Mandaris

There is A LOT of hype around this show. I had ignored it when it first came out because I didn’t want to deal with the world ending because of nuclear war instead of catastrophic climate change. But, I had changed my mind when a couple of my friends recommended it multiple times. That’s how word of mouth works.

The show is good. I don’t recall points in the show where I felt a need to skip forward to where my favorite character is back on the screen. It’s 8 episodes of story and character building. You don’t need to know anything about the game franchise in order to understand it. I want to know more about the characters but I don’t find the need to look up if something is an Easter egg in order for scenes to work. Give it time and the story unfolds for you at the same time as most of the characters.

Speaking of characters, I want to shout out to Moisés Arias who plays Norm on the show. Not every character needs to be a hero or villain. It’s nice to see a character who is just trying to figure out what is going on. It takes a certain kind of bravery to go against the flow and what is comfortable. When you compare his physic against Dave Register, Norm is not what we would call a hero, but I’d like to see more characters like him in my media.

The story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there's almost nothing left to have. 200 years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind -- and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird, and highly violent universe waiting for them.

I was hoping to have a longer post about how to improve your sleep but I woke early this morning and all I can think about (other than this post) is when I can go back to sleep.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, I suggest you read this article on WikiHow about taking a Power Nap.

Have a great day and even better nap!

I’ve been trying a different approach to planning my day this month. Instead of looking at all the things that I feel I need to do, I’m just going to a couple of them and knocking it down.

I don’t get through all of them and sometimes I add more through the day but it’s a nice visual reminder of what I have set out to do.

Sometimes I feel like things are really a mess. I don't know what the next step is or - on the hardest days - what steps are possible. On those days, I try to clear my mind and gain a little bit of control by clearing my desk off.

Here are a couple of articles linking cleanliness to mental health and stress relief.

The Connection Between Cleanliness and Mental Health

I like this article because it talks about how cleaning sparks that feeling of control over your environment. It also gave a really good tip on setting a timer so that you don’t lose yourself into cleaning for hours and then feel stressed that you lost time. Cleaning is always time well spent in my opinion.

The Mental Health Benefits Of A Clean Home

This article is shorter than the last and breaks it down into two sets of bullet points that you can use.

Cleaning for Mental Health

This article from the Cleaning Institute is a pretty good one in that it also has links on how to clean. I know that I sometimes don’t know how to get started. Don’t let the idea that you can’t clean it perfectly stop you from doing any cleaning.

For me, I stopped at after cleaning up the desk area and was able to focus a little bit better that day.

Every month should be Mental Health Month.

Period.

But, just like Christmas, Halloween, and Valentines, it’s good to do a little bit more as we Get into the Spirit.

I drew the picture attached to this post because I find myself doing this when I’m stressed. It makes me happy. I also like to do large multiplication problems and then checking my answer with a calculator, but some people find that stressful to look at. :upside_down_face:

Here are some good resources that are promoting mental health awareness.

Mental Health America

They have a nice toolkit filled with ideas, posters, and resources.

SAMHSA

I like this site because it has a lot of things that you can share on different social media platforms and it’s broken down week to week. I feel this could be better in gives you more reasons to come back to the site.

NAMI

I like fact that they point you to the national HelpLine on the page.

San Francisco Warm Line

I really like the idea of a Warm Line. Sometimes we just need someone to talk to. Sometimes we wait until we’re almost at the breaking point. This might just the thing you need.

CalHOPE

Targeted towards people where I live. Hopefully there are other resources closer to you as well.

I’m planning on posting about Mental Health all this month and talking a little bit about how I’m going to be picking up new habits. I hope that you take a moment to review the resources and share it with others.

The show started off on a high and my mind was filled with different possibilities that they could do with the different characters. What does it look like for a hero to be upstaged by a questionably better version of themselves? How do you adjust to a timeline that isn't your own? Could they fit in another dance number into the season?

I didn’t get a lot of those things.

I’m not docking them points because they didn’t do the fan fiction that I had put together in my mind.

I am docking them for … well … being kind of boring and mean.

I get it. They had a horrible childhood and are still hurting from that.

Unfortunately, this season does not give them time to grow as characters. In fact, you could say that some of them are worse and could be quantified as villains this time around.

As they say, “Hurt people hurt people” and you only hurt the ones you love.

That’s not to say it’s all bad, they have a lot of fun bits sprinkled in there, but felt myself feeling a little bit relieved when the season was over.

Back at the Academy, the Umbrellas clash with a new squad of Hargreeves siblings as a mysterious force begins to wreak havoc on the city.

The forth and final season of this show will be airing in August this year. It’s going to be six (6) episodes compared to this one being ten (10).

If you are looking for inspiration to write more on your personal blog, then I would like to point you to this upcoming event put together by Apple Annie.

What is it? Weblog Posting Month, 2024! If you use weblog.lol, or otherwise have a personal blog, you should absolutely participate in this month-long blog posting extravaganza!

I am hoping to have a theme of Making it Happen in May, where Ill write something about self-improvement or promoting Mental Health Month.

Discovered via Robb Knight on Mastodon.

• Getting up this morning and not dreading the day
• Opportunities to make myself into who I want to be
• Letting go of negative emotions and thoughts (this is always a work in progress)
• Spending some time just going through my projects and realizing that I can’t and don’t need to do everything at once or at all
• Spending time with the people who truly care to be with me

I’ve been feeling pretty agitated all day. It feels like there was a little bit of me that wanted to just yell at the world to stop being so stupid. That kind of thinking/feeling isn’t going to make things better. I’m just going to acknowledge that I’m feeling this way, realize that it’s just a feeling and if I’m not going to do anything with a feeling that I should let it go until I know where it’s coming from and how I plan to change it.

What I really enjoy about this article is that it has VIDEOS showcasing how the different browsers work with alternative text.

I think that it’s a really good read as I’ve seen a couple apps and services advertise that they can generate the alt text for images. I never really worried about the upper limit for descriptions. I know that I’m a little terse when it comes to describing things - for example, my about page. After reading this, I feel a little more confident in this aspect.

The article goes into some details in some dangers of having a very long description.

Sometimes you can have too much alternative text, particularly for an %lt;img>. I don’t mean there is a limit to what is allowed, I mean there is a limit to what is usable by humans. This long cat photo demonstrates that.

This is a really good article and I’ve added the blog to my RSS reader. I spent a good 30 minutes researching <aside> and role=note and what that could mean for writing and reading on the web.

The more that I work with accessibility, the more I’m enjoying solving the smaller issues. Unfortunately, I also see a lot of areas where things could be improved.

Discovered via Auston.