Saturday Casual Gaming 312: Chatting About Games

In Which I Discuss My Recent Gaming Habits

I talk a lot about games I'm trying out on here, but sometimes, I'm not venturing out in to the Great Kongregate/Steam Beyond. Sometimes, I'm just bumming around, playing games I've played a thousand times. That's what this week has been like.

I've been mostly sticking with a few oldies-but-goodies, and it feels pretty good to be so utterly familiar with a game that I don't have to worry about any surprises!

I've been fiddling around with PokefarmQ on a daily basis since May of 2018, and it's just as pleasant today as it was then - moreso, even, because now I can do a lot more on the site, since I've been progressing along :) I have a few shiny Pokemon, now, multiple Legendaries, Event Pokemon, and yes, I am loaded with Credits because of the Mass Click Weekends. If you're a fan of Pokemon and you just want to collect thousands of monsters, some of which are original to this site, like the adorable little Ghost-Dragon Gragon, then check it out for yourself (and hit me up - I'm called Tenleybean).

I also have been keeping up with my Pokemon Go addiction, and that's, of course, available for free on the app stores on most mobile phones now. If you're looking for a new Friend on there, hmu at 7089 7612 1171

Speaking of Mobile games, I'm still playing around with Merge Magic, which is still plenty of fun.

Back on PC, I've been playing some more of Coloring Pixels from ToastieLabs on Steam, so if you're looking for some mindless coloring fun, you can check that out!

I'm also playing some more Idle Pins on Kongregate, because it's still the Valentine's Event somehow and ding dong dangit I want to get 100% of powerups purchased before I soft reset lol.

Finally, in console gaming, I've been blundering around in Hero Mode on Breath of the Wild, because sometimes you just need to ride a horse around a barren landscape while pursued by octopus-urn robots intent on your epic destruction.

What are you guys up to with gaming? Any fun new games you're trying out?

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Filmic Friday 312: Social Distancing And Film

In Which I Talk About COVID-19 and Movies

It's fun to get together and watch movies with friends and family. Movie theaters are great for dates and just to relax and enjoy yourself. Hitting up a RedBox or other rental kiosk can be a great choice for a night in.

But now there's COVID-19 to be concerned with, and with cases all the way up here near Nowheresville, it's time to think about some changes.

I'm already a fairly antisocial person - social distancing won't be as big a change for me as it might be for some social butterflies - but this will still change how I view movies.

It's unlikely that I'll have the option of a movie theater soon (hopefully it waits for after tomorrow, though, there's a 35mm print of In The Bedroom I'd like to see with my partner...), and I'm already paranoid about the disease-slicked screens of the grocery store kiosks.

So how do we engage in the social behavior of movie-watching when we're all freaking out and don't want to get sick?

Well, there's a few options, in my mind.

There's streaming, which most people have or have access to (and if you have family with Netflix or something, now might be the time to beg for the password, tbh).

There's also cable tv, but fewer people have this, now, and companies like to make it hard for you to share this experience outside your home.

You could also make sure your fellow viewers have a copy of your movie of choice in their own homes.

These three solutions are great for being housebound.

Except that you're still sitting in a room alone watching a movie and having no one to talk to.

Well, chances are, if you're 30 or younger, you're on your phone anyway, so hook up a group chat or a multi-person Facetime call or something and get to sharing your experience digitally!

To be honest, if movie theaters and production companies want to really make bank, they'll run Pay-Per-View-style movie streams under their branding with built in conferencing to make groups more interested in streaming these shows from home. It could be on an emergency basis, running when there are natural disasters or plagues or just really bad air quality.

This is a scary time. Yes, it's unlikely that most of us will catch this disease (I think. I hope.) but it pays to be cautious, especially with an illness like COVID-19.

Here's a few bits of advice from my heart to yours:

• You're allowed to be anxious about this. It's scary. Anyone telling you to stop worrying is either worried themselves and trying to keep you from heightening their anxiety or they just are not paying proper attention. You can be worried. Just use that anxiety to prepare in sensible ways. Which ties into my next point:
• Stop buying toilet paper unless you actually need it - there wasn't a shortage before the panic because every continent except for Antarctica makes their own TP. The US imports a very small amount from Canada, Mexico, and yes, China, but we're not going to miss the Chinese imports that much because guess what? We make our own TP. It's going to be okay in this regard.
• When selecting a movie, try not to pick anything that will keep you up too late! Your body needs proper sleep, and spooking yourself out by watching that extra-scary horror movie might not help. I'm not saying you should switch over to all kids' movies, but now is a good time to pick up some things that won't give you a heart attack. If you're looking for scary but not too scary, I recommend The Lost Boys.
• I'm sure I'm about to piss people off but here's some mild medical knowledge that's easily accessible by laypeople like me:
• Homeopathy is not medicine. It's literally just placebos. It's pseudoscience and should not be confused with medical science.
• Naturopathy is also not really medicine. Yes, many medicines are derived from nature, but please remember that by definition, literally everything is natural. If it exists, it is in nature, and therefor it is natural.
• Antibiotics cannot cure viruses because antibiotics only fight bacteria, so if you're talking to someone who claims they're on antibiotics for their "cold", they have misunderstood the situation and do not have a cold. They have a bacterial infection. Also, COVID-19 is a virus and thus is immune to antibacterial materials.
• You cannot cure this with honey. You cannot cure this by drinking bleach. One is tasty on toast. The other will literally kill you.
• Remember, if it has "alternative" in the title, unless prescribed by an actual straight-up medical professional, it is not medicine and it will not work. Our great grandparents used this stuff because there was no medicine.
• And finally, if you are going to be around people you like and you have allergies, please consider dosing up on your allergy meds, despite the grogginess. Try not to sneeze too much.

