

I'm sure a lot of this stems from the fact that I've been essentially stuck at home for 19 months. I'm bored to death with that, too. No train rides to The City, and very few outings outside of the usual Friday routine of dinner and groceries. While 2021 has been infinitely better than 2020 when I didn't get out at all, I can't shake the feeling this year that I'm accomplishing very little.

Of course, my GitHub contribution graph will tell you otherwise, and when I look at things logically, I know I'm getting stuff done. I just wish I could fast forward to the end of the big picture so I can move on to the next big thing... perhaps something a bit more exciting.

Comments

Add Your Comments

roncli.com Blog
This is my blog where I give my thoughts and opinions on various topics and share my creative endeavors with the world. I run two personal blogs, but combine them here for ease of access.

Blogger - My oldest blog using the Blogger platform contains posts full of opinions, gaming, and code.

Tumblr - Tumblr posts are all about my creative side, containing music, videos, writings, and updates on my web creations.

You can select a category below to view the latest post, or browse thorugh the posts using the navigation found at the top and bottom of each post.
Categories
Coding (167)
Life (138)
Gaming (118)
Music (64)
World of Warcraft (48)
roncli.com (42)
Software (36)
Servers (29)
Hurricane Rita (27)
Six Minutes To Release (27)
Screenshot (25)
Hurricane Ike (24)
Projects (24)
Silliness (21)
Trax in Space (21)
Cent (19)
Crystal Space (15)
OSMusic.Net (14)
Blog (13)
Editorials (13)
LibWowArmory (13)
Lyrics (13)
roncli Productions (12)
VB.NET (12)
Descent (11)
LibWowAPI (10)
Descent 3 (9)
Due Process (9)
Backup (8)
CTG Music (8)
Node (8)
Overload Teams League (8)
Six Gaming Podcast (8)
ASP.Net (7)
Azure (7)
Buffalo (7)
League of Legends (7)
NWS (7)
Rendr (7)
SETI@Home (7)
The Nightstalker (7)
Video (7)
Diablo III (6)
Hard Drives (6)
Logs (6)
Overload (6)
Windows (6)
BOINC (5)
Cent Credits (5)
Cent Main Theme (5)
D3DSN (5)
Descent: Underground (5)
FreeBSD (5)
Google Desktop (5)
Google Earth (5)
Outpost Music (5)
Ron's Bronze Plays (5)
Sports (5)
UPS (5)
Birthday (4)
Buffalo Sabres (4)
Constellation (4)
Everytime (4)
JavaScript (4)
Preview (4)
Pwned Print (4)
roncli's Dumbass Award (4)
San Antonio (4)
Sigh of Excitement (4)
Six Gaming (4)
Steam (4)
Stripped Down (4)
The Observatory (4)
trac (4)
Twitch (4)
Visual Studio (4)
Winamp (4)
AJAX (3)
All In My Head (3)
Blackjack (3)
Chess (3)
Crypt of the NecroDancer (3)
D3TL (3)
DCL (3)
Gate (3)
Given Up (3)
Guitar (3)
Inspiration Edit (3)
jQuery Default Button (3)
MAME (3)
MediaTagConverter (3)
ModPlug (3)
NeonXSZ (3)
NetHack (3)
Numbers (3)
Paper (3)
PHP (3)
Rawr (3)
Sift (3)
SQL Server (3)
Tumblr (3)
Vision (3)
Year in Review (3)
AM Browser (2)
Asana (2)
ASP.Net RSS Toolkit (2)
Bicycle (2)
BlizzCon (2)
Cheevos FTW! (2)
Crazy Browser (2)
Descent Champions Ladder (2)
DMTB (2)
Docker (2)
Elbow (2)
Eternally (2)
Evans Blue (2)
Fire In My Heart (2)
Games (2)
GitHub (2)
GTR (2)
Houston Astros (2)
How To Play (2)
Hurricane Katrina (2)
iPhone (2)
IRC (2)
IsItUp (2)
Las Vegas (2)
Legs (2)
LibBeImba (2)
Minnesota Wild (2)
Miss Driller (2)
Module Sixteen (2)
Monitor Resolution (2)
NeKo (2)
New Zepsi Industries (2)
Niagara Falls (2)
Novus Compo (2)
Pittsburgh Penguins (2)
Poker (2)
Pwned Cars (2)
Reinstall (2)
Remake (2)
Retro (2)
roncli Productions Intro (2)
San Francisco (2)
San Francisco Rush 2049 (2)
slammy (2)
Sleep (2)
Solar (2)
SoundCloud (2)
Stress (2)
Strings (2)
Tempurpedic (2)
The Editor (2)
TNS Raw (2)
TopCoder (2)
Troupe (2)
w.bloggar (2)
Wedding (2)
XAML (2)
You (2)
