My big pet-peeve right now? ING Direct only allows a person to have one checking account, even if one is joint and the other individual.

I can have a million and one savings accounts with them, but only one checking account. Aside from the line-of-credit aspect to their overdraft, it’s unclear to me why that is.

I’m looking to open a set of individual bank accounts (checking and savings) by the end of the year, and am conflicted. Keep reading >>

I’m now fully in the flaky phase of the tattoo process, and am losing large black/grey flakes at a pleasantly quick rate.

It’s really, really hard not to encourage the process, though, especially when (squick alert!) attached flakes are catching on my shirt at work.

Grody!

Sleeping has been rough since Saturday. When it was all raw and fresh, it just (ha!) hurt badly. Once it dried out, it hurt to do anything that stretched the skin, like lie on my stomach. Or lie on my side. Or relax my shoulder.

The winning solution for sleep so far is to use a small pillow under the front of my tattoo’d shoulder so I can sorta sleep on my stomach and keep the shoulder propped up. It’s not unlike my sleep solution for when I first hurt my shoulder, except that was on my back.

An even better solution (thanks, Angi!) was to switch from using lotion to using vitamin E oil. So soothing. Difficult to avoid overuse, though.

I’ve been conflicted between wanting all this to be over with–to just have a damn tattoo already–and enjoying the strangeness of what’s happening. Now that the pain’s mostly abated, I’m feeling more in-the-moment.

Anyway, in the midst of all of this, I’ve finally caught up on some innernet reading:
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This week’s internet cruising:

• EJ Flavors – Cupid’s Hunt 2012 – Lost And Found: The Lost – An excellent Valentine's Day mix by EJ Flavors. Yeah, I know it's barely even February anymore, but Angela Bofill's "I Try" puts chills up my spine whenever I hear it.
• Google to Sell Heads-Up Display Glasses by Year’s End – NYTimes.com – I'm totally going to want to be an early adopter of these. If they seem promising, it'd be worth switching to contact lenses for.
• World population statistics – I always like these types of infographics. ^_^
• Slavery By Another Name – I heard this on my local NPR station the other night, and was glad to hear the injustices of the prison system be spoken for all to hear, but in a calm and reasonable voice.
• What’s Wrong with the IGF « The Rotting Cartridge – "Eight (8) judges were assigned to Kale In Dinoland. Of those judges, 1 didn’t install the game or respond to any of our invitations (which we had to send multiple times before judges joined). 3 judges didn’t play the game. Of the remaining 5 judges that played the game, 3 played it very close to the IGF deadline, which was December 5th. [...] Excluding the outlier, on average each judge – including the 3 that didn’t play it – played the game for almost 5 minutes’ time. [...] So we’re talking almost 4 minutes for each judge of actual game time."

And now for a vibeo:

A little dated at this point, but wonderfully funny. I like Jay Smooth on politics.

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Just a few links and a vibeo as I get back into the swing of things.

• The Complete Rules For Games | Rock, Paper, Shotgun – How can one not like do's and don't's for games? Especially when so many ring true?
• Lots of people can’t fire their insurance companies | The Incidental Economist – "[L]et’s unpack the idea that if individuals have their own insurance, the “insurance company will have an incentive to keep [them] healthy”. That’s totally backwards. The idea that people might fire their insurance companies is exactly why they don’t have an incentive to keep you healthy."

This guy's pretty damn good. The De Niro impression got me, as I was just watching Ronin a few days ago.
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Okay, not “already”. 2011 was long as hell and busy.

I resumed going to church fairly regularly. Had my perspective on interpersonal communications majorly shifted. Got married to a great fellow. Got a running partner. Made good progress on my novel. Learned how to incorporate a business. Paid off my student loans (!!!). Lost some weight. Got stronger, more fit, and resumed dancing. Made and held to some good financial plans. Blogged pretty regularly.

Still feel like I only did about half of what I “should have”, of course, but I’m happy with the year, overall. I succeeded at most of what I wanted,

I’m going to finish my last sliver of debt. I’m going to finish not having a long-term financial plan. I’m going to get married. I’m going to finish my novel. I’m going to finish not being happy enough,

and made good headway on what I didn’t finish.

Regardless, 2012 shall be a more adventurous year, featuring new employment, two trips/vacations, and a plethora of writing, coding, financial management, and gettin’ fizzit.

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