We'll get through this, guys.

We're all in this together (ish).

Seriously, though, this week's recommendation is The Lost Boys, which I only saw about half of because I kept falling asleep (I was super tired), but if I ever see the whole thing? I'm blabbing about it on here. Promise.

Also, uh... I need to start working on a list of movies as I watch them because... my memory? She is the suck.

That'll about do it for me, guys!

Stay social from a distance and take care of yourselves!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Thursday Art Walk 312: Art Block And Overcoming it

In Which Sometimes Everyone Gets Stuck

Art block can happen to anyone who makes art at any point in their careers/hobbies. It can happen multiple times. It can persist for an exceedingly long time, but the important thing to remember is that, despite what your self-doubt is telling you, it's not because you're a bad artist. Maybe you've run out of ideas, or your ideas are bigger than you think you can handle, or maybe you're just not motivated, but none of this makes you a bad artist or a bad person.

Sometimes it's just procrastination because you fear failure - spending hours on a piece only to hate it to death once you've decided you're finished is excruciating, but it's part of making art. Sometimes we don't like what we produce, and it can make us very prone to giving up or not wanting to try again.

But that's not how art works, right? You know that!

Art is 100% practice.

It's a secret that no one likes to believe because we've all had that one classmate or relative who puts pen to page and produces beautiful work like it's second nature (and it may be!), but here's what that person likely never told you:

They have Art Block and Self-Doubt, too.

Unless they're a narcissist, then it's just not fair to everyone else :|

But yeah, everybody fails sometimes, everyone struggles to see the worth of their art, and everyone stares at a blank canvas or page or notebook, or through the viewfinder of their camera or GoPro or whatever, and has no idea what to put into it. Everyone is out here fighting to pour out their art into the world.

And sometimes it's a slog.

Art isn't always fun. Sometimes it's fighting the urge to break your pencil in half because it's your last one and the sketch is just not coming together. Sometimes it's staring down at an entire day's effort and realizing you have to do it all over again because something is fundamentally off. Sometimes you're bored to tears because this is the 80th time you've tried to draw that damn penguin and it's just... it looks like a panda and a peanut had a very productive New Year's Eve or something...

Sometimes, the joy of creation is actually a miserable wallow, and it can be hard to come back from that.

And sometimes you just... don't feel like making art. Even though you know you should (or you need to for a class or your job or something).

If you don't feel the art, then how do you make it happen?

You follow the advice of those dumb Nike ads, is what.

You just... get it done.

How do you start? Well, for me, I just... doodle. I start sketching out vague shapes on the page until I can start filling in the details into something more picture-like.

Sometimes that's enough.

Sometimes, I'll just find a poem and break it down into coordinates, then have the internet give me a random pallet of colors and make a bubble art from that. It's not always pretty, but at least I've started something!

Today, I did the doodle shape approach and came out with something that I actually think is adorable:

"Radbert"; permanent marker and ballpoint pen on printer paper; 2020

It's a blurry photo because I had a cat on my lap (she's still there, guys, she won't move, I have to pee so bad...), but there's my little dude pulling some (I'm sure) sick tricks or something on a skateboard. He also found a clip-on earring somewhere lol.

The shapes I started with were a long horizontal oval and a circle (the board and his body). From there, I started filling in Dedbert's recognizable features and suddenly I knew what I was drawing. At first, it was going to be a surfboard, but I think Dedbert is feeling more 90s than 80s, so skateboard it is!

Fun fact: I can't skateboard. I've never had the balance.

But yeah, doing something artlike while you're not feeling the art can absolutely help trigger your creativity, so I recommend arting when you don't want to art. It can be as simple as sketches or as silly as just mushing up some Play-Doh while you're staring into space, but creation begets creation, and there's very little better than that feeling of accomplishment when you've wrestled something from nothing.

I hope you all have creative days!

Stay safe out there.

I love you all.

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Wednesdaymania 312: Haru Ghost Basho

In Which I discuss the strangest sumo I've ever seen

It's March, which means it's Haru Basho season over in Japan. Rikishi from all over the world have gathered to test their strength and skill against one another, and Hakuho has prepared his Fool Wrecking hand.

But as you've likely heard by now, COVID-19/novel coronavirus has tightened its grip around Japan, and public events are essentially a no-no.

