LizardTaro

Hey guys, it pains me to do this, but I need your help to recuperate my financial losses this year. Losses on a commission and on a 5G chip seem to have finally broken me. Please support my fundraiser here:

Even if you can't donate, sharing it would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

It is me, Taro! Yes, it's time for another Journal Update!! It sure has been a while...

I actually didn't want to do anything on DeviantArt anymore, but I've been here so long, no matter what kind of shitty decision DeviantArt makes - I'll still be here.

So, um... yeah. What's up? I apologize for being kinda inactive these couple months, but that's because I kicked myself in the butt and did some stuff that was LONG overdue. I started out with said stuff in the second half of the year. There was this one time where I said: "Okay, Taro. Stop procrastinating. Finally do it." and then I started finishing my tasks one by one. Here's what I did:

✓ Updating my financials

An update to my building loan contract was long overdue. I concluded an additional building loan contract and my monthly payment towards that contract has increased from €790 to €1000. So, I'm saving up €12000 a year which might come in handy in the future when it comes to overhauling my house. I expect that I'd need about €400000 for house repairs, because there's a lot to do. And prices are constantly rising, so...

✓ Clearing out the attic + archiving all my school stuff

Imagine this: you buy something on Amazon or something, but you want to keep the box because you either expect that you might want to send the item back, or you expect that the item might break in a year and want to make use of warranty, or you want to keep the box because you might want to sell the item in its original box in the future. Those boxes piled up in my attic. But that wasn't the only stuff. There were also old electronic devices, old magazines, old school stuff and much more. I bought 8 big transparent boxes to keep that stuff in and made use of all of them. I also archived everything related to my school stuff by making videos and scanning documents - then I threw everything away since I still have it in digital form. Yes, thousands of documents - gone. But not quite. Because I still have everything in video form. I know it's a weird way to archive stuff, but that was the fastest way of transferring data to the digital world: by making videos of them. I made videos of me (or, well... more my hands) going through all my school stuff - secondary school, high school, vocational school, apprenticeship stuff and let the camera record everything in 4K resolution, so everything will still be readable on video. Clearing out the attic and archiving all my stuff took me months. But now everything is clean and tidy. In fact, the attic hasn't been this clean over the past 15 years!

✓ Doing the tax returns for 2019, 2020 and 2021

Another thing that was on my "to do"-list for quite some time. And I did it without even knowing how all this stuff really works. But thankfully, I let a tax accountant to my tax returns for 2015 - 2018, so I just looked at what he did and did the same for the years that follow (of course with different numbers and such). I got about €500 back from the tax office in total, which is line with what the tax accountant did. Also, I now know how to do this stuff, so I'll always do it at the start of every year for the previous year. No more procrastinating!

✓ Getting my money back from the hosting provider that charged me for 10 years in advance

Not sure if it's blunt incompetence, or if it's systematic - but the web hosting provider that I use to occasionally upload files to charged their customers for ten years in advance. And it started in 2019 already. I was confused when I looked at my bank account and noticed that the hosting provider took money from me. The reason why it took me so long to realize this mistake is because they usually just do it once a year, and every time I looked into my account I was like: "What, another year passed? Dang, time sure flies!". But instead of doing it yearly, they took money every few months. And when I actually inspected one of their invoices more closely, I realized that they charged me for the year 2032!!! And the previous years as well! I then checked the reviews for that hosting provider at TrustPilot and saw that I wasn't the only one what got charged for stuff way in the future. Instead of getting a lawyer and escalating the situation, I just wrote them a friendly e-mail asking for them to refund the money. A couple weeks later (yes, it takes WEEKS for them to respond!) I got a friendly response that they would refund the money. Six months later, and still no refund. I wrote them another friendly e-mail and then I actually received a reply from the CEO that they will refund the money in the next couple days. And - lo and behold - they did! But they also did the mistake of refunding me €100 too much because apparently they didn't read my e-mail correctly. So I got a couple years hosting for free, I guess. I wonder when they will charge me again. I can still log-in to the server and upload stuff. I know it would probably be best to drop that provider entirely, but I heard some stuff that it is kinda difficult to get away from them, lol. And I got my money back, so there's nothing to complain about. It is an incredibly shady provider though. I find it very unbelievable that they charge everyone for stuff way in the future because of an "accounting error"...

