Not Dead...

I know it's been two days since I posted.  I didn't quit.  I promise.

Two nights ago I found I had an extra hour or so after game night, and I couldn't figure out where it came from.  So I spent it watching videos on Buzzfeed.  I love the Try Guys.  I'll admit it.

It was only after I'd gone to bed that I realized I never blogged.  THAT was where my extra time usually went.  Derp.  So...my apologies.  I forgot.  That just means I need to do an extra blog.

Two, actually, because I didn't write one yesterday.  I was going to do it in the morning, but I ran out of time.  And by the time Robb and I got home from SEEING NIGHTVALE LIVE IN CHICAGO, it was past midnight.  Also, I thought of blogging on the train, but I couldn't figure out how to make that happen from my phone.

So I guess this is technically today's post.  And maybe later today if I'm feeling saucy before work or after the bonfire (which will put me into tomorrow, I'm sure), I'll do another one.

By the way, we went to see a live episode of the podcast Welcome to Nightvale.  It was awesome.  Cecil Baldwin is awesome.  And the fans of the podcast are awesome.  Robb bought tickets several months ago because he loves the show.  I'm just a casual listener.  But it was a great time!  I laughed AND cried.  So...you know...bonus?

We spent the day in Chicago, walking around Navy Pier and Millennium Park like tourists.  I fed a pink grapefruit flavored gummy bear to a seagull.  We watched another seagull harass two people on a bench because he wanted food.  And we got cruised by Captain Cruisealot.  Guy kept walking by us with HERP-EYE.  Get away.  We don't want any.  Also, cargo jeans.  No.

It really was a great day.  And only two more work days til the weekend.  Hooray for hookie.

OUT

Traffic...

It's whine time, kids.

Not really.  This is about motivation, what makes me tick, and how I determine what flies.

There's a funny thing about blogging.  Some people do it for themselves.  They put stuff out there just to do it, and take satisfaction from just that.  I'm not sure I'm one of those people.  I like to have some response.  I like to know that people look forward to what I'm putting out there.  I like to know what direction you appreciate me going with this blog.

And I used to have that, when I used to do this regularly.  It's really hard to start over after having literally hundreds of people who read this blog and left feedback before.  Anywho, I'm keeping on.  I assume you have to have good content to draw readers, and this particular post isn't good content.

But it's what's on my mind today.

OUT

Happy Birthday!

Today was my birthday.  Is, I guess.  There's only a few minutes left of it.  

I laid out some cards earlier today, a sort of assessment of the year to come:

The top row is, from left to right, past--present--future.  The bottom row is an energy/advice spread as it relates to the present card.

But what does it all say?  Well, it seems I haven't found my purpose.  That thing that makes me, me.  Or I've lost sight of it.  The Hermit is my life card, the one that signifies me in most readings, the one that speaks about my sense of self.  And inverted, he's not in his element.  He can't get the solitude and inner quiet needed to figure out the path ahead.

The second card, Death, is NOT ABOUT DEATH!  It's actually an incredibly appropriate card for its place in this spread.  The present is always changing.  It's a fulcrum between the past and the future.  Death is a card about change, about sloughing off the old self and transitioning into something new.

The future card is the King of Pentacles.  My nemesis.  I was reading a book called Understanding the Tarot Court, but Mary K. Greer and Tom Little.  It's part of the "Special Topics in Tarot" series by Llewelyn.  In it, an exercise asked me to lay out all the court cards and whittle them down til I found one I identified with--the Queen of Cups.  Then it asked that I look at all the remaining cards and choose a nemesis, that thing you don't think you'll ever be, that thing that will always defeat you.  The King of Pentacles has his shit together.  He's financially stable and career minded.  He makes good choices.  Seeing that in my future spread was a big boost today.  Maybe I'm headed in the right direction!  Maybe the energy/advice portion of the reading will tell me more about how to get there.

So we come to the bottom two cards.  First, energy: the inverted Sun shows that I don't think I'm living up to my potential.  I'm not comfortable in my own skin.  I'm not exactly confident that I'm doing what I should be.  It correlates to the inverted Hermit card.