Yet Japan is a nation which places a great deal of weight on tradition. It's not like the US, where even the biggest Nerd Convention, E3, has been cancelled in face of the pandemic. The Haru Basho goes on. The sumo wrestlers have assembled, the press is on hand, and the cameras are rolling.

And they're all alone.

Because these are officially closed events - the public may not attend.

And there are rules.

1. All Rikishi must arrive privately - no public transportation usage is permitted for this Basho.
2. All Rikishi (and other attendees) must have their temperatures taken. The Rikishi must submit to this testing twice a day, and if they have a high enough temperature (37.5℃/99.5℉) twice in a row, they will be booted from the tournament to self-quarantine.
3. If two Rikishi show signs of fever, the entire Basho will be completely abandoned.
4. If even one Rikishi contracts COVID-19, the basho will be cancelled
5. Everyone has their hands spritzed with sanitizer on entry to the building
6. The ceremonial water drinking after matches? They're faking it.
7. Press do not have access to the dressing rooms - only the specially designated interview area
8. Literally everyone is wearing masks outside of the matches themselves.

Have you ever been in a place you know is supposed to be filled with people (a stadium, a public building, a park, etc), but it's completely devoid of anyone else? This basho feels like that. It's a huge, empty arena with a dohyo in the middle and some sumo wrestlers and officials. A couple of camera men dot the surrounding areas, but there's nobody in the stands.

It's so quiet you can hear the wrestlers' heavy breathing, their footsteps, the rustling of the gyoji's robes, the whistling of the bow during the bow-twirling ceremony.

It's eerie.

The silence and empty air are what have earned it the nickname "Ghost Basho". I don't know if that's what the media is calling it, though. I just thought it sounded accurate.

If you want a posterchild for hope within adversity, however, and how strange life can be in the face of a pandemic (which, guys, a pandemic is, by its very definition, global, stop saying "global pandemic"), then definitely watch this basho.

I hope that it's not a sign of sports to come this year, and I hope this disease burns itself out as quickly as it appeared, but the curse of the 20s lives on, I guess.

Yes, I am aware that the Spanish Flu was in 1918, but that counts. It's like a period - sometimes it's a little early, sometimes it's a little late, but it sucks and there's a lot of mess.

You can watch the Haru Basho here.

Go Enjoy Something! (And stop buying so much toilet paper - if you cause a global shortage now, then who will restock it when you inevitably run out?)

FC

Talk About Tuesday 312

In Which I Blather

It's a pretty gray day today. It's about 43℉ (6℃), and it feels raw out there. The cat has been sleeping on the back of one of the armchairs today, and I woke up after 11 because I had to pee more than because I wanted to be up. Basically, today's about as bleh as it could be without precipitation. Which it'll probably have around 9pm tonight... bleh.

It's hard to keep one's motivation up when the weather's like this. Yesterday, it was fantastic outside - 51℉ (10.5℃), almost too warm! but... I was feeling like garbage, and unmotivated, and unpleasant. I was antsy and grouchy, and honestly, I'm 90% sure this was brought on by my recent insomnia. I skipped one of my two cups of coffee and slept like a baby. Turns out it's time to cut back. I'll have to work on that lol.

So here's the plan for the rest of the week:

• Tomorrow I'll talk about the Ghost Basho - you'll understand when I write about it.
• Thursday = art day!
• Friday I'll talk about one of the movies I've watched
• Saturday I'll chat on video games
• Sunday I'll have food to show you
• Monday I'll have progress to show you
• Next Tuesday I'll blather at you.

It's another short sweet Tuesday because 1) I woke up way extra late and need to get ready to head out in like five minutes, and 2) because I'm still tired but not zone-out tired like yesterday.

So I hope your days today are good, productive, and kind!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday 312: Progress and Patience

In Which I have made progress!

It's no secret that I'm an impatient person. I like things to happen on my time, regardless of who's doing them. I don't like waiting for anyone or anything.

It's also no secret that this is super hypocritical because I'm super extra lazy and late for everything.

So I try not to let my impatience take over. But boy, is it hard not to be impatient when you do two repeats of your pattern and it only increases things by about half an inch...

On the plus side, I'm a little less than a third of the way finished!

As impatient as I am, it's hard not to get discouraged, so I try to mitigate the tedium of a slow-growing project like this one by starting new, faster projects like this one:

And this is what two hours of work looks like.
Distracted work, no less!

So this new shawl, worked in a weird yarn that I know absolutely nothing about and couldn't identify if I tried, but which I adore, is a very, very quickly-worked one. I'm using a 3.75mm hook and it's... beautiful. Look at that colorway! It's actually a lot more brilliant in real life - that pink is closer to fuchsia than pastel, and the purple is almost electric! Lovely stuff.

It works so quickly because it's mostly chains, which, you know what? That's awesome. I hope someday to use this style of repeat on a rectangular piece of fabric. Maybe I could turn this repeat pattern into a cardigan, even? Who knows - crochet's versatile like that.

Right, I've got to get back to work, guys - these projects won't hook themselves, after all!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Writing Day