✓ Sorting all my papers

Deeply connected with the archiving as well, I sorted all my papers. Now there's a couple folders for all my stuff - car stuff, tax stuff, insurance stuff, bank stuff, school certificates, job applications, invoices, and so on. All is neat and tidy and organized.

✘ Applying for a second job

Too lazy for that, lmao! But a second job would probably be recommended due to inflation and rising energy costs. Maybe I'll try it next year. Writing the job application isn't the problem. The problem has always been the job interview.

✘ Getting 32TB of SSD storage

One of my Seagate drives is already throwing errors after just a couple years of usage. It is time to go full SSD. SSD's are faster, lighter, more robust and live a lot longer than traditional HDD's. The only problem is that they are also vastly more expensive than HDD's. So far, the "Samsung 870 QVO 8TB" provides the best "bang for your buck", but it's still very expensive at about €600 a pop. So I'd be spending €2400 just on storage. I'm afraid I'd need to wait until SSD storage becomes even cheaper. I just hope my HDD's survive until then. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Week etc. didn't do much here.

✘ Getting fiber optics

Yes, it is finally time for fiber optics and vastly improved Internet speeds! But, sadly, it will take a little while longer. At the end of 2023 I'll be getting fiber optics at the LATEST. However, I think I'll get it in the first half of 2023. With fiber optics, my download speed will increase from 50mbit to 300mbit, and my upload speed will vastly increase from just 4mbit to 150mbit.

Well, that's about it for this year! Despite the horrible world situation, I'd say that 2022 was one of my most successful years. I finally overcame my procrastination and did all the stuff that needed to be done for years! Onward to 2023!

! Server open

Hit me up with a DM and I will grant you access to my Discord server! It's a very simple server (no roles, no bots, no bullsh*t) in which you can talk with others and share your artwork and stuff. Occasionally we do some online gaming sessions (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Dolphin netplay), movie sessions (via Parsec) and GarticPhone. Right now there are 9 people in my server in total.

! DeviantArt

I have put more Deviations in storage and re-organized my gallery. Now there are four main galleries:

- Commissioned Art (artwork that I did not create)

- Photography / Other (photos and other stuff that doesn't fit any other category)

- Literature (fanfictions and stuff)

- Old Stuff / Humorous (stuff from way back then)

Be sure to follow me on Tumblr or Twitter. I am more active there.

Welp, DeviantArt replaced the "Watch"-Button without warning. Of course they had to replace it with a "shop" button.

So, yeah. I don't know how to check on new deviations anymore. The "Deviants You Watch" page does not make any sense to me and it shows me stuff that I have already seen and stuff that is "recommended" but has nothing to do with the Deviants I watch.

I guess that's it then. I am just so tired of this website. If I don't favorite anything anymore, blame DeviantArt because I can't see your deviations.

I already posted this in my "status update" thingy. I still don't know what status updates even are, but o.k. I just did it on my phone since you apparently can't submit Journal Entries on my phone, for reasons unknown.

I can't check my notifications anymore, because it's a cluttered mess. I have to use convoluted URL's to see the newest content related to a specific keyword. I accidentally unwatch users because the website keeps lagging on my mobile phone. I am so done with this. DeviantArt has become such a clusterfuck, it's absolutely unbelievable.

I won't do much on here anymore, except faving a bunch of things. Which is also a chore nowadays. Please check out my Tumblr or Twitter, or add me on Discord. I am really not active here anymore; I just can't stand it anymore. FurAffinity is a much better alternative to this crap right here. And people roast FurAffinity for being old-fashioned or whatever. But I am old-fashioned. I like simple html websites. They load instantly, they don't require a ton of scripts and stuff. Judge me all you want, I don't give a fuck.

Yeah, this is probably my last Journal Entry here. The only reason I am not deleting my account is because I've been here for such a long time. If I was here for only a year or so, I'd have deleted my account instantly. But this account has a legacy, so I'm staying. Despite the circumstances. But don't expect any big uploads or something.

My discord server is still there. But it’s not really active right now.

If you prefer small servers with simple rules and without bots, roles and other stuff, feel free to join.

The invite code is t5xGSZtjXN