Zepsi (2)
#modarchive Story 2 (1)
#occupygregstreet (1)
Absolute C++ (1)
Achaea (1)
Acronyms (1)
AdAware SW (1)
Adobe Acrobat (1)
AdventureQuest (1)
Alaska (1)
allen one (1)
AMD Settings (1)
Analyze (1)
APIs (1)
app.config (1)
Art (1)
ASSP (1)
Audiosurf (1)
Aveyond (1)
Awakening (1)
Bellaire (1)
BitTorrent (1)
Black Ox II (1)
Blackberry (1)
Blender (1)
Blogger (1)
BOINC Synergy (1)
BoincView (1)
Boom Bitches! (1)
Browserify (1)
Bullseye (1)
Byline (1)
CAD-KAS PDF Reader 2.4 (1)
CAPTCHA (1)
CDBurnerXP Pro (1)
CherryOS (1)
ChessCli (1)
Chick-Fil-A (1)
Child Controls (1)
clones (1)
ColdFusion (1)
Come Back To Me (1)
Compo (1)
Constellation Main Theme (1)
Cooking Lili (1)
Core Decision (1)
Crystal (1)
Databinding (1)
DataGrid (1)
DataGridView (1)
Deadly Drums (1)
Decade (1)
Dell (1)
Demogorgon (1)
Descent Rangers (1)
Diabetes (1)
Diamond Problem (1)
Doge2048 (1)
Doom's Day (1)
Double Buffer (1)
Dr. Jeffrey Masters (1)
Drama (1)
Dreamweaver (1)
Dudley's Dungeon (1)
Einstein@Home (1)
Ellon in the Dark (1)
Elon Musk (1)
EveryDNS (1)
Evolution (1)
Eyes (1)
Fedora Core 6 (1)
FeedPage (1)
Fiddler (1)
FlowDocument (1)
Foobar 2000 (1)
Foxit Reader (1)
Galveston (1)
Geocore (1)
GMail (1)
Google Calendar (1)
Google Chrome (1)
Google Pages (1)
Google Wave (1)
Grid (1)
grl (1)
Grooveshark (1)
Grunt (1)
GTR2 (1)
Guitar Solo (1)
Hackers (1)
HCC (1)
Hearthstone (1)
Heroes of the Storm (1)
HomesickAlien (1)
Houston Aeros (1)
ICallbackEventHandler (1)
If Paige Wins (1)
IIS (1)
Inno (1)
Internet Explorer (1)
Interview (1)
iPad (1)
Iron Chouquette (1)
Irrlicht (1)
Jaded (1)
jQuery UI (1)
jQuery UI Scroll Menu (1)
JW Player (1)
Kado Kado (1)
Kaspersky (1)
KFOS Inner Space Radio (1)
Know What (1)
Kromaia (1)
Let It Ride (1)
Let's Encrypt (1)
Let's Play (1)
LibWowHeroes (1)
LifeCast (1)
LINQ to Entities (1)
Linux (1)
Liquid Wars (1)
ListView (1)
Loading (1)
Lukan Schwigtenberg (1)
Mac (1)
MadTracker (1)
Mastodon (1)
Melbourne (1)
Melt (1)
Message From Beyond (1)
Micro Center (1)
Mistakes (1)
Monitor (1)
Mouse (1)
Moving (1)
Mr. Driller (1)
MSDN (1)
NASCAR SimRacing (1)
Network (1)
New Year (1)
olmod (1)
On Fire Series (1)
Opalus Factory (1)
Open Labs (1)
Open Source (1)
Operation Payback (1)
Overwatch (1)
PearPC (1)
Phony (1)
Piano (1)
Pingle (1)
pogo.com (1)
PowerStrip (1)
Programming (1)
PSP (1)
PXO (1)
Quadra (1)
Radeon (1)
Radio Shack (1)
Rant (1)
RedHeat (1)
Reject (1)
Release (1)
Religion (1)
Rendr Template (1)
Renegade (1)
Retrovirus (1)
Revival Productions (1)
RFLXT (1)
RIP (1)
RockMelt (1)
Scott Hanselman (1)
Self-Destruct Sequence Podcast (1)
Showsan (1)
Silverlight (1)
Sitemap Generator (1)
Smoke (1)
Sol Contingency (1)
Sound Blaster Audigy (1)
Speedrun (1)
Spelling (1)
SQL Reporting Services (1)
SSL Certificates (1)
Stanley Jakubowitz (1)
Starbase Arcade (1)
Starcraft II (1)
Starting All Over (1)
Story (1)
Sublevel Zero (1)
Swiss (1)
Tetris (1)
Thanksgiving (1)
The Crossroads (1)
The Time Now (1)
The Wight to Remain (1)
Time and Date (1)
Toronto (1)
Torrent Keeper (1)
Total Bollocks (1)
Trans-Siberian Orchestra (1)
TraxSurf (1)
Trillian (1)
Twitter (1)
Typing (1)
Ultimate Boot CD (1)
UpdatePanel (1)
US Interactive (1)
Video Bob (1)
ViewState (1)
Vince Young (1)
Vincent Lau (1)
Vocals (1)
Voyage (1)
Voyager: Ascension (1)
Walter Savitch (1)
Warlords of Draenor (1)
Weather (1)
Web3 (1)
Westward (1)
What Do I Know (1)
WikiLeaks (1)
Windows Defender (1)
winLAME (1)
Winter Classic (1)
Word Field (1)
World Record (1)
Worst Things in the World (1)
WPF (1)
Xamarian (1)
XBox (1)
XM Radio (1)
XML Web Services (1)
Yahoo! Pipes (1)
Yes (1)
You Are Not Alone (1)
Share This Page
Social Media
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

