If you told me almost two weeks ago that I'd ever like the My Little Pony franchise, I'd think you were attempting to insult me. After all, generations 1 to 3 of the franchise was insultingly pablum stuff intended to appeal to early grade school girls. For 25 years, this was the My Little Ponies I knew, and I wanted no part of it.


Yet, on March 8th, I encountered the new My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series, wrought by extremely talented cartoonists the likes of which were behind Powerpuff Girls or Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, and found the product to be the best American-made kid's cartoon I've ever seen. The jokes were funny, the characters were likable and distinct, the animation excellent, and the general innocence of the thing was actually a point in its favor in context to the ironic pratfalls.

Suffice to say, 25 years of my opinion about generation 1-3 mentally impacting a greatly conflicting opinion of generation 4 put me into an identity crisis from which I've only recently emerged. That, weirdly enough, is how I spent the overwhelming bulk of my free time during the last two weeks: loving the ponies and coming to grips with this.

The novelty of Rift: Planes Of Telara has also somewhat worn off for me now. I don't hate the game, it's still quite decent, but it's no longer new - it's just business as usual in an exceptionally well-made MMORPG. The difference is enough that it's fallen below my priority of things I'd rather be doing with my free time.

Without these kinds of distraction, I'm left with the fundamental fact-of-the-matter of my situation: that I'm an unemployed recent bachelor's degree holder who has yet to find his niche in life at 34. NEET, Hikikomori, member of the boomerang generation - call it what you will, in the end I'm just an exceptional example of Waithood, USA.

Exactly the kind of fellow for whom a creative endeavor such as independent game development can provide a much-needed avenue of self-expression and value.

Thus, I think it's time to adopt a new agenda. It goes like this:

• Stop sleeping in, get up bright and early each day. This is done partly in order to promote more awareness and partly to put me on the same schedule as professionals.
• Start dieting and exercising again. I'm 235 lbs (106 kg) - not huge, but I'm still lugging around another 55 pounds I don't need to be and that's weight holding me back from everything I want to do in life. It also makes you look bad for employers who regard chubby = lazy, a common prejudice.
• Put at least 4 hours per day towards looking for work.
• Put at least 4 hours per day towards independent game development each day.

That's the plan, I just got to stick to it.