One week from today, I’ll be getting myself to my local Best Buy so I can pick up my copy of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom before returning home to lose myself in a brand new game. I’m very excited for this game, enough so that I’ve had to convince myself not to buy a digital copy of the game as well, so that I can start playing the game the instant it becomes downloadable. It’s difficult to wait, even though there’s literally nothing I can do to make it happen sooner. All I can do is try to be patient as I try to distract myself from the slowly ticking clock. The flip side of this is that time will continue to pass no matter what, so it’s not like I have to do anything in particular to make progress. I just need to work on passing time gracefully.
Continue readingMy Tabletop Roleplaying Game Withdrawal Is Worsening
I am still going through tabletop roleplaying game withdrawal. I went from running or playing in four different tabletop games every week to playing so infrequently that I can count the number of sessions I’ve participated in this year on a single hand. The group I ran for coworkers fell apart as we discussed what to do other than Dungeons and Dragons back in January, when it became clear that everyone just wanted to kill monsters and get loot except for the one player who was interested in storytelling that had just withdrawn from the game for personal reasons. My Sunday group hasn’t faired much better as scheduling issues, combined with a player withdrawing for personal reasons (different player and different reasons) on top of the whole Wizards of the Coast debacle basically destroyed the group. I tried to put a new one together prior to that, but it involved both of the players who had to withdraw for personal reasons so that fell apart as well. I attempted to save the disintegrating group by offering some level of player attendance flexibility using games that didn’t require the same people to play each session, but we’ve yet to meet even once since I can’t get people to commit to a session.
Continue readingProblem-Solving Via Repetitive Work And The Back Of My Mind
I spent my entire afternoon turning something on and then off and then on again. That’s kind of par-to-the-course for my job, since I’m a tester and sometimes what I’m testing is what happens when I turn a thing off and back on. This time, I was helping a coworker chase down a really bad issue he ran into a couple times in the last twenty-four hours. The likelihood of it ever happening was low, but it was a significant enough issue that the off-chance of it happen was so bad that we dropped everything to work on hunting this bug down. After a few hours of work, though, we never managed to reproduce it, which usually means there is another hidden step somewhere in the process that we missed during today’s work. Such is the nature of testing, though. Lots of effort for zero pay off, sometimes, paired with the possibility that we’re going to find the issue the instant we stop looking for it. It can be a tiring, frustrating job at times.
Continue readingMaking The Most of My Horrible Housing Shituation
I’ve spent most of my time over the past month either hunting for a place to live, evaluating if I should buy a house, streaming, or writing. And, you know, working, sleeping, eating, commuting, etc. I’ve pretty much buttoned up every hour of my day and while it can feel exhausting to be doing something constantly, it nice to be on my grind again. I like having stuff to do and, until this month, didn’t have the mental energy to push myself to get anything done beyond what absolutely NEEDED to be done. Now, after the my trip and subsequent recovery, I’m feeling pretty primed for action. Most of the time, anyway.
Continue readingBreath of the Wild Streaming Challenge: Still Naked, But No Longer Afraid
I finally did it. I hit the point in my Naked and Afraid: Hats Only Master Mode challenge run of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild where I’m not getting absolutely destroyed with every single hit. I’m still getting absolutely wrecked, of course, but I can now survive a hit from most enemies thanks to having more than twenty hearts and a few hats with an armor bonus of twenty or more. Plus, I’ve shaken off all the rust and can now perfect dodge or shield parry most hits. These days, I only take hits against difficult foes (like Silver and Golden Lynels, where I REALLY need all those hearts and more armor) or when I’m messing around (like when this horse kicked me in the face because I forgot to properly line up my drop). Hubris is still my number one enemy, but I am now reminded of why that is. Turns out I’m pretty good at this game when I’ve gotten back in the swing of things. Between buffs, critical hits, and managing weapons, there is no foe outside my reach.
Continue readingInfrared Isolation: Chapter 18
New to the series or certain you’ve missed a chapter? You can find the introduction Here and the table of contents Here.
Continue readingIn Time
A thousand idle dreams
Race through my mind
In the time it takes
To change lanes
And I fly down the highway,
Windows open,
As the stereo blasts
A melancholic upbeat tune.
Meandering Thoughs About Apartment Hunting And Moving
As I’ve buried myself more and more deeply into apartment hunting (a task that requires daily effort given how quickly places are getting snapped up), it has been interesting to collect data and try to figure out the trends that I’m seeing. Sure, I’ve only been at it for about two weeks as of writing this (which is hardly a conclusive amount of data), but most of this stuff has held true throughout, to the point where I’m already making decisions based on it and seeing those assumptions pay off. Not in a huge way, unfortunately, since I still haven’t found a place to live, but in ways that are validating of my process and that make my life a bit easier (since it largely amounts to having an easier time winnowing the chaff). Now, I can get a decent scan of new apartments and an evaluation of which to contact in about fifteen minutes, across my four main sites.
Continue readingChuck Wendig’s Wayward Felt Too Realistic To Be Called Hopeful, But That’s Still How I’d Describe It
Just as a note, there will be heavy plot spoilers for Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers since this blog post is about the sequal, Wayward. There will also be some spoilers for that, but not as many. The final end and major plot points of Wanderers will definitely come up, but I’ll be avoiding most of the plot of Wayward except for a few non-specific mentions here or there.
Continue readingA Bite-Sized Gripe About Capitalism
These days, there seem to be a lot of signs that capitalism is ruining the world in ways both big and small. Most of the big ways are so large and complex that it’s difficult to tie systemic failures and the designs of capitalism together unless you’ve spent time learning the ins and outs of the systems connecting them. The idea is nothing new, of course, since activists of various affiliations have been pointing it out for decades now and we’ve seen a recent surge of attention to this fact as capitalist society continues to rot from the inside out in a way that makes it more and and more difficult to ignore unless you are emotionally or financially invested in pretending that this sinking ship of an economic theory is actually good for people. Still, that’s a little difficult to appreciate and far beyond my scope as a writer to discuss at length (due to a lack of expertise in economic theory, not skill at witing), so I’m going to narrow my scope to a common frustration that I’m sure we can all relate to: scalpers.
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