And the advice?  Move.  Find some better balance in life and move forward.  Reign your masculine and feminine halves together and let them carry you ahead.  But get out of wherever it is you are.  That charioteer is not looking back at whatever he's leaving.  He's taking on a new adventure.  Maybe he's headed to a consultation with that King of Pentacles.  Maybe in the future he IS that King of Pentacles.

And that's the spread. Nothing I didn't know.  But interesting, nonetheless.  I think it's time to start looking around for some new opportunities.  Maybe something that lets me be both challenged and creative.

Happy birthday to me!  May I keep growing and expanding on the path.

OUT

Endings...

I'm in my last few hours as a thirty-two year old man.  I'm pretty happy with how I spent my last day.

But let's rewind to yesterday, when I had an unexpected surprise from the Internet.  If you've blogged or kept up on social media for any length of time, you know that the Internet can be a fertile plot in which friendships bloom unexpectedly.  People you'd never meet (and may never meet) in real life are right at your back door.  They might be faces and words on a screen, but in my life, they've been some of my realest and best friends.

Case-in-point.  Yesterday I was at work and I received a message on Facebook from a couple I've known only online, despite the fact that they live within a two hour drive.  We've exchanged words and generally been in each others' lives through social media, blogs, and such.  Yesterday they were in town and extended the invitation for Robb and I to eat with them, but we were both busy--me with work and Robb with other stuff.  So they dropped in to work for a moment to say hello, finally.  And what happens the first time I meet them?  They bring me a birthday present!  Completely unexpected and amazing.  It turned my whole night around.

Surprises from the Internet are a wonderful thing.  And now we've met, so the awkward first meeting of Internet friends in real life is over (and it wasn't the least bit awkward).  See?  Endings.  I tied it in.

And today Robb and I decided to try some new food with two of our friends.  Different friends.  So we went to a Greek restaurant in town for the Sunday buffet.  Which was awesome.  Holy hell.  Falafel and tahini and hummus and baba ghanouj and the best chicken.  It amazes me that almost thirty-three years into my life, I'm still trying new foods.  Funny what we don't encounter unless we put in an effort to.

MESSAGE.

And then.  Then we finished Pandemic Legacy.  And I won't spoil anything, but it was amazing.  There was this moment at the end when we all realized we were about to win.  Smiles on every face.  A sense of accomplishment ten miles wide.  A weight sliding off our shoulders and onto this board that we'd been staring at two hours at a time for six months.  We won.

And then?  Then we got sad.  Like finishing a television show (not How I Met Your Mother; that how can die in a car fire for its ending) or closing the back cover of a great book.  We all sorta looked at each other and went, "Now what?"  Our characters got packed away.  Our board got folded up.  And those little bits of paper and plastic that held so many memories already were packed away for a final time.

We plan to make shadow boxes out of the components.  Cut the board up.  Split up the pieces.  Claim our characters.  You know, like you do with a loved pet after it passes.

Wait.

It's bittersweet.  We finally get to play other games!  And we moved right on to Hanabi, a cooperative card game about launching fireworks where you can't look at your own cards, but everyone else sees them.

That's the thing about endings.  They're a fertile field for beginnings.  Already we're forming plans for what we take on next while we talk about the great moments from Pandemic Legacy.

I couldn't have asked for a better way to finish up my year.  On to the next one!

OUT

Thirty-two point nine...

Guys!

It's gonna be my birthday on Monday.  I'll be 33, which is the same age Jesus was when he was crucified.  I don't think there's any import in that; I just like saying it.

What am I doing with my last two days as a 32-year-old man?  Well...tonight I work, which is sort of a bummer, because this has felt like a Sunday all day and I don't work on Sundays.  Do you know how much I'd love to have a job where I didn't work weekends?  Exactly 62 much.

Not sure about the scale on that one...

Sorry.  It's a goofy day.  So tonight I'm going to work and then go celebrate the birthday of a friend who shares the same birthday as me.  She and I actually dated in middle school.  And high school.  Several times.  Once I dated a guy for the exact length of time we dated, from exact start date to exact end date.  How does that even happen? (Hi, Steve.)

But we're gonna celebrate.  And I'm not going to drink and then eat 10,000 calories like I did last night.  I'm sensing a pattern.  Alcohol leads to consuming mass quantities.  So let's just stay niiiiiiiice and sober.

