I finally sat down and figured out how to publish this to Kindle. So, for anyone interested, it can be acquired digitally here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071FN1JJH
–Simon
Get Off My Lawn! (Part 5)
This is just a photo comparison of the water garden. As of the last update (4/10/17), this is what it looked like:
And here it is as of 5/25/17:
–Simon
It’s Spelled Just Like the Word “Escape”
As a suburban father/husband, I just don’t have nearly the time to invest in playing video games as I want. Between soul-crushing white collar employment (in itself a decade-long pursuit and monumental achievement), maintaining a house from dilapidation, keeping my daughter alive, and writing books that no one will ever read, setting aside some time to do questing can feel like a chore.
But this temporal deficit has also forced me to appreciate minutiae–things I would have normally overlooked. Ironically, now that I have less overall time, I spend more game time staring at things unrelated to quest objectives. Someone took the time to program these oddities, and sometimes amusing occurrences manifest which will soon be lost to time. They both merit sharing, to honor their effort and to capture the moments.
Part of the satisfaction of questing is the feeling of accomplishment upon the task’s conclusion. This is why I lost interest in Destiny. You want me to do the same handful of quests repeatedly at gradually increasing levels of difficulty? No thanks. That’s no longer even a chore, it’s Sisyphus’ eternal punishment.
Perhaps it’s because so much of my life is objective-driven that when a game offers me the chance to deviate from objectives, I inevitably find myself lazily drifting through the virtual environment, basking in the awe that these beautifully-constructed worlds offer. Recently, this is Fallout 4.
I think it’s time to boot up good ol’ Oblivion again.
–Simon
Crap…pie?
We had the old man down for the weekend. The kid still likes fishing, so it seemed like a good family activity. We went to buy some worms from the local Cabella’s for this endeavor, and in the process ran into my neighbor (the village elder), who works there. Naturally, we got to talking, and he suggested we try one of the local parks: Delco park. Ordinarily, we venture out to a state park, but we had never tried fishing at the municipal parks here. Seeing as it had been raining all week, the fishing wouldn’t be good anyway, so rather than drive all the way out to Glen Helen area, we might as well try something closer. Declo it would be.
We were not alone. The perimeter was dotted with casual anglers. Following my neighbor’s very specific instructions, we chose the far wall, near the drainage. Unfortunately, the fish were very experienced. They were masters of de-worming a hook without biting the hook itself. Eventually, dad left his pole unattended and wandered off with the kid. In that moment, the bobber went under. I managed to grab the pole in time and hook the fish, which didn’t even fight, but rather resigned itself to its fate. It was an un-epic battle, but even if it was only a single fish, the fishing venture is considered successful.
I thought it might be a rock bass, and dad considered it to be a mutt of some sort. Ultimately though, the conclusion was that it was a crappie–a rather unfair name for nice little fish. Back in the lake he went, off to warn his friends of the danger. The adventure was concluded with burgers and bourbon.
–Simon
Just DIE Already
Okay, I admit that’s my first reaction, and I’m a terrible person.
But, you know how cool those kids in grade-school thought they were for having to go down to the office and use their asthma inhalers? Sometimes I get the feeling that allergies are, if not Munchhausen Syndrome, possibly psychosomatic. And I question the prevalence of specific allergies to a given time period. Why do certain allergies suddenly appear and everyone is affected, from all ages? I could follow the logic if an unknown element had instantly been introduced into the environment, but that’s not the case. I could theorize that there’s latent genetics at play, only just now impacting humanity from years of exposure, but that wouldn’t explain why these allergies effect people of disparate age groups.
Gluten allergy? An allergy to processed grain–the staple that allowed humanity to transition from neolithic hunter/gatherers into permanent farmers? The event that allowed us to discover beer? That has to make you feel pretty pathetic as a human.
But I must jest at the flagship ridiculous allergy: peanuts.
This got me thinking: perhaps we’re just so numerous as a species, there’s a statistical probability that anything we could possibly think of, someone has an allergy to it. To confirm this theory, I searched for the first random common edibles I could think of, and appended them with “allergy” into Google. As it turns out, people are allergic to soy, fluoride, and mint. It actually became a challenge to find something to which people don’t claim an allergy. There’s even a banana allergy.
Still, after they confiscated my daughter’s yogurt because it had a compartment of nuts to mix in, I felt compelled that, on the next random event this school drags me to, I’m going to first rub myself down in peanut oil and then shake everyone’s hand.
–Simon