It's my swan song!

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Is that... T-Pain?

Take a good hard look at the mother fucking float.

Reply Boost Favorite
CatSalad🐈πŸ₯— (D.Burch) :blobcatrainbow:
@catsalad @infosec.exchange

Did you know that Pavlov's hair was famously soft and silky?
It's because he conditioned it. :ablobcatlurk:

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

"People suck. Don't be people." -roncli, 2019. πŸ™ƒ

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

And when the groundhog saw its shadow, the people declared:

"FOUR MORE YEARS OF STRESS EATING!"

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I told you, son!

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Boss: "We need to come up with a number of hours it will take to do this super big project."

Me: "Do you want that number written out, or can I use exponential form?"

πŸ™ƒ

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I guess you CAN'T do it with True Value. cnn.com/2024/10/14/business/tr

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Former 2 time world champion DogPlayingTetris becomes the first player to ever rollover the level counter in NES Tetris, performing what's known in the community as "Rebirth". Final score: 29,486,164, 4216 lines, level 347 (256 + 91)... all huge world records.

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Back row... Mother with screaming infant, 300 lb linebacker, and me. Or what's left of me.

Reply Boost Favorite
Solitha
@solitha @mastodon.social

🚨 James McGovern 🚨

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'd also love a 6 hour layover overnight instead of taking the red eye I was going to take and be 7 hours later getting into Cleveland than I wanted, why do you ask?

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Why yes, I'd love to leave at 4:40 to get to the airport at 6:20 for an 8:20 flight that got delayed to 9:05 which is too late for my connection so now I'm on a 10:20 flight instead. Why do you ask?