And Sunday?  Sunday we're playing Pandemic Legacy, which is an AWESOME board game that takes place over 12 in-game months.  Go look up a review for it, because it's super neato.  You try to fight disease from spreading across the world, and since it's a legacy game, choices you make in one game affect every choice you make down the road.  You'll sticker and write on the board, tear up cards, and generally deface the game.  This means that, yes, once you're through with it, you can't go back and play it again.  Some people make a face at that.  Yeah.  That face.  Wipe it from your face, because it's TOTALLY WORTH IT.  You'll play a maximum of 24 games, two each month.  Or a minimum of twelve, one each month.  Although to play 12 you'd have to NEVER LOSE, which I cannot see happening.  Ever.

We're all the way to November.  And I still think the game has at least one more good surprise in store for us, although I haven't the foggiest idea what that could be.  Guess we'll have to wait and see!

And that's basically how I intend to spend my last few days before my birthday.  And my birthday?  Well, we'll just have to wait and see.

OUT

Short Version...

Today I don't have a ton of time to blog, due to a strange work schedule and CARDS AND DRINKS TONIGHT!

All caps. Exciting. I've recently decided I like both euchre and Jack Daniels Honey.  So...we're gonna do that tonight.

I was asked recently what I value most in life.  Deep, right?  Well, after very little thought, I decided that equality, love, and common courtesy were my top three--in that order.

But upon further thought, I realized that common courtesy is actually at the top of that list for me.  In fact, after reflecting on it, I've reversed my list.  If we could get common courtesy right--treating people the way you would like to be treated, saying hello, holding the door, letting others go first, and generally not being an asshole--it would be an easy step toward love.

And with love, we would HAVE equality.  Because how could we not?  With love we would want others to have the best of everything, including quality of life.

Anywho...that's my thought for the day.  Work on common courtesy.  the rest could follow.

OUT

A Review: The Witness...

This weekend I had the pleasure of delving into Jonathan Blow's The Witness on PS4 with my friend Jeff.  And my friend Armand.  Who turned out to be the smartest of us, to the shock of all.

For those of you who don't know, The Witness is an environmentally-based puzzle game for multiple platforms.  Each puzzle in the game has you drawing a line through a grid of squares.  That's it.  It sounds simple, but it quickly becomes head-scratchingly baffling.

Sometimes you'll look at a puzzle full of dots and colored squares that look like a foreign language, hopelessly confused.  Then you'll stumble across a simpler version of the puzzle that visually teaches you the rules for solving that type of puzzle.  And when you finally make it through a series of lines through grids, sussing out what their particular solutions are, you'll go back to that original puzzle and realize the solution is easy!  You just didn't have the rules before.

This happens OFTEN.  Sometimes I stared at a puzzle trying to figure out its secret rules, only to determine I must not have the knowledge yet to solve it, and then turn around to see a simpler version posted across a beautifully rendered ruin.  Other times I'd give up on a puzzle I can't figure out, and I never saw another of them in my time.

It's hard to tell if you're not seeing an obvious solution or if you're not equipped with the rules to solve it.

But the game is GORGEOUS.  It's the prettiest game I've played in a long time.

There are blazing orange forests and crystal blue waters, all hiding hidden line puzzles in their nooks and crannies.  And then...the ENVIRONMENTAL PUZZLES.  Oh, man.  This was basically our time playing:  "Wait.  Go back.  I think I saw something."

I was scanning the environment for circles and lines as Jeff ran around the gorgeous island.  In the sand, in the water, in the sky.  We slowly scoured the island looking for these, making very little headway.  But each time, the sense of satisfaction for solving or finding something was palpable.  High fives and shouting!  And then there were times where we KNEW something was a puzzle waiting to be solved but couldn't figure out the right angle to look at it from to make it work.  And then Armand would say, "Wait.  Try going over there."  And bam.  Solved.  

It was a riot.  For real.  I desperately want to dive back into this world.  

Currently it's available for PS4 and PC.  Xbone?  Maybe Xbone.  I've read there are plans of bringing it to iOS and Android.  That could be really neat.  I'm thinking I'm going to buy my own copy of this soon.  It's too good to pass on.  If you like puzzles and don't mind occasionally walking away frustrated only to have an AHA moment later, do yourself a favor and buy this.

OUT