I hate this timeline. Can I switch?

It hasn't even been a year into Trump's second guaranteed-to-fail attempt to Make America Great Again, and I am already wishing we could go back to the Obama years, where things were relatively sane.

I didn't even like Obama that much (although he was one of the better presidents we've had in recent years).

Here's what's got me all nostalgic for only average levels of human compassion.

First, let's talk about dead trees.

Jake Bible, AI, and the case of the disappearing books.

Jake Bible is an entertaining author; he's no Richard Kadrey, William Gibson or Neal Stephenson, but he writes solid, entertaining sci-fi. I'm particularly partial to his Roak: Galactic Bounty Hunter series, as well as the Salvage Merc One books.

Unfortunately, both have been unpublished while he seeks out a new publisher (aside from the audiobooks, which are still up), gets new covers made, etc. He frames this as a "reboot", but he did mention severing his relationship with Severed Press.. And at some point I also saw him mentioning training AI, which makes me exceptionally nervous.

I'm not someone whos completely opposed to AI; I think it has a future in the world like most tools, but after a while I began to see the.. ethical concerns in a more serious light, and our own US government has decided to ignore that harder than it ignores Trump's Epstein connections.

So, I've begun tracking down dead tree versions of those books. I've found 5 out of 9 (both of the Salvage Merc One books, and 3 of the Roak books), but am struggling to find the rest.

Speaking of buying shit..

Trump's troublesome tariffs

I wrote about this in detail Nerfed Gamer earlier this morning, but to summarize: My rudder pedals have finally failed me, so I need to replace them if I want to fly helicopters again (and dogfight in Star Citizen).. Except the tariffs have made planning my purchase next to impossible since I have no idea how much I'll need to save.

The MAGA folks who are still blind deaf and dumb to reality will scream: Just buy stuff made in the US!

Here's the fun thing: The US-made peripherals are so ungodly expensive they cost more than my specialist visits without insurance!

VKB currently has some in stock in their US warehouse they set up due to the tariffs, but I don't have the $215 USD I'd need to get them (that's shipped) right now.. And by the time I do, they probably won't have any in the US, and I'll end up having to pay over $300 to import them (which is still cheaper than the cheapest quality alternatives, such as the Lithuania-based Virpils who have a US storage facility).

So.. I guess here is where I toss in a link to my tip jar :D

Which is the perfect lead-in to my next issue..

The second of two guarantees in this world: Taxes.

As we creep closer and closer to the end of the year, I have to start thinking about my taxes.

I've pretty much settled on the rest of my income from patch and merch sales (here's a link to my shop) for the rest of the year are getting saved in order to take care of the taxes I'll owe on them.

For those of you curious, I plan on paying around 40% of my revenue from that stuff in taxes; That's actually a bit over what I'd owe, but better to overpay and get some back on my refund than get a surprise "Hey, you owe us money" return.

Of course, sales have dipped a bit recently, but with any luck they'll pick back up before the end of the year.

It does make me a bit anxious, however, which also ties into my final problem..

Tachycardia, or the potential for the first guarantee in this world.

My heart has been a rollercoaster this year, but lately it's been.. Extra problematic.

Sitting here writing it's pumping at just above 100 bpm, but it'll also jump up to the 120s, which.. That's not good if all I'm doing is sitting here writing on my goddamned blog.

If I get up and walk around? Yeah, we'll be in the 130s.. And sometimes in the 150s.

Just fucking walking around.

It'll dip to the 80s if I'm laying down and fully relaxed, and can even dip into the 70s when sleeping, but.. This is not good.

My creative coding project A Beautifully Discordant Metronome (a project which creates visual, textual and auditory interpretations of my current heart rate data with a 10-20 minute delay) spends most of it's time in the yellow and red now.

It's a bit of foreshadowing that my working title for the project was "Death Watch".

Needless to say, I'm going to be bringing it up with my GP when I have my annual visit this year.

I feel relatively fine (still in pain, still have demylinating peripheral polyneuropathy, and no I didn't spellcheck that, fuck off), but it's still not a good thing to have my heart going all punk rock tempo on me constantly.

So.. Yeah, I miss my late 20s and early 30s.

The irony of it all would be getting personally drone-striked, I suppose.

Thanks, Obama.