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Twitch getting SOMETHING right for once...

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

You may just be a po'boy, but I love you. β™₯️

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I've never had as much fun on comms for a Tetris match as I did tonight with NinjaOfNinjas for the silver bracket semis and finals. What a show!

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Logan Paul didn't qual for silver unfortunately. πŸ™ƒ

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'm not done! I'll be casting the later rounds of the silver bracket today at 6:30 PM Pacific at twitch.tv/classictetris3. Cya there!

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'll be live casting qualifiers today for CTWC at twitch.tv/classictetris2 at 1 PM Pacific and twitch.tv/classictetris3 at 3:30 PM Pacific. This year's CTWC is the craziest yet so don't miss it!

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Public restrooms are funny.

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

The golden state, more like the blackened state. πŸ”₯

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Just a note to everyone out there who still believes 2020 hasn't ended that today is Unquinquaginember 21st, 2020.

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Burritos can be used for bribing if necessary. 🌯 :)

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

@shanselman Who at Microsoft do I have to bribe to fix ADO so that those of us on dark mode who copy/paste text from one task to another can do so without our friends on light mode seeing dark text on a dark background?

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I updated the blog post with a statement from Revival. While I'm not particularly happy with Revival's decision, I understand their motives. It's just a shame that it was someone from Interplay that had to go and do this. "By games for gamers" my ass.

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Damn, got another Tetris world record! This time in the arcade variant developed by Atari. 6,008,005 points, 5,386 lines, round 363. Be warned, it's nearly FIVE HOURS. twitch.tv/videos/2131759212

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I certainly didn't have "Overload but with web3 features" on my 2024 bingo card. WTF did Revival Productions just do?

roncli.com/blogger/39495275106

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

@solitha New rule: cat tax. For every pun you post or repost, you're now required to pay the tax of posting one cute cat video.

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Today was a special day. I scored 1,016,221 points in classic NES Tetris, the first time I broke the 999,999 maxout barrier.

With that maxout, I became the oldest person to get their first ever maxout at 46 years 319 days.

After I scored that, I learned that today would have been 7-time Tetris world champion Jonas Neubauer's 43rd birthday.

I am FILLED with incredible emotion tonight.

clips.twitch.tv/AverageImporta

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

"I'm Sorry, What?!" The biggest bailout in the history of Descent II! youtube.com/watch?v=GLlTk7wa59A

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

β€œBART anime merch" are three words that I would not have expected to go together, but here we are. railgoods.com/bart/anime/

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Does anyone else sing the chorus to "Cherish" by Kool & The Gang to themselves whenever they play or watch streams of Balatro? Or is that just me?

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

I'm fact that's what Lingo needs: a "phone" block. The clue is an incorrect autocorrected form of the answer. πŸ™ƒ

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

It's like my phone knows I've been playing Lingo. I typed in "exited" and my phone was all:

⬜️ EXCITED ------
β–ͺ️
β–ͺ️

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

@arborelia Bag-les.

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

A comparison of the classic Tetris and Descent communities. Not a post I write lightly, either.

roncli.com/blogger/37031578090

Reply Boost Favorite
martin
@luftlesen @mstdn.jp

Aptiz played #Pentis again. In the beginning you can see roncli asking in the chat for the right version. About an hour later, he broke the #PentisRankings record with 60K ! Congratulations roncli πŸ† πŸŽ‰
twitch.tv/videos/2052528360?sr

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Yeah, it's season 11. But the OTL Season 6 highlight reel is up, this time Fireball has taken the reins! Check out this video jam packed full of kills, deaths, silliness, and Sirius puns. youtube.com/watch?v=SXstLVjnaGo

Reply Boost Favorite
Ronald M. Clifford
@roncli @mastodon.social

Over on , someone retweeted sympathy for the people being laid off today...

...and then said that Amazon Games was hiring. You know, the one that just had layoffs in NOVEMBER.

Honestly? Tech sucks right now.

Reply Boost Favorite
Join roncli on Discord!
Join the roncli Gaming Discord server for discussion about gaming, development, and more!
roncli